19 Aug 2009

RoseE writes:

"Dear Dad,

Here we go--a nice neutral landscape. The poem's probablly really girly but I can't read it and neither can you so we're fine.

I think your letters are backed up at the mission office, since the last one I got was dated 17 July and today is 17 August. I'm a little miffed about this, because I want to know if Taegu was in the Pusan Perimeter and I'll bet anything you've already told me but I can't just hassle someone to pick up my letters when they stop by the office because the office is now an hour away by train and nobody stops by it. But Wednesday is President's birthday and Sister Mom is orchestrating the surprise of having everybody in the whole mission show up to Pusan Zone Conference. She's not authorized to give us permission to travel outside our area, but we don't think that President will send her home when he finds out and anyway she's the one who feeds us Jello Salad (she has visiting friends and dignitaries smuggle the Jello out here in their suitcases) so our loyalties are firmly decided.

Man, I've got a lot of run-on sentences going on in this letter. You can tell I'm in a hurry, 'cuz I really want to get this in the mail tomorrow. I think I'm also subconsciously copying your writing style; I just re-read this and it sounds a lot like you.

Saturday night we got home a smidge early and were talking about our 'golden' contact* as we stripped off our stockings and got ready for bed. Earlier in the afternoon I'd suggested that the best method of celebrating this occasion would be to buy a big thing of ice cream (big for Korea--just larger than a B&J's) and eat it out of the carton. But we'd forgotten to stop by the mart on our way back to the apartment. Sis. Matthews mentioned this, then glanced at her watch: five minutes before we were supposed to be inside. I looked at her. She looked at me. And we went sprinting out the door, me without stockings and her in pajamas, to procure ice cream in under five minutes. We were shrieking our heads off and giggling like nuts, and I swear we made skidding, squealing-tire noises as we rounded the corner of the building. But we got our ice cream. Good times.

I love you and I miss you!

RoseE"



* a Golden contact is a person to whom you introduce the Gospel and they accept it immediately, without having to be talked into any part of it.