Hey everybody,
So this was my first full week here in Kang Neung. I'l take a little more time to describe the city. I don't think it's as rural as I made it out to be a week ago (though that might just have been culture shock between here and Seoul, the sprawling metropolis). It's about the size of Salt Lake City, I think, and it looks a lot like it too.
We have mountains in the distance that are comparable to Utah's mountains. The branch of our church here has about 30 members, counting children. We live in a sweet apartment building on the 13th floor. There's a river about 2 feet deep that the city is built around. It's really, really windy right now, but today it finally started getting warmer. There are buses and cars and things all over the place. That's about all. :D Oh, we don't ride bikes here--at least, we won't until we get permission from our mission president because a good number of our members live outside of the city in the true sticks of Korea. We'll see about how the permission thing goes.
I expected this week to be hard for some reason, some sort of premonition, and some things about it were hard, but there were a lot of good things too. We didn't teach as many lessons this week or talk to as many people, but I feel like the quality of my work is slowly improving. There has been some drama with some of the missionaries in an area in our zone that have a hard area but aren't really working that hard to compensate, so they are unhappy, but it's starting to smooth over. One big thing was the General Conference of the Church!
It's always so cool knowing that we are watching a broadcast that all the members of the church worldwide are watching too. The speakers were really good, though I didn't really understand Julie B. Beck's talk about the Relief Society. It seemed like she just said a bunch of things about how great of a women's organization it is and its roles, but she was using really hard English. :D I couldn't keep up with her sentences, they were so long. But it was a good talk all the same. I think the most powerfully delivered messages were President Uchtdorf's talk about not being jealous, holding grudges, or envying; Elder Holland's about not being envious when the blessings of the Lord fall on someone else; and Elder Ballard's about the real duties and attitudes we should have as holders of the Priesthood. As far as the ones that applied most to my work and therefore my life right now, the second speaker of the Saturday session (I forgot her name) gave one about children and how to help them understand and be motivated to live gospel principles. It really applied to some investigators we have right now that are ages 11 to 14 or so, that just don't have much interest in church. They are pretty much meeting us only for English, but I think I can come up with a creative way to teach them. If anybody has any ideas, let me know. :D
Yesterday morning there were some jets practicing for an air show in the sky above our apartment. Me and Elder Larson got some awesome pictures! I'll try to remember to send them to my parents next week so Mom can put them on my blog. Also this week, Elder Larson taught me all about baseball and how the post season works, which was really cool. I think I like baseball more than football, but we'll see. I have to go back and watch them both before I choose.
Oh, and the best piece of news this week--one of our investigators agreed to a baptismal date! His name in English is Hwang Gi Seok. He has had some really hard times in his life. His wife divorced him a few years ago, and his family all left him. Then he had a stroke, which caused him to be in two different hospitals for a year total, which drained all his money. Now he lives in a government social center for the poor. He said his life goals are to serve people and get his body in good shape to donate to science after he passes away.
He's in his 60s I think. He's one of the most humble people I've ever had the privelege of teaching, and he accepts readily everything we teach. I'll keep you posted on his progress.
So life is good like always. The food of the week is good too:
doenjang jjigae. Doenjang is fermented soybean paste that turns out tasting really good; when stirred in water it makes a stock, and then you add whatever vegetables you want to make a stew, usually potatoes, squash, mushrooms, and onions. You can add clams too but we don't usually buy clams. I made it for my first time yesterday, and it turned out really good! It's definitely something I can make in America if I can track down the ingredients.
Thanks for all that you all have done for me in the past, and someday I hope to be able to do a lot for you. Hope you have a good week!
Elder Matt Dean
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