In Which Some Progress Is Made, but The Mountain Is Still Very High

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mom and Dad,

Yeah, Sis. Mong was my trainer. And she was a good trainer. We never got really close 'cuz she was Best Friends with Sis. Hill and, well, that was that, but getting someone addicted to your stories gets you over a lot of rough spots. She was a good missionary. We miss her 'round here.

I am not, at all, Sister Montgomery. This first week of training was really hard. I spent pretty much all of the first three days frantically reading member records, map books, and teaching records, trying to figure out what the heck we're doing. Then I tried to do it, but I ended up getting us lost . . . multiple times a day . . . on the outer fringes of Ulsan . . . without any clue whatsoever, and also without church keys or pen . . . while we were supposed to be three other places all at the same time. And it's been gray and raining and/or snowing pretty well straight through. I'm still not feeling optimistic about much, although the desire to hide under my desk has receded a little bit and I can function again.

On the plus side, we got to go to ZLCM and see the Ogelvie/Pak Sung Hee team and eat tacos with lots of cheese and sour cream on them for lunch, and that was lovely. And next Monday is Zone Conference, so we get to go to Taegu and see all the old gang.

And my camera tried to make another break for it on the bus last night, which made me think that I should probably work on making another picture backup CD . . . but I can't remember where the last one left off. Can you tell me what the last picture was on that?

Um . . . gosh. This must really have been a lousy week. I can't think of anything I really want to tell you. We had a bunch of investigators coming to church in Shinjeong on Sunday, but none of them came, and the two investigators that we didn't think were coming, up in Hogae (hour's bus ride away) both came, so we skipped out on second hour to go chasing across the city to catch them, then came chasing back in the other direction to catch Missionary Correlation Meeting back in Shinjeong. And all the while, out in Bangeojin, Elder Bocchino is whimpering, "When are you coming out here?" We're never coming out there, Elder. We have no investigators there. So tough. Leave us alone.

I haven't said that to him, actually. I'm trying to retain some veneer of civility. Failing, but trying.

Started anew on my hanbok repairs; discovered that in my distraction I'd pinned it together backwards and had to start over a third time.

We had some lessons with some investigators this week, which was good . . . Katrina and Sis. Ii Yoon Hwa, who attended church in Idaho. Not a huge amount of progress with either of them, but we're still working.

The only sort of comforting thing, if you can call it that, is the assurance that the Jeju sisters are having a harder time than I am. Sis. Linford and I vented to and comiserated with one another a couple of nights ago. Oh, man, it's going to be hard to make it through to July.

And I didn't cry this week. That's good. Just struggled and panicked and spun my wheels. Not, perhaps, the hardest week of my mission, but hard in a whole new way. Before this, all I had to do when things got hard was shut up, suck it up, and wait it out; now I've got to actively plan and impliment every single activity of every single day, plowing through the hard times as opposed to just hunkering down and waiting for them to be over.

Oh, heck, I hope this is over soon. Sister Yoon is a very nice girl and speaks English perfectly competently, so one year's worth of slaving over language study is now worth exactly nothing whatsoever.

But hey, Conference is coming up. I can make it through to Conference. I like Conference.

Please, don't blow a gasket or anything. It was just a hard week, that's all. I'm not planning on coming home early or jumping in the river or doing anything drastic like that. I'm still sane. Just . . . stretched. And I'm working without an emotional safety net now. It's hard, but what the freak is new? Life's hard. And I am assured by everyone I know that it doesn't get any easier.

I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna make it through this.

Pray for me, please.

I miss you.

RoseE"