RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

Flowers? Really? I never get flowers. I like flowers.*

Yaaay for French baptisms!** Elder Routson (of my dongi) had to do his first baptism in Korean about three weeks after he got in-country; he crammed for days to get that little prayer right, and then when he actually did it he went really, really slowly, but he got it right and I was proud of him. I will be proud of Dad, too.

I also felt very connected to Dad this week, 'cuz at a member's house we were all very sneaky and got to watch the men's 500-m speed skating, which was a lot of fun. I noticed that they kept pairing the skaters in such a way as to get old rivalries going . . . Korea and Japan, Korea and Russia, Germany and the Netherlands, Japan and China . . . and we all had a lot of fun watching Mo Tae Bom gloat over the Japanese silver- and bronze-medalists. Korea seems to be doing very well in medal counts; the whole country is going nuts about it.

So Monday was P-Day, but instead of e-mailing I got dragged out to Kyeongju for Zone P-Day, where our plans to watch Up! were foiled but then saved at the last minute and We Got To Watch It . . . with the APs' blessing. Yaaaaaay! So much fuuuuun! SQUIRREL!***
I'm such a movie junkie. I'm so pathetic.

So the long stretch of wasted time in Kyeongju I'm not happy about, but the movie was dratted awesome. And Sis. Pak Min Jeong got her hair cut and 'magic' permed this morning (a 'magic' perm is a dead-straight perm . . . I don't know that I ever encountered such a thing stateside) so she's set to face her family again. She got to call them on Sunday for Solar . . . and spent most of the time getting nagged by her mom about how she shouldn't switch majors like she wants to. I've had lots of opportunities to compare and I think my parents are among the best parents in the mission. Sis. Matthews's mom is pretty cool, too, but she's the only one I've encountered so far that might be in the same league.

And what else happened this week? Well, Solar was weird 'cuz the only people on the streets were nutcases and missionaries, and the traffic was INSANE, leaving us stranded in tiny towns in the pouring rain in the middle of the night and in one memorable instance not letting us reach our apartment until 10:34 p.m., which is a new record. But I ate deokguk again, so I might be . . . what, 27? . . . now. Or something. This age thing is strange.

I also finished a year-in-the-making project this week, reaching Moroni 10:34 and closing the book upon it. Whole Book of Mormon, in Korean. It nearly killed me, but I did it. I'm very pleased with myself, and pleased that I can actually now work on things like, say, speaking Korean or being a good missionary during my study time now.

I made a thunder cake yesterday, but lacking a tomato I used a beh, an asian pear. Or a quarter of one. It was darn good.

This has also been a week of lots of new investigators simply landing in our laps. Downright hilarious. We've been getting calls from everywhere . . . other teams, members, the mission office . . . just dumping names and phone numbers on us. I've never seen such an influx. But I'm glad of it. I like having people to teach. Teaching people is fun and it feels good and I like it.
Love y'all lots! Sorry this isn't more thorough . . . we're pushing our time here as it is. Stay out of trouble, and somebody please tell Helena 감사하고 자매님도 새해복많이 받으십시요. Which I'm fairly sure I've spelled wrong someplace.

RoseE"


*In response to my advising RoseE that we will not, unfortunately, be meeting her in Korea, but at the Salt Lake Airport with pipes and flowers.

**A woman and her daughter from Gabon will be baptized in our ward this Saturday. Since I (Blogmom) speak French and that is their only language so far, the whole service will be in French. Todd will be doing the baptisms (in French with my coaching) and I will be giving a talk.

***I recommend you watch the movie to understand this reference. An excellent movie.