"We Thought You Was a Toad" [week 29]

Hey have you guys seen the movie Oh Brother Where art Thou? If not then, um, REPENT! 회개하십쇼! (thats Korean for repent. I speak Korean) If you have seen it then you might have recognized the tasteful movie quote I put in the subject line. Anyways, the reason I bring up that movie is because of two things: 하나 (Thats Korean for one. I speak Korean) I'm using a random can of axe hair goop I found in the apartment. It reminds me of Dapper Dan. 둘 (that means two in Korean. I speak Korean.) My companion listens to his own brand of spiritual music and two of his songs are featured in the aforementioned motion picture. And to answer your follow-up question: No, he doesn't listen to The Big Rock Candy Mountain :( sad emoji.

HEY! How have you guys been? I ate some raw crab the other day. It was actually mind-blowingly, face-explodingly delicious. You have to put the body of the crab in your face with the legs hanging out as crab legs do. Then you just bite down on the shell and suck the gelatinous meat out until you choke on the shell or satisfaction hits; whichever one comes first. It was so good. This meal was had with Yune Seong Chor. He is a retired doctor and he is a super nice guy. How do you end a sentence with the abbreviation Dr.? Double punctuation insanity?! So this Mr. Dr. guy was super nice. he took us out to eat, then he took us out to eat. I've eaten out then gone to a cafe afterward like every time someone takes me out. It's 부지 (that spells boujee. That's actually a Korean word. I would know... I speak Korean.) Mr. Dr. has progressed so much since meeting him. He started out with thinking he didn't have faith to growing his faith, now to reading the Book of Mormon on his own. What a cool Dr.. (Then what if I want to add an ellipsis after Dr.? Four periods? That looks unaesthetic.)

We met with Jang Gyeong Mi about every other day. She is awesome. I think she is my favorite friend. She taught us how to "hiya" after punching someone. Koreans say "Gee hop" 기합 (그 타너는 한국말 이예요. 저는 한국 말할 수 있어요) when punching people in the face. How do the locals greet each other when punching their fellow men in the schnoz in your culture, dear reader? She is so fun. We are reading the Book of Mormon illustrated stories with her right now. It's a jolly good time. 

Today I'm going to play some more basketball with the boys. It's gonna be wicked-pffff I mean righteous! 

SCRIPTURES!

2nd Nephi 31:20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life

HOPE! that's where it's all at. How can you achieve something you don't hope for? You don't! That's how. So hope your pretty little hearts out. 

PICTURES!

There's a couple pictures with me and my companion holding up some cute lil eggs that the primary kids gave us. 

There's a picture of some cherry blossom pedals in the river that almost look like a heart. 

There's some Dragon Ball Z key chains I have on my phone. 

A tree. 

My companion sitting inside art. 

Oh P.S. to my Coon family. You know how Everett says ROTATION at volleyball? I do that now. I did it a ton in the MTC. Now everyone love/hates me. 😁 that makes me happy. It's also where I git my inspiration for PICTURES! and SCRIPTURES!

What's crackalackin? [week 27]

My BUDDIES! heh-hehe-HEH-hello! What's crackalackin? Hey you want to know a secret? Well too bad I can keep a secret, so you don't get to know my super juicy desirable secret. 

OH-KAY what did I do that was worthy of noteworthyness? Let me cogitate for one second. OK last Saturday we had ourselves a party. We played high-school assembly-esque party games. Like the put your hand in this cardboard box and tell us what cold spaghetti feels like game. And we played some get to know you games and some charade variants. The people that came is what made it weird. Because if your with a good group of friends you could play candy land and still have a euphoric experience. We had missionaries of every age rank and gender, and teaching friends of every age rank and gender. So there were like mini cliques within the event, but it still ended up being fun. I got to know a cool yet different teaching friend named Makenzie. She is an English teacher from America, she likes theater and ice cream, and she was absolutely incredible at charades. Good job Makenzie. And I got to be better friends with 이선현. (Elder sun hyeon.) It was a success. 42/42 for sure and for certain. 

There is all the party people on the gym on the green floor. It was lit. 

I have a neighbor Harmonie (grandma 할머니) who had kids that lived in America, and they were taken care of by their neighbors, so she wants to return the favor by feeding any Americans on her floor. She made us some delicious curry. It was so good. 

Guys help me out. Is "lip service" an English phrase? A Korean said I was giving'em "lip service" when I was brown nosing. If it is an English phrase then its going to be used at every possible opportunity because it's the most incredible thing I've heard in my entire mission. If it's like a konglish phrase, then I will also still use it all the time, but with a Korean accent. 

It's good to be able to speak well enough to laugh with Koreans. That's my love language. LAUGHING. So it's nice to be able to laugh and get to know some people here. I think it's the first step in missionary work. Making friends. 

Alllllright I love you guys, you have a jolly fan-flippn-tactic week. Watch conference! I'm going to next week because thats when the Korean version comes out. I'm still watching it in English though. OK love you bye.

PICTURES!

My new best friend, "Lil Aang." He has all the answers. I got him at the Buddhist temple last week. Maybe I'll take more pictures and send them on over in another email... OK that's what I'll do, but that means I'm going to make this email the "reply all" type because it takes 30 minutes to add all my many faithful followers the other way. So be careful of what you click. 😚

The next picture (Well who knows what order these will be in after I send them?) Is some scrumptious cold meat sticks. I live Korean food, but so many fast foods and really tasty looking stuff is served cold or at room temperature. I always take most street food home to microwave it before consumption.

There is a picture of what appears to be a hot dog in a large bun with some frosted flakes and cheese on it. It's GRRRRREAT!

Then there is a selfie of me being super cheerful and patriotic. God bless America 🇺🇸 and South Korea too

안녕하세요 me homies? [week 18]

촌아칩니다! Gooood morning or whatever. I'm on the other side of the planet so I can say "good after midnight" and you can't correct me! ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 

So! What did I do this week you ask? Well thank you for asking! On the day of Tuesday, Elder Titensor and I met with a teaching friend named 아리 (Ali).  She is from Cambodia and she has a different name there. I've heard like three names that people call her, so maybe she is an identity-thieving con artist. Anyways, we had some tea and talked about how we are missionaries and we teach English and about the restoration a little bit. She is super nice! And super short. It was fun talking to her. I didn't understand all of it because one of the three languages she speaks is not English. She speaks fluent Korean and Cambodian and one other language I forgot. She is super nice. Later in the week she took us to a 삼겹살, he most delicious Korean restaurant you can go to. She is so super nice! And kind of weird, but who cares! She is nice and wants be friends and took us to eat expensive, delicious food!

At the end of the day (the literal end of the day, not the stupid colloquialism that people use when they are about to say something profoundly moot and obvious {there is a good bit by Gary Gulman about "at the end of the day". You can probably find it on YouTube}) ANYWAYS 앟마튼, at the end of the day I talked to 이승규 장로님 (Elder sung kyu lee) and I was in an especially chipper mood and he asked, "How is the Korean coming?" And I was like, "Awesome-euh!" (Which is "awesome" in a Korean accent). He was silent for a few seconds and then said, deadpan as can be, "I'm speechless-euh." He is a funny dude. We about my can-do attitude in learning the language. He ended up talking me up in district council the next day, and saying how cool my positive attitude is. I like him! 

On Sunday two teaching friends came to sacrament meeting! Wooooo! This is super hard to get people to do because it's over Zoom. But they came to the church building and we watched sacrament meeting on a TV. Good times. 

Allright! I love you guys, you are all the best. Have a jolly good week. Over and out! 사랑해요  I love you.

Truly, Truman 

PICTURES!!!

I pretend to feel disgusted with myself for sending you memes, but they are fun. I usually send pictures that I take the day I write, because that is Preparation Day. But this P-day is kind of another work day, because I'm trading companions for a day for training purposes or something. The only picture that needs explaining is the bottle. It's a delicious scrum-ba-dilly-umptious tea. Best served warm. Would recommend. 

Year of the tiger!