Thank You and Ramble to Auntie Cat, in either June or August

RoseE writes:

"Dear Auntie Cat,

Here is my promised Official Thank-You Card, which comes all the way from America (so you KNOW it's cool). However, I must state that the great little card you sent is some of the most Korean-looking American Stationery I've ever seen. But it's got a Model T on it and the grammar is correct, so it can't possibly be a product of Korea. It is most evocative of the synergy of cultural influences that my life has become.

*Checks over* I think I used all of those big words right. English don't come rolling trippingly off the tongue no more. At any rate, thanks so much for the beautiful gift and all the love that comes with it. I will think of you every time I put it on.

I totally know what you mean about it suddenly hitting you that Holy Freak you are in another country. It hit me in mid-May on a rainy afternoon. I was with Sister Pak, and we stopped at a little stand for some lunch. Three breaded fried things for 1,000 won. I got squid. And standing there under the ratty awning, eating my fried squid with metal chopsticks and listening to the rain come pouring down in the street behind me . . . that's when it hit, I am in ASIA, which, despite my subconscious belief otherwise, is a real place where real people really live--people who will never speak English outside a classroom or go to America for any reason. This is a real place, and I am really living in it, as thoroughly and absolutely as any foreigner can.

I'm writing this on the train to Taegu. The Korean countryside is drifting by outside the window--row after row of painted, gray-green hills, with the Nakdong river sweeping through them.. It's so beautiful. I wish you could see it.

Love,

RoseE"

To Auntie Cat

RoseE writes:

"Dear Auntie Cat,

I got your letter and package today! I will only say 'Awwwww thank you so much' once here because I want to send you a proper thank you card with a picture and all, which will actually be classier. So awwww, thank you so much! (okay, I said it twice.)

It sounds like you had a blast of a time. It reminds me of all my various adventures with canoes in Minnesota . . . I've paddled those suckers in all kinds of weather, including major swells and strong headwinds, and I've flipped them (never when loaded with gear, thank goodness) and I've gotten out and towed them and I've waterskiied behind them (well, it didn't really work, but I tried). I think you do learn a lot about the world and about God on the water. For instance, that whole every-action-has-a-consequence thing. And the eternal law that even if you're the best canoer in the world, sometimes you just get wet. It isn't a punishment; it's just life, and it dries.

I also thought about nights in my little flimsy wooden cabins with a heckuva midwestern midsummer storm raging outside, literally shaking the building, and me lying in the dark silently praying, "Dear Father in Heaven, if tonight's the time for me to go, I'm okay with that, I'm pretty much ready . . . but please, Father, I've got six little girls here who are my responsibility. And I can't keep them safe against something like this, but I know you can. So please watch over my girls tonight. Please keep them safe." Lots of times in life, you've got to work your butt off for things. But lots of other times, all you do is wait and pray.

So that's my philisophical rambling for today. Gotta go write the newsletter. I love you!

RoseE"

Transfer to Taegu

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum and Dad,

Food garbage lives in the freezer*. That way it doesn't get smelly while you wait to throw it out in the food garbage trash can downstairs, which is only open on certain days of the week. The city of Pusan is launching a big campaign to cut down on 'food garbage water,' which I guess is the nasty orange liquid that drips out of the food garbage bag when it melts, but why this stuff is such a big deal I'm sure I don't know.

Anyway, big news of the week: guess where I'm going today?

Taegu!

And of course you're like 'Where the heck is Taegu?' which is what I was like. Taegu is a city about two hours northwest of Pusan, well inland and in a basin, so apparently it's hot as all Hades in the summer. Hottest city in the mission in the hottest part of the summer--either I really ticked President off or he has a lot of confidence in me and my tough-it-out Minnesotaness.

And the next big question: is my companion a Korean or an American?

NO!

Because I'm going to be paired with a Sister Matthews, who is a Mauri New Zealander! I've never met her, but will offer you more info on her when I have it.

And the other question: Did Brother Cho Jung Gol actually get baptized this week?

Yes, he did.

Oh, my gosh, yes he did.

Sister Pak and I basically did nothing but bake for two full days in anticipation of this event, trying to use up all Sister Pak's pastry dough before she ends her mission. We made thunder cake, banana cake, croissants, and pineapple pastry bites. And I made some chocolate covered pretzels, but apparently I don't know how to melt chocolate very well, because they ended up kind of lumpy and with little sugar crystals in them. Oh, well. Chocolate's chocolate.

But unlike other baptisms I've been to in Korea, where the people involved are the missionaries, the baptizee, and maybe one or two members of the ward, this one involved about forty people: all the missionaries in the district, President and Sister Jennings, and a swarm of people from the ward. There was not room for everybody. Sister Pak had to stand.

Yes, Brother Cho got baptized. We only taught him for six weeks. But at English class the day of his baptism, someone (one of the non-members who turns up to practice English) started arguing that the whole no-alcohol thing was too strict and we should be allowed to at least drink champagne . . . but before I could say anything, Brother Cho popped up. "No. We don't drink alcohol at all. We just don't. It's a commandment."

We taught him about the Word of Wisdom a MONTH ago. And now he Does Not Drink. Which is hard, for a Korean man. It really is. I was so proud of him I just wanted to cry.

So the next morning, Sunday morning, Sis. Pak and I dashed into Sacrament meeting five minutes late (yeah, slam-bang missionaries, us), and Sister Pak glanced around the room and dashed back out.

"What?" I demanded.

"I need to call him!" she moaned, freaking out. "Brother Cho Jung Gol! Where is he?"

"He's in there. With his son. Didn't you see them?"

She put down the phone that she'd been frantically dialing. "He is?"

Yeah, he was. But every previous week he'd worn to church a black and white striped polo shirt, and that morning he'd shown up in a white shirt and a tie. A white shirt and a tie. He got confirmed, and received the Holy Ghost, looking every inch the priesthood holder that he shortly will be. I nearly cried. Okay, I did cry, a little. But that was because I had to give my 'Goodbye to Yeonsan Ward' talk right after that. I've been serving there for four months. When I got there, all I could say was a formulaic, shaky testimony. Sunday, I spoke impromptu for five minutes about how much I loved that ward and how glad I was to have seen all the miracles I saw there. Not the least of which is the simple fact of me being able to communicate--not well, not completely, but to communicate at all. Four months ago, it would have been impossible. I am leaving behind so many good friends in Yeonsan ward, who've patiently taught me and given me so much love and support. I feel like all I did there was sit in awkward silence and eat rice, but Sister Ii Kyeong Mi was crying as I left the stand.

Oh, here's the list I thought up of Things to Know:

Things you Absolutely Must Know Before Going On Your Mission:
How to Pray
That We Have a Living Prophet
How to Eat It and Like It--No Matter What It Is
That Missions are Really Hard (this one's courtesy of Elder Aquino. But it's so true. Missions are really, really hard, and if you know that going in, your life's that much easier)

Things You Should Know, But Will Learn in the MTC if You Don't
How to Work Hard
How to find answers in the scriptures
How to stay healthy
How you, personally, feel the Spirit and receive inspiration

Handy Things to Know
Basic sew-a-button, fix-a-popped-seam sewing
One decent cookie or cake recipe
How to play piano or violin
How to conduct music
How to sing harmony
How to read a map
How to procure clean drinking water
Scripture Mastery**
How to pack light
How to walk forever without complaining
A couple simple magic tricks

So that's the list. Hope it's helpful.

Dad: my English class says to try looking at http://www.pusan.co.org/, or something called VANK, for Pusan news. No promises, but that's what I've got.

Oh, speaking of English class, on Thursday everybody was hanging around afterwards chatting and Sister Cho Me Heh, who is sister Ii Kyeong Mi's non-member friend, asked me, "Will you tell us what you tell people on the street? Just tell us what the message is that you're here to share."
. . .

So, um, I did. In all but flawless Korean. I talked for ten minutes about priesthood authority, about apostles and prophets, about the Restoration** and Joseph Smith (and remembered the First Vision*** smoothly and perfectly, thank you very much), and bore my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I just did it. All by myself. And those five people listened reverently to everything I had to say.

PMG**** says that one indicator you're a successful missionary is when you feel the Spirit testify through you when you teach people. I always thought that was kind of abstract and annoying, as a marker, but this week I totally got it. I taught, and I knew the Spirit was there. Whether those other people felt it is up to them--I can't force them to be ready to hear. But the Spirit was in that room, there for them to feel. I was a good missionary that day.

Now, however, I am not, because I'm almost out of e-mail time and have to run do stuff. So . . . I love you! I love you so, so much. . .

RoseE"



*Food garbage: I asked why she had put egg shells in the freezer when making a cake.

**Restoration: of the Gospel: When Jesus Christ was on the earth, He established His Church among His followers. After His Crucifixion and the deaths of His Apostles, the fulness of the gospel was taken from the earth because of widespread apostasy. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, our Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ restored the fulness of the gospel. The true Church of Jesus Christ is on the earth again. Because of the Restoration, the teachings and ordinances necessary for salvation are available to all people. (from lds.org)

***First Vision: The personal visitation in 1820 of God the Father and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, in answer to the prayer Joseph Smith offered, asking which of the churches he should join. (lds.org)

**** PMG: Preach My Gospel: the current missionary handbook

To Teancum and Bethe

received 7/27/09

RoseE writes:

"Dear Bug,

How's recovery coming*? I'm trying to get exercise, too, but I might drown because every time it rains, our apartment corridor gets flooded. (The drain pipes are all broken.) It doesn't get into our apartment, but it makes jogging in the morning kind of wet and slippery. Oh, well.

We're teaching a family with two boys who are about your age, and they make me think of you. They both play baseball. Last week Sister Pak taught them to play Uno. Within three rounds they were beating us--I think they cheat.

Man, July is almost over! The summer goes by so fast. Of course I didn't get a summer vacation, but missionary work's gonna be no fun in the winter, so I'm trying to enjoy this while it lasts.

I just went to the U.N. Memorial Cemetery today--it was very beautiful and very sad. I'll try to send pictures if I can.

I love you.

RoseE"


*Teancum suffered a minor hip-bowl dislocation during fencing practice and has been undergoing physical therapy to correct it.



to Bethe, RoseE writes:

"Dear Bethe,

It sounds like you're having a pretty quiet summer over there. Must be nice. Here in Korea it is monsoon season. It is raining pretty often (and when it rains, it rains hard, let me tell you), and when it isn't raining it is gray all day. I think I have seen the sun once in the last two weeks. It is also pretty warm and humid, but it's not too bad yet.

Yesterday a member offered to buy me some soup called boshintang. Boshintang is expensive--because it is made of dog meat. Really. I politely declined. I can eat bugs, and raw fish, and cloves of garlic, but I don't think I can eat a dog. So instead I had Samgetang, which is chicken-and-rice soup with ginseng. It was hard to eat because all the bones were still in it, even weird bones like the neck and the spine, but I ate it all because it was better than eating dog.

I've learned a little bit of hanja!** [She writes the characters for 'door'--which looks like a swinging bar door from the old west--and for her name, remarking that " . . . nobody really uses this name; I just like it because it looks pretty." It does look pretty, like three fireworks going off simultaneously.]

I love you!

RoseE"


**Bethe is a student of Mandarin Chinese.

Gochu Roulette, Korean Chocolate Cake, & State Of The Mission

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mum & Dad,

Finally I am not in a hurry when e-mailing! So you will get a long, proper e-mail for once in my mission, thank goodness.

I got three letters from Dad this week, on three different days, out of order. Most of them had been sitting in the office for quite a while, I think. Dad, do you still have any of your tapes left from your mission? I think I can make sound recordings on Liz, and probably listen to them too, but I'm hestitant to do it because I somehow feel that a typed letter is a more secure record. Maybe I'll try to send a sound clip today, and see how it works.

Big news of the week:

Well, gochu roulette.

A gochu is the Korean pepper that gochujang is made out of. Koreans will eat them straight, like carrots. I will do this too. They're not actually spicy, for the most part--they taste like green bell peppers, though they look like a large, bright halapeno (I can't spell Spanish). Some people brush out all the seeds, where most of the capsutin is (I can't spell English either), which is fine. I've never had a problem with them. A couple have left my mouth feeling prickly for a minute or so afterwards, but most Korean food does so it doesn't bother me. But eating gochus is like Russian roulette: there are some that are spicy, and they look just like the ones that aren't. And this week my luck ran out.

I was at the Sujeong bishop's house, enjoying a quiet, pleasant meal, and I picked up a pepper and ate it. Of course, it prickled a little, but it was fine, so I ate the rest. And then the prickle got worse. And then it got worse. And then it just didn't stop! And of course, there was nothing on the table that could help . . . I had rice, which helps with spicy things, but it was still hot and the heat just made the chemical burn worse. And of course kimchi or kimchichigae were bad ideas. And water was once again conspicuously absent. The only thing that offered any relief was coleslaw (read: shredded cabbage with a cream dressing poured on it; not actually coleslaw but basically the same idea). I ate the whole plate. The whole communal plate. I just kept having to put more in my mouth, to keep the burn down until, five minutes or so later, it finally faded. Oh, my gosh, it hurt. Whew.

President Jennings, last week, had to face a bit of a gauntlet. He had a meeting with the bishops* and stake presidents**, attended by his own assistants and clerks, who gave the rest of us the play-by-play. President Jennings is in a tight spot right now. See, he's been sent out here to revamp the whole missionary program. The other three missions in Korea do most of their work through English teaching--they teach English to people for thirty minutes, then gospel for thirty minutes, and count it as a lesson. This method gets a lot of lessons, and a lot of baptisms, but not really a lot of converts, as such. It's a big reason for the huge lists of inactives*** we're fishing through now. So when the Church sent President Jennings out here, his instructions were pretty clear: this has got to stop. And stop it has. Pusan mission now teaches people who are interested in the gospel, not just in free English classes, and teaches them long enough for them to understand the covenants of baptism and gets them integrated into their new wards, and once they're baptized they stay active. Sacrament meeting attendance has gone up. More people are preparing to go to the temple. But the number of baptisms has gone way, way down. And the local leadership is ticked. It was a rough meeting for President, who's a very non-confrontational person (Yeah, a non-confrontational lawyer . . . who'da thunk. Like a surgeon who faints at the sight of blood), but he held his ground and we're continuing to do things the way we've been doing them. Apparently Dad's mission was doing the same thing when he served--President was glad to hear that.

I will now, to the best of my recollection, instruct you on How To Bake a Thunder Cake While A Missionary In Korea:

1. Crack and separate three thick-shelled brown eggs. Put the whites in your house's largest tupperware. Give this and your house's only fork to your companion; instruct her to beat them 'forever'. Put the yolks in a bowl and the shells in the freezer.

2. Peel half a tomato and chop it fine with a pair of scissors you got for a dollar at a mungu around the corner; mangle it as well as you can with your fingers.

3. In your house's largest saucepan, combine 1 cup butter and 3.5 scoops (a scoop is half a cup) white sugar. Mix a bit; if it's hard, pop it on the stove for a few seconds. Who needs mixing bowls, really?

4. Add the egg yolks, the tomato, 1.5 teaspoons vanilla flavoring powder (vanilla extract? What's that?), and 2 scoops of cold water to the saucepan. Mix a bit.

5. Check on and encourage your companion.

6. In a large saucepan or a noodle bowl, combine 5 scoops of flour, one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon 'cooking' soda and a shake of cocoa powder. (The original recipe calls for half a cup, but your apartment contains barely that and the stuff's almost impossible to find and worth its weight in heroin, so a good shake is about as much as you're going to get). Mix a bit.

7. Oil and flour the inner pot of your rice cooker.

8. Praise and hug your companion; let her stretch her arm.

9. Mix the now-beaten egg whites in with the liquid stuff, then add the dry stuff. Pour the whole thing into the rice cooker and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about an hour, or until chopstick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

10. Let it cool . . . in the fridge if you trust your kimchi tupperware that much.

11. Invoking all the blessings to which you are entitled as a set-apart servant of the Lord, pray that the cake will release cleanly and not break into pieces when you try to turn it out of that pan.

12. Turn out the cake.

13. Prayer of gratitude.

14. Decorate with powdered sugar (just a little . . . see above note about cocoa powder) or Christmas sprinkles you found in the back of the cupboard.

There was a solar eclipse this week. A 93% solar eclipse. And I missed it because nobody in the whole mission thought to mention it to me. They all knew. And nobody told me. And I was indoors when it happened. I was really, really, really mad. Livid. But I managed not to kill anyone, which I thought was admirable.

And this week Brother McGreuder (who seems to be blogstalking me; hi, Brother McGreuder!) took us to dinner at the Seaman's Club. It was so peaceful, somehow, to sit in a quiet cafe and eat a chili cheeseburger and drink a rootbeer, and just enjoy the fundimental normalcy of everything . . . like a big glass of ice water instead of a little metal shot-glass of a thing, and a canteen selling American candy and medicine (Sister Pak pointed out something that looked good to her--she likes grape flavor--and I had to gently explain to her that 'Claritin' is not, in fact, a candy, but an allergy medicine). No matter how accustomed you get to the wierdness of Korea, there is always some part of you that is holding its breath. But I got to breathe a bit, and it was lovely.

Dad: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I almost missed it, almost forgot it, but caught it, thank goodness. Unfortunately, the present I wanted to get you, I have not yet found, so it's going to be late, and that will be lame, but I am thinking of you, and I love your letters and read them all the time, and I miss you like crazy.

And here I am going to end this e-mail and see if I can send a couple pictures before my time's up. I love you!

RoseE"

* bishop: the guy in charge of a ward (i.e. parish), about 200 families. A bishop has 2 counselors and an executive secretary to help him. In the LDS church, a bishop wears a suit and tie (as opposed to a mitre and sceptre, elaborately embroidered robes and a skull cap).

**stake president: the guy in charge of a stake, which is made up of 5 or so wards. Also a suit-and-tie guy.

***inactives: people who have been baptized into the church but who, for one reason or another, have stopped coming to church on Sunday.

UN Cemetery 7/20/09

RoseE writes:

"Dear Mom & Dad,

Aaaaaaahhhh shortest piece-of-crap email ever! Dad's fault.* I went (with my two American cohorts and the newly-christened third American cohort, Sis. Musser, plus my district leader and the district's new greenie) to the U.N. Memorial Cemetery. It was amazing, but it took a lot of time. But the garden was beautiful, and I was glad I got to pay respects to all those men who lost their lives holding onto South Korea's freedom and future. So the sacrifice of my e-mail time wasn't in vain. I also got to see the first U.N. flag used in the Korean War; it was in Gen. MacArthur's personal collection until he donated it to the U.N, who sent it to the Cemetery along with a plaque the Koreans had given to the UN thanking them for their help, but that the U.N. had to take down because the USSR threw a hissy fit. It's astonishing how often politics interferes with doing what's actually, like, Right.

I went on an amazing split** with Sister Beckstead this week. We're both American Juniors***, but we did a LOT. We found people and taught people and visited people and made a new member book and taught English class and made cake (thunder cake#; I snuck the recipe off the internet and have made two this week. I seem to have finally found a winner. Koreans love this thing. Even my companion, who has to beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. She wants me to make three more) and answered the phone and got ourself a member meal at Pizza Hut. It was a huge confidence-builder for me. Trailing behind a Korean, you tend to do nothing because there's nothing you can do that they can't do better. So you don't know how much you actually CAN do. I can do a lot better than I thought that I could.

I've been to Costco actually twice this week--once again today for Sis. Musser's sake. And to have another chicken bake.

I thought about Emily's## wedding the whole day. I want to read the whole account again, and tell about everything I did that day, but I can't because I have to run to the other end of town to meet our companions, who will eat us alive if we're late, even though they just called and told us that THEY would be fifteen minutes late. Sigh.

I love you.

RoseE"


*Dad's fault: Todd has ingrained into our children that you don't go anywhere without visiting a museum or a war memorial or a military cemetery or a battlefield. Thus, her visit to the UN Cemetery.

**split: sometimes for variety or for teaching experiences, a companionship will split up for a day and pair up with another companionship. So Companionship AB will go on splits with Companionship CD, so that A and C go out and teach for a day, and B and D do the same somewhere else.

***Juniors: Each companionship has a senior companion and a junior companion, the senior companion having more language skills and missionary experience and making the decisions.

# Thunder Cake recipe, about the book

##Emily: RoseE's best friend got married on Saturday

To Dad, 6 July '09

RoseE writes:


"Dear Dad,


We hear tell ( which is how we get news around here) that North Korea, in honor of the Glorious Fourth, has killed some fish with a short-range missile, and once again I do not get my free trip to Japan. Aww, dang it. Maybe Labor Day. We also hear tell (from Kid's News, one of our members' son's English study material) that Hong Kong has closed its elementary schools for fear of swine flu. Hong Kong is, however, a very long way from Korea, and Korea in general claims that it's low H1N1 rates are due to kimchi, of which I eat quite a lot, so we're set. And that's world news for this week.


I think I'm hitting the stretch of my mission where I'm getting fed up with the slow progress of my Korean. Really . . . I'm a smart person, therefore this aught to be easier for me than for everybody else. I'm entitled, darn it. But everybody else is Korean, and I'm just not catching up, and my self-centered brain is ticked off. I don't like being dumber than the people around me. So, yeah, working on that humility thing. But yesterday the 1st Counselor's wife and a couple other Yeonsan sisters asked how my Korean study was going, and I honestly said that it was frustrating to not be able to talk to any of them. And suddenly I had more support than I'd ever imagined. Oh, honey. Don't worry. We know you're trying so hard. You're doing such a good job. It's tough, huh? I laughed at the time, but last night I just cried my head off, overwhelmed by the sweet, sincere love of these good sisters for a girl they can't even talk to, who came over to serve them and hasn't done much so far besides eat their food and smile at them. I'm in this ward at least until September . . . it's good to have friends there. Maybe I'll have learned to talk by then.

Love you,

RoseE"