In Which Sister Son Yoo Jin Comes Back From the Ether, and A Toilet is Conquered

RoseE writes:

"Don't you jinx me with your snow! It's finally sunny here. We'll be lucky to get a week of sunshine before monsoon hits at the rate this has been going.

All the hiking* sounds fun. I hope it's still going to be going on come July . . . I want in on this action.

Space camp**? we have space camp in Utah? Is it a day camp or an overnight camp or what? I thought you had to go to Florida or someplace to do Space Camp.

LOL Mom, you are trunkie. This is funny. I haven't got any flight information yet through official channels, but it would seem to be not long in coming. As traumatic as it's all going to be, hey, I love airplane rides. And I've got Wall-E ready for the trip, just hangin' out in some back folder of the iPod. Freak, home at four in the afternoon. I can't go to sleep right away; I'll be whacked for a week. I was thinking going down to the temple would be a good plan--live session would keep me on my feet, so I'd at least only sleep for short stretches at a time. Or just walking downtown . . . I've got a friend in the T2 mission I want to try to find. Or maybe I should just go to bed. I don't know. Now is not the time to think about this.

So . . . camping. The ward is going camping outside Pusan next tues/wed, for Children's Day, and they laid it down with the missionaries that We Are Coming Too, Period. Get Permission. Arrange With Sisters in Pusan to Stay With Them Overnight. So, um . . . guess I'm going camping next week. And THEN this week, at Zone Conference, I get news that Sisters Conference *ahem* the Meeting to Watch the YW Broadcast (Helena will appreciate this: I've decided that in Korean, this meeting is named 자매 않대회) is Thursday, so . . . yep, looks like we'll be spending a lot of time in Pusan next week.

This was a week of Me Being In Charge, which is never a good plan, really, but fortunately some good experiences popped up that kept us out of trouble and chaos. The elders got a call from a woman named Kim Min Yeong, who's actively searching for a religion and has bumped into the missionaries a few times. We got to meet with her this week and it went GREAT. She was genuinely interested in what we were offering, and asked us straight-out if what she'd heard from other churches about Mormons was true. (Like, that we don't let our members eat for a month at a time. Um, no, that's not what you'd call fact.) And she fairly well invited herself to church . . . she's interested in and impressed by how our members live. I'm tentatively hopeful.

Also we went on a great old wild goose chase with the elders for this less-active member who doesn't show up on any records . . . I found his number in an old handwritten list . . . and while the meeting with him himself was extremely weird and in no way useful, it put us in the right spot to meet a young twentysomething man who has been pondering the purpose of life. The elders taught him a LOT, and invited him to all kinds of stuff and gave him a Book of Mormon and got his number and the whole jazz. It was really exciting how you could kind of see his face light up as we talked to him.

AND Son Yoo Jin texted me back! I got y'all's Easter package this week (the sugar eggs are adoreable . . . where in the world did you find a Glinda card?) and all the sympathy kind of set me crying again, and in my cry-y mess I texted Sis Son one more time, just to say that we loved her, and she ANSWERED! She's not blocking our number, not stonewalling us. She's not lost entirely. There's still hope. For this tiny miracle I am immesureably thankful.

We threw Elder Wells a 1-week-late birthday party with a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Cake. That was two days ago. I've barely been able to eat anything since. Just 100% not hungry at all, despite my having eaten next to nothing since then. Bizarre.

Oh, and I won a fierce and hour-long battle with our apartment's toilet, armed only with an utterly useless pump-style plastic plunger that spews water everywhere. And after I won, I was conveniently already in the bathroom to take a long, hot, and much-needed shower. The roommates hail me as a hero. My arm hurts. But that toilet now knows who is boss. Called to serve Him, Heav'nly King of Glory . . .

Today we're up at the Kyeongju Museum again, having a proper look-through. None of the elders came . . . one member of each team in the zone had already been a lot . . . so they're hanging out in Hogae doing nothing again. Heh. But Zone Conference was fun. There were tacos. Oh, and apparently Church Headquarters has been assigning missionaries on a map on which our mission is not marked, which would expain why there have been no incoming elders for so blessed long. They're fixing the map.

We saw a heavily pregant young woman this week, wearing a t-shirt that read, in big block letters:

STOUT
STOUT
STOUT

*chokes laughing*

Sis. Culver continues to be a great junior companion and a lot of fun to be around. We both like Pete's Dragon and Ghana chocolate pies. She is scared of spicy things but getting braver, and eats will at shiksas, which is all we ask.

When's Cat getting married***? Do we know?

Hey, if Marjie# hasn't found a boarder by the time I get back, what would you think about me taking that room? It would be a more permanent living arrangement, but still in the ward and just 'round the corner. I hadn't much thought about moving out so quickly, but that would be convenient, possibly. Just bouncing the idea off y'all. I just thought of it today.

Love ya!

Oh, and e-mail me your schedule for next week Sat/Sun so next e-mail I can work out when I should call for Mother's Day##. Hey, it's Mother's Day already!

RoseE"


*hiking: we've been spending Sunday afternoons doing hikes to get Bethe in shape for a Pioneer Trek, wherein she hikes for 3 days pulling a loaded handcart, to give her an idea what her ancestors did to get to the Salt Lake valley.

**space camp: yes, we have it here in Salt Lake. Our fifth grader spent a day pretending to be a First Officer on a Star Trek ship, the Oddessy, dealing with Romulans and the Neutral Zone.

***RoseE's sister Cat is marrying Jeff on 14 August. 2010.

# Marjie: Relief Society President; she has a room to rent.

## Missionaries get to call their families on Christmas and Mother's Day.