Oppa Chandler Style

Dear Momma,

You just got a 7 page letter so don't expect too much! Today we went to a [korean] or baseball hitting cage.  It was way fun except my wrist is still kinda sketchy, so I couldn't hit super hard.  It turns out I'm a pretty good basketball player! We play every morning for exercise. Lindsay Weldon gave me some awesome advice today. She said that the missionaries that have continued to feel the joy of the gospel are the ones who really gave 100% and never made excuses.  Great Grandpa's advice, "Don't just do your best, get the job done." is getting super meaningful to me.  It's only through Christ that we can, but with Him we can! I love it. I'm relying hard on Him.  But I know that the really tough times are ahead.  I'll keep working no matter what.

OK.  Now on to Korean Kulture Konnection.

There are these familial relationships that aren't actual, but are kinda the same.  So, for guys, if there's a kid older than you, if you like him you call him [korean] hyeung and he buys you food and you hang out.  If you're a girl and there's a guy older than you, you call him "Oppa," which is literally "girl's older brother."  He has to buy you food and hinda take care of you. It's way cool.  But I'm totally the Chandler girls' Oppa and Simon's hyeung. Also like if there's a girl older than you and you're close she's called your nuna.  So Keyaira is Alex's nuna. And Tim's nuna. It's not like romantic, just kinda is a relationship describer.  And everyone young is dong seng.All of this however is dependent on jeung, which is like mutual likingness. It's kind of like a deep human connection.  Dad is the ULTIMATE jeung builder. He just connects, that's jeung. Anyway if there is jeung then these relationships take place. It's so cool.

So one of the very first things you've gotta do when you start to teach is to build jeung with your investigator. That way you have trust and can speak frankly.  Be happy. Stay strong. Work hard. I'll try to do the same.

Love, Elder Mumford.

6/11 Jon Schmidt is in the background.  We dig the tunes though Elder Clawson is still a  touch skeptical of Bela Fleck and Take 6, but he's coming around. :)  So today was a little rough.  We got way lost and ended up in the 2nd most [something?? starts with an a, looks like althoey?] area of Korea, SeoCho. We tried to visit a bunch of less active members, but none were home. Accidentally saw a guy who was in his underwear. Elder Clawson thought he was naked. We got soaked in the rain. It was a good day to prove my discipleship. Sucked it up and worked hard! The Koreans say, "Sweat!"

6/13
Had a bit of a funny the other day. We were teaching Bro Kim about baptism and we were teaching him in the room where the baptismal font is. So we showed him it, and then asked him if he would be baptized. He looked slightly freaked out and asked, "What, like right now?!?" We quickly told him that it would be later and he was okay but it was pretty funny. The lesson was spiritual and he is steadily moving toward being baptized. [follows a whole line in Korean characters.] Also monsoon season starts next week. I'm not super stoked. Apparently it's crazy, like a constant downpour. I really need to send you guys stuff...

Miracle today! We were walking home super tired, just got rejected a bunch. It was right before dinner and we were pretty hungry.  As we got to the crosswalk a slightly awkward man waked up to the crosswalk and stopped.  Being exhausted, i didn't really want to talk, just get home and eat, but I did anyway.  he tured out to be from England and spoke English. We walked with him for 45 minutes and talked about the Atonement and the purpose of religion.  He said he really appreciated it. We got his number and maybe we will meet again!  Also I want to talk about KAS or Korean Awkwardness Syndrome.

I am slowly becoming inundated.  Basically Koreans are such a well put together culture that anything that fazes them just freaks them out. like when a 6'4" white guy starts talking in Korean about church. It causes an abrupt rise in heart rate and instant uncontrolled twitching.  Then they slowly remove headphones whilst twitching or sprinting away as fast as you can.  It happens lots. But I'm way twitchy now, and I run really awkwardly.

6/16 Sunday

It's a nice sunny day in Anyang.  One of my last as it turns out.  I'm getting transferred to Dobong.  It's in Dong Zone in Seoul mission.  Everyone else I know is staying in the Soul South mission. It will be like going all [hen] again! I'm a little apprehensive and nervous, but I committed to work and truly give myself to the Lord so I will.  I am going to be serving with a Korean companion named Park Sung Hyeun.  He knows my zone leader Elder Cho and he says that Elder Park is super funny.  I'm pretty stoked! It'll be good.  So there's that.  Last night was just everyone calling each other to find out what was going on.  I'm going to miss Anyang! I love the ward, I love the people.  I met
so many wonderful people.  I have a Korean spanish speaking mom in  our ward.  I call her Omma.  She is the best.  It'll be tough.  Good thing I can experience the peace that comes from knowing that I'll see these people in the next life.  The gospel brings peace no matter what.

The last couple days have been adventurous.  W met Brother You with his girlfriend.  They brought us dinner and we chatted and invited them to come to church.  It was way good but super spicy.  Then we found a homeless guy that I felt I really helped.  Then we tried to visit a less active member and talked to people to and from.  I've been pretty sick lately in the stomach region so I'm going on the BRAT diet.  Only we won't have bananas, applesauce, or toast, so it's RICE for me!

Anyway, it's really amazing to look back on these last two transfers and see all the miracles that we witnessed.  None of them have led to a baptism yet but they are moving.  We have definitely left our stamp on An

The Lost Letter

5/9 Thursday 2013 

It's been a few days since I wrote. Life has been a touch crazy.  I got a buzz from my comp. It's super short. 
As I pen these words I am eating some 덴항히게 deng chang chi-ge. It's super good, and it was made by Elder Cho, our new Korean ZL.  He's super awesome and doesn't speak that much English.  It's an adventure.  Today we had a finding activity in San bon (dang, it's hard to write Korean in English) [note: the letter is covered with Korean characters. I remember feeling this way about Chinese, too, but it doesn't make the letters easier to read.] and me and Elder Newton talked to this really awesome guy for about an hour.  he's an American who has lived all over, kind of a vagabond wanderer, so a little like what I wanna do.  But not really after listening to Elder Holland's talks [korean…]  Anyway we talked about why religion is important and materialism and hopefully we can meet with him next week.  Super cool.  And he speaks Mandarin, Mom!  and was in Taiwan about the same time as you. So you might have seen him :).  He loves missionaries.


Also, we got a text today that said: "Hey! I want to know about Mormon!" So we were super stoked and met her that night, we didn't know she was a gril though so we had to meet outside because no men.  She is way cool.  Asked to come to church and loved the Book of Mormon.  We'll probably see her on Sunday! Stoked! It was a tiring but satisfying day.  Ate a whole pizza for lunch.  Still not chubby...

I love you. The gospel is TRUE! Stick with it and it will stick with you. Remember, blessings are received through obedience to laws so obey the law so you can get the blessing. [lots of Korean.]

5/10 Friday
OK, so today is a compilation of goofy things that happened this week. So: as we were riding the elevator up to go home a little family got on and the girl asleep in her mom's arms proceeded to pee her pants.  It got all over the elevator and the family semi-awkwardly got off without saying a word. it wasn't until later that we realized that it wasn't an odd occurrence for us. It was just normal missionary goofiness. Shenanigans happen all the time and so it doesn't ever phase me. Weird. Also a lady told me my fly was down the the middle of English class.  Later as we were walking Elder Clawson taught me how to say that in korean. So we're just walking don the street practicing away when it hit me. It would be so weird to be walking along in Bellingham and seeing a Korean saying in broken English, "My fly is down. MY fly is down. My FLY, no… my fly is DOWN!" No wonder Koreans think we're wacky.

Also we've been practicing for the Law of Chastity lately (Draw the lines) […? It really says this. Guesses? Anyone?] Also we have an investigator that loves to rub Elder Clawson's head. So there's that.

Today I realized that we set baptism as this huge goal but that its really the way to align yourself to keep the rest of God's commandments. Through baptism we commit to Christ and prepare to follow Him for the rest of our lives. Baptism is incidental. If you have real intent, its the enduring to the end that matters. So Endure!

5/11 Saturday

So I think you liked a day in the life at the MTC so here it goes again. For Thursday.

6:30 Get up and pray. House is super quiet.

6:35 Get up and get things ready to go play some b-ball.  Moaningly [?] putting shoes and socks on.

6:40 Snag a ball and the other Elders go hoop it up. We play two on two and run around a lot to get exercise. I'm kinda tall so no one likes me :9 I can kinda score whenever I want to so I try to pass a lot. Elder Woodford is getting way better. Oh and I can dunk on Korean sized hoops. So it's pretty fun.

7:10 Run home across the ninja bridge. There are these little pads that look like [he drew a picture] across the river. We see who can do all of them two at a time.  The Korean joggers look at us skeptically.

7:15 Shower, shave, eat, play guitar. Most mornings we'll eat oatmeal or a smoothie. Sometimes rice and [Korean] dried seaweed.  Elder Clawson plays guitar, we listen to the neighborhood trumpet player.

7:59 Realize that it's 7:59, frantically get ready to start study.

8:00 Start study! One of my favorite parts of the day. I usually read a chapter from the BoM, NT, and D&C. Go more in depth. Then PMG and investigator's questions if there are any.

9:00 move on to comp study, role play, study PMG and do training reme [?] together.

11:00 Lunch! Kim chi soup, Donkas or spaghetti, or one of Elder Clawson's concoctions. Always delicious. We play guitar and swap stories. Lots of fun.

12:00 Language study! Read PMG in Korean, read BoM in Korean, read and practice grammar and to keep the house good and spiffy, Elder Clawson quizzes me on vocab while I clean the kitchen. I mostly work on lessons.

1:00 time to make some calls! We call off of old investigator records and potential sheets. Talk to tons of cool people, Koreans will like sigh in agony and hang up. Throws me for a loop ever time. They will go  "Aaaaaargh!" when I say, "Hey! It's the missionaries!" and then…click.

2:00 Time to go to a district finding activity. We talk to some cool people on the subway and then I go with Elder Newton. We found a random guy from Chicago and after a 5 minute Korean convo, told us in perfect Chicago accent that he's from Chicago.  He wasn't super into it so we gave him our cards and left. Then cool guy from Taiwan.

4:30 Travel home, talking all the while

5:00 Dinner! Elder Cho made his special soup and it was delicious. Chatted and ate. Elder Clawson plays some more guitar.

6:00 went out and talked to people for a couple of hours. We do almost all street contacting. Just talking to people, lots of college kids. Suddenly, a text! "Hey! I want to know Mormon!" "OK, let's meet at 8," replyed us. (Sorry for the bad grammar, Korean has killed my brain…)

Keep talking to people, then go to meet her at E-mart (giant everything store, think Fred Meyer but more so and 9 flavors of it). Help a guy with his groceries while Elder Clawson finds her and gets some small talk going. Because she turns out to be a woman and we need a man to meet inside, we met outside the church. Turns out the bishopric had a meeting that night so she met all of them! And we got some quizzical glances. Lesson went great and we hurried home.

9:00 Rush into the house and plop down to plan. A very operatic version of True to the Faith is sung in Korean. We plan and after Elder Woodford yells, "There's someone coming! Probably to inspect!" We frantically whip the home into shape only to find that one of the member's little daughters brought us pizza and some delicious beef.  They're so nice. We finish and I give Elder Clawson a haircut while we chow down on pizza.  We write in our journals and spread out on our beds. Then pray and sleep. Very busy and totally awesome.

Oh, we had peanut butter and jelly rice today. It's exactly what it sounds like.

5/13 P-day

Didn't do anything special today. Just cleaned and went to Costco. We bought 3 12-packs of muffins so we're pretty set. It's gonna be a gain weight week. I'm at 88 kg and about steady. I'm getting stronger from working out every morning though! You'd be surprised. So funny story of the day is that a week ago a little kid who we're befriending came and gave us a bunch of coffee which we couldn't drink (duh) and that same day the APs came and saw it as our apartment got inspected. So everyone probably thinks we drink coffee now.

Also we found a hunting knife in the couch. And a thousand pens. And some really old consecrated oil. It was really good to talk to you today! I miss all of you but in a good way.

I feel the power of your prayers. you kind of live on the extremes. You work your guts out and the joy of success is so great, when you see someone who has really seen the savior work his marvelous healing power. But to see people turn away from it and reject it is so sad. Uncle Colin talked about how hard it is not to take that rejection personally.  It is hard. But if you are working hard and really desiring people's salvation and eternal happiness what more can you do? That's where you must find joy, in fulfilling your purpose wherever you are.

I love all of you! Read Matthew 11:28-30. He will heal you.

Tweed Pants and a Wedgie

5/15

Update. We don’t have that many investigators. But we met a really cool guy today! He asked to be taught right there and he’s coming to church Sunday! Super stoked.  Just met him randomly.  We’ve been focusing lately, not on getting tons of contacts but really helping people see how the Gospel can bless them.  It’s made me think of myself and how I’ve been blessed lots. Super good.  Also we had exchanges yesterday.  I went with Elder Newton from holiday, UTAH. Super cool Elder.  On the way to get him we introduced the Book of Mormon to a pastor and he really dug it.  On the way back we met a guy who said he was a prophet and could fly.  Also he kept saying, “I am the way” in English about Jesus, but he thought that anyone’s way is good.  Tonight we had a really good combo English class/pizza party.  Super legit. Grace taught me how to write my name in traditional Korean (Chinese) characters, so I did learn.  She’s the lady who I ate a million different things with.  She’s super nice.  We had a very hilarious English class all about how we should or shouldn’t have smart phones.

Lately in English class we’ve been talking about  things and got good debates going. Sometimes it gets a little heated and debates in Korea on the good use of hybrid cars comes up. Mostly it’s okay though. It’s a good time. OK, here’s a little Korean saying and my name in Chinese.

Korean saying: five minutes hurry, 50 years dead. [rough translation]

[can’t write the characters in this program. Romanized it says “Jeung Soo Chan”]

5/16 Thursday

So we’ve been talking a lot about how other missionaries always write home about their phenomenal spiritual experiences and I write about funny old Korean guys.  The truth of it is it’s a different kind of spiritual than I expected, like realizing how much you need personal study, you NEED prayer to sustain you.  You have to learn to always talk to people and to view them the way Father in heaven views them. And even if they let you down to still hope.  I feel like right now is when I make the choice to be a diligent disciple of Christ or not. And it’s in really small things. Like really talking to everyone even when all I want to do is take a 5 minute rest on the bust.  It’s getting up at 6:30 and going to bed at 10:30, even following rules when I don’t want to.  The differences between truly great missionaries seem small but it takes a herculean effort to get the last 5% out.

But the days I do, I feel more fulfilled than I ever have. It’s unbelievable. Miracles happen too! Like we had a guy ask us if we could tell him about our church and then ask to come to church on Sunday. He’s amazing! But the funnies are still there. Like 70 year old me biking around blasting techno music. J

5/17 Quickie Update

We have a stake sports activity today. So we’ve been inviting people all week. And now it is time to play soccer! And maybe basketball! I’m way excited.

K. Home now.  It was totally wicked! Elder Clawson and I won a dance contest against some other missionaries.  We got some strawberry wafers and the approval of our entire stake J  I did some pretty atrocious cartwheels. Also we saw our bishop and a lady from our ward, [unintelligible] gentleman. PSY! Very enthusiastically. Super funny. Elder Clawson, I and the Young Men’s president from our ward won the relay race. Also our ward won! There wasn’t soccer though. L Elder Newton was bummed. OK rewind a little.

So Koreans have a holiday that basically celebrates Buddha’s birthday. And also on that day they have a sports conference thing.  There’s a bunch of funny games and everyone eats together and it’s way fun and cute. So we had tons of fun. Also tonight we had a cool revelation moment. We had an investigator cancel today so we had some extra time. We prayed to know where to go. Then I got pulled over one way and so we went! We ran into a group of kids going to a Karaoke bar and got their numbers. We might play bball with them tomorrow. Super cool! Man, I love you so MUCH! Thank you for being the best. Cheesy, I know. But.

5/18 Saturday.

I’m in a bit of a goofy mood. [much Korean follows].  K, well, now that I have written terrible secrets right under your nose, I will relate the events of the day. So we studied and I learned about some of the early hardships of the church and how important optimism is. Then we called people and then had a meeting with Brother Yong, a 21 year old guy who’s about to go into the army. He’s way cool, rides a motorcycle everywhere, and dates Danish women. Quite debonair.  We just have to wake him up in time for church! He’s always sleeping when we call him. Super cool though. He has a hello kitty right and maybe some gospel interest. Also an investigator, Brother Kim, invited us to dinner outside the mission and reserved and paid for it and everything. It was a little awkward when we couldn’t go. Had a good conversation though. Okay. No time.

5/19

Sooo… had a killer day today. Church was really good. We had a little bit of a miracle. We met a guy named Luke at Anyang station and he asked if he could help us. W taught him about the restoration right there and he said he would come to church. That was on Wednesday. We’ve kept in contact with him over thaw eek and he totally came to church today! He wore very stylish tweek pants, tie and sweater vest. He really liked church and during the sacrament he said he felt cleaner. He told us he wants to quit smoking and drinking so we taught him the full restoration and word of wisdom. He really liked it and we’re helping him on his way toward being happier! He has so much real intent and is a true seeker of truth. He’s super bomb. We’ll keep working with him. Then we had a pretty crazy lunch of rice-ramen-jiaijang (curry-ish) and bacon stuff. Very good but very funky. Elder Cho got sick. But he recovered. Then we went out and got rejected a bunch/found maybe a new investigator. Then! We met a member of the bishopric for dinner. It was super delicious, duck, [Korean], and all sorts of good eats. Then we practiced teaching an investigator with them. Their kids are super cute and make fun of us a lot. But we love them. It was a good week, tired but happy. It is nice to see some hard work paying off.

5/20

Had kind of a goofy day. We emailed in the morning but it wasn’t pday. We went and did flyers for the English class. It was way funny actually. There were some other ladies flyering there and they left to get more and we swooped in! It’s way fun. You just compliment people and speak English and do other funny stuff. Super fun.  My favorite is when a bunch of school kids walk by and say Hello really timidly and giggle and run away. Also when we got back to the house today my companion totally attacked me when we got home for dinner. He went for the wedgie but I countered with the long arms and totally wedgied him first. I unfortunately sort of ripped his pants. He spent dinner sewing up his pants. He thought it was funny though.

5/21 Tuesday

So just a quick update today. Hopefully the package will be on its way soon. And as missionaries we have to commit people to do things, so you’ve got two choices.  Either read the Book of Mormon all the way though or refer someone to the missionaries. So yeah. Or do both. But only after that can you wear your ties.

Stay happy. Much love!