Transfers, investigators and a birthday

So I totally didn't bring my planner with me today... Let's see what I can remember from memory! Yay!

Let's see... Our house is getting SUPER clean. It's a beautiful thing! I don't think anybody has really gone in for a deep clean in this house for years (no big surprise there).

We met the missionaries who got transferred here. There are only two: Sister Hammerl and Sister Driscoll. They're pretty great. Super fun missionaries. Sister Hammerl is from Australia, and she's got the thick accent that I haven't really heard from the other Australian missionaries that I've encountered so far. It's awesome. Everybody is bombarding her with questions of what Australia is like. Koreans are just as into Australia as they are into America, it turns out.

We've found a bunch of inactive members! We go out trying to find them so frequently and for such long hours in a day, and we've found a bunch! Now the trick is just trying to get them while they're actually home. BUT, we do have a couple that we're working with. Mr 노 (No), who I may have already mentioned since we actually met with him when I first came here, but then we kinda fell out of contact because of my surgeries. But we're back at it with him. He's a fun old guy that likes to feed us. We love him.

Now there's also Mr. 박 (Pak), who's started to come out to church after he found a note we left for him at his house when he wasn't there. We've been talking to him and befriending him, and now we're going to go visit him in his home this Wednesday. He's super nice, too. He's kind of quiet, and he seems kind of lonely. We're pretty sure he's not married, though we don't know his story yet. We've only heard a bunch of hearsay about why he went inactive that we might or might not be able to trust. I really like him, though. As far as older Korean men go, he's pretty laid back. It's a good thing, because it'll be easier to have good two-way conversations with him.

We also got a number of referrals from a former investigator that we've kept in touch with. They all want to learn English from us, but all 5 (yes, 5!) agreed to do our 30/30 program with us. They just might get into the gospel, you never know!

Things are really picking up! This transfer is off to a great start!

That's all that's exciting for now, though.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

PS Elder Lee's birthday was last week. We got a big tub of Baskin' Robin's ice cream to celebrate. It was SO good.

Comings and Goings

I'm trying so hard to even remember what happened this week.

Transfer calls happened. I'm staying where I am, and our house is going to become a 2-man house! I've never been in a 2-man house yet, so it should be fun... and a lot more clean... Hah!

Elder Huffman, who has become a good buddy of mine is leaving. A sister from the other ward is also leaving. Another sister from our ward is going home, and Sister Driscoll (from my MTC 동기) is coming to replace her! Elder Lee is the new District Leader! It's kind of exciting. There aren't any other elders in our district anymore, so there won't be exchanges, but I guess that doesn't mean anything big, since an exchange would mean one of us would only have to move a room over. No bigs.

Elder Huffman and me

Our district

We had a big "American Culture Party" at the church. It was for the other ward, so it was kind of a big time commitment for somewhere out of our area. But the missionaries in that ward really needed the help. SO. We got to be a part of that, and it was fun. We set up a bunch of classic carnival games, made a bunch of food like burgers, mac and cheese, muddy buddies, popcorn balls, and got a bunch of candy for it. It was pretty sweet. Turns out that Koreans aren't big into American food, though. It's all either too sweet or too fatty for them to handle. Go figure. Oh well, it was a great time.

Other than that, though, not much happened this week. 4 our of our 5 appointments punked on us. So that's lame. But our spirits are still up! Something good is bound to happen soon! That, and new people will be a fun change, even though the people leaving will be missed.

Umm... Oh! Here's something exciting: Elder Lee and I went screen golfing last week for PDay. That was super fun. You're in this room, and there's this huge motion sensor setup and a projector that puts the golf course in front of you on this really big screen. They give you clubs and balls and say "off you go," and you just play golf. You hit the balls into the screen and it's like you're actually playing golf. The place that we went to had a platform that you stand on that angles itself to match the angle that your ball is actually on. It's SUPER fun. Elder Lee and I haven't really ever golfed in our life (I did a LOOOOONG time ago maybe once or twice) but we had a blast with it. It was SO fun!

I didn't get pictures, though... D'oh! Haha I guess I'll have to next time (because we'll probably do it again).

Anyways, that's the report!

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

No ipod and other interesting things

This week was pretty interesting in a lot of ways. 

The first thing that happened was that an elder from our apartment 갑자기 up and left Korea. I had no idea until the day of when he was suddenly packing his bags and leaving stuff in an "up-for-grabs" pile on a chair. It was shocking. I really like that guy, and I was really sad to see him go. Nobody knows why, either. We're all hoping that he's okay and that it wasn't some sort of family tragedy.

Transfer calls are happening THIS SATURDAY. Speculations and predictions are flying (as they usually do). We actually got a spoiler from President! He came around this transfer for interviews, and ours were just this last Friday. We found out (though, this could very much still be subject to change) that my companion is going to be district leader, and that there's a chance that I might leave 금천. If I do, I'll have changed areas more than just about everybody from my MTC 동기 in this mission. I'm kind of excited to see what happens, even if moving can be a hassle. I'm super interested in seeing more of Korea. But two people from our district are finishing their missions at the end of this transfer: Elder 오 and Sister Sexton. We're sad to see them go. :(

We picked up a new investigator (maybe). She's a referral from a former investigator that we still meet with occasionally. This referral's name is Mrs. 이 (Ee). She wants to learn English from us, but is super open to talking about the gospel. She's catholic, but she's still open to discussing other ideas, it seems. Apparently Catholics aren't as widely accepted in Korea than they usually are in other parts of the world. I guess that they had some bad history of being rejected by the people a long time ago, and that some of the things that were said carried through the years. It's similar to what happened to our missionaries when they first started coming to Korea.

Anyways, we meet with her later this week (which is why I said she's only 'maybe' a new investigator) to start the 30/30 program with her (30 minutes of English and 30 minutes of gospel). We're pretty excited.

In other news, I just broke the iPod. Hoorah! I'm so smart! That's what I get for thinking I know Korean computer language. Now I have no music. I guess I'll just have to make all of my own for a while.

That's the update.

Love you all!

Elder Shaver

Happy Canada Day!

Okay...

So, I may or may not have mentioned this last week, but Elder Lee was a little sick last week and so we minimized our traveling for a while until he was better. But leave it to me to get sick RIGHT after him with the same problem. I swear that by the time I leave this area that we might not have accomplished a darn thing. RARGH!

Anyways. CANADA DAYYYY!!!! I celebrated with pancakes and maple syrup in the morning... and then didn't do much after that. I had my fun, though. Now I'm eating the syrup with vanilla ice cream (which is the BEST THING) every other day.

Umm... Not a ton happened this week, though. Our investigators are still virtually stagnant in their progress. One is super inconsistent with keeping commitments, and the other just straight-up can't do it until a certain something happens (which, for his personal privacy, I probably shouldn't disclose to the public). But at least the latter one (who we'll call Mr 남 [Nam] ) is super strong in the spirit. He'll get baptized when he can, I know it. It just might not be with us. the first guy I mentioned (who we call Kim) does super well one week, but then doesn't do anything the next week. And he still won't come to church.

Other than that, we've still been looking for our inactive members. We still haven't found one that we can work with, but the one that we met at the beginning of my time here in Geumcheon (who is Mr. 노 [No] ) came back and we're having dinner with him tomorrow.

That's the update. Things aren't that upbeat, but I hope that they'll pick up soon. Like, I REALLY hope that they will.

Love you all.

Elder Shaver

My zone in Geumcheon.

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