SOUTH KOREA!

I made it to Korea and let me tell you: jet lag is real and it sucks. But I think I'm adjusted now so were good.

 

And now for what I know you have all been wondering about: they did feed us on the plane. Three meals to be exact. And it was worse than the MTC food but I was grateful for food.

 

Anyways, we arrived at Incheon airport at around 8:00 then when we got through customs and everything we couldn't find our mission president for at least half an hour. We were just about to call the mission home when me and sister Jenson decided to make one more lap around the airport. That airport is huge by the way. anyways so were walking and were heading back because we gave up and we ran into the APs actually they had to call us because we walked right past them but we found them and we got into Daejeon at midnight then had to wake up at 6 to get ready for the day. With jet lag that was a pretty bad night's sleep but I have recovered since then. Anyways our first few days at the mission home were pretty much just president shin telling us what he expects of us. He took us to a restaurant where we sat on the floor while we ate. I have had much more of a desire to sit on the floor while I am here but I'm pretty sure that is because the floors are heated and clean because no shoes are allowed on them so its nice. Anyways President Shin has set a goal for the mission that he calls BRT 122 which means baptism: 1 per tranfer, referals: 2/week, and teaching 2/hr per day. Which is actually really hard to accomplish but hopefully we'll be getting more investigators soon. but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

 

Oh Thursday we got told who our trainers are and what area we are assigned to! My trainer is (drum roll....) Sister Stradling! Shes from Arizona and one of the first things she said to me was that she doesn't know Korean so it has been a interesting last few days but she's great :) we just struggle to understand anything anyone is saying to us. I am serving in 전주 (which i  think the romanization is Jeon-Ju) its about an hour and a half bus ride south of Daejeon. My area has been one of the least successful in the mission but president is really pressing to change that. We are trying to develop a better relationship with the members right now so that they can give us referals. Which is difficult when we both struggle with the language but we are trying our best.

 

Me and Sister Stradling

Oh and now I know that when people say the guest house is the nicest place missionaries live it is so true. We live on the 10th floor or a run down apartment building. Our lights are going out and the light in our study room flickers so every time it's on I feel like its in a scene from a horror movie. We are fixing that today though. And I'm jealous you feed the elders all the time! Apparently if we get two member meals a transfer we are lucky. But its all good. :) There's four of us all living in our little apartment and we sleep on little mattresses on the floor and its great. :) The girls I live with are way fun. We all get along really well.

 

Funny story: So we were proselyting and we ran into a girl who kept shaking my hand and saying in broken English that she was excited to meet with us and I was so confused why Sister  Stradling wasn't asking for her number or anything. Then once we left she told me she was one of our investigators but that she was crazy then proceeded to tell me a story about how this lady just wants to get married really bad and I guess at one point she told one of the Elders that she just wanted a baby and asked him if he would help her. Needless to say the Elder was scarred for a while. And that pretty much sums up one of our investigators.

 

On Saturday we taught two lessons: one with 김애련 (Kim ae raan) sorry romanization is hard, who apparently is more interested in learning English than the gospel but I thought it went over well. And another one with a girl named Stella who has said she will get baptized in March. We are trying to set an actual date but she is a little resistant. Hopefully we can set one at the next lesson. Those are all of our investigators and really only one of them (Stella) is really interested in the gospel so its hard. The bishop doesn't really help the sisters out because he thinks we are just the pretty faces in the ward but he helps out the elders all he can so that's hard too.

 

Saturday night we spent an hour looking for a members house in another part of our area and we never ended up finding it but we found a street that had a ton of night clubs on it. We call it night club row. Ironically is was the place we felt the most comfortable in that side of town because it was the most lit up.

 

Anyways, we went to church yesterday! I'm pretty sure every single member came up to me and told me I was pretty. Sister Stradling told me that pretty much happens everywhere you go. I had to introduce myself over the pulpit in Korean. Pretty much the most terrifying thing I have ever done. I pretty much just said my name where I'm from, that I'm not good at Korean but I can bear my testimony then I bore my testimony. After sacrament, a member came up to me and gave me a sticky note that said "Sister Collyer, Your Korean is perfect. Keep go on studying Korean." then told me my pronunciation was perfect! It made me feel good :) all those years of suffering though Korean in high school payed off!

 

I had my first dinner at a members house last night! They rarely happen so that was exciting. No weird foods yet though. We  taught them the first lesson just for practice and we were kinda in a rush so we hurried through it. The father of the family didn't like that. He criticized us for probably about 20 mins about how we need to explain all the terms we were using or our investigators will be really confused. Not the best note to end on but his wife was a sweetheart and he was just trying to help. His wife kinda got mad at him for being so hard on us though because we are American and we struggle with Korean anyways. It was good to get to know the members though even if I had no idea what they were saying and they had to pull out their Korean to English dictionary a ton.

 

Korea is WAY different than the states. I swear there are no traffic laws here. It is not uncommon for cars to drive and park on the sidewalks. The buses are crazy and I have never seen cars get so close together without crashing. Pedestrians don't have the right of way so you really so have to look both ways before crossing the street but I love it here. The people are so kind and I am excited to see what the next year and a half have in store for me.

 

I love you all and I hope life at home is going well :)

- Sister Collyer 콜리여 자매 (kol-lee-yeo ja- mae)

 

PS sorry about all my spelling mistakes I'm typing fast. Hopefully it all makes since. There's no spell check here.