Another Week, Another Ache

This is a good ache though (if there be such a thing). I got brave and tried a P90X abb workout with one of the other elders in our apartment. That was Friday night, and I'm still feeling it!

So this week (and last week, thinking about it) were SUPER HOT. They weren't actually all that bad, but the humidity is higher than anything than I remember experiencing. I don't know how people cope with it! I guess it doesn't really help when you have to go by the missionary dress code, though... I may need to find some more summer pants. I found a pair, and they're wonderful! I might end up getting a few more ( and sending some clothes back... I actually don't have any plans as of yet, so I'm probably going to just tough it out this summer)

Anyways! Tomorrow is totally Canada day! My only disappointment is not having another Canadian buddy to celebrate with. BUT! I have plans! I'm buying a bottle of maple syrup (can you believe that they actually have it here?!?), and in the morning: I'm making pancakes!!!! Lots and lots of pancakes!!!! Well, as many as I think I can manage, really. I've been gaining weight lately between not being able to do much and having a lot of rice replacing most of my normal diet. Being able to exercise has really helped to reverse that, thankfully. But I still got a bit of chub. Like, not tons, but enough to bother me. It'll go away soon, though. This week looks like there will be lots of walking.

My companion and I have taken to doing a lot of "less-active hunting," which finally paid off yesterday! We found someone! It turned out that the only reason she hadn't been coming to church is because she was in Austria for the last two years working as a professional cellist, and I guess nobody found out? Or nobody told us. Anyways, it was kid of cool, because she had just arrived back to Korea the day before we found her. Whether she actually needs our help reactivating or is perfectly fine and was still active in Austria still needs to be determined, though. We told the Sister Missionaries about her, so they'll get to work with her soon.

On another note: I feel like I've gotten really good a cooking with rice. Big surprise! I'm ready for college! All I need is a rice cooker, a frying pan and a spatula and I'm set to go! 뽁음밥 (bbokeumbab) in its various forms is my specialty! Haha not really, but I like everything that I've concocted so far, so I count that as success!

That's all I really got for today, though. I'm finally feeling like I'm back into the swing of things after having been so ridiculously out of it. Life is good! Even though we're not having the kind of success we're hoping for (namely conversions by the dozens), it's good to be a missionary.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

The red dot is the 6 month mark!!!

Cats and Kittens

Alrighty

I FINALLY got cleared for work again last Tuesday! It was a bit of a relief, but it looks like it'll be a while before I'm totally back into the swing of things. I didn't realize how much my mind could wander when I'm not doing anything to keep it busy. Now I'm stuck in the habit and it feels like trying to focus on anything less than spectacular is like trying to focus on a calculus textbook for hours at a time. My brain won't do it! It likes music better! Agh!

What even happened this week? We ate with a lot of different member families. It was cool to get to know them a little better (but it would have been cooler to actually understand more than a quarter of what they were talking about... Good golly Korean is hard). We met with our two investigators, as usual, but they're about the same as always. One of them, Mr. 남 (Nam), actually got a job not too long ago, so it's been getting harder to keep him progressing (nooooooo!). Our buddy Kim is still going in the right direction, though. Our next goal for him is to get him to church on Sundays. He's not busy with anything anyways, so it shouldn't be too hard... We'll see what happens, though.

Aside from that, though, our district is getting super sick all the time. Elder Ostermiller is having all sorts of problems, the latest being crazy migraines and his elbow that broke in the MTC is being weird. Elder 오 (Oh) is frequently sick (so it's not really much a surprise). Elder Lee is having stomach problems, and our two sisters got some insane food poisoning! I hope that nothing comes around to hit me, because I just got cleared from recoveries, so it would really stink to be back in the sickbed so soon. NO THANK YOU!!!!

There's been at least one of us injured or sick or whatever else since I got here. It's crazy!

Anyways, there's not much else to say, except that all the cats had babies. All of them. There are tons of stray cats everywhere in Seoul (a sad sight) and they all had kittens. Some of them lose track of their moms (an even sadder sight). It's awful.

That was a horribly depressing note to end on. I'm sorry. We'll hope that something amazing happens next week.

That's all folks!

Elder Shaver

Another Slow Week

Hello everybody!

So this week was about the same as the last one... A whole lot of NOTHING!

It's REALLY starting to get to me. I've probably said that a dozen times before, but there's always something to top it. This week the things that I'd do when I'm bored got boring. I still play the guitar that I got, and we all still chat in the house (because nobody in our house does full-activity, sadly). We're all really good buddies by now. We've spent so much time in the house together.

Umm... well I got 똥친'ed (ddongcheen) for the first time yesterday by some little guy at church yesterday.

That was unpleasant.

똥친 literally translates into 'poop needle,' and it's what little kids LOVE to do to taller people. Especially really tall white guys... Like me! Anyways, they take their fingers, or whatever they're holding ( in this case; a spoon), and jab them up your butt. This little kid was all ninja-like and got me twice. I don't like it. It doesn't feel nice.

Ummm... Yeah. I feel kinda lame for not having much to say. This whole being-stuck-at-home thing is really starting to kill me. Thank goodness that I go back to the doctor tomorrow for a check up. I can't imagine that I won't be allowed to go back to full activity. It's been a while since the last surgery, and my eyesight hasn't gotten worse or anything. I've kept such a close watch on the little bit of blind-spot that's still there, and it hasn't gotten any bigger. On the other hand, I don't think that my sight is getting better anytime soon. It still looks all weird through the injured eye... Hopefully that goes away sometime soon.

Anyways, that's about it. Our investigators are still progressing rather slowly... One of them disappeared again (I think I said that last time, though). So it's slow going.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

New Guitar and Clean House

Okay... so nothing happened this week. Well, almost nothing, but it didn't feel like much.

Being on limited activity stinks when you're a missionary. There's not a ton of things to do. One of our investigators disappeared from the face of the world (for the second time, so we're hoping that he'll come back again at some point). Our other one is still waiting to be baptized. He's in a really special situation that, in respect for his privacy, I won't divulge details. He's the perfect new convert, except for the part that he's not officially a member yet... It's interesting. Our third investigator is coming along slowly but surely. He has an issue with faith, and he doesn't feel worthy to pray or to make promises to God, he feels as though he'll be dishonest if he were to pray. I'm not sure I understand all of it, but he's making some progress and keeping commitments.

Aside from that, I got a guitar. I didn't think to take a picture of it... silly me... Maybe next week...

But yeah, that's it. This week was really kind of dull. We're stuck inside all of the time for the sake of my eye, so we don't get many opportunities to make cool things happen (and the crazy / cool things we MIGHT be able to do would further damage our already worn out house). Speaking of houses, we've had a LOT of time to clean ours. It's beautiful compared to how clean it was a couple of weeks ago.

Anyways, we see the doctor again on the 17th! Which means I'm on the down-low for at least another week! Hooray! 

x(

Alright, I love you all! See you next week!

Elder Shaver

Ups and downs and all-arounds!

So this week we're back in our area! We left the day after I sent the last email to you all. The area's still great! But it's SOOOOO HOT!!!!! AND HUMID!!!!!!!

It's been a little crazy. I mean, I'm not allowed to do much, so not the busy-all-the-time-crazy; rather, this week I've been a big ball of stress. I couldn't really help it. The doctors tell me I'm fine, but that's what they told me the last two times, so there have been all of these "what-ifs" running laps in my head. I cringed every time a bus went over a bump. It wasn't tons of fun.

Luckily, I was blessed enough to have gotten over a lot of that. Thank you for all the love and support! I've gotten a lot of emails from you all, and I got the 'get well soon' card from the ward! It's sitting on my desk right now.

I have another check-up with the doctor tomorrow, I'm hoping for good news!

My eye is actually doing fine.... I think.... There's still a blind spot there, though I NEVER would have seen it if I didn't look for it (don't ask me how I do that). My depth perception is all out of whack, so I have a really hard time judging how much rice is actually in my rice bowl, and I've been stuffing myself a little over the past couple of meals. The bubble is gone... It died as I slept on Thursday night. I have mixed feelings about it. I can see better without it, but it got to be really entertaining after it shrunk to a certain point. Especially when it separated into more than one bubble. I would move them around each other by looking certain directions. It was kinda fun.

Anyways.

Elder and Sister Cook came to our mission on Saturday! They're so fun. Sister Cook is SUCH a sweet lady! And Elder Cook shook each of our hands. All 400 of us (from our mission and the Seoul Mission; it was a joint-conference). I wonder how a hand would feel after 400 consecutive handshakes. Seriously.

Along with the missionary conference, he had a fireside in the evening open to all members and missionaries (who could come if they brought an investigator). While there I ran into Mr. 이! He had come with Elder Brissette and his new companion, Elder Bryner. Anyways, Mr. 이 is still progressing!!!!!!!!!!!! It made me SO happy! He was wearing a suit (which he NEVER did before I left. I didn't know he HAD a suit), and he even brought me a flower because he had heard about my eye surgeries. 

SO MUCH JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Besides all of this, though, there's not much more to report. Elder Lee and I are going to go looking for a guitar later today (Sister Morrise's orders. Haha I love it!), so there's going to be more noise in our apartment. Hopefully the pleasant-to-the-ear kind.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

Eye Update

Hey! 

So the appointment was great! I CAN LOOK UP!!!! Not like, UP up, but the bubble is small enough that I'm allowed to look forward, and SLEEP NORMALLY!!! HOORAH!!! 

Elder Lee and me with Dr 신. She's the surgeon who's been working with me through all of this. 

She's so awesome! We love her.

I'm still not allowed to run, or do any other kind of exercise, but I am allowed to walk around. So Elder Lee and I are going to go back to our area and hang out there. We won't do much; we're only going to do lessons with investigators, or maybe member dinners and lessons. We're not going to be out on the streets proselyting for hours and hours.

Also, I found out what kind of gas is inside my eye. SF6. Sulfur hexafluoride. There's like sulfur and fluorine in my eye! Whaaaaaaat?

Hahaha anyways, that's the update! I'm so happy right now! My neck is even happier!


Love you lots!

Elder Shaver

A week of NOTHING

It's seriously been a week of NOTHING.

NOTHING!!!!!!!

I've been in the mission home ALL WEEK. The only time we left was a little adventure to the corner store to get some snacks. I've literally been in here for a WHOLE WEEK.

I guess I also went to the hospital once for a check up, but it was so soon after the surgery that nothing of note happened.

At this point, the gas bubble that's in my eye is small enough for me to see the outside edge of it. This morning it decided to split into three different bubbles of different sizes, which means that they swirl around inside my eye as I move my head or my eye... It gets distracting sometimes. I've been trying to figure out how I can get them to turn full circles, but I haven't had tons of luck so far.

I think that one of the bonuses of being not allowed to do any missionary work is that I have more time and energy (and, let's face it, equipment) to cook with, I've been eating well. :P

Honestly, though. Not much is happening right now. I read Mosiah almost through to the end of Helaman so far, I've been keeping myself warmed up on the guitar... I even took up piano. Turns out I'm not that bad at it. I've almost got the first of Erik Satie's Trois Gymnopedies down. Not bad for someone who hasn't really played since he was 7 or something.

Anyways. I'm going back to the hospital for another check up. I hope that they'll be able to give me some good news. Like, if I could look up a little more, it'd be really nice. It'd be even better if I didn't have to sleep on my stomach all the time. I figured out a way to make it comfortable, but my nose is going to get flat one of these days.

I think that that's all there is to report. It's an adventure!

Love you all,

Elder Shaver