"Our trio's down to
two." (Also, no idea if I spelled those names right. It's my best guess.)
The group of native Korean speakers that will be heading to Korea with our
district arrived this week, and the group consists of one person. So Elder Litster,
being way better at Korean than any of the other gringos, was made his
companion. So it's only Sabey and me now, and Litster's not even in our
district anymore. But it won't be this way for long, because we're
almost outta here! We should be getting our travel itineraries tomorrow,
and our Korean name tags should be coming any day now, so naturally our
district is super excited about that. September 14th is the big day.
Not that I hate it here or anything, but it ain't no Korea, that's for sure.
Speaking of our departure, here's a little excerpt from an interview with
President Perriton (our branch president) about a week ago, while discussing
goals I had set for myself:
Me: Well, I'm hoping
for having 1,000 vocab words memorized before I leave the MTC, but that's a
little ambitious, so we'll see.
Perriton: Elder Rees,
if you know 1,000 words by the time you leave that will be more vocabulary than
I have ever seen a missionary enter the field with. [Sidenote: He was also a
mission president in Korea a few years back]
Me [thinking to
myself]: Well, now I have no choice.
Of course, doing
something for the sake of beating everybody else isn't exactly the most
Christ-like motive, but as long as I'm learning Korean, right? And I am on
track to meeting that goal, about which I am super excited.
In other news, Elder
Litster was sick last Saturday and Sunday (before the trio was split
up), so Sabey and I spent half a day each day in the residence hall with him.
At first I thought it might be nice to have a break, but it got old real quick.
Lesson learned: if you wanna be happy as a missionary, just work, work, work.
Also, on Sunday I was staying with Litster in the afternoon, which
meant I was the only member of our trio at Sacrament Meeting. I quickly
realized I probably had 3x the chance of getting chosen to give a talk, since
if they had been planning on choosing any of the trio, they'd likely just go
with me instead. And then I noticed President Lee (in the branch presidency)
kept looking at me during the Sacrament, and then I knew it was all over. Sure
enough, they called me up. So I gave a talk all in Korean, but it wasn't too
bad. At least now I don't have to worry about it again (until I get to Korea of
course, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).
Also, I've bumped into
the one and only Hyrum England a few times, so that's exciting.
The other day in
class, Brother Driggs shared a story from his mission that was just so crazy
I've got to share it with y'all. While street contacting with his companion,
the two of them approach this guy. The man, 송한연, tells them that he's
seen Mormon missionaries before and he's always noticed something different
about them that he likes. He gives them his card and says they can stop by his
office anytime. The next day, there they are, and 송한연 begins by saying: "Now, before you two start teaching
anything, I want to let you know what I think. I've studied countless religions
and been to many different churches, but none have agreed with my beliefs. I
believe that before this life we lived as spirits with God, but because we
didn't have bodies and God did, we couldn't become like God. So we came to
Earth to get bodies, beginning with Adam and Eve--oh, and I don't think them
eating the forbidden fruit was a bad thing; it was part of the plan all along.
So I think the purpose of this life is to learn so we can eventually become
like God. Also, I've thought a lot about the afterlife, and I'm pretty sure
there's actually three levels of heaven." Not even joking. I can't even
decide which is more improbable: that this story is true, or that Brother
Driggs would lie to us. (For the less Mormon among you, the story's funny
because that's all exactly in line with Mormonism and most of the ways in which
our beliefs differ from most Christian denominations.)
So there's the past
few weeks of my life. Thankfully, 여러분 will only have to
hear from me one more time before I actually get to Korea!
Stay classy, my
friends.
Elder Rees, goin' back
in there.
No comments:
Post a Comment