Insert Inspiring Quote Here [week 25]

Well hello you lovely lot 😘 I hope you are all having a peachy-keen day. 

I, for one, have had a splendid week. Most enjoyable and fine. I like it here in the lil cabbage. So I was thinking if New York is the Big Apple, then Korea is the "Lil Cabbage" because of all the Kimchi. Get it? Huh? Right? That's a good, one right? It makes sense, right? Yeah! The reason my week has been awesome is . . . well let me tell you. 

So FIRST, last Tuesday (화요일) was super awesome because I went to my first district council in my  new area. Fisher 장로님 was there and he is awesome. We were in the MTC at the same time. What a stud. I get his emails and they are pretty funny. Oh and uplifting. So it was good to see him and say hi. We learned some good language studying tricks and tips at the aforementioned district council. 

And THEN, on Wednesday (수요일) My companion and I taught some people about the gospel. I can't remember specifics because I forgot to write in my journal. *bad missionary bad!* 

AFTERWARDS, on Thursday (목요일) we had ourselves a super jolly fun exchange with the president's assistants. I went with Christensen 장로님 to his area, and we went to a eat dinner at some super nice member's house. We ate a delicious red bean and rice porridge (patjuk). It was DELICIOUS. It was so yummy. And the harmoni (grandma) was super nice to me, but she spoke really fast and the AP had a hard time understanding her. I learned some good Korean studying tricks on that exchange. The biggest one being: don't stop studying. Just speak and read and write and think in Korean all day long. Easy.

AND VERILY VERILY IT CAME TO PASS, that on Friday (금요일) We (me and elder Carter, after exchanges) met with a super nice girl named Yoo Jean (유진) She was interested in learning English. We talked about English and how she is an elementary school English teacher, which is awesome, and I got to practice Korean as well. We were in a super cool cafe. It was called A Twosome Place I had always misread it as Atwosome place, because the spacing is a little off. It's a chain cafe in Korea. After chit-chatting about English and such, I was like "So do you want to hear a message that we came to Korea to share?" She was like "Um, OK." And I was like "righteous!" And me and my companion shared a message with her. She was super respectful and listened politely to our message and smiled and nodded. I'm not kidding when I say she was really respectful and nice about listening. But she just isn't interested in religion. She seemed to be doing fine, and didn't see a need for trying out a church that two foreign guys were teaching her about. 

One time a long time ago I was not the perfect man on a mission you see before you today (if you can't tell I'm being sarcastic about being perfect, then read this sentence and know I am.) I wasn't reading scriptures for an hour a day and thinking about my relationship with God all the time. And I was reasonably happy. I was super happy in fact. But with the gospel in my life I fill the holes I didn't know were there, and questions I didn't think about have been answered. So it is understandable when people aren't interested. Especially really nice elementary school teachers who know what matters in life more than most and are already spiritually oriented. 

The point I'm trying to make is its easy to think you don't need to turn to God and that it won't help, and that there are better ways of improving your life. But I can promise you it will bless your life and you will feel more happy and at peace if you just try to turn to God. 

NEXTLY! On Saturday (토요일) I met a guy named Jason. He lived in California for 25 years and speaks fluent gangsta. He was the most enthusiastic person about coming closer to Jesus and doing missionary work I have ever met. He believes in the Book of Mormon, now we just need to get him baptized. He had me and my companion chase a guy down to hand out a Book of Mormon. And he was like "Hallelujah! That's the work we need to be doing! They need to know Jesus!" I wish I could describe how enthusiastic he was. It was like Fletch as a televangelist . . . except he actually believes in the gospel. 

LASTLY on Sunday (일요일) two friends came to church. That was awesome. The members did a good job of welcoming them. That made me happy 😊. 

Allright I love you guys. Have yourselves a swagalicious week. Hmyokay love you buh-bye.

Truly Truman 

PICTURES!

Happy late Saint Patrick's Day! That's what most of the pictures are about. Uhhhm it's not celebrated in Korea. I honestly wonder if its celebrated in Ireland. But I love pinching people really really hard so yup. Saint Patrick's Day. 

There are some trees with acne or maybe their metaphorical mother dropped them on their metaphorical faces when they were metaphorical infants. The trees look weird is what I'm trying to get at. 

I promise I'll try to take more pictures this week, Mom. 😜

Zone Conference Happened [week 24]

Well salutations my besties~

Welcome back to another email from the greatest missionary (whose name is Elder Truman Renfroe) that ever sent an email. 

This week has been dandy, marvelous, peachy, keen, swagalicious, and just a big heaping pile of swell, glorious, goodness. 

I went to a 삼겹살 (sam gyeop sar = meat buffet) with a recent convert and he was just the nicest guy I have ever met.  I feel like Bear Grills in Man VS. Wild, when he says "this has got to be the most dangerous terrain I have ever set foot on!" Every episode. It is possible only if the episodes get progressively more dangerous, and he is not, in fact, a big, stinky liar. 

What I'm trying to say is: I need to stop adding "est" to the end of all those descripty words. 

Anyway we met a super nice guy at a meat buffet. We ate meat and talked about his life. He is the oldest (I guess that "est" is ok) sibling like me, and he works at a Bible factory. What a cool dude. His eyelids sort of drooped in a way that made his pupils be at the border of his upper eyelid which made him look like he was always looking upwards in deep thought, but in actuality he is making direct eye contact with you. It was a neat optical illusion. The way your brain recognizes where people are looking is mega fascinating. 

We also met with Jashua 정. He is super cool. He works for Samsung and is pretty high up in the company. He seems to know what we are teaching is true, but he isn't quite ready to commit. That is actually a bit of a theme in this area. Lots of people seem to like the missionaries and what we are teaching, but baptism and tithing and giving up smoking or coffee is all a big commitment. That's cool they can take their time. We will keep on teaching. 

What else happened??? 

OH! Zone conference happened. That was fun. I met some cool missionaries, such as a super cool guy named Elder Liu. He is third-generation Chinese and is just the coolest guy named elder Liu that I have ever met.  Just a chill, laid-back, but also level-headed fellow. I like him. 

Today is Preparation Day (obvi) and elder Carter and I are eating at a 돈 가스 restaurant. Don Kas is a super delicious pork dish. Imagine chicken fried steak but then use pork and then stuff the pork with cheese. Yum. 

We also went to a sweet book store where I bought a nice pen. All my favorite pens from home ran out of ink. I like to write in my journals a-lot. I wish I just got a black one but it's turquoise. It looked nice in the store but it's a loud color for when I'm trying to concentrate. It's a fountain pen which is kind of cool. Just thought I would try it out. It didn't magically make my handwriting turn into old-style English Declaration of Independence Shakespeare cursive like I was hoping. I guess that only happens with the ₩ 160000 pens ($133).

That was a lot about pens. I like pens. 

Moving on! when we were at the bank doing boring bank things, namely waiting for a clerk to become available, a super sweet lady came up to us and started to teach us about her religion.  I think her churches name is 하나님의 교회 (God's Church). She was so super incredibly nice. She smiled a nice kind smile and her voice was kind of sing-song. We read some scriptures about the Passover with her. We didn't try to convert her, and all she wanted to do was read scriptures, so it was a pleasant experience. We told her we didn't really want to meet her later to be taught about her church because we ourselves are religious missionaries. It was just a cool experience, and I think it's good to have love and respect for other religions. 

Oh SPEAKING OF WHICH! last email or the email before I wrote some kind of sort of INCREDIBLY RUDE STUFF In my photos section. I had pictures of some beautiful Buddhist statues and called them false idols and indirectly said I didn't respect them all that much, and that was something a rude, closed-minded idiot would say. So I apologize. I'm not sure why I said those things. (Well yes I am. I was trying to be funny by being a bully, which isn't nice.) Yeah! Other religions are awesome! And we should have nothing but respect and love and kinship for them. Again I am sorry if I said something offensive.

"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

Well that's all from me. Let me know how your doing in the comments below. Like and subscribe. All that good stuff. OK I love you guys bye.

PICTURES 

I wish you guys received the pictures in the same order I sent them so I could accurately number them. But emails are strange like that. That's OK I'll just describe them like I like to do.

The giant disco ball was at the mall with the book store. It looked neat so I clicked a quick snapshot of it. Same with the clock and dome. I also clicked a quick snapshot of those.

I ended up buying the octopus crackers that I mentioned in one of my previous emails because I wanted to see if they would work the way I hypothesized. They did not. But they were really good. Actually they were octopus flavor. Yummy.

There is a cool Mr. Thinker statue robot. I like it. 

There are some cool wooden models you can buy and put together that were displayed at the bookstore. I like those things. 

And there is a selfie if me and my companion. Every time I write selfie it auto corrects to selfish. Huh neat.

New Companion, New Area [week 23]

Well hello You lovely lot, how are you all doing on this fine day? I am doing absolutely 좋아요! This week was a jolly good time. So let me tell you what happened. What happened is this: on Monday, my companion and I went bowling and we had some delicious chicken to celebrate a good transfer. and then! 

On Wednesday night (which was the last day of the transfer we got lee to commit to a baptismal date. :)  She is super spiritual and cool. She said that she prays whenever she is happy to tell Heavenly Father "thank you." She said she does this to make Him feel good. What a nice person she is! That was the nicest thing I have heard in all of my days as a missionary. Whoa, she is so nice. 

Then on Thursday, I moved on over to 분당구 Bundang gu. My new companion is awesome. His name is Elder Carter, and he is from Utah, and he is awesome! he is the zone leader, he has been in Korea for 11 months and he was in Oregon for 2 months before this because of Covid or something like that. What a cool guy. This area is super awesome! It's busy, and big and it has a nice big church building and you get to go to in person church. It's awesome! There are cool members and there's a board game night every Saturday for teaching friends and all sorts of cool stuff. I love this area! It's exciting. 

Some nice harmonies (grandmas) took me and elder carter out for lunch. They spoke so fast and fluent, it's crazy. Elder Carter understood 90% of what they were saying and I understood about 3%. Which means Elder Carter is going to be a fantastical language trainer. 

Yuuuuup! It's been a really good time here in Korea. I love you guys. Pray, read the scriptures, Go to church. Those are the keys to happiness. And make Christ the center of your life. 

PICTURES!

The picture of me holding a bowling ball above my head like a mighty cave man about to kill a sabre tooth tiger with a rock is... me holding a bowling ball.

The Picture of the bag of chips depicts a pink octopus holding some of the chips that I assume are in the bag. The flesh colored octopus appears to be kissing the pink octopus. I believe this is a parable or an encripted message to the prospective chip investors. So the pink octopus represents the people who buy the chips. The chips represent the chips. and the flesh colored girl octopus represents attractive human girls. So, if my interpretation is correct, Buying these chips will make cute girls want to kiss you... neat

I don't know if the gifs on my phone are specific to Korea or just having a Samsung phone, but there are some crazy and funny gifs. this one was one of my favorites. 

Transfer to Second Area

I just moved to the Bundang-gu area, which is the closest area to the city of Seoul.  Even though I am in the Korea Seoul South Mission, it does not actually include Seoul.  I will be serving with Elder Carter and we'll be living in the city of Seongnam.

Second Area: Seongnam