Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .

In Which RoseE Gets A Good Scare, and We Are Confused By Lots of Korean Names

2009-11-10T03:15:00.000-08:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

How will I talk when I get home? Well, strangely enough, probably a lot like Dad. Korean structure puts pauses in a lot of the same places Dad does when he wants to see if anybody's actually listening to him. "I . . . *pausepausepause* want to go see a movie." Koreans do this. "Chonun . . . *think about it* 모모모." Also after conjunctions. "I want to go a movie AND *pause pause pause* eat yangnyeom chicken." And I've discovered that I can't really do normal introductory questions anymore. I can't spit out "So what's your family like? How many brothers and sisters do you have?" It just falls out Korean form: "How does your family become?" I'm sure you'll notice more in a few months.

It shouldn't be getting too much worse for a while, though, because the dreaded Michigan Test is coming up again in December, and since Sis. Pak failed it last time around she's going to take it again. So I'm going to put a lot of my Korean practice on hold and make her speak and listen to English. She improved a lot when she was living with three weigukins*, but she's been with hangukins** pretty much ever since and has started slipping.

Well, inasmuch as we are a united, eternal family, I up'n got sick too. Not bad. Yesterday was lots of sniffling and sneezing, but today it seems to have cleared up. I don't think it's the dreaded H1N1, which everybody is self-diagnosing this week (a couple schools are closed and the hygene masks are EVERYWHERE) . . . just a wrapup to the blissful seven months of healthiness I have thoroughly enjoyed since leaving the Pit of Disease and Death otherwise known as the Provo MTC.

Well, the cold snap hit and then it was gone. The weather's as lovely as it gets. Which is SO weird. Because it was blinkin' freezing for about two days, and we were frantically trying to make sure everyone had enough blankets and that their apartments were well-insulated (Elder Draper, out in the boonies, is looking for a new apartment because their place is colder inside than it is out) . . . and then the cold went away. Gone. Poof. Gorgeous outside.

So . . . missionary work is happening, or something. Hyeoh Un participated in the Primary Sacrament Meeting program yesterday, as did all of less-active Kim Mi Hyang's kids (BOTH their parents came, AGAIN, which is AWESOME). She's nervous about getting baptized, but she has a strong testimony and her mom is completely okay with whatever. And Gu Yeong Eh's niece Hyeon Ji came to church again, and we taught her the third lesson, and checked up on if she'd been reading the Book of Mormon . . . "Well, I got to First Nephi 14," she told us, pulling out her copy and flicking it open. Colors. On almost every page. She's Been Marking Stuff. "I didn't understand this part with the dream about the tree*** that Lehi had, but then later on it explained it really well#, so that was good."

You could have knocked both Sis. Pak and me over with a feather. Nothing blows missionaries away like someone actually, earnestly reading the Book of Mormon. Looking at that book was like Christmas.

So yeah. Hyeon Ji's doing fine.

We ALSO taught the first lesson to our less-active new-member friend Hyei Ji's best friend Ju Hyei (getting mixed up with the names yet?). She's attended church a few times, and told us that she loves Sacrament meeting and feels really good when she goes. She has been GETTING HYEI JI OUT OF BED TO COME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAYS. No, really. Our non-member has been dragging our less-active to church.

We ALSO taught the first lesson to Son Mi, aka Miracle Girl. We met Son Mi on the street two weeks ago with a couple of her friends, said hi, introduced our message, wished 'em a good day, moved on. Then, two days later, we were walking down the street and saw a girl talking on a cell phone. And I was (in my head) like, "Maybe we should talk to her." "Nah, she's on the phone." "But maybe we really, really should." And I hesitated, and looked at her, and she caught my eye and smiled (this DOESN'T happen in Korea) and hung up the phone. It was Son Mi.
Now, y'all know my memory for faces, vis., I have none. I didn't know her from Eve. Didn't recognize her at all. But it was the same girl, that I just randomly felt that I needed to talk to. Or perhaps not so randomly.

Anyway, we invited her to the Halloween party, and she came and helped out and had fun. And this week we made an appointment to teach her, and Sis. Pak made muffins.
We get to the church. She's late. We text. She replies. Sounds like she's not coming.

"Aww," Sis. Pak texts back, "we had a present we wanted to give you."

"Oh, okay," says Son Mi. "I'll be there in half an hour."

Sis Pak looks at her little bag of four muffins and decides that, while it's a fine surprise gift, it's not much to make a special trip for. So she and I went on a mad hunt through the chapel to find something that would be a better present. And what did we find but: A copy of "Stand a Little Taller" in Korean, colored paper, markers, stickers, scissors, tape, and ribbon. And we had a perfect little present waiting when she showed up, to listen earnestly and attentively to the first lesson, at which the Spirit was most decidedly in attendance.

So missionary stuff's goin' darn well in the fine city of Taegu. To quote Independence Day ('cuz it's P-Day and I can do stuff like that), the last couple of days have been REALLY exciting.

So, other news . . . oh, kyool. Gotta tell you about kyool. It is kyool season here in Korea. A kyool looks like an orange or a tangerine, is slightly larger than a golf ball, and is so sweet and lovely and delicious that you can just eat them like candy all day long. Sis Pak and her older sister once ate 250 of them in three days. Their skin turned orange.

Speaking of Sis. Pak, she hit her one-year mark this week, and we all had ribs at TGI Friday's to mark the occasion. (Lunch special. Missionaries are pros at knowing where the good lunch specials are.)

Also speaking of Sis. Pak, I keep forgetting to tell this story but I'll tell it now. A few weeks before Halloween, one night we'd just finished planning and I got up to go use the bathroom. When I came back to our room, I found Sis. Pak standing just inside the door with her very long straight black asian hair combed down over her face.

Three voices started up in my head. One was saying, "Huh. Sister Pak is standing just inside the doorway."

The second said "AAAAAAAHHHHH ITS THE FREAKY ASIAN GIRLDEMON THING LIKE FROM THE RING AND IT'S GONNA KILL ME AND I'M GONNA DIE OH CRAP"
The third said, "Oh, Sis. Pak is trying to scare me. That's a great Halloween idea. I wish I had cool Asian hair like that."

Unfortunately, it was the second voice that got control of my muscles first. So while the first and third voices were like "Wait! Don't!" I screamed my head off and smacked her clean across the face as hard as I could.

She was okay. And I was really, really sorry. And it was all really funny in a horrible kind of way. So yeah. I get to join the ranks of those sister missionaries who have in very fact physically attacked their companions. Lucky me.

Anyway, that's the news over here. We're gonna go watch Prince of Egypt (which Sis. Pak has never seen; some of the elders got permission for a movie day) and I'll write a bunch of letters and life will be good.

Love you! Be Good! Church is True!

RoseE"

*English-speaking companions

** Korean-speaking companions

***1 Nephi 8:4-38

# 1 Nephi 15

Weekly email 11/2/09

2009-11-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for the updates on Gramma Olsen, and the letter from Bethe. Sorry the video didn't come through. This is probably the fault of this less-than-celestial e-mail server, which refuses to acknowledge that I have space in my inbox despite the fact that I have deleted all but five e-mails and, in truth, have nothing BUT space. Thrice-accursed thing. So if you sent a news-of-the-family this week, I didn't get it, and this is why I am not replying to it.

Life's good here in Korea. It got Very Cold and windy but Very Fast, so we're pulling out the heavy coats and running them to the dry-cleaners' downstairs. I finally found extra blankets on top of the other team's wardrobe, so I am sleeping much more comfortably now. And I got a BOX! Which makes life very happy indeed. I shared the Monster Cookies with the roommates (Sister Pak Se Ra thinks they're about the most delicious thing ever) and (some) of the Reese's with the Halloween party, but the rest of the Reese's and the candy corn are my private stash. I'm trying to eat them slowly . . . failing, but trying. And what was up with the nesting envelopes? Somebody got bored in Sacrament meeting, looks like. I love seeing the Sacrament meeting programs, though. It's great to see what's going on in the strangely-surreal world of Rose Park. I took a video of Sis. Pak opening this box, too, and finding her mouse, but all the dialogue turned out to be in Korean so I'll have to translate it before I can transcribe it. But she was way excited and thanks you a lot, and then proceeded to gloat that her Kiore was bigger than mine and hence its 'hyeong' (older brother). Which is fitting, because she's older than me and thus is my 'onni' and I have to do whatever she says. Not that I don't anyway, being junior companion and all . . . but this is a big deal in Korea, who's older than whom. Or bigger, in the case of knitted mice.

So this week was conducted with an Eye Single to the Glory of the Halloween Party. We had a last-minute wave of help in the form of Elder Son Oo Shik's new companion Elder Murray, whose family owns Nightmare Mansion. No, really. His family are professional haunted-house makers. Having no budget and no time cramped his style a little bit, but he came through with flying colors, as did every other missionary in Taegu, and the thing was an absolute success. The party opened with a dance number to the theme music from 'Bewitched', at the end of which Elder Hansen shot Elder Murray stone dead (he had to be dragged offstage). Then there were party games all over, including sack races (garbage bags we found in the chapel), bobbing for apples (all given to us by members as Chuseok leftovers), a pinata (four balloons, tape, last week's newspaper from our door guard, a bag of flour also found in the chapel, and a candy run to Costco (plus some, but not all, of my Reese's from home)), balloon-stomping competitions (leftovers from the pinata-making) and eating donuts off strings (these had to be purchased fair and square--darn it). I face-painted all evening, doing lots of pumpkins with the orange paint on the inside of the jar lid (a pinata and four other decorative papier-mache pumpkins go through a lot of orange and homemade red/yellow sort-of-orangey pink). The second floor of the chapel was the haunted house. The Zone leaders brought dry ice from Baskin Robbins, and we had a lot of curtains and stuff from a bag of scrap fabric a less-active sister was about to throw out when we visited, and the Elders just had a grand old time jumping out of closets and such. It was great. And lots of people came, members, non-members, less-active members, friends of members, people we'd met on the street two days before . . . AND many of the above came to church the next day.

Yep. Hyeon Ji, the girl we taught the first lesson last week, came to the party AND to church AND we taught her the second lesson. Yaaaay! And our hasn't-been-seen-in-yonks recent convert Hyeh Ji brought her friend Ju Hyeah to church again, and we're going to meet them later on this week. (Hyeh Ji hasn't been coming to church because she doesn't have any friends her age here. I can see this situation working out very well.) And Jin Mok Hwan, our hairdresser friend, has been at church every week for a month. Her fantastic daughter is over-the-moon happy.

One notable absence at church was little Hyeoh Un, who was forbidden to attend by her father because she hadn't done all of her homework on Saturday--she'd gone to a friend's house instead. We called Sunday night to check on her, and she was in a sulk about it. She REALLY wants to go to church. Her conversation with Sis. Pak went something like this:

"So you couldn't come to church today?"

*sigh* "Yeah."

"Awww, that's too bad! But it's important to do your homework, too."

*sigh* "Yeah."

"Can we still come over this week and teach you?"

*no sigh* "YES!"

"Okay. See you on Saturday!"

"Okay! I love you!"

"Love you too!"

I love this kid.

Sunday was Operation: Save Yeongchon Branch*. Yeongchon is a tiny town of no importance a good ways out of Taegu, and as people have been migrating away from it into bigger cities like Taegu and Pusan the branch has shrunk . . . and shrunk . . . and now there are about seven people regularly attending. (The elders are very smug about knowing the names of Every Single Active Member of their unit.) It's in danger of collapse and closure. So we got the whole zone together (some twenty elders, plus we four sisters), fasted and prayed, and went to Yeongchon. One team went and visited less-actives with the branch president, another team knocked doors, and two other teams (self included) did streetboarding all afternoon with the stake presidency. I was with Sis. Ahn Ta Yeon, the new greenie (who is awesome, by the way). And all afternoon we just talked to people. I'm generally scared to death of street prostelyting, and hate doing it, but Sunday it was different. We had a real, concrete goal in mind: find people who are ready to hear about the gospel, and bring them to Yeongchon branch, so that the Church doesn't vanish from this city. We worked hard and gave the Yeongchon elders a lot of contacts to follow up on. All that prayer, fasting, and work can do will be done. And the stake presidency worked with us--got to see that we are working, and working hard, despite the low stats that come from kicking the 30/30 program.

And . . . not much else, really. I've discovered a refreshing beverage made from mixing water, blueberry vineagar, and rice syrup (when apple juice is unobtainable, you start improvising). Sis. I Mi Suk has shaved her head, cutting her hair off herself rather than letting the chemo take it (you go, girl) and she lent me one of her bandannas for my pirate costume for the halloween party. Oh, and the other big news . . . she's lost a lot of weight, what with having cancer and all, and had these bags of clothes that were too big for her. Had. Because she made me take them all. T-shirts from the Japan/Korea world cup, sparkly sweatshirts reading 'Killswitch Engage', a capsleeve that says 'Naughty and Wild Kittens' in HUGE letters (funniest thing in the entire universe to give to a sister missionary--I love it) and . . . a hanbok. No, really. A beautiful yellow hanbok**. I tried like twelve times to refuse it . . . you don't just give people HANBOKS, for crying out loud . . . but she pulled the I'm-older-than-you-and-therefore-the-boss-so-do-what-you're-told card, and the hanbok is now mine. I'm still speechless at the thought.

And now I've officially written a lot. I love you, be good, stay out of trouble, hope you're not dead or dying, thank you for the box, a reciprocal one will be in the mail soon.

RoseE"

*a branch is smaller than a ward, approximately 60 members or less.

**hanbok: traditional South Korean dress. Check the link for hanboks and other fantastical Korean wearing apparel.

To Bit 10/19/09

2009-11-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bit,

Hi! How's high school treating you? How did you and Dancer do in the barrel racing competition?

I still don't get to ride horses for exercise. :( But I was looking around my tiny apartment, and in a cupboard that was stuck shut (I almost had to pry it open with a chopstick) I found a book about yoga. So now I can do yoga in the mornings, too. It's hard, but fun. But it's getting cold here in Taegu, so the corridor outside my apartment gets dang chilly. You have to do yoga in bare fee, otherwise you slide around and can hurt yourself. Cold feet! I might try to do it inside, but my apartment is so tiny I don't know where I'll find space. Hmmm.

I heard you are taking a class at SLCC*. How's that? I remember Cat did a lot of those when she was in high school. Do you have to take the bus down south to campus every day? Or is it just on Saturdays, or what? What are you learning?

Taegu has an Opera Festival every year, and it's going on right now. One of the elders here, Elder Hansen, was studying to be an opera singer before he came on his mission, so the Stake Young Women are having an activity to learn about opera from him. Then afterwards we're doing a Halloween party. There isn't Halloween in Korea, so the missionaries have to do it themselves. I'm going to be a pirate. Even as a missionary, I refuse to miss dressing up for Halloween.

I love you and miss you! Sugohaseyo! (This means "please work very hard")

RoseE"

*SLCC: local community college, about 3 miles south of the high school.

to Bug, 10/19/09

2009-11-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bug,

Is it showing yet at home? It's windy and sunny here. I'm at a lake outside a city called Gumi--we and some elders made a special trip out here to spend the day with the branch president and his family. We went up to the oldest temple in Korea to eat PB&Js and see all the leaves changing color. There was also a big bell, the kind you hit from the outside instead of swinging it. Sister Pak wasn't supposed to ring it, but she did anyway, very softly, and it made a big, soft, deep GONG sound that made my bones feel all tickley and itchy. Then we drove down through the rice fields, which are bright, bright yellow because the rice is almost ready to harvest, to this lake, where the elders are fishing. Or trying to. They're not catching anything as far as I can see. It's really windy down here, so we sisters, the branch president's wife, and the kids are hanging out in the car.

This is the last week of the transfer--on Friday night we'll get The Calls telling us who has to move. I think my roommate Sister Ii Yeong Bin will be leaving, because she's been in Taegu a long time. We'll see.

I love you! Don't grow up too fast.

RoseE"

Pictures!

2009-10-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

I'm glad to hear that Bug is still alive and cancer-free. This news is joyous to my soul.

(actually the expression on our faces when we found the camera)

If I know Dad, he's getting Bug a wheelchair at Disneyworld so that he can have an extra line shortcut. Maybe one for himself, too, if the coughing gets much worse. Awww, I miss random for-the-heck-of-it Dad trips. We tried to do a random for-the-heck-of-it trip to Pusan today, to hit Nampodong market, but the Zone Leaders said no soap so we proved them wrong by CLEANING OUR APARTMENT but HARDCORE. I've been scrubbing at the kitchen whenever I get a chance (we have a fruit fly issue), but even now, after all that and two hours of intense black-sludge-getting-rinsed-out-of-my-washrag labor, it still needs so much work. The bathroom looks much better, though, thanks to Sis. Pak. Even the broken sink faucet is shiny and sparkly. And I found muffin tins in the gook under the sink, so I can make muffin-shaped muffins now.

All this cleaning was mostly because of the transfer calls. The verdict is in: Sis. Pak and I are staying, so I'm in Taegu at least until the first week of December. Sister Ii Yeong Bin is out, and Sister Pak Se Ra is training the new Korean sister. And we thought it would be a bit traumatic to come in after training day to our tiny grubby apartment in the state it's in. So it's in a better state now. And it's full of food; Sis. Pak got a box this week, not from her family, but from a soon-to-be-baptized investigator from back in Sujeong ward. An enormous box, full of ramen, snacks, and new shoes. Yeah. Everyone thinks that this is a decidedly flirty move, and he is single as far as we know, so perhaps it's a good thing that Sis Pak's staying up here and not getting transfered back down to Pusan . . .

Last night we got to teach the first lesson to Sister Gu Yeong Eh's niece, which was lovely. I like teaching a lot better than prostelyting: I feel energized and positive when teaching, whereas I feel like I want to throw up when prostelyting. Yeah, still scared to death of that. Sigh.

Other news . . . I'm having to remember everything cold-turkey, because I left my 'news' list at home . . . um . . . Well, we're teaching Hyeoh Un lesson 4 now, Commandments, and getting her ready to be baptized probably some time in the coming transfer. Between her, and Hyeon Ji (the above-mentioned niece), and the truckload of referals we got from Church Headquarters (we think they're from Temple Square at conference time, 'cuz a bunch of us got a LOT), we've got a lot of work to do. Which is good. I don't like having no work to do; my mind wanders and I get sulky.

Halloweeen's on Saturday, and Sis. Pak and I are putting the Halloween party together. Mad schemes are underway for 'bobbed apples' and a 'sacrace race' (I couldn't correct these because they were just too adorable) and a haunted house on the second floor of the chapel. As we were planning it, we got ourselves pretty well creeped out, so we figure it's gonna be hard to go wrong. Halloween decorations are thin on the ground over here, but we found a bunch of plastic cardboard-y stuff that the remodeling place 'round the corner doesn't want, and I'm brushing up my kleenex-ghost-making skills. More updates to follow.

Um, what else . . . oh, there was a Fireside on Friday night that the Missionaries had nothing to do with as far as planning or implimentation goes, which is quite novel. We did perform "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go"* and "Called To Serve,"** and Elder Son Oo Shik played "Come, Come, Ye Saints"*** on his okaraina (traditional Korean flute, kind of like the little ceramic turtle-flutes you sometimes see . . . it's got a lovely sound). A girl in another ward who's leaving for the MTC today (serving in Anaheim) was nearly made to perform with us at the last minute, but mercy prevailed, and she was only made to bear her testimony. A good collection of investigators came from all over Taegu, and there was strusel bread from Paris Baguette afterward, so everybody wins.

Um . . . and . . . well, the straps broke on my black shoes this week, so (after several futile repair attempts) I cut'em off and now have a brand new-looking-sort-of pair of shoes. It's variety. They're really standing up to ten months of abuse astonishingly well.

Um, I really think that's most of the news for this week. So I'll quit typing here and go work on picture sending/backup.

. . .

I love you! Which is why I'm teaching you ㅗ, which is O, like the name of the letter. So now you can say 모모, which is Korean for 'bla bla bla' and also conveniently the name of a flying lemur who chatters but cannot talk.

Kiore on the Train to Gumi

Making kimchi at Jin Jang Hi's house

View from the mountain we climbed

RoseE"

* "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go" LDS Hymns #270

** "Called To Serve" LDS Hymns # 249

*** "Come, Come Ye Saints" LDS Hymns #30

Second Box from Korea

2009-10-19T16:39:00.001-07:00

We received the box RoseE mentioned in her email earlier today. Here, finally, are the pictures of the contents of the box. Sorry for the blurriness. This camera doesn't do close-ups well.

1) Little red baby booties. Sister Anderson, who serves in the office, is learning to knit and made them for all the younger sisters' trousseaus*. I don't think I have a trousseau.

2) Some "thank-you" New Zealand chocolate from Sister Matthews.

3) Some more Fanta shakers, as per Bug's request.

4) Chalduck Pies. This is the much-talked-of "duck," filled with red bean (I lied: it's more like chocolate) and dipped in chocolate.

5) Pineapple cookies. Joyous to my soul. Not for Dad.**

6) DVDs! Korea is the Tortuga of DVDs. These are MINE and they are PRECIOUS, so if you want to watch them, TAKE GOOD CARE OF THEM OR I WILL KILL YOU!

7) A book, which was a present from Brother Cho Jung Gol when I transferred. (He just got called to the Elder's Quorum Presidency. Yaay!) I can't read it right now, so it's going home.

I'll add the pictures later. Stay tuned.

Blogmom.

*I think she means a hope chest. A trousseau is for your honeymoon, containing a traveling suit, a negligee, a swimsuit, etc; a hope chest is for when you get home and set up house. It has things like tablecloths, napkins, quilts, sheets, beeswax candles, silver spoons, and baby layettes and booties. Stuff like that.

**Dad is allergic to pineapple.

to Todd, dated 10/12/09

2009-10-19T16:31:00.001-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Dad,

Behold the first page of the "military" section of the stationary pad. I'm going to be in it for a while. Inasmuch as 2 years' military service is required of all Korean men, there's a big "writing-to-your-army-boyfriend" niche. (Sister Jung Min Hee's military boyfriend just Dear Jane'd her . . . or possibly she Dear Johned him; I didn't pry . . . but in honor of the occasion she cut her hair short. It was an admirable gesture of strength and defiance, and she looks great, so we all have high hopes she'll get through this okay.)

I like your mission goals*. I haven't baptized anybody, and probably won't, but we did teach and see baptized Bro Cho Sung Gol, which I think fulfills the requirement. (I've heard both that he's been called as Elder's Quorum 2nd Counselor and that he's gone inactive, both from uncertain sources . . . either way, I'm in Taegu and he's in Pusan, so if he needs help some other missionaries will have to give it.) Senior I think I'll have to be someday, because all those sisters older than me are dying in December, and when that happens, the language will come because it has to. Lofty goals are all well and good, but there's something to be said for just getting the blessings you truly need, and not the ones that "will make people say "Wow--what a great missionary!" when you get home. I don't think I want to be great. Even being good is quite enough to be shooting for right now. We'll see.

I love you.

RoseE"

*Todd's mission goals: 1) perform a baptism; 2) become senior companion; 3) learn the language

The Lord Watches Over Missionaries

2009-10-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

STOP THE PRESSES! The camera's back. Yeah. Like, fifth degree miracle (if 1 is a little miracle, on the miracle scale that I made up just right now). It's back, it's fine, it was rescued by the little old man who runs the watch store and Sis Pak (much more in tune with the Spirit than myself) was directed right to him to ask about the camera. On my exact nine-months-out anniversary. MIRACLE in big letters. I'd tell you all about it but I have SEVEN MINUTES to write this e-mail because Gosh Dang Elder Ii Son Gi dragged us all out to Gumi today, which was fun, but not at the expense of my e-mail time. Rrrrgh.

So top of the list: I got a letter bounced back this week sent to a one Madame Felicia Marshall, my punk ex-roommate who seems to have moved. If word should by any chance come to you, through, say, a former roommate who is reading the blog, of where Felicia lives now so I can send her her dang letter, please pass it along.

It up'n got cold! I've gotten out my old cordoroy jacket, and am thinking about running the green coat to the dry cleaners--it's been suitcased for a long time.

Hyeoh Un is working towards getting baptized. Her mom is utterly okay with this, which is very weird to me, because, as we all know, Mormons are a devilcult. But hey, whatever works. Her little brother Dong Oo sat in on our lesson this week, and listened to the whole thing, which is a remarkable feat for a six-year-old to accomplish of his own free will.

We found a less-active member this week who got baptized some twenty years ago and has since become a teacher in another church, and who Bible-bashed us freely for some two solid hours. Sister Pak was a saint through the whole ordeal. It is hard . . . it is SO hard not to fight about doctrine with someone who is trying to provoke you into it. I mean, it's easy for me, 'cuz I can't say much of anything, but hard for Sister Pak, who was made to feel like crap because she doesn't know the Book of Revelation backwards and forwards. But she stayed calm, kept the Spirit, and held to her testimony of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. That's all we can do. We were both emotionally drained by the time we got out of there, but somehow felt like really good missionaries . . . rejoicing that we were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name, I guess. And rejoicing that the roommates had ice cream and sympathy when we got home.

Okay, Sis. Pak says I've got fifteen minutes more than I thought I had, so that's good. No pictures this week 'cuz I'm e-mailing at the train station where the USB jacks don't work. But I will (VERY SOON) be BACKING UP MY MIRACULOUSLY RETURNED PHOTOS and hopefully sending a copy home for safekeeping. So let me fill in the camera story here.

We were walking past the fateful bus stop where I set the camera down in a moment of abstraction and never saw it again, and the bench where we'd been sitting was being mopped by a little old man. And Sis Pak stopped dead and told me, "You should ask him about your camera." So I did. And then Sis Pak translated what I said, because old people can't understand my Korean. And this little old man grumbled a bit, set down his mop, hobbled across the sidewalk to the watch repair shop where we put money on our bus cards, opened a back cupboard, and . . . there it was. Not a scratch. And he just handed it to me and that was that. Well, that wasn't that . . . there was a lot of gasping and bowing and thanks and screaming and crying and prayer on my part. But the camera and all the pictures are safe. So if Grama wants that $50 back (much thanks to her, by the way) she would be quite justified. I'm refunding Elder Overmeyier the 'sympathy cookie' he gave me. I'd refund y'all sympathy cookies, but . . .

By the bye, I slow-boated a box home about two months ago, so it should be getting in any day. Tell me when it gets through, if you would, please.

I am praying for Great-Grama.*

We do get the Ensign; we'll be okay on that.**

Good luck on Bug's surgery***; please remember that those recovering from surgical procedures are entitled to get their way about everything all the time.

I love you all! I'm gonna go look at pictures now. Oh, and please tell Cat Wilson I've been downright evil about not writing her back, but I'll remedy that next week, 'pon my soul. Oh, and next week's transfer days, so the die will once again be cast.

Today you get to learn the consonant ㅣ, which says E (like the name of the letter). So you can say 미, which is the second syllable of my Korean name.

Love you!

RoseE"

*Rose Olsen, aged 95 3/4, still kickin' and crackin' jokes with the best of them in Montana, but starting to fail.

**General Conference reports, printed in the November Ensign.

**Small Brother has a tumor on the top of his left femur. It is being surgically removed on 10/22.

Loss of a Camera, Conference Notes

2009-10-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mom & Dad,

Glad to know that everyone's still alive out there. It was a bit of a freaked-out week last week.
. . .

Well, news of the week. Bad news first. I'd give you all the excruciating details of how this happened, but that would just make me feel awful again, so suffice to say that I lost track of my camera at a critical moment and the odds are now EXTREMELY small that I'm ever going to see it again. When I realized this, I just about fainted. Really. I got all shaky and couldn't talk for about fifteen minutes. My camera. With all of my pictures. The last nine months of my life.
Salvage operations are underway. The backup disk I sent home is safe in your keeping (right?), and the photos I e-mailed home are okay, and I have prints of a few others here with me. I also got a flash drive and am passing it around to the missionaries I've served with, to get copies of THEIR pictures of people and events that we both photographed. So it's not the end of the world--it just really, really felt like it for a while. I used that thing every day. It was how I memorized names and faces, how I navigated, how I copied down things I didn't have time to write by hand (Yeah . . . the granola and muffin recipes are gone, too), and contained my collection of Strange Korean Business and Product Names. And that picture of Elder Robb when he fell asleep on the bus that one time. It's been a very Book-of-Mormon week, when you realize just how precious your records are and how diligent you should be in keeping them. I haven't been as diligent as I should, and now it's coming back to bite me.

I also have to get a new camera. I don't really want to, because a. I loved that camera like my own child and b. I'm not exaaaactly sure about my personal financial situation right now, much less what it's going to be when I get back. My big talk about iPods aside, I'd been hoping not to touch my personal money for a good, long while. But I do need a camera, so I guess I'll just have to (as Cara says) burn that bridge when I come to it, be as economical as I can, and hope things work out.

In better news, this week was General Conference! Which was great except that I'M THE ONLY SISTER MISSIONARY IN TAEGU WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH. Which meant that on Saturday, when none of the American branch showed up for Conference, I had to stay with my companion. Morning session we watched together in English, upstairs with the elders, and afternoon session we watched downstairs, in Korean, with the Stake. Being in a dark room listening to a language you don't speak being spoken by someone who isn't going to require a response from you is not a surefire formula for staying awake. So I started taking notes. To give you some perspective on my life right now, here are my notes on President Packer's* talk--every word I understood, written as fast as I could scribble.

My father dispensation restoration of the gospel. We are children of God. We wear bodies of flesh. Agency. Through the Atonement, we can be clean. Through baptism members of the church receive the Holy Ghost. Physical eyes spiritual eyes. Prez Uchtdorf conference experience Indiana Holy Ghost guidance these words 30 min tree big tree Holy Ghost calling received. Airplane please bless start California through prayer learn time prophet Gift of the Gholy Ghost men and women and children angel not just men little children Christ teaches and guides (scripture reference: my thoughts higher than your thoughts) Please pray Please be clean the Seventy serve his mother China? But one hour during method started last me my mother 30 meters American mission what work? Prayed. Next letter What work time parents were praying experience (scripture reference) feel 4 times older brother pray to mom because of prayer dad how this way (something funny) like Amulek in heart pray They will please don't sent to this world face (scripture reference) We sin Thomas S. Monson LDS Church special testimony received calling through revelation all spirits through revelation authority they through Lord Amen.**

Yeeeah. And that was someone speaking slowly, on a topic I was familiar with. That's basically what Korean sounds like to me right now: lots of words, but no actual meaning.

But Sunday was better. The Americans showed up, and so did Sisters Hill and Corrigan from Masan, so I got to watch the whole thing in English and enjoy the bliss that is the American Branch Between-Session Potluck Lunch and try to get four-year-old Gabe to eat something besides Pretzels. It was fun just spending time with the American branch, getting to know them as Me and not as Sister Matthews' companion, and also not as 'I'd-love-to-chat-but-I'm-technically-serving-in-the-Korean-Ward-So-I-Sould-Really-Go -socialize-with-them." And yikes! Was not Elder Holland's*** talk something else? Elder Holland's on the (very short) list of people I absolutely adore, deeply respect, and am scared to death of.

Also this week we taught Hyeoh Un again. This girl is great. She's retaining a lot of what we teach her (much more than I would have at any age, and she's only ten), and when we asked her if she'd been praying like we taught her, she responded, "Yes--I've been praying for my dad to stop drinking and smoking." We haven't taught her about the Word of Wisdom yet. We're now praying for her dad, too. And we just had a great time at her house, playing with her and her little brother, and singing for their mom, who was laughing her head off at her wonderful crazy kids. She looked like she needed the relief of it. We were able to bring the Spirit into their home, and only good can come of that, for their whole family. We are filled with love and hope concerning them.

Sunday afternoon, after Conference, Sis Pak and I ran into a festival going on along our river. We walked through it, wishing like crazy that it would keep going 'till Monday (but it didn't) and getting an eyeful of all the fun stuff. There was a kabuki puppetry group retelling a Korean folktale (Sis Pak filled me in on the plot) and a woman walking around in a kimono (why, I dunno . . . VERY Japanese/VERY not Korean, and also probably so much less comfortable than a hanbok#) (but it looked cool) and a bunch of cool colorful sculptures in the river and a stage where local dance groups were performing. There were a bunch of traditional Korean drums offstage, but we didn't get to hear them because we had to go to a dinner appointment. Rats. But it was great to see all of the color and energy, all the families out to have fun and spend time together. If I weren't a Saintly Sister Missionary Who Is Always Focused on the Work, I would have even been a bit homesick, for such activities on weekend afternoons with my own family. Ahem.

The members keep giving us fruit. We're drowning in it. Oh, and I made myself a treat this week; last transfer I got a box of Hamburger Helper from one of the weigukin families, and I whipped that up. Without hamburger, of course--with bulgogi. But it was still pretty tasty and I've got lots of leftovers.

On the scripture front, I passed a big hurdle: I finished the book of Alma in Korean. HA! Just in time, too, because at Zone Conference Prez gave us all a new reading challenge--to get through the Book of Mormon in our native language before Christmas, marking specific things like Names of Christ, 'Thus-saith-the-Lord' direct quotes, references to the attributes of Christ, and (my favorite) things that might be construed as a parallel of life in our mission. (Laban fallen to the ground drunken## . . . you see a lot of those around here). I'm having a blast with this, and Sis. Pak and I have a lot of fun discussing it in companion study###. And when I'm done with that for the week, it's back to slogging through Helaman, one unknown word at a time. I made it through Alma, though . . . I'm gonna finish. I'm gonna do it.

So I think that's the news of the week. I'm healthy (although I stepped on a roofing nail@ this morning--through divine providence, I was wearing my wedges so it only damaged the shoe, not the foot) and well content, pretty much, well-fed and I'm now going to go used clothes/camera shopping for the rest of my P-Day. I love you! Dad, you've got a letter coming; couldn't write any last week.

RoseE"

*President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

**General Conference talks will be available in a week or two online, and I'll pass you the link when they are. It'll be pretty interesting (and probably amusing) to compare RoseE's notes to the actual talk.

*** Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

# hanbok: traditional South Korean dress

## Our Hero, Nephi, and his brothers Laman, Lemuel and Sam, are fleeing Jerusalem with their family about 600 B.C. They are commanded by the Lord to return to the city to obtain the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of their forefathers, engraven upon plates of brass, at that time in the keeping of one Laban, a somewhat imposing Jewish Elder. The brothers collectively ask Laban for the plates several times, even offering to pay in gold. Laban takes the gold but understandably refuses to give them the brass plates. Nephi finally goes into a darkened Jerusalem alone and finds Laban passed out drunk. After having a little argument with the Lord about the 6th commandment wherein the Lord wins, Nephi takes Laban's own sword out of it's scabbard, chops off Laban's head, puts on Laban's clothes and by deception obtains the brass plates which his family uses to keep themselves on the straight and narrow--sort of--for centuries after. See 1 Nephi 3 and 4.

### Companion Study: every morning she and her companion study the scriptures together for an hour.

@RoseE has a history of stepping on (rusty) nails. The first incident was in a Chicago hotel. The nail went into her foot and she had to be rescued by her baby sister, then aged 2. The second time was at a northern Minnesota language camp. The nail again went into her foot, and she had to be taken by van into the nearest town to have it removed and get a tetnus shot.

letter to Todd, early October

2009-10-14T03:18:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Dad,

Will I still be able to give blood when I get home? I know you know. And why do you so thoroughly dislike Oklahoma? We've never lived in any of its border states, so it can't be a border rivalry. But next P-day we're going up to Palgong Mountain with the Tollets from Tulsa, so even if they do know the outcome of the game and I can't win a bet, I can still offhandedly mention that my school beat theirs.

Who puts together the Sacrament Meeting programs*--Brother Landon? It seems like that one** was particularly chosen just to drive you nuts and make you look everybody up. Sacrament programs are not done in Korea, which is inconvenient, because it would be nice to be able to learn names while listening to people give their talks. Oh, well. If the Korean Church has to drop some institutions and practices, it's probably best they ditch the Sacrament program and not something like Primary.*** There are things that matter and things that don't. Sacrament Meeting programs, like Sunday School attendance records, are Don'ts.

Do you know, or can you find, a dish called yang nyeon chicken? (I think that's the romanization.) It's a fried-chicken thing in a lovely sweet, sticky, a little bit spicey, dark red sauce with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. If you're still exploring Korean cooking, this'd be a good one to hunt down. I'd give a lot to know how to make that sauce. If you'd tried it, you would, too.

Love you!

RoseE"

*Sacrament Meeting programs: a printed sheet of paper, folded in half, that outlines the speakers, etc, for Sacrament Meeting on Sunday.

** One Sunday the picture on the front of the Sacrament Meeting program was an old photograph from 1856 or so showing a collecting of Church officials. No names were included. More people that just Todd spent hours looking up the identities of the collection of bearded men.

*** Primary: the Sunday School organization for children ages 3-12.

2009-10-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Dad,

. . . I went to a baptism . . . of a girl Sister Pak Sung Hee and Sister Hawkins had been teaching. The whole ward was there to support her, and Prez. and Sis. Jennings came--Prez gave one of the talks*. Her mom had been baptized a while before. And I thought, this is how it needs to be. This is the right time, the right way. This is a good day for this wonderful girl. It took months of work and patience and prayer, but it was worth it. A baptism like that is like a temple marriage**.

. . .

I don't want to be ashamed of anything that happens or that I do on my mission. Even the dumb stuff I occasionally do, like jaywalking across the freeway or wading a creek with my skirt hitched up to my knees--yeah, maybe it was dumb, but I'm not ashamed of it. I did none of it selfishly to the harm of others whom I should be protecting. I've heard tell of "baseball baptisms" in Japan and the interminable 30/30 English program*** in Taejean, Seoul, and Seoul West . . . and even in this mission, under the former Mission President, the missionaries were supposed to yell every morning as they left their apartments: "Pusan Sankyobu! Fighting! Let's Do It! One thousand baptisms! Why not?" Pak Ji Yeon still did this, out of habit. (Elder Hansen's personal interpretation of this was "One thousand less-actives! Why not?") President Jennings has ditched the thing entirely in favor of "I love missionary work!" which has the advantage of being quicker off the tongue, at least. So yeah. Busan Sankyobu. Fighting. Let's do it. Our stats are crap but our baptisms are solid. (Sister Kim Yoan Ha, who's serving in Yeonsan now, told me a while back that Bro. Cho Jing Gol had been called as Second Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency#. It's a dang small ward, to give that calling to a convert of 1 month, but the news was pleasing to me. That's the kind of responsibility you've got to stick with, and that makes you get to know the ward but fast.)

We're still working on cleaning up the swarm of once-baptized-and-never-heard-from-agains. Thankfully, the wards just got computers a few months ago that let them update their own CMIS## records, instead of having to send things to Seoul (which never got done, and if it did often got lost in the paperwork shuffle up there). The missionaries are being called on to do a lot of the legwork on this, which is tiresome, but I'm glad to be able to help with it. Forgotten less-active members are like unresolved sins on the conscience of a ward. Missionaries don't want to bring new converts into wards where so many investigators before have just been forgotten. It's beyond my knowledge whose fault any of the paperwork mess really ends up being, but I'm glad it's getting better and not worse--that we're finding those people we can find and re-defining how wards work in Korea. Or at least in Pusan mission.

Bye the bye, I didn't tell you at the time, but I think I found the river you meant when you said the North Koreans got held up in Taegu. Because there's a big, actual river river outside town that I didn't know about until a couple weeks ago. The kind that would actually give a sensible general pause.

Autumn's coming here. I can smell it. The air feels a little different, somehow. I think my only summer in Korea may be over. Gosh, this goes fast. Except the part in the MTC. That stretch was so long, I think I'm still enduring it.

Love ya,

RoseE"

*at an LDS baptism, 2 talks are given by members of the baptizee's choice: one on baptism and one on the gift of the Holy Ghost. These talks are supposed to give guidance and counsel to the new member, and being as they are given by somebody who knows the baptizee, have the added advantage of being able to be tailored personally to him/her.

**Instead of being married "til death do us part", in an LDS temple couples are sealed together for time and all eternity. Temple Marriage

***30/30 English program: for Koreans wishing to learn English, the missionaries would teach them 30 minutes of English if they would listen to 30 minutes of gospel instruction.

#RoseE participated in Brother Cho's baptism last month. There are 2 counselors assigned to the Elder's Quorum president; the Elder's Quorum being "the group of men in the ward ages 18 to about 40. The muscle of the ward. If you have to move or have a roof redone, they are who you call." (from Todd) Second Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency is a calling with a lot of responsibility.

##CMIS I think this is the computer system that the wards use for records.

Korean Holiday

2009-10-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum & Dad,

Looks like there's some kind of scramble going on over there, because I don't see an e-mail from all y'all. Maybe it was just a really boring week. Or maybe (as is more likely) my gosh darn e-mail account is bouncing things, despite being all but empty (it refuses to admit that I've got space in here. It's possessed or something).

Anyway, we're doing all right over here. The big news of the week was Sisters' Conference, which happened over Chuseok since we can't really get any missionary work done when Chuseok is going on. (It was eerie. Really. There were moments when I could hear No Cars At All.) Anyway, Thursday afternoon we hopped on the train and went down to Pusan, where we got to go into the mission president's house for the first time since I got here. It was great to see absolutely everybody--Sister Matthews, Sister Montgomery, Sisters Beckstead and Ogelvie, Sister Linford and Sister Jung Min Hee from the MTC, Sister Musser, the legendary Sister "Ace" Acey . . . well, everybody, in fact. There were talks, of course . . . fairly inevitable . . . but there was also Costco pizza (lots of it) and a game of Jeopardy (funniest sight ever: a dozen Korean sister missionaries frantically trying to figure out the meaning of the expression 'trick or treat') and a watching of Errand of Angels, complete with Korean subtitles. This movie is a whole different experience while on a mission. Things that are absolutely true around here: the empty apartment staircases, the awkward appointments, the impossibly endless amounts of just FOOD . . . Things that don't happen in our mission: beds on frames, off the ground (what the heck are they sleeping on?), and silent and solitary two-man apartments. There are some two-man sister houses, but I've only lived in such an arrangement one transfer out of five.

Speaking of sleeping arrangements, we all slept in Prez's living room on a bunch of yos*. Sister Jennings made it clear that she would eat our souls if we stayed up talking past 10:30, so we all faithfully found a spot to lie down on . . . but not a soul of us could sleep until well past midnight. We just lay there, in eerie silence, occasionally sitting up to exchange "You can't sleep, either?" looks with others doing the same. I toss and turn when I can't get to sleep, and since I didn't want to kick Sis. Kim Yoon Ha I tossed and turned the other direction, off the yo and eventually in between the potted plants and the wall, where I finally dozed off for a few hours.

(side note: Sis. Matt's package** came while we were all at the house. I took a video of her opening it, but since the video-sending plan doesn't seem to be working, here's the transcript:

(Scene: The living room of Prez's house. The floor is covered in yos. In the background, Sis. Linford and Sis. Ogelvie, in pajamas, are folding up their prostelyting clothes. In the foreground is Sis. Matthews, wearing an "MTC: Enter to Learn/Go Forth to Serve" t-shirt and a turquoise necklace, with a toothbrush in her mouth and a small cardboard box in her hand.)

Me: Well, it looks like you've got a toothbrush in your mouth. So let's open your box and see what's in it.
Sis. M: holds up her box and looks into the camera) First I wanna say thank you, to the Academy, for, um, this opportunity . . . (starts on the tape)
Me: You know, most people brush their teeth BEFORE coming to the Academy Awards.
Sis.M: Yeah, well, I'm from New Zealand. We do it backwards. (Is discovering that the tape won't come off) Augh!
Me: (veers camera over to Sis Kim Yoon Ha, who is chilling out, sprawled on her back on a yo) This is Sister Kim Yoon Ha. She's on the floor. (Veers back to Sis. M.)
Sis M.: (grabs a pen off the side table) Currently, I have no knife, so also in New Zealand, we use our MacGyver skills . . . (goes after the tape with the pen)
Me: Was MacGyver from New Zealand?
Sis M.: Yep.
Me: Okay.
Sis. M.: He's Maori.
Me: Maori from New Zealand. MaoriGyver.
Sis. M.: MaoriGyver. He's my cousin's uncle's sister's brother's friend.
Me: As is everyone in New Zealand.
Sis M: Yep. You know us too well. (is still having trouble with the tape) Ah, cham. Ah, freak!
Me: Yeah, this is what we call "Murphy Packaging."
Sis. M: Who did this?
Me: Cuz you see, in Ireland, there's this family called the Murphys, and they always use way too much tape on EV-ERY-THING.
Sis M: Is it my family's auntie's siser's cousin's Murphy? There's some Murphys in New Zealand. Except they're Maoris. See, everyone's Mauri. Oh, man! (Abandons the pen and goes back to pulling at the tape) What do I need a ball pen for?
Me: (incomprehensible)
Sis. M: (ditto)
Me: Get it open!
Sis M.: Augh! (Rips off a big strip of tape. The box pops open. Sis Matt squeals and grabs the mouse out.) AAAAAHHH! My Kiore! Is it identical?

Me: (laughing) No, it's different.
Sis M: (screams and tosses it at Sis. Kim Yoon Ha, who shrieks and rolls out of the way, then picks it up and puts it on her shoulder) Waaaaa! I love Kiore! (bows to the camera) Kamsahamnida! (scares Sis Kim Yoon Ha with it again)
Me: And there we end.

So that's how that went down. It was very funny.)

Anyway, in the morning (like 6 a.m.) those as wanted to went to Hoshimchang, the awesome bathhouse. I was 'as wanted,' of course. It was raining, which was pretty cool. The outdoor baths are fun in the rain. Sis. Ogelvie had never been, and came with and had a lot of fun.

Then we got home to fantastic Sis. Jennings breakfast (I cannot tell you how joyful breakfast food is) and, as it was raining, decided to have all our meetings in the morning and play in the afternoon, instead of staggering them as originally planned. So we did Christlike attribute activities (more fun than they sound) until lunchtime, when we packed up bag lunches and went to Haeundae beach for a few hours. We were all wearing matching pink-and-white Sisters Conference t-shirts, so we looked like an elementary school group. But oh, well. We played in the sand and the water and ate good food and took pictures and listened to Pres. Jennings talk about anything (he's like the random information generator. It's like watching Discovery Channel) and generally had a good time. Then we went back to the house, had a testimony meeting, ordered chinese food (NOT like chinese food in America) and watched Horton Hears a Who. Which is all about missionary work. No, really. It's freaky.

By then, it was too late to get back to Taegu, so we four Taegu sisters stayed in the Gupo house with the four (Korean) sisters living there . . . yep, just me and seven Koreans. 9_9. And then we went home.

The Elders, meanwhile, had a full P-Day. Which should have been lot of fun, but wasn't because none of them could decide what to do with it, so they cleaned their apartments and ate at MacDonald's. HA.

So today is not actually P-Day. It's just e-mail and go day. We were going to go up to Palgongsan with the Tollets, but Sis. Tollet is sick so we're just going to sneak up to their apartment and decorate their door to wish Bro. Tollet a happy birthday, and drop off some yooja tea for Sis. Tollet.

We had Chuseok dinner with the Relief Society president and her husband, and also Sis. Li Mi Suk (who is out of the hospital!) and her son. There isn't actually a special 'Chuseok dinner' . . . the only specified food for the season is little balls of duck (the rice stuff) filled with this really good stuff that's like honey and sesame seeds and something else. I likes 'em. The members gave us a nice shampoo gift set (that's what's exchanged at Chuseok: gift sets of food and gift sets of bath products. I've seen people with them on the bus all week), so I'm set on the shampoo front for the duration.

Yesterday we had Sunday lunch with Sis Li Mi Suk, too. She made us absurd amounts of spaghetti, which I ate with shredded radish kimchi (I don't understand how we eat spaghetti without shredded radish kimchi. How do we manage that?) and had fun dressing up in the wigs she'd bought for when her hair starts to go from the chemo. If positive attitude=speedy recovery, this woman has it in the bag.

Anyway, that was the week. It sort of got out of rhythm, with the holiday, and not much work got done. But good times were had, and on we go.

I love you! Be good!

RoseE"

* yo: less than a futon but more than a sleeping bag.

**I sent RoseE a tiny knitted mousie stuffed with lavender petals to be in her photos and to remind her that we love her (it's the lavender and the knitting, I guess). Sister Matthews fell in love with it and asked for her own, since she and RoseE are not companions anymore. So I made one for her, too. That's the box that arrived.

To Bug 9/14/09

2009-09-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bug,

Any of this look familiar?* Surprise! You can get more Eiffel Tower stationery in one Korean mungu than you can probably get in all of France put together.

So word is that you've been limping due to some injuries and your right and left legs being different sizes. Freaky! You and Isis can be gimpy twins. (Is Isis still limping?** Haven't heard any news on that in a while.) I'm limping, too, but it's because I wore a hole in the lining of my shoe and it's cutting into my heel. I'll fix it with some tape when I get home tonight.

I am so jealous you get to do archery. I used to hang out at the archery range all day when I was at Girls' Camp. Never got very good, though. And that string snap is a killer, so watch your arm. You're injured enough as it is, goodoness knows.

I love you! Stay out of trouble, but have fun. Kids in Korea don't get to have fun--they're in school from seven in the morning to ten at night, so have lots of fun for their sakes.

RoseE"

* The picture at the top of the stationery is a watercolor of the Eiffel Tower in fall, surrounded by Korean characters. We visited Paris in February.

**Isis tore her ACL some months ago and limped on it for a long time. The vet said she probably would heal herself, and she has.

To Bit 9/14/09

2009-09-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bit,

It sounds like you have some fun classes in school. Mom alwys told me to take Auto Mechanics*, but I never did, because I was afraid of being the only girl in the class. I wish now that I had. I will try to find a class like that in college when I go back.

What is the animal class you talked about? (I don't have your letter here on the train with me, so I'm trying to remember what it said.) And are you still slogging away at Chinese? My district leader, Elder Robb, is what we sometimes call a hanja jengi (person who loves learning honja) and sometimes call a hanja spazz. He has learned more than 200 characters. But now he's moving down to the other side of the city, so I won't be able to talk to him much any more.

I am riding home to Taegu with my new companion, Sister Pak Song Hee, on the KTX (the fast train). I love riding the train. It's so quiet and peaceful, and out the windows I can watch all the beautiful Korean mountains go drifting by. There are so many trees out here. It's absolutely amazing, even to me, and I live in the woods in Minnesota three months out of every year! (Also you can buy little walnut-shaped walnut cakes with red bean paste in them from the snack cart. They're pretty good. Man, I'm hungry now.)

I love you and I miss you! Stay focused.

RoseE"

*I don't remember telling her that, but even now it seems like a good idea. They never let me take auto mechanics or shop when I was in high school.

Chuesok, Persimmons, and It IS a Small World, After All.

2009-09-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

So Isis* is walking again, and Margie is walking again, but Teancum's down for the count**? Can we not get all of us on our feet at the same time? Holy betsy. What did I TELL you guys about getting cancer while I was out here? Did I not specifically forbid it? If I didn't, I'm doing it now.

And he's going to Greek school. To learn such useful things as "If Person A has three goats and Person B has five goats, how soon will they marry?" I'm sure someone else has already made this joke, but if I'd been there, I would have made it first, so ha.

I told Sis. Pak this week about all the fruit trees in our neighborhood. The thought blew her mind. In the older neighborhoods here, the ones swarmed with little old piled-up-like-legos houses, there are still some fruit trees . . . not like you're thinking, though. They're mostly pomegranetes and persimmons (have you ever had a persimmon? I had one this week. It's like eating a tomato filled with half-set orange jello), and the wider streets are lined with ginko trees. These are in fruit at the moment, and smell to high heaven . . . and every day I see someone standing underneath one, either kicking it or throwing something up into the branchest to knock the fruits down. Then they step on them, so the pit in the middle slides out of the smelly fruit stuff, and they pick the pits up and put them in a bag and take them home to dry in the sun, and then they eat them. Sister Pak says they're really good pan-fried. Um . . . . . . . we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

In Sunday School yesterday we had a new family come in . . . from Mongolia. Yep. Two sisters and the younger sister's husband. Their Korean is about as good as mine (so . . . not very), and the older sister speaks a tiny bit of English and plenty of Russian. So Elder Ee Son Gi taught the lesson in Korean . . . but he taught it dang well, clearly and simply, in sentences even I could understand, making liberal use of the chalkboard and his passable artistic skills. And for the few really tricky words I whipped out Liz, whose 11-language feature does not include Mongolian but does include Russian, so with English, Korean, Mongolian and Russian all going at the same time, we got through astonishingly well. We're not sure what we're going to do about Conference, though.

Speaking of, Conference is not this coming weekend but next (it comes to Korea a week late). THIS weekend is Chuesok, one of (as far as I can see) only two holidays actually celebrated in Korea, the other being lunar new year, when everyone gets a year older. Chuesok is basically like Thanksgiving. Everybody's with their families, talking and eating and talking and eating for three days straight. They also go clean up and give food to the graves of their departed family members, which is the only instance in which you can stick chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice. (If you stick your chopsticks in like this at any other time, it's basically a declaration that you wish everyone around you were dead, and is the second-rudest thing you can do at a Korean table, short of not eating all the rice.) So the Elders get Chuseok day itself off entirely. Full P-Day. The sisters get to go to Sisters' Conference and sit in meetings all day. We'll get blessings.

So last night at a big Suseong ward potluck dinner thing I ran into an American named Brother (I think Keith) Jorgensen, who mentioned offhandedly, "I knew a Hadden in grad school . . . Barney***?" Yeah, so he and Barney were in the same ward at UCLA. And I ran into him in Taegu. He's doing fine, if Barney asks. Teaching geography at one of the universities here.

I made myself a treat this week. GRANOLA. Yeah, I finally got the ingredients together to use that recipe. It ended up being a little unorthodox . . . honey got replaced with "sweetening syrup," and included in the mix were corn flakes, banana chips, and chocolate-covered peanuts, as well as a bag of sunflower seeds that I think have been living on my bookshelf for a very, very long time. But it tastes dang good, and I am eating it with yogurt for breakfast every morning, and am happy.

The work's picking up here. Sister Pak seems to be the tipping point for these wards. The pressure's been on for a long time to change the way missionary stuff works around here--the Area Authorities have been pushing from above, the missionaries from below, and President Jennings from the side. And for a long time the only Korean sister serving here was one that was a little hard to get along with. But Sister Pak, of course, is an angel, so people are now coming out of the woodwork to tell her, "My niece really needs to hear the missionary lessons. Here's her address," or "You need to start teaching so-and-so's family. If you want me to come along, I'm free in the afternoons." And just now, walking to the post office to e-mail, a woman (wearing a hygene mask, so she was almost completely incomprehensible) stopped us and told Sister Pak, "I met with your missionaries a long time ago, and I have some more questions. Could I get your phone number?" And as far as Sister Pak is concerned, this sort of behavior is par for the course. She's just like that.

I got a letter from Dad this week containing an essay by Orson Scott Card that has caused me to repent of last week's rant. I'm sorry! It was all about the type of missionary that people trust, and the kind of missionary that people don't. I'm trying harder this week to be the former--to know better how to teach, to talk less about myself and more about the gospel, to just say what's true and leave it at that, and to not go into anything without preparing well and thoroughly. And I'm also cramming vocab like a madwoman again because I HAVE GOT TO LEARN THIS LANGUAGE! I don't know how the missionaries in Center Ward are doing. Have them teach you the First Lesson and see what you think. And if they ever get themselves stuck in a really awkward situation because of the rules (like, they can't accept a ride from you if you're the only sister in the car, so they have to call someone else for a ride or just walk home), then they're probably pretty good.

We didn't get to hear the RS broadcast. Is it printed in the Ensign? Or is that the YW broadcast? Can't remember.

Sister Beckstead is a barrel racer#, I think. I'll ask her for tips at Sisters' Conference.

Um . . . I think that's the news of the week. I didn't jaywalk across freeways or ford rivers . . . just crammed and sulked and repented of the sulking and kept on keepin' on, as we must.

I love you. Don't do anything too dumb or too fun until I get home.

RoseE"

* Isis: our dog

** Teancum was diagnosed with a benign tumor in the top of his left leg, which is what has been making him limp for the last 5 months. Stay tuned for treatment . . .

*** Uncle Barney

# Bethe is going to compete in barrel racing in a hippotherapy rodeo in October.

My Desk

2009-09-20T21:27:00.001-07:00

Can you spot:

A postcard from Beaune
Dad's mission photo
a Quebec flag
Bro Cho's baptism phot
A handkerchief press
Kiore
a maglite
a family photo
our area books
a tiny green bible
a journal given to me by Sara W.
a rubber duck?

RoseE

If you have spotted them all, write RoseE and tell her and you will get a prize.

2009-09-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

HA! Sister Matthews is going to have a fit.* I should tell her companion to take a video of her opening that package.

Um . . . Sister Pak Sung Hee wants a mouse, too. She thinks Kiore is adorable.

It's very funny that you think I could help with a Korean phone call about airplanes. I can't even say 'airport' reliably. It's something like 'heng gong,' but I don't remember what, exactly.
But in honor of the international keyboard on the iPod, here is your first Korean lesson:
ㅎ This is a hiyeut. It sounds like H. Pretty straightforward.
ㅏ This is a vowel that says Ah, like at the dentist. Like a face with its tongue sticking out. (Korean vowels are all sticks, some with sticks sticking off them.)
So to write ha, like ha-ha that's funny, it's just 하.

And if you add one more consonant (ㄴ, neyeon, which sounds like N) it gets stuck to the bottom of the syllable, so you write it 한, not ㅎ ㅏ ㄴ. And 한 means 'great' and is in things like Hanguk (Korea) and Hangul (the Korean Alphabet). It's also my Korean last name, because it's sort of like Hadden. Kind of.

So, this week. Well, Sister Pak is a patient sweetheart and I love her to death, though I do miss Sis. Matthews. But I got to see her this week; we had a sleepover in Pusan so Sis. Pak could attend her convert's baptism. My old house! My old mattress! That apartment is HUGE. I never realized it. It's enormous, especially for just two people. We four in Taegu are living in a third of the space.

And with Sis. Matthews gone I'm discovering that I know absolutely nothing about navigating Taegu. So we've been getting lost a lot. Including two nights ago, when we went walking in the river park to try to talk to some folks. It was really nice; the weather was beautiful, and Suseong bridge was all lit up, and underneath it a guy was playing traditional Korean music on a saxaphone, which was cool. And we crossed the river on this very pretty stepping-stone bridge, to walk back up the other side. Except on the other side there's no way to get onto the street, because the freeway runs right along the edge of the river for a good long way. So we, um, jaywalked. Just across an offramp. We had no choice. We were trapped. And we're not dead, so it's all good, right?

In two weeks, over Chuseok** weekend, we're having sisters' conference, because Chuseok is useless for missionary work. And Sister Ii Yeong Bin, roommate and Sister Representative, asked us to give a talk.

"On Chastity," she told me.

"On WHAT?" said I.

"Chastity," said she. "You know. Chastity. The pure love of Christ."

Me: "Um . . . do you mean charity? Because a chastity talk addressed to sister missionaries probably isn't going to take up fifteen minutes . . ."

Yes, on charity. That's what she meant. Good thing, too.

Oh, food tip of the week: Costco hot-dog onions with ketchup and mustard. Everybody mixes this up as a side-dish salad when they eat at Costco. It's good.

I love you! Sorry it's brief; I was writing rants.

Love,

RoseE"

* I knitted RoseE a tiny mouse, stuffed with lavender, which Sister Matthews promptly fell in love with and named Fiore, which is "mouse" in the Maori language. She humbly asked for one for herself. I have just finished Sister Matthews' mouse; it will be sent out tomorrow. I would love to see the video of her opening the box. I hope RoseE can arrange it.

** Chuseok weekend: I'm guessing this means General Conference weekend, where the Prophet and Apostles counsel us on what we need to work on for the next 6 months. No regular church services are held, as everybody is (assumedly) watching Conference and listening to prophets' voices. General Conference happens the first weekend in October and then again the first weekend in April. At one General Conference in October 1855 or so, President Brigham Young got up and advised the church members that 3 handcart companies from Winter Quarters, Iowa had become stranded in the mountains and were out of food. Everybody IMMEDIATELY went home, packed up 250 wagons with food, clothing, shoes and blankets and set off to rescue them. A month and a half later they brought the survivors into the Salt Lake valley. Shortest Conference ever, I bet.

A Missionary's Advice

2009-09-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

Last week I asked RoseE what our ward here in Salt Lake could do to help out the missionaries assigned to our Stake. She wrote:

"Ooooh.

Okay, I won't rant, I promise. I'll just say the following:

Missionaries do love getting fed, this is true. Nothing like a good member meal. They sure do 'preciate it. But they would happily live on ramen in their own apartments if the members were too busy talking to their friends about the gospel to have time to feed them. That would be missionary heaven.

Strike up conversations with people about church and what we believe. Invite people to ward parties, Enrichment, Achievement Day . . . any ol' get-together. Don't be pushy; just be open, and keep yourself ready for when those teaching opportunities come. And if someone asks you a question you can't answer very well, just say, "You know what? The missionaries could probably answer that better than I could. They're eating at our house on Thursday; do you want to come too?" These are Magic Words. (For further Magic Words, see Preach My Gospel. There are more good ideas in there than you think that there are.)

Ask the missionaries to introduce you to the people they're teaching. Say hi to these people when they come to Sacrament Meeting. Call and invite them to stuff. Ask them how they feel about what the missionaries are teaching them. As you're making Christmas cookies/fudge/cute poems for ward friends, make one for them too. (I know you're all getting ready to make them. I remember Christmas in Center Ward.)

And DO YOUR HOME AND VISITING TEACHING. A ward that doesn't take care of its own is not a ward missionaries want to bring people into.

Okay, that became a little bit of a rant. Sorry. But being a missionary has made me understand a lot about what a goshawful member-missionary I was. Honestly. When new converts got baptized in our ward, I never went to their baptisms BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW THEM. Jeeez louise! That's the whole point! Of COURSE I didn't know them; that's why they're called 'new converts.'

The thing that I didn't realize (and, I think, that many wards don't realize) is that a ward is not just a unit of a stake. It's not just the place where you go on Sunday to chat with your friends about the gospel. It is these things, yes. But missionaries think of wards as units of their missions. Really. Center Ward is part of a mission, and in it missionary stuff is going on right now, and it was last year when I was there and I didn't know about any of it. A ward is a growing thing.

Um . . . six short paragraphs. Sorry. Please edit as you see fit.

RoseE the Ranter."

Toaster Ovens, Transfers and How Powerless We Are in the Face of Adversity

2009-09-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

So spoiled today! I'm e-mailing at the mission office, so the whole darn computer's in English! and there was much rejoicing. I might actually get some pictures out this week.

Well, news of the week. I'll start with the happy stuff. This week, Sis. Matthews and I were visiting a bunch of old addresses on the ward list that nobody'd checked on in a long time. There were three on one side of this little stream, and three on the other. We did the three on one side, then looked for the nearest handy bridge. Both bridges were a good hike away in either direction. But the creek was tiny. It barely deserved the title. And there were all these rocks in it.

"We could probably just climb down and cross on the rocks," I joked to Sister Matthews.

"Yep. Probably could," Sister Matthews answered.

We looked at each other.

And then we headed down into the gully.

It turned out to be NOT as short and easy as it looked from up top. We got pretty well prickled in the masses of something that looked like squash or pumpkin plants growing all along the creek. We made it to the water, stripped off our shoes and stockings, and rock-hopped/waded across (it was slimy with green growing stuff, which is an okay kind of slimy that I'm familiar with, not nasty city pollution slimy), put our shoes back on, and started the even longer hike up the other side. Now without the minimal protection of nylons we got even more scratched and prickled, so our legs were covered in little pink slashes by the time we got to the other side. And it had taken longer than we'd meant it to, so we didn't have time to visit anyone anyway. But it was a heck of a lot of fun. Just don't tell Prez.

We also this week celebrated my halfway point and Elder Robb's birthday by going with the entire zone to that wonderland of food known as Vips. Much deliciousness was had. Vips has a little conveyor-belt toaster (an impinger, we used to call it at the theater) for toasting rolls and things if you want to. And Sister Matthews, clever thing that she is, decided to try to toast a piece of salmon in it. Well, that went fine. Worked just great. So she got Sister Ii Yeong Bin in on it, and they put an even bigger piece of salmon through. But when they tried to pick it up, it fell apart and dropped into the internal workings of the toaster. So they were trying frantically to get it out when Elder Son Oh Un came up to see what they were doing, bouncing around them like a puppy in a "Hey, guys! What's goin' on? Can I see?" fashion, with these two poor sisters trying to wave him away so he didn't attract more attention to their plight. Finally the Vips staff figured out something was up, informed the sisters sternly that the toaster was only for bread, and shooed them off. They hustled back to our table and sort of hid until the cluster of staff around the toaster went away and they figured the problem was cleared up.

We had THREE meals with American families this week. It's been some dang good food, man. But the Tollets' house was odd, because their daughter greeted us at the door with "You can keep your shoes on." They'd had some work done in the house, and the floor was still gritty with construction dust. But MAN, that felt wrong, to go into a house wearing your shoes. I wanted to at least tiptoe or something. Ugh.

We met this week with a woman by the name of Ii Mi Suk. She is a member who just went through major surgery battling advanced ovarian cancer. She's doing really well, or as well as you can be doing with ovarian cancer. She's a chatterbox and a jokester, and was so glad to see and gossip with us. Sunday afternoon, we visited her with a member family, and at her request sang "Be Still, My Soul." By the time we finished it, we were all in tears. She took our hands in each of hers, and gripped them tightly, and said in a tear-choked voice that I will never forget, "My life is . . . bottom. But I believe Jesus Christ. So I don't care!"

I feel so helpless most of the time. We missionaries are servants of Jesus Christ, but in the face of so much fear and pain, what can we do? A hymnal, a tissue, a hand to hold, the willingness to walk wherever we're told to go . . . it's all we have. A puny arsenal. But Sister Ii Mi Suk called us servants of Jesus Christ, and clutched our hands and told us she would never forget us. What did we do? What could we have done?

She didn't need us. She needed Jesus Christ, and she has him. I could see the strength and comfort and happiness in her, sick and hurt and frightened as she was. And it gives me a great sense of peace to know that one day, when I do my inevitable battle with breast cancer (It's coming. I know it.), I'll have access to that same source of strength. He helps us through.

Speaking of things that are hard to go through, Thursday night we got The Call. In spite of all our hopes and plans and pleading and prayers, Sister Matthews and I are being split up. Sister Matthews is moving down to Pusan, to serve in Sujeong ward, my old area, as well as Haeundae and Gwangan wards. She was heartbroken. But she's serving with her MTC companion Sister Hawkins, which has softened the blow somewhat. She was so upset she forgot to ask Elder Clark who MY new companion was going to be, but I was so upset I didn't care. I just crawled under my desk and cried for a while, while she called all her friends to say good-bye. An hour later, she learned who I was going to be serving with: Sister Pak Song Hee, my former roommate and first friend in Korea. So that's something. But this will be my third transfer of five living exclusively with Koreans, and this time there will be no Sis. Beckstead and Ogelvie to save me on P-Day. But at least it's Sister Pak Song Hee, if it had to be somebody.

I love you all! Be good!

RoseE"

Biggest Shoes In Korea, Senior Companion, and Fantastic Dinnersr

2009-09-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

. . .

How come Bit and Bug get to do things like hippotherapy, fencing, and archery for their sports and I got shepherded to basketball? *sulks* It's 'cuz I'm tall, isn't it? The world is just not fair for tall people. But at least in one small facet it has been rectified, because Sister Tollett took us on base today and bought us both new shoes! In our sizes! I've got little brown flats with brass buckles, while Sis. Matthews made off with brown canvas mary janes. We are over the moon. New shoes! The ungettable thing! I also took my from-Cara brown shoes to the Shoe Hospital (really, that's what it's called, but actually it's an old man sitting on the corner outside our apartment who just fixes shoes all day. But he's still called a kudu pyongwon, shoe hospital) and they got glued back together so I should be able to beat those some more, too.

Bethe is, as far as I know, the first of your daughters to want high heels while still a teenager. They won't kill her. Don't worry about it. You should see the lunatic shoes people walk around in over here.

But back to the Tolletts . . . they fed us Taco Bell! There is a Taco Bell on base! Taco Bell just ended up on the Forbidden List a week ago (vis., the list of things I want to do when I get home, which I write things on but never read) because I had a random Taco Bell craving, and lo and behold, there it was!

We actually visited Camp Walker twice this week. The first time was a lunch date with a less-active sister in Suseong ward, whose husband is retired navy. (By the bye, did I ever have a military dependent card? Everybody thinks I aught to have one, but I've never seen one in my life.) Anyway, this sister is rich beyond belief, for all the good it does her because she is bored, lonely, and unhappy, hence her taking sister missionaries to lunch at the restaurant at the on-base country club.

Being on Camp Walker was really, really strange. Almost painfully. Because it looked just exactly like Glencoe, Minnesota with a fence around it. Houses lined up along the street, each one sitting in its own little yard . . . little grocery store, Wal-Mart-ish everything store, food court, Burger King, swimming pool, bowling alley, public library, movie rental place, golf course . . . it was in a way almost scary, because I felt like I could turn a corner and just be right back on Seventh and Redwood, six blocks from my house, and Korea would just have been a very bizarre, very vivid, but ultimately unreal dream. It was strange, and scary.

Also strange and scary was that the base has a 1-hour photo printing shop, when just outside the gates you can get pictures printed in four minutes, for half the price, in won. In Korea, 1-hour photo printing seems like a joke. You just walk into anywhere, plug in your camera, and print the darn photos and walk out. Come on, people.

I did indeed get the box! Soooo exciting! Sister Matthews was blown away that she got chocolate with her name on it. She's sending you a thank-you in my next box home. She also named the mouse* Kiore (Kee-oh-ray), which means 'mouse' in Mauri. I'm having fun taking pictures with him but can't send them today because this gosh dang computer is using Windows Vista, which seems to me to be the most uncooperative OS I've ever seen. And in Korean, to boot.

So this week I was the Senior Companion, which meant I had to decide what we were going to do all the time. Aaaaaand it wasn't stellar. We didn't get much done, really. But I didn't blow up the mission, which was my only goal for the experiment. And we did learn some things we didn't know before, and taught a girl we met at a crosswalk all about Joseph Smith, and she was really interested! Some people are just ready to hear, and some aren't. This knowledge makes me feel better about teaching in general. People saying no to you all day doesn't mean you're just not saying the right things. Nothing we say is really going to catch their attention if they don't want to hear. Talking to someone who is ready to listen is a COMPLETELY different experience. But completely.

We also had a fantastic dinner this week with Martine, who is an Australian RM (served in Daejun) who's come back to teach English. She's pretty tight with Sis. Matthews, them being south-Pacific-ers and all. So we went to some crazy nice buffet and just ate and gossipped and had a good time, which was a relief after less-active-hunting all day as per my poor navigation skills. The other fantastic dinner we had was with a member family who live ON A FARM. Like, outside the city. On land that they own, where they grow stuff. We had songyeopsal outdoors, sitting on a raised platform with a table on it, playing with their dogs and watching the stars come out. (Only like 3 of them--we were still pretty close to Taegu--but more than I've seen in months.) Oh, gosh, it felt good to be out of the city, on dirt, dirt in which things are growing, and to be able to hear things like birds and bugs and trees instead of just the incessant hum of the traffic. Wow.

And also this week we ran into some boys in a back alleyway who were playing baseball, getting out of the way whenever someone either walked or drove past. We stopped and played with them for like half an hour. Good times.

Oh, we're sleeping on mattresses again! Sort of! The weather's cooled off, so we've pulled out the house's 'folding mattresses', which are basically three big sofa cushions sewn together. But they're the squishiest surface I've slept on in a long time, so I'm way excited.

I made another cake this week. The cocoa powder* came just in time, 'cuz we discovered at the last minute it was our Ward Mission Leader's birthday and had to whip up a surprise party for him. I got to make a chocolate cake with actual cocoa powder in it! And Sis. Matthews donated her precious watermelon, which she bought as her own particular treat (she loves watermelon), and Martine came through with bunches of random everything, from dried squid to Australian cheese with fruit in it. And good times were had by all.

Did the little movie-thing I sent you come through? Multimedia experiements continue apace.

And . . . I think that's the news. This week's the last week of the sixth transfer of my mission, which will make it my official if-we're-counting-by-transfers Halfway Mark**. (Counting by exact date is trickier, but I think it's in a couple of weeks.) I love you! Stay out of trouble! Don't fight with semis!

RoseE

Oh, P.S.: Next recipe request. Brown sugar muffins, please? I could do a lot with a brown sugar muffin recipe."

* In the last care package we sent RoseE, we included cocoa powder, 2 rather large bars of chocolate on which were written the companions' names with permanent marker, and a miniature (2") knitted mouse stuffed with lavender (to be the subject of photos).

**Half-way Mark: According to Todd, who knows everything--or can at least do math with a large degree of accuracy--the actually halfway mark of RoseE's mission is September 15.

to Dad, received 9/2/09

2009-09-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Dad,

The rivers in Taegu don't strike me as particularly battle-worthy rivers. More like glorified streams, really. They're not big enough for shipping. They've even got fountains in them. If I weren't a missionary I could probably wade or rock-hop across the one by our house. But then again, it's bigger than the stream under Burnside's Bridge*, so I guess it sometimes doesn't take much water to bring an army to a standstill.

I think that if perceptions define reality it's only a matter of time before the two Koreas are reunified. As far as most Koreans are concerned, they're still one country--that just happens to have two governments. Whenever anyone draws a map of the country to show me where something is, they always draw the whole peninsula and then, as an afterthought, a slash across it to indicate the 38th parallel. Most children's maps don't even show the border at all--just one continuous Korea labeled 'Uri Nara'--Our Country.

I'm going hiking in the mountains outside the city today, in Palgongsan National Park. It's gorgeous. You've got to come see it.

R. Hadden"

Included with these letters are 2--for lack of a better word--business cards with RoseE's picture, address and email address on the front, and this quote on the back. See if you can spot the Korean mistake(s):

"The road must be trod, but it will be very hard,
And neither strength, nor wisdom will carry us far upon it.
This guest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong,
Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world
Small hands do them because they must,
while the eyes of the great look elsewhere. " J.R.R.Tolkein

*Burnside's Bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnside's_Bridge In September 1862 at the Battle of Antietam, the Union Army under the command of Major General Ambrose Burnside tried to cross this rather narrow bridge pretty much in single file for 6 hours while a small band of Confederate soldiers from Georgia methodically picked them off one by one from the other side.

The water in the river below them was waist deep.

It is said that if Burnside had been able to get across the river, the Union would have won the war at Antietam.

to Teancum received 9/2/09

2009-09-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

Rose writes:

"Dear Bug,

I am sending you some more jell-o things* in the next box.

I just went to see the biggest statue of Buddha in the world. It was really big, and very pretty, but not very old--it was finished in 1992. I like old things best. So I really liked the beautiful buildings of the temple much better. They were really old. And there are some flagpoles here that were set up by the Kingdom of Silla, a long time ago--about 450 years after Jesus Christ, so they're more than a thousand and a half years old.

The mountain is so pretty. There's a natural spring that makes some rocky streams all running through the trees, and some of the water comes up in a fountain at the temple. There are a bunch of water dippers hanging there so you can have a drink if you want. I wanted--it was so hot! (The weather, not the water.) Also there was a place where you could pay money to have the monks pray for you for different amounts of time--1 year of prayers was about $100. I didn't buy any prayers, because I can pray on my own for free, but I did buy a cell phone charm.

Love you!

RoseE"

*a Korean soft drink: carbonated beverage mixed with jell-o

English, Plumbing, and American Military 8/31/09

2009-08-31T08:07:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

Top news of the week: the heat seems to be breaking. It's the thirty-first of August and I haven't broken any bones or fainted or had to hack off my hair (although I did get it trimmed today, by a less-active member friend of ours named Jin Mok Kwan, who decided that a trim wasn't nearly entertaining enough for her so she curled it like a movie star's into the bargain). I think I may have made it through the worst of Summer in Korea. Now there's just winter to get through . . .

The bane of my life this week has been my native language. Yes, that's right: English. I'm starting to shudder every time I hear the word. See, we met this woman at Jin Mok Kwan's hair shop who went to an English class taught by our stake patriarch. And we chatted with her and had a great time. And so on Sunday, when the patriarch invited us to drop in on the English class, we said yes. But when we got there, he said, "So you can come every week, right?" and we're all, "Um . . . no, we can't. Because we're not English teachers. We're missionaries." But Sis. Matthews compromised with him at every two weeks, thinking maybe we could find someone in this class who'd be interested in the gospel. So this week our two weeks were up and we went to the class again. And the patriarch greeted us with "How about coming once a week?" "Um, no, sir. We can't." "Well, I taught English TWICE a week on MY mission." Um, that's nice, but that's not how we do things anymore. Not in Pusan Mission, thank you kindly.

Anyway, he handed us the teacher's workbook and sat back for an hour and a half while we taught his class for him. And after class all the students (middle aged ladies all) invited us to come to lunch with them, but we had to decline because of another appointment. Besides, by then we just wanted to get out of there. Because it was evident by that point that they didn't want to buy lunch for us, or even for the gospel. No, they wanted to buy lunch for English.

Last Sunday a less-active mother and daughter came back to church out of the blue. Well, not quite out of the blue. Because after church the mother came up to us and explained that her daughter has her university admissions interview in October, and she needs to practice English with native speakers. And so . . . we sat with her for about half an hour, giving pointers, and then made an appointment to share a spiritual message with them at their home during the week. And at that appointment her mom fed us fruit and cookies and apple juice (not the kind of apple juice you're thinking: apples and ice pureed together. Applesauce and water. Apple slushee.) while the daughter produced a stack of papers for me to correct. And yesterday, up they showed again--a half hour before the end of the block, so two and a half hours late--with another stack of papers. English! English English English! That's all anybody seems to want from us! They won't touch the gospel with a ten-foot pole, but will feed us cookies and watermelon and who-knows-what-all and smile and nod at everything we say just for the sake of prying English out of our mouths. As Sister Matthews put it, "We're like X-Men. English is our superpower, and the whole world's out to get it." It really does feel like that.

But that was the down point of an otherwise good week. We had a meal appointment almost every night, but none of them with crazy people. Although at one family's house I adjourned to the restroom to use the toilet, and found that it was blocked. So I was stuck in the bathroom for a good ten minutes trying to unblock this thing . . . fortunately, I've got a lot of experience with basic plumbing from six summers at Hackensack, which has a very finicky septic system. I was pretty embarassed, and the family was pretty embarassed, but they laughed it off and so did I. And after I got it working again, their daughter went into the bathroom, and then came out announcing "Neryo kan da!" 'It's going down!' which prompted her dad to tell me I must have done a good job.

The other great meal was with a family with the absolutely peculiar name of Tollet. Not Ii, not Kim, not Yoon . . . Tollet. The Tollets from Tulsa. They're members of the Camp Walker Military Branch, and they love missionaries and would feed us every week if we would let them. They made us RIBS. and BAKED BEANS. and KOOL-AID, which I haven't seen since leaving the states. And REAL KEMPS ICE CREAM FROM ST PAUL MINNESOTA. And offered to take me on base to go shopping for shoes larger than size 8. And they all speak English. Just English. So they don't care that I do, too. Whoop-dee-do for me. (Watching Elder Son try to eat his pork ribs with a knife and fork was very entertaining. A little justice in the world, after having so many Koreans laugh at me for asking things like 'Do you EAT the ginseng in this soup? Can you just eat it?' or dropping things with my chopsticks.) The Tollets live on the top floor of the most expensive apartment complex in Taegu, and call their landlord "Mr. Kim." This freaked me out, because in order to have the name "Mr. Kim" mean something, you've got to know only one male person with the family name of Kim. Military families, compared to missionaries, do not live in Korea or anywhere near it. They live in America. A big apartment full of America on the top floor of Lotte Castle.

Awwww crap I'm running out of time. Well, we had a ward carnival in Jungni this week . . . I painted faces, which was fun. And the finale of the evening was supposed to be everybody sitting down to watch Ice Age 3, which our ward mission leader has (bootlegged) on his computer (It's still in theaters), but he couldn't get the sound to work so we just ate and cleaned up and went home. Sis. Matt and I spent three hours trying, at a member's particular request, to make fortune cookies for the occasion, but she gave us no instructions beyond the ingredient list so they didn't turn out very well. (No, fortune cookies aren't Korean. Or Chinese either, apparently. Who knows where those things come from.) But we all had fun anyway, so 'tis all good.

And Kim Hyeok Teh, the "Golden" contact, called us. He saw us on the street and didn't have time to stop, but he called us to say he'd seen us and say hello. We were still fuming from Patriarch's english class at the time, so this was a bit of a shock and a complete mood-changer. Kim Hyeok Teh! He's not avoiding us! He hasn't been able to meet us since we first ran into him, and we figured he was doing the "Oh, I'm really busy" play as a way to get rid of us, which lots of people do. But him calling us out of the blue like that, when we wouldn't have known the difference, makes me think he really did feel the Spirit that day and does want to meet us again. So hopes are back up.

Urgh, gosh dang, my time's gone. I'll see if I can send some stuff, but no promises.

Gwon Ho Un is Korean, but served with the U.S. military. I'm not sure how. Dad should know.

Stay alive a few more hours and we'll have made it through August!* Love you! Make people do their visiting teaching, because people need to know that other people care if they're alive or dead!

Oh, Sis. Matt says thanks to Bethe for the encouraging words about the ear infection.

Bisoux**

RoseE"

* The "Odd Year End of August Curse" in which every odd year at the end of August something disastrous involving broken bones happens to a member of our family. I don't know what wicked witch (or wizard) put this curse on us, or why. 8/01: Mom shatters her upper jaw in a biking accident; 8/03: a horse falls on RoseE and breaks her right hip socket in 2 places; 8/05: Teancum breaks every bone in his left arm falling off the monkey bars; 8/07 Teancum breaks one bone in his right arm skateboarding with his cousin. We're trying to reverse the curse this year.

**Bisoux: kisses (traditional French greeting)

Thank You Note 8/10/09

2009-08-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum, Dad and All the Gang,

This is my official Thank You for the package I got just before I moved. As I hope you find enclosed, my compatriots and I had a good time disembowling it. Thanks so much for all the info on Emily's wedding! Is that what the cork is from? I was a little bewildered by the cork . . . And I was really excited for the picture CD, but I can't seem to get a computer here to read it. I'll keep trying and see what happens. Maybe a picture printing place can do it.

So the [Hershey's] kisses that the elders and I didn't eat I used to make chocolate-covered pretzels for Bro. Cho's baptism. Or I tried. I've discovered that candymaking is not among my skills as of yet. So they looked kind of a mess and had crunchy bits of crystallized sugar in the chocolate*, but the faithful members ate them anyway, bless their hearts.

Please tell Bethe she is on my list of people to write back and I have not forgotten her, but I ran out of time this week so it will have to wait until next. P.Day is not a lot of time.

Oh, by the bye, there's a movie called "Haeundae" in theatres over here--apparently it's a disaster movie set at Haeundae beach, which was right by my first apartment. So if you want to see what Pusan looks like, have Dad hunt it down. I doubt it's accessible in the States yet, but keep your eyes open. I don't think Taegu would be a very good setting for a disaster movie--there's relatively little of it to destroy.

OK, Korean Burger King has a new sandwich out called the "Angry Whopper". I'm not sure what makes it 'Angry' but I thought it was funny anyway.

And it's six o'clock. Sorry this isn't neater or more thorough--I'm on the bus, and you know what that's like. (It's like the Indiana Jones Ride, if you didn't know.)

I love you! Be safe!

RoseE"

* As Truly Scrumptious said, "The boiling point of your sugar is too high." (see Disney's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang")

to Bethe 17 Aug 2009

2009-08-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bethe,

Welcome to the exciting world of Korean stationery. I don't know why this paper is an apple--it just is.

I have to tell you something I learned. The other day I saw a mug covered in pictures of different kinds of Japanese sushi, and it had the names of the sushi written in Korean, Japanese and English. And guess what the world for 'Eel' is in Japanese? Unagi! Like the sea monster on Kyoshi Island!* That's one japanese word I'll never forget.

There is a sushi buffet here in Taegu, like that place where we ate in San Francisco. We missionaries love it. One of the sushi chefs is friends with the elders and makes us special sushi, like bacon sushi or bulgogi sushi or duck sushi (like real duck meat, not the chewy rice stuff), and gives us free soda. We've eaten there every week so far.

It's also grape season here in Korea, so everyone is feeding us grapes. They have thick skins, so you suck the grape out of its skin and then spit out the grape seeds. They're really sour but a lot of fun to eat.

I love you! Thanks for writing!

RoseE"

*Kyoshi Island: this reference may give you the impression that both RoseE and Bethe have traveled in Aisa before, but that would be an incorrect impression. This is, in fact, another reference to an Avatar episode.