First Week in Korea! [week 10]

Hello 여러분! (Yall)

어떻게 지내십니까? How are you doing? 

I for one am doing fantastic! Korea! Woohoo! It's a good time in Korea. I'm in quarantine right now. I got to leave to get tested for Covid-19, and that was neat. 

My first taxi ride on my way to get Covid tested

I rode in my first ever taxi, and I could not communicate with the driver (he got much better at English when it was time to pay though). Luckily Elder Binks was there to speak for both of us. He is pretty darn good at Korean for learning in the MTC. 

Some neat factoids about Korea that I have discovered in my 2ish days of being here

1. You can block other cars in when you park, just straighten your tires and leave your car in neutral, so whoever you blocked can just push your car out of the way. 
2. There are drawers in every residence dedicated to KimChi, and food garbage. Its a slightly refrigerated drawer to keep it nice and fresh, or as fresh as fermented cabbage and pig slops can be. They recycle their food garbage to pigs. I am a huge fan of that! My family has chickens and we give our leftovers to them. This is the way. 

So the flight over from Salt Lake to Dallas to Korea was an adventure. We had a 50-minute layover in Dallas, so it was like 17 hours of straight flying. The food on the plane was good. Or the first meal was good, the second was OK, and the third made my face mask smell like absolute crap for the next five hours. Getting through customs for Covid and being a foreigner was a long and boring and stressful process, but we did it! 

Saying goodbye to my district and other districts from the MTC was super hard.😭 I love those guys. It was super hard. I LOVE  those guys! Seriously, they are already some of my closest friends after nine weeks of knowing them (some of them more like seven weeks because I didn't meet the other Korean district until I got to the MTC), and I'm going to miss them. I'm going to keep in touch though. But mostly I'm going to miss them. I love those guys and I could talk about them forever...so I will. 

1. Sister Peterson was so super duper kind and nice! I'm glad I got to know her, she just makes everyone feel cool. And she can play the piano and the HARP like a musical wizard. It was sad to see her go to the Seoul mission when I'm in Seoul south.
2. Sister Fenberg is SO nice, and uplifting to everyone. You can't be in a bad mood when she is around. And she had some hecking genuine compliments that made my day. Will miss 10/10
3. Sister Johnston was cool. She was super positive even when the going got rough. She was positive. I feel like a silly guy for ever complaining about anything, because she doesn't ever complain EVER! and we had some cool chit chats about religion and family. She is so cool!
4. Sister Hong was awesome.  She was always happy, and she could surprise us with some witty sarcasm every once in a while, even though you would never expect it from her. And she always complimented my ties which made me feel above elder Dickey in style points. (And he is the king of stylishness) She was so cool and fun to be around. Seoul is lucky to have her!

Sisters Fenberg, Peterson, Rich, and Hong

1. Oh my goodness Elder Griswold is the coolest guy! Super easy to look up to. He is good at everything he does, and he is super leader like, and he watches lots of anime, but he doesn't tell his girlfriends on account of it "messing up his image." Super cool guy. He is going to be a good leader in the mission field.
2. Elder Del Priore is a crazy cool guy. He has the strongest personality/aura ever. He was famous at the MTC everyone said hi to him as we walked by. He was super... I can't describe it any other way than strong. He was swole, but I mean his personality was strong. He just did what Elder Del would do. Very cool guy. I want to be as outgoing as him.
3. Elder Livingston. OH MAN! Elder Livingston was a nice guy. We had some fun conversations about religion and Korea and Naruto, and all sorts of stuff. He always had something nice to say. Super nice smart fellow.  I like him.
4. Elder Green was easy to get along with. I love this guy! I don't think I have heard him say anything negative about anyone else. I talked DND with him a couple times, which was so fun. He is a good example of a righteous disciple of Christ.
5. Fallon 장노님 (elder) was a super huge blessing to me. He helped me with the language, and helped me gain some courage to ask for help when I needed it. And he was good at the drums and the language, and he was super fun to talk with. Everybody loves Elder Fallon.  There is nobody quite as dedicated as he is.
6. Elder Harden was one of the best at Korean in our district. And he could trounce me at chess... most of the time. He was a perfect example of what an obedient and righteous missionary is. And he was never negative about others. And he is from Idaho REPRESENT! I love this guy!
7. Then of Course there is Campbell 장노님. Easily the funniest person in all of the MTC. HE IS FUNNY. Just funny, that's all I can think of when  I think of him. And he is super encouraging to people when they mess up, and he was a good sport on the volleyball ball court. I love this guy!
8. Elder Fisher is cool 😎. He had heelies and he played the cello and he looks like a handsome American version of Harry Potter. And he made everything look easy. He was easy going, but also really good at Korean and smarticles. He is cool. I like him!
9. Pestana 장노님 was a missionary among missionaries. He was able to bring the spirit into a room and be a great example to everyone. He helped me out a lot with some tricky times. He is a strong disciple of Christ, and I'm going to miss him.
10. Elder Dickey (with me right now in quarantine) is chill. He is a man of few words, but when you can smolder like him you don't need words. He is so un-unlikeable. You HAVE to like him. He is too cool and stylish and funny to not like. So obviously I LIKE HIM. 
11. Elder Binks (with me in quarantine right now) is the nicest person. AND! he wrote a few songs that are amazing. He is super good at singing, and he is teaching me a ton of Korean right now, and he is just one of my favorite people. He is super nice.
12. Prock 장노님 (with me in quarantine right now) is my companion and I am glad it was him! He taught me how to chill out on the inside. You guys know I am pretty outwardly happy and chill, but sometimes it's because I don't show when I am unchill. But if Elder Prock looks chill then his is CHILL! so yeah. He is a super genuine guy and I am glad that we were companions. And he could beat me at Janggi, so he must be a certified genius.

I can't write this long list of cool friends without mentioning guys from out of my district. I didn't know them as well, but I know them well enough to know they are good guys. I would write a paragraph for each of them, but that would take hours, so just know 'I love you all my other MTC buds!'

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Yup. I love my Korean MTC buddies. They are all awesome!  Here is the rest of my email which I wrote earlier, so get ready for a rough transition sentence. 

When we met the assistant to the president and all the other guys who were picking us up at the airport. I was greeted by a tall Korean guy. President 황 (Hoang) he speaks next to no English, which was such a coincidence because I speak next to no Korean! But he gave me a big hug and kept saying "그" (tall) over and over. And gesturing at how tall I was. He had a huge smile and laughed a lot, and spoke super enthusiastically. I like this guy! The AP (assistant president) speaks fluent English and Korean, so he translated for president 황. Good times!

After that me and Elder Prock and Elder Binks and Elder Dickey went to our apartment, and brought our stuff inside and crashed. I got a 요; A mat instead of a bed. It's super comfy. The beds here are harder than the 요들. (Mats)

What we have done since being here is: meetings, setting up our phones, finding people to teach and learn Korean from on HelloTalk, and studying. Fun times.

Alright! I LOVE YOU GUYS. After quarantine I'll have some cooler pictures. For right now here is what I have.

The picture of the city at night is what we can see from our window. Our apartment has tons of windows which is nice. We can see like 3 lit up red crucifixes from one window. It's not devil worshipers, red is the color of positive energy here.

Then the other pictures are just random snapshots I took while in a new country crazed frenzy.

Love you guys. Remember to say your prayers! OH! I forgot to say, I know that me and my group were helped through the airport. There were many times things went wrong, but they worked out by some fluke. But it wasn't a fluke! The Lord looks out for his own. Especially missionaries. 

OK love you bye

Truly Truman