First Week in the Field! [week 12]

안녕하세요! How are you all on this fine day? I am doing fan-darning-tastic! (Darn is the strongest euphemism I can use, but if I could have put a good old flip in there that would have sounded better) ANYWAY, this week has been mighty swell. I got to teach two lessons. Or my companion got to teach two lessons while I watched. Well I helped a bit in the English lesson, and I learned a lot. We taught a guy named Dipen (in English), and a guy named Rooney (in Korean).

President and Sister Sargent!

We talked about temples with Dipen. His main question was "Why can't we say the same prayers that members of your church use in other religion's temples?" We told him about sealing power and how the temple is set apart and is a sacred place and lots of good scriptures were read, but I don't think we made a ton of progress with him. We are meeting with him again next week. Oh, I almost forgot, I suggested we pray to know the truth in the middle of the meeting, and then I suggested we have a minute of silence to let the spirit work on us, but no one wanted to speak first, so it turned into 25 minutes of silence. That was really neat. 

Dipen has a strong desire to know the truth, but he is wary of choosing one church. He doesn't know how we can claim to have the true church when so many other churches claim the same thing. Elder Titensor, (my new companion) said he has taught all of the lessons at least once to Dipen, which would include the Restoration. So I think if Dipen continues to desire the truth, then he will be baptized eventually.  He was a cool guy.

I am not sure exactly what we taught Rooney. (I love that band: Rooney) I know it had to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry. I LOVE Rooney (I'm talking about the person now) he had an 애기 (pronounced eggie, which means baby) and a three-year-old daughter and a wife. His apartment was full of family pictures and baby toys and educational posters for his kids. You can tell he got interested in the church because he wants the best for his family. What a nice guy. He was constantly holding his baby and smiling at him. I think he will join the church for sure. He is in a place to feel the promptings of the spirit.

Elder Sean Titensor and Elder Truman Renfroe

My new companion is elder Titensor. He is super cool and obedient to the rules. We both like lo-fi hip-hop, and punk rock, and anime, and the author Brandon Sanderson. He just got done being trained, and now he's training me, so he is a top-notch Elder. He's pretty good at Korean. I'm going to learn a lot from him. He is an upstanding young man!

I met the Sargents in person. President Sargent is so super fun and nice, but definitely more intimidating in person. Sister Sargent is super nice and loving and fun as well. I love them, they are good presidents (or President and First Lady? First Sister? IDK.)

Dickey and Renfroe, eating at the Sargents' house

Binks and Prock, at the Sargents

President Sargent showing us cool stuff

Some friends of the Sargents sent them these Mandarin oranges from their own tree

My new favorite food is 떡 (dohk). It's delicious rice that has been processed into a kind of hard, cheesy texture. I had it deep-fried. It was so good!

Well I think that's all fellas. I love you guys!

PICTURES!

The pictures of the city are pictures of the city.

The sleeping fellow is Elder Titensor. He fell asleep while studying... 

The two food-looking triangles are rice balls. One was tuna the other was mysterious. They are also the same food as in some Asian video games, and they are used as health potions (e.g. Spectrobes, Naruto, Pokémon Go). Yeah, I'm that cultured on Asian culture. 

I Got Out of Quarantine! [week 11]

 Hello! 안녕하세요 여러분. 어떻게 지내세요? Guess what!?! I got out of quarantine today and it was a most joyous experience. Most joyous indeed. INDUBITABLY JOYOUS FOR A SURETY, WITHOUT A DOUBT! Me and the quarantine 선교사 (Sonkyosa missionaries) got to go to a sushi buffet with some other elders. It was a jolly good time. Then me and Elder Binks split off from Elders Prock and Dickey, and we wandered around 대전 (Daejeon) for a couple hours it was great! Lots of stores and sculptures and art galleries and big buildings and people. EVERYTHING! 

I'm talking to this guy named 규 (Kyoo) right now, and he is a chill fellow. I met him on HelloTalk, which is a language exchange social media, and we are going to play some 장기 (Janggi, Korean chess). Then after I destroy his face at Janggi, I'm going to resurrect his face with the Book of Mormon. 규 seems pretty cool. He agreed to meet already now we just need to figure out when. 

Elder Dickey has found TONS of people on HelloTalk. He found this woman who is Iranian, and she is super interested in the church. You can tell she could feel the church is true. Unfortunately, Elder Dickey found out that if she converts to Christianity, her government will sentence her to death. So he sort of had to stop teaching her forthwith. 

I saw four baptisms over zoom, that was awesome. Three on the 12th and one on the 5th. It was very nice to watch. The kids on the zoom call went crazy! They all wanted to get in the camera and say nice-to-meet-you. And they make head hearts and peace signs. They are happy little guys. 

We had Korean etiquette training yesterday. It was most informative: 

• Give and receive everything with both hands
• Don't put your hands in your pockets when talking to someone (especially oldies) 
• Stand up and bow when someone older than you walks into a room
• Don't point
• Use exact titles
• Don't hang up the phone until after three seconds of silence (hanging up has always been a struggle for me, so having set rules on how to do it is nice)

Elder Prock beat me at Janggi... again. The score is 3 to 1 now. 

OH! I forgot to mention this a few emails ago, but my uncle Eli sent me a bunch of super cool wood cuts of Christmas ornaments and tie pins for the mission. He made one for each member of my MTC district and for my mission president, and he made a Plan of Salvation puzzle in Korean for me to use when  teaching. 

He is a super cool uncle! I remember when he went on his mission to England, and I wrote him a letter or two. I thought of missionaries as superheroes back then, and I looked up to Eli so much, along with my other uncle who went on a mission to Japan, uncle Kevin.  I love those guys! I never had any doubt about going on a mission because of theirs and my dad's example. I'm glad I get to be out here to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has brought me so much happiness and peace, and I'm going to spread it around. 

Alright! I love you guys! Have a good week, merry Christmas! 

Truly Truman 

PICTURES!!!

I went to two art galleries today. One in an underground mall, and one in an above-ground-not-a-mall. The picture with the tiger was the above ground place, and the bird and horses and nice smiling lady were in the underground mall.

The two cute chubby monster statues were also in the mall.

The plate of delicious food was from the buffet. This was the first good meal since the MTC, and the first really good meal since my mom's cooking. 

Thanksgiving at the MTC [week 9]

Hello 안녕하세요! How is everyone doing on this fine day? Sorry this email is a couple days late. 

SO! let me tell you what happened on Tuesday. Michael A Dunn from the 70 came over and gave a super motivating devotional.  He is the guy that told the story about the Olympic bikers in conference. His sports analogy on Tuesday was about cross-country skiing. I forgot the athlete's name, but her cool quote was that her biggest fear "is crossing the finish line with energy to spare."  His devotional was super uplifting and motivating.

Then on Thanksgiving Day, Elder Gary E. Stevenson came and gave a devotional. It was so cool! The big take-away from his talk was to be grateful for four things: the missionary purpose, change of heart, the restoration, and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. 

Then we watched a movie called Ephraim's Rescue. I think it would have been a really bad movie, (so very, terribly, really cringy and bad) but I haven't seen a movie in two months . . . so it was the greatest cinematic experience of my life! 

AND THEN, we did a service project with an organization called "fighting hunger" for two hours, led by Sister Sharon Eubank. The MTC bagged over 250,000 brown sugar oatmeal meals. It was a jolly good time. I was on "holding the bag under the funnel" duty. I talked to sister Anna Fenberg and Sister Peterson for two hours. They are the coolest sisters. We talked about spiritual stuff and movies and mission life and such. They said my Disney spirit character is "Dug" from the movie Up or "Crush" from Finding Nemo (that makes me happy😊).

AND THEN, we went to a musical number where the lead fellow from the Piano Guys (Jon Schmidt) came and played some Taylor Swift tunes. Some of the missionaries were absolutely losing their minds when they heard his songs. As for me I will give it a solid thumbs up. It was good. 

Blurry photo of Jon Schmidt himself

AND THEN!!! We were excused to go look at the Christmas lights. We got to stay out until 9:30 instead of 9:15, I am kidding you not. This was my favorite part. I just got to hang out and take pictures and laugh with my new besties from my district and the other Asian districts.  Best day EVER!

Elders Renfroe and Binks

Elders Renfroe and Harden

Elders Fisher, Belt, Dickey, Bailey, and Gallup, and ME

On Sunday, sisters Fenberg, Peterson, Hong, and Elders Binks and Fisher, all played a musical number. I think it was arranged by Elder Binks, but I am not sure. It was easily the best musical number I have seen in the MTC. I'll post it on Facebook. It brought two and a half tears to my eyes. I am going to miss those guys.😭

MORE PICTURES!

The Carpenters Gift is a painting done by my high school art teacher, Andy Berg. It represents God wanting to give us blessings, but we first have to let go of some of the things we hold onto that aren't Christlike.

The selfie is me and elder belt

Elder Renfroe and Elder Zac Belt, called to Nagoya Japan

The group picture is the Japanese district. Elder Asiasiga is the guy in the front doing the bow and arrow pose. He is super cool and chill and spiritual. AND he has a Naruto hoodie, so he is of the highest caliber. 

Elder Lucius Asiasiga in front, going to Japan Tokyo North

The selfie with lots of people is me and Elder Binks, and Campbell, and sisters Johnston, Hong, Peterson, and Rich. I love those guys!

Sisters Johnston, Hong, Peterson, and Rich.  Elders Campbell, Binks, and Renfroe

I Iove you guys! And I love my MTC buddies. I'm going to miss them just as much as I miss all of you! Don't forget to brush your teeth and read The Book of Mormon. 

Truly Truma- pfffff I mean

Elder Renfroe

Top: Me, Elder Fisher, Elder Pestana, Elder Prock, Elder Dickey, Elder Harden
Bottom: Elder Griswold, Elder Binks, Elder Del Priore, Elder Campbell, and Elder Livingston

Griswold, Fenberg, and Peterson

This is what I like to do for exercise--
the basketball gym is too competitive

DO NOT anger the haircut lady [Week Eight]

Hello, everybody! How are you all doing on this fine day? 

I am doing pretty alright. It's been a good week. Made some new friends whose names I cannot recall at this time. And I learned some Korean words, and I got a haircut.  For those of you about to come to the MTC (*cough cough* Caleb), DO NOT anger the haircut lady. She is a scary lady! She got to the salon and started angry-talking us where to sit. Some idiot elder told her that he "was supposed to get a haircut yesterday at 2:30 and you guys weren't there." And she was like, "Yes, we were. We got done early and waited for a half hour till 2:45, and you guys didn't show up!" She was talking smack about that elder (and her husband) when she wasn't yelling at us to rotate seats.

So yeah, don't mess with her or she'll talk some serious smack on you and give you a bad haircut. 

I showed Elder Prock how to play Janggi (Korean chess) this week, and he beat me the first game, (because I was going easy on him) and the second game (because he isn't terrible) and I'm about to beat him in an ongoing game. Fun times. 

I brought the Janngi pieces, but we had
to make a Janngi board out of cardboard

I'm leaving in a weekish. Either next Monday or Tuesday. I don't have my flight plans yet, but I do have my visa. (HUZZAH for visa!) We had an early departure meeting because this coming week is Thanksgiving. And what we learned at that meeting was that we should follow the instructions given on our itinerary.  Really useful info from that hour-long meeting. Just incredible what you can learn in one hour. Actually, it was uplifting and they psyched us up to get into the field, so that was good I guess. 

OH! Brother George Clooney (the choir director. I found out his real name but he will always be George Clooney, Jr. to me) told us if there was one week to show up to choir it would be this coming week, and he dropped some subtle hint-bombs that there would be an apostle or one of the presidency coming next week for Thanksgiving. Exciting!🤪 

PICTURES!

OK I'll tell you their names in the order their faces appear, but I'll tell you in the order as If their faces are Korean characters. So left to right in conglomerates of 2, 3, or 4. Going either 12 / 34 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 12 / 3 / 12...

Just kidding, I'll just tell you their names. The girl that's wearing a blue dress and a green coat in two pictures, and a blue vest in the others, is Sister Rich. She's cool. Southern accent. She's going to Canada ; Japanese speaking.

The fellow with glowing eyes and throwing up gang signs is Elder Belt. He is Native American and Japanese speaking. He has some cool rings. Super cool guy.

The guy standing next to Elder Belt and Sister Rich with the huge smile and yellow tie is Elder Binks. I love this guy! He is super cool and we are going to the same mission. I hope we are companions after we both know the language because he is a nice dude.

Elder Binks, Elder Belt, Sister Rich, Elder Prock in background

Elder Fisher is the guy with the super short tie, glasses, and a dark plaid jacket. He is so chill and funny. We are going to the same mission as well.

The three sisters on the left of the two dark blurry pictures are sister Johnston (top) fenberg (right) and Peterson (left) they are all super nice. They are all going to Korea Seoul. Sister Hong is not in any of these pictures, but she is in this group as well. 

Everyone else in these pictures are irrelevant swine whose names I don't know. (Except for Elder Prock my companion who is in all the pictures)

Sisters Johnston (top) Fenberg (right) and Peterson (left)
Elder Fisher in plaid jacket, 

The picture of the temple is the temple.

The picture of me is ME!