July 12, 2013

It's funny, but I love my district so, so, so much. Especially Elder Killpack and Elder Harris. They make me feel so hardcore. So, so, so hardcore. They remind me of Jennifer in her, "I eat nothing," days. Also, they're terrified of bugs. They ran way from a bee yesterday. Do you know who didn't run away from a bee? This 처. Straight up, it was hysterical. Softies. Do you know who will at least try to eat vegetables? Again, 이 처. I'm kinda legit.

 

 

This was the highlight of my week. We finally, finally managed to click with our one investigator. He agreed with everything we said, but he just didn't feel anything, at all. So, we read 3rd Nephi together, and my goodness. He cried. We made him cry. The previous lesson that I sorta felt we tanked, but now understand was neccessary, he said that he was scared of change. This is a problem, because as he stated, if he were to get baptized, he'd have to make a lot of changes. He works at a casino, we know he drinks, the whole lot.  I got to testify that the ability to change through the Atonement is a miracle. It finally felt that I was suceeding here at the MTC, not just passing. Finally. Finally. He said that he wanted to change. This was a miracle. We understood his Korean. Not all of it, but enough that we could say what we needed to say.  I want to walk out of every lesson like we did out of that one. Not just, "We did good," but "the investigator felt what we said." Grammar has been fun, and I totally understand a lot more now. I was just informed by an Elder who left six weeks ago that we will understand pretty much nothing of what will come out of Korean's mouths. I relish the challenge. Sunday, I decided that I was going to learn this langauge through sheer tenacity and the spirit. I will be an amazing missionary, because I know that I can be.  We also taught an amazing lesson on obedience on Sunday. We can do this. We will do this.

 

July 5, 2013

I both loved the 4th of July basket, and missed the parade terribly. But, I survived, and watched the fireworks here.

 

As for your questions: yes, I got the cupcakes, no, it isn't a good idea to send them on P-days. I don't have time to get them from the post office before it closes, which is ridiculous, because the district leader can only get mail after dinner, and during lunch...and then we can't see it until after class, at 9:25 pm. Seriously, who designed that system? I was actually called to the front desk from out of the shower for those cupcakes, which were, by the way, delicious. Hans is doing well, though he got kicked by a drunk guy last week, and had to fill out a police report. He's in a city now (out of the office), where the people actually like the missionaries. Even the non-members. I can just feel his bafflement of having people listen to him.

 

As for my week: much better. I've increased my melatonin crazy high, but whatever. We do what we can. I sleep, and I ate a cupcake twice (Cina sent me one, too). But we understand waaaaaay more Korean than I ever thought was possible. We'll leave the MTC with about 80/100 grammar forms learned. The group before us? 35/100. We're weaker on the vocab, but we're much better at making sentences. Go figure. Things I have learned here: Toms are the most comfortable shoes in existence (I have happened upon a pair), and that I'm glad I'm not in Elder Killpacks room. He sleepwalks/sleep does things like nothing else. Last week, he had a dream there was a giant spider on his pillow placed there by one of the other Elders, so he got up, screamed, "That's so rude!" ran to the hallway, came back, felt around for the spider, and then proceeded to not sleep for the rest of the night. Also, once he got up, touched Elder Harris's nose, and then went to bed. It was pretty legit. The stories are so much better when you're not being forced to live them. 

 

For my 4th of July dinner,I ate a hamburger, and then an ice cream bar. And then turkey. Just, like a huge hunk of Turkey. It was a weird moment. I did get the superglue, which was so, so, so great because I broke by lotion lid, too. Small miracles. And the cuppycakes? Very tasty. I'd send pictures of everyone eating them, but the computer doesn't recognize any media...sooo, we'll try again next week, on another computer. I loved the 4th of July basket, and especially my loaf of bread. It was breakfast, lunch, and dinner one day. It was beautiful. So, so beautiful. I'm smuggling in the jam for breakfast tomorrow, where I can eat toast like a king. A king, I say!

 

For the 4th of July, we had a mini-patriotic devotional, with the speaker as someone from our branch presidency. Yes, the Korean branch. And I had absolutely no idea who he was. And then we watched 17 Miracles, which I will call out for containing only selective history. Which bothers me. Yes, it was inspiring. No, it didn't provide much context, nor did it tell the whole story. Ah, well. Whatever. We then got more ice cream, herded outside to watch the fireworks, which was awesome. It was less awesome that we had to be awake at 5:30 for service, and we went to bed around 12:00, but we can nap today, which is just simply beautiful. So, so, so tired.

 

Side note: Brother Campbell was trying to explain the difference between the Korean word for being excited, and our concept of being excited. From Korean, it translates very literally into, "Are you expecting?" which is what Brother Campbell said to Elder Pickard. Brother Campbell figured out what he had said three seconds after saying it, and his horror, oh, his horror was hysterical. Elder Pickard said no, for the record. Goooooood times. Brother Campbell is just my favorite. He's only been back 5 months, but he's still a little shy, which is funny, because he's 6'6" and both skinny and muscular at the same time. He looks like a swimmer even though he does cross country. Fun stories. 

June 28, 2013

I was there. I was there, onscreen. Why has no one mentioned this? Like, three times. Watch the video. I'm during the choir numbers, and once during a talk. Tsk. Honestly.

The MTC changed the makeup policy, again. Now we have to wear mascara every day, too. It's a little annoying, because I wear my  makeup for me, you know? But I'm surviving here. The past week we weren't allowed to eat in the cafeteria at all, and it was just terrible. Pro: everyone was forced to play volleyball outside. Con: the food was even more terrible than usual. And then, of course, there was the huuuuuge missionary fireside with the members where we can now use Facebook, and texting, and email, and everything. The MTCs policy hasn't changed yet, but I have great hopes for Busan, since it'll be implemented in every mission by a year from now. I'm gonna have Facebook again! Woooo! It was almost worth eating absolutely no food that Sunday until dinner. True story. The lines were so long, and Sister Segovia and I had to be at the Marriot Center and Relief Society by certian times, so, no food for us. We lived off of a donut for breakfast, and some Pringles for lunch (truly the breakfast and lunch of champions). It wasn't the best idea, but whatever. We survived. And I'm on screen as part of the choir a grand total of three times. Look me up. I'll be there, looking unhappy, and wearing the color blue.

 

So, this past week has been a little odd. We had a TRC lesson last Friday that I thought was an absolute trainwreck, mostly because our member corrected our Korean every sentence. She made us say it back to her, every time. It was brutal. The only thing she couldn't correct was my prayer (even the pronunciation), which was good, because I needed one bright spot of hope for my day. Saturday, we taught other missionaries in Konglish (korean-english) which was the most spiritual experience so far. Maybe it's because you didn't have to try and think of what came next, but it was a lot easier to recieve divine direction. Sunday was broadcast/breakfast of champions day. Good times. Monday, Sister Segovia and I dropped outlines in our lessons all together. We have some vocab, and some grammar forms, but that's about it. Tuesday I got to have a personal interview with Brother Campbell, where I got to be the first girl to sob at him from sheer exhaustion. The Bunkbed of Insomnia played hard last week. His look of absolute panic was priceless in retrospect, though. Poor Brother Campbell.  Wednesday we learned that we had been doing everything wrong in Korean so far. It was not my favorite day. I wanted to throw stuff at someone, or something. Really, really hard. But we've moved on, and after talking to all of the other teachers, it turns out that no one agrees on several very important aspects of the language, so I guess I can do whatever I so desire. We just keep getting informed that we don't look Korean, so no one expects us to know Korean. It's very comforting. Also, we listened to a few sentences uttered by people leaving the MTC for Korea, and quite frankly, they weren't all that good, so I figure I can survive. Thursday we learned the hell that is indirect discourse. It's only a problem when you want to use it with testimony form, which just seems to happen, a lot. We had a sub today because Brother Sung was called away to speak to the woman in charge of Eurasia for the MTC, and Brother Campbell was picking up his parents from the airport. Our sub had quite the giggle. He'd laugh at something we'd say, and then he'd giggle and stick his tongue out. And today is P-day, and I'm getting a nap. And eating a metric ton of candy.

 

My favorite thing to hear in the MTC is someone saying, "You can see the back of her knees when she's walking! It's too short." And I always think, "You have nothing better to do here than look at the length of someone's skirt? Lucky. I have to be studying Korean and stuff. All the time. In fact, I should be thinking in Korean right now, but I don't even know where to begin because this is super indirect discourse with a thousand verbs." 

June 21, 2013

we just learned that a significant portion of what we learned was wrong. *sigh* Also, numbers officially suck. I don't know why they have two number systems. I also don't know why they have so freakin' many counters. Pens, Pencils, and Erasers have one counter character. Long skinny things have another. People, hours, minutes, books, rings, you name it, it has its own counters. Bane of my existence. That, and speaking in front of Brother Sung. Everytime I teach him, I can just hear him thinking, I taught you better than that. It doesn't help that Sister Segovia and I have sworn off scripts, so we're adlibbing with an outline.

Oh, yes. The package came, and it was pretty awesome. So much fun stuff, so little time to use it . I totally started colorcoding verbs now. We've learned that TALL (the language software they use on us here) sucks hard at real Korean words. It's frustrating, because we can't manage to figure out how to use the dictionary yet. Baffling. It's pretty terrible, but we're doing bettery by just scrapping TALL entirely, and using flashcards. We've been working with our investigators (teachers) and I honestly can say I much prefer Brother Campbell. We've talked about this considerably in the girls dorms, and I think that he's a giant teddy bear (he's 6'6" and pretty buff) and everyone else finds him really intimidating. I, however, find Brother Sung, who is like, 5'4" to be more intimidating. He just stares at you, during lessons, and it's just super weird. I can just see his eyes saying, "I taught you better than this." Every time I come out from teaching him, I feel like I've managed to get my point across, but somehow failed while doing it in Korean. Like, yesterday, I forgot all of the numbers I learned. All of them. It was baffling. We've been teaching pretty spiritual lessons so far, and I've managed to figure out a lot of Korean on my own, but I still feel like I know nothing in Korean. We're getting to the point where we're sorta understanding questions, but we can't say anything back. It's frustrating, but in an entirely new way. I mean, honestly. The investigator will mention something about the Restoration, but I can't explain about it without breaking out a dictionary, and wasting twenty minutes. We've also been managing to ask them to write their questions down, so we can translate them later. Brother Sung used three gerunds at me. Three. Gerunds. One sentence. I don't even know how that works in English, let alone Korean. So weird. The Bunkbed of Insomnia and I have had a rough week, but I just bought another huuuuuuge bottle of melatonin that should hopefully last my stay here, even if I take five pills a night to get to sleep. And if I'm going to have more nights like this week, I most certainly will need five pills to fall asleep. Our district is amazing. Elder Diede is an amazing artist. He did a blind contouring of me yesterday, and it looked like me. Elder Pickard is still my favorite, though. He's so dry, and so skinny. He's maybe 130 lbs, tops. He's the equivalent of a petite girl. He's also 5'10" but he slouches, a lot.  A few days ago, Elder Harris said that he loved Elder Pickard. Elder Harris used the wrong verb, so he meant romantic love. Brother Sung just about died, while Elder Pickard pointed out that it was "waygay" which is also the Korean word for repentance. Truly, it was a thing of beauty. It was all in the timing.

 

Also, terrible mistakes missionaries have made in Korean. Soooo, one group was trying to teach about the Restoration, and they were trying to say that Jesus Christ was central, but ended up saying Jesus Christ was a sexy plan. Good times. The "investigator" who looked a lot like Brother Sung couldn't reign himself in for a good ten minutes. He just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

 

In our dorm (room? apartment? residence hall? place where I don't sleep?) we have this massive pile of candy we just all eat. This pile is important, because the food here hasn't gotten a whole lot better. Whoever suggested you send me poptarts is my hero. My. Hero. I look forward to your dear elder, and more news of the Kindle. Is Game of Thrones worth reading? Because I'm taking the Kindle back in a year and a half. We talked with Brother Sung yesterday, and Korean electronics are the way to go. If you ever need anything, I've got you covered. I'd have to ship it home, but there are a lot of fancy smart phones for very little. You know you want to....

 

Also, true story. Koreans greet each other differently depending on the situation. Not like, say, good evening/good morning. No, more like, if you're in a specific type of setting of eating food, you have to ask if they've eaten. And you always say yes, even if you haven't. Also, when they serve soup, everyone gets a spoon, and you share a giant bowl. It doesn't sound all that appealing. There are a lot of Korean foods that don't sound that appealing. Like just barely killed sea squirt. And live baby octopus. Why? Why would you want to eat anything like that?

 

We had another hour long meeting on the vitures of wearing blush and lipgloss. It was weird. It was really weird. They kept telling us things were only for the broadcast, but they kept implying that things weren't allowed anyway. "If you read the dress and grooming code, you'd know that high-low skirts aren't smiled upon." Umm, no, the dress code makes no mention of any of those things. Also, it only says that your knees should be covered when sitting and standing, but the MTC has added walking, which just seems a smidge unfair. Also, no maxi skirts/dresses, but only if they go to the floor. They just don't really like the ones that hit right about the ankle, either. But whatever. The MTC is but a small portion of the mission. 

June 14, 2013

Surpise!

Korean is so much less terrible, and I understand how to make sentences so much better now. It helps that our new teacher, Brother Campbell can respond to the questions I ask with more than, "Well, it just is," of Brother Sung. I can make compound sentences now, which is awesome, and I finally feel like I know what I'm doing. So much vocab. So, so much vocab.

The Bunkbed of Insomnia was defeated 6/7 times this week. That one day was terrible, and I ended up having a pretty epic meltdown in front of poor Sister Martisich, our Sister Trainer Leader. In my defense, I lost to the Bunkbend of Insomnia pretty bad. Her story was pretty interesting. She's 27, and her fiancee just left to Taiwan at 25. A lot of faith there, and she always has perfect makeup. Always. This confuses me deeply because we only have half an hour to do anything, and she always looks perfect, all the time. It's baffling. I'm confused as to why Koreans switch between Chinese and Korean numbers depending on the thing being counted. Seriously. Hours are Chinese, minutes are Korean. What was the point of that? We finally learned how to do compound sentences, but only ones with "linking" verbs, so we still don't really understand complex SOV order without two seperate and very distinct clauses. It's been better this week, thank heavens. I've finally started to grasp the language, and I broke down and used really, really stupid ways to remember vocab. Alas. We do what we can. Sister Segovia and I managed to teach four different lessons in two days, each a half hour. It was brutal, but it was working. I can now, assuming the question is asked slowly and I recognize some vocab, answer properly without any kind of notes or script. It was a pretty proud moment. Sometimes, I just write what I want to say in English, and Korean just comes out. God is definitely helpling.

I miss the feral cats we had on campus. We don't have any cats here. We did see some mice in bushes heading toward one of the Elder's Residence Halls. I can't claim to be too suprised. I named the mouse Sherlock. There was another one named John. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I've been living off some terrible food here, and our schedule is really weird, but we're finally figuring things out. We still haven't actually learned how to pray yet, so we're still working on that one...and I need someone to formally explain testimony form to me, eventually, but we'll get there. My Korean is improving by leaps and bounds, so that's something to be happy about.

Culture wise, I have learned that Korean toothpaste is terrible, you're punished if you lose games by group mocking (not kidding, fyi. they point and laugh!), and that I'll be burning in the summer, and freezing in the winter. The accents in Korea are totally different, with Busan having the most tonalities, but we'll figure that out when we get there. But, as a positive, there are very cheap, very pretty dresses. Everything costs about half of what it does here, as a rough estimate, though we can get pretty decent tailored dresses for about $5. There are also something called Summer Suits which look exactly like normal suits, but a lot thinner so you don't die of heat stroke.  We've also spent a lot of time getting to know Brother Campbell. He was on the West Coast of Korea. He lived a bunch of different places, because he's an army brat, and his favorite color is green. Mind you, he said all of this in Korean, so it took a little bit of time for him to figure out how to mime "green." Brother Sung's girlfriend is coming back from Korea today, actually, so he won't be as tired from skyping with her at all hours of the night anymore.

My most hysterical story comes from Relief Society. This is all true, no exaggeration. We were told how we had to wear makeup, and what shades were available in the MTC Bookstore. Legitimately. We were lectured on the importance of wearing makeup here. Buuuut, no shirts with anykind of definition, at all. Buuuut, you always need to look pretty, all the time. Even when you just get up in the morning. Always wear your lipstick, blush, and mascara. Preferably eyeliner, but you know, they can't dictate everything we do. And then we practiced sitting down for thirty minutes. Yeah. Good times. As far as my district goes, we have one very loud boy who I am trying to learn to love, Elder P., who's my favorite, because he's so darn dry all the time, Sisters P. and J. (who happen to be our roommates) and then Elders K. and H., who are so adorably freshmanish it's funny. Elder F. handles stress like a boy. As in, very poorly. He really misses his "special friend" who hasn't written at all yet. L. and S. are just super quiet, all the time. P. and I are the proclaimed classroom teachers when Brother Sung or Brother Campbell aren't there. It's pretty awesome. Sleep officially makes everything better, and I'm finally getting about 7 hours a night. Sleep is so important. So, so important. Sleep. Sleep for me.

 

June 7, 2013

 

 

 The MTC experience is surreal. We only have a half hour to prepare in the morning, and since there are six of us in every room, there's always a line for the shower. The bathrooms are frustrating, too, since there is only a small one on each floor with only one stall. There is always a line. Always. The food has become more edible, but I'm not sure if that's just because I've given up on eating good food. Time will tell. I have experienced the Cot of Insomnia all too well. Sister Segovia and I have ironed out our kinks a little (I'm a little uptight about time, and she doesn't mind being late), but we're learning how to teach by the Spirit, which is not something I've ever done before. Brutal. Korean is brutal. The sentence structure is so alien, I can't actually imagine people speaking in it. It's been absolutely crazy. My first lesson totally tanked. It was terrible. Nothing will ever be that terrible again. It felt like I was literally failing myself, the poor investigator Che Gang Dok, and God. I cried in the shower that night. It was quite the humbling experience. However, the next day was a little better, and it keep consistently getting better after that. It's very frustrating to want to say something, and then be totally unable to convey it because we don't know the vocabulary, or because it's a freakin' compound sentence, and we don't know how to use conjunctions and how they change the object markers and such. Korean has been weird in that it's so unlike Greek or even Latin. There are no cases, exactly, but the word order can only be Subject Object Verb. This becomes a problem when we try to make more complex sentences, like I feel the spirit through the scriptures. We've been forced to pray only in Korean, but we never actually learned how to pray in Korean, and TALL is terrible at teaching.

We've been talking to Brother Sung (our primary teacher), and we've learned a lot more about the culture, which has been very helpful. Such as you have to look pretty all the time or it's considered rude, fan death is an actual thing that actual Korean people worry about, and that by the end of our missions, we should be fluent. If we work hard, and aren't scared of making mistakes (which I totally am), we should be fluent in around 7 months, counting now. There's always so much scheduled here, and such little time to accomplish it. P-days are supposed to be for preparation, and the end up being more in the realm of frantically translate because you may/may not be teaching. Also, they only talk to us in Korean for about four hours of instruction. Brother Sung needs to work on miming his meaning a little more. I've never applied fake it til you make it in my life. We've been able to read a little more, and better. We got our second teacher yesterday, who happened to be Che Gang Dok. His real name is Brother Campbell. He's just really tall, and if he would speak in English, I'm sure I'd like him a little more. I have never been so jealous of anyone who knows anything about their language in my life. 

Also, blankets and socks? Amazing. Not freezing at night anymore, which means the Cot of Insomnia is less terrible. I did run into Shawn at the temple. It was a much better experience, but I was still a little unhappy (courtesy of the MTC), and its prison-like rules. And lack of bathrooms. Such a pain. So, the natives have finally arrived for the 8 week group here, and we all sort of stalk them. From afar, mind you, because we have absolutely no conversational skills. We're progressing, but not as fast as we want to. And prayer is just so hard because it forces a change for verbs we haven't learned yet. The pros of learning from a native: our pronounciation will be flawless, and we can form real sentences (the American teachers have missionaries memorize phrases instead). The cons of learning from a native: it's so much harder, and sometimes he struggles with explaining the rules, because he's known them his entire life.

 

May 31, 2013

The MTC has been totally crazy, and I've only been here for two days, and I'm starting my third. We've had a crash course in Korean like nothing else, honestly. We've been trying to learn the alphabet, but all the line vowels sound the same, it's just like they're variations of o's, and we teach for the first time today. I'm just hoping to be able to form a few sentences, and hopefully say the word God a few times. I can't admit to being well rested, or even feeling particularly prepared, but what can you do? My district has 12 people, 8 elders and 4 sisters, and my room has six sisters. This means that lights out doesn't seem to be regarded very well, but I'm sure the exhaustion will catch up with the rest of them, too. I seem to be waking up when the people do, because I can hear their alarm. The walls aren't particularly thick by any means. I'm tired, but I'm doing pretty well. I was a little sniffly the first and second days, but I haven't had a meltdown yet, which I'm calling a silent victory. Again, I can't stress how little Korean I speak right now, and I read very little, but I'm trying, and trusting God to make up the rest. My companion is Sister Segovia. She's from Idaho, Boise area, she likes sci-fi novels and singing. She also played classical piano, but stopped once she got to BYU. She's also 20, and she's a humanities major, but emphasizes comparative literature, which is apparently something you can do.

So far I've learned that being a companion is hard, everything here requires a lot of faith, and when I feel the spirit strongly, I just want to hug everyone. It's really weird. The cafeteria is not my favorite part--I guess I'm more of a picky eater than I thought.I'm always down for more candy--the vending machines look scary here, and you have to drag your companion to them, which makes me feel guilty. Sister Segovia and I are still finding our stride--things like figuring out what we're going to do for gym time, and evening out our schedules. My p-days are Fridays, so I'll hear from you then. Everyone keeps telling me that if you can make it to Sunday, you're going to be okay. That just made the first few days harder for me, but it'll get better. It has to, because there is no way I can feel less prepared than I do now. I'm just glad that we're going to be able to go to the temple before we go teach our first investigator, who's name I cannot remember. I figure it can't make our lesson any worse, because we haven't really figured out what we want to teach. Our Korean is so rudimentary, and we remember so little of the alphabet, it doesn't seem plausible to either make our own sentences, or read many of them from our Korean preach my gospel/dictionary.

And most importantly, here's the list of things I left behind/didn't think about packing/didn't think I needed: normal socks, a blanket of some sort (we only have the terrible dorm blankets here, and they aren't particularly warm at night), melatonin, because I legitimately only get six or so hours of sleep here because everyone isn't in bed with lights out by 10:30, and I left two boxes of contacts on the bookshelf in the command center. My debit card does work, and I believe I spent 6ish dollars on it on a Korean hymn book Brother Sung, our teacher, said we needed. I've sent you two letters via normal mail, and I'm now regretting how I brought no stamps with me. That was clearly a mistake.