January 15, 2012

Hey all,

So, I'm here at the Gwanak City Office, which has four public computers with the rule that you can only use them for 10 minutes at a time before you have to switch off, because there are a lot of people that want to use them. So, this one will be fairly short, sorry. :D

This week was ok. Our investigator with a baptismal date, Lee Jun Jae, wasn't able to make it to church this last Sunday, so we have to move his date back to the 11th of February. I really hope I will be here to see him get baptized, because that's right around transfers....but in any case, the important thing is him getting baptized, not me seeing it.

Other than that...tomorrow we are going to the Gyeongbokgung, which is the palace right by the Blue House, Korea's version of the White house. It should be pretty awesome. I'll take lots of pictures and send them to my parents ASAP. We also have the temple visit tomorrow, which should be amazing too. I love the feeling of closeness to God that we can recieve in the temple. I have a feeling I'll grow to love it even more when I can go more often, but for now the amount that I can do is enough. As I heard a missionary in Utah once say, "We're here to do work for the living right now, not the dead." Kind of strange, but true.

Laziness is always a struggle. We all know how easy it is to only do 80% of what we know we can do, instead of 100%. Or how easy it is to keep almost all the commandments. But I've found that even though it's really hard, the blessings that come from obedience are worth it. The trick is finding a balance between concentrating too much on the rules and forgetting to have fun, and letting the rules go to the wind in favor of having a good time. That's one of the fundamental things I've been working on for a while, but the older I get, the closer I come to finding the answer.

Well, time is running out. I know that God lives, more than everything else, and with from that fact we build our lives and our faith. Thanks for all you've done for me, and for all you continue to do.

The food of the week is mook, which is acorn jelly about the consistency of jello. When you have it with soy sauce as a side dish with rice, it's really awesome. :D

I love you all, and I hope you have a good week. Anyeonghikaeseyo!

Elder Matt Dean

January 8, 2012

Dear Everybody,

Things are going so good here right now! One of our investigators with a baptismal date, Lee Jun Jae, came to church for the first time yesterday. Someone tapped me on the back of the shoulder as the Sacrament was ending, and I looked back and saw him in the back, and I was so happy. :D I went and sat by him, and i could just feel that he was really happy or content or something, some positive feeling coming from him. It was way good. And then after the meeting, a bunch of our members came up to him and introduced themselves, and generally showed interest in him, which is so important to someone new to the church. One of our members who I know fairly well, Sister Jang Mi Sook, even invited Lee Jun Jae and me and my companion to dinner on Wednesday! We are really looking forward to that. That whole day was just one big success story, and I'm really happy right now.

By the way, I'm staying in Bong Cheon for another six weeks, in case you couldn't already tell. :D For those who don't know, it's a residential area near downtown Seoul that's right near Seoul National University. It's pretty metro, lots of people, lots of cars, lots of civilization and all. Unfortunately, it'll probably be my last six weeks here, because I've been here for a long time and they generally don't leave us in an area for super long. I will really miss this ward, as much as my greenie ward. They are all so nice and generous, and I can feel their love almost every time I talk to them. I will be sure to live these last weeks up as much as I can before I have to head out.

The weather is getting pretty cold now, but things are good. I have lots of warm clothes, and the gospel, and an amazing family and lots of friends here in Korea and in America. It's always good to look at the positives if you can, because there really are so many. The Lord has helped me so much to learn Korean and gain charity and work hard, and most of all, to repent. I'm so glad I have this gospel in my life, because through the gospel I have the assurance that my life has a purpose, that I can live with my family forever, and I can be peaceful and happy in this life. And that's why I'm a missionary right now, so I can tell everybody about it and help them see the happiness and the good things I have. The great thing about the gospel is, it applies to everybody and it will help everybody that will open their heart to it. I don't blame anyone who doesn't, though, because we can all make our choices and live our lives the way we want. That freedom means a lot to me, and I'm learning more and more not to infringe upon it while still making my message clear. I love this missionary work, I love the Lord, and I love all of you!

So, lately, it's been hard to come up with "You Know You're In Korea When..." moments, so I'm going to change to "Food of the Week" for a while. This week, it's soondae. To make soondae, you basically take cow intestine and stuff it full of stuffing or something, and then fry it or eat it with sauce or just eat it with saltiness on it. I had two of the three this week, and I had the third method a long time ago in my greenie area. It takes a little getting used to, but if I were really hungry it'd be awesome. :D The end.

Thank you to everyone for all you've done for me. I can't take the time to thank you individually, but just know that I appreciate all of you so much. Have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean

January 1, 2012

Saebong mani badeuseyo!

Happy New Year! This past year was pretty good for me, seeing as how i was a missionary for the whole thing. :D It's been a year of speaking Korean, a year of being around another person 24/7, a year of learning more about myself and about this gospel, a year of miracles, a year of missing my family, a year of receiving so much love from the Korean members of the church, a year of growth, a year of service, a year of hard work. In short, it's been the year of a missionary.

This week was pretty normal, actually, in that there wasn't very many exciting or awesome things that went on. Just a normal week. It's good to have those every once in a while, though, becuase it makes you appreciate the awesome things a little more when they do happen. Actually one awesome thing happened--one of our investigators came to church finally! We were so excited! I think he liked it fairly well. His name in English is Kwon Jeong, and he's about 28 or so. He's learning English from us as well as about our church, and he's a way funny guy. I'm excited to be able to work with him.

Other news...we are also teaching a guy named Lee Jun Jae, who is about 60 or so and works as a taxi driver. He has been working on Sunday, so he hasn't ben able to come to Church, but recently he said he can change his work schedule so he has Sunday as his day off! I think he is the farthest along of all our investigators, and as soon as he comes to church everything will really pick up. In our mission we have the rule that you can be baptized only if you've come to church 3 times, so as soon as that happens everything will be awesome. He agreed to work towards being baptized on the 28th of this month, so we're really excited about that, and we'll do our best to help him get out to church.

That's about all I know. :D I got lots of presents and things from my immediate family and grandparents, so I have lots of food and all, and life is really good. I'm working on being more positive and not complaining, and I think it's a really good change to make. Oh, the ward gave us lots of food too. :D One of the older members who i'm friends with said that she's glad me and one of the sister missionaries that's serving in this ward were able to stay for Christmas, and it meant a lot to me. I worry that I'm one of those missionaries that everyone forgets two weks after they leave, so I was really glad when she said that.

Ah, one more thing--transfer calls are tonight, but I'm pretty sure I'll be staying because I'm only halfway done with training Elder Greer, my companion. I'll let you know what happens there though. I don't have a "you know you're in Korea when..." list this week, sorry. Things were busy with the year ending and everything. I'll work on it for next week, though. :D I love you all, thanks for being such good influences in my life. And for anyone who isn't family who is reading this on my blog, the same goes for you. :D happy new year!



Elder Matt Dean




Elder Dean with his current companion, Elder Greer

 




Attending a Lantern Festival

 


Who's grumpier?! Olympic Park east of Seoul that was built for the Olympics in the 80's.

 

Sitting on an Anti-Aircraft Cannon at the Korean War Memorial







Elder Dean on the street



December 25, 2011

Hi! I think it's Christmas evening for almost everyone this email is going to, so 메리 크리스마스! That's merry christmas in Korean. My Christmas happened yesterday, and it was so good. I'll start from last Thursday: we had a Mission Conference from 9 to 3, and then P-day from 3 to 9. So awesome. :D At the conference, our Mission President, Lee Yong Hwan (Lee is the surname) spoke about Christ and His mission, and how that ties into the work that we do. Also something I learned that was really deep came from listening to one of the missionaries who is going home next week. He is a professional-level piano player, and he said that one of the comments that gets made all the time in music is whether or not somebody plays with feeling. You can practice for hours to be able to get the technical stuff down with any intstrument, and that results in people being able to play crazy-hard pieces perfectly. But then they have no heart in them. You have to play music with feeling, and the same goes for missionary work. you can concentrate on numbers of lessons taught, how well you proselyte, etc all you want, but if your heart's not in it, it's really not what it's supposed to be. I realized that in the first half of my mission, I was concentrating just on all the technical stuff, and my heart wasn't really in it. That's something I want to work on from now on. After the speeches, all the zones in our mission (a zone is a unit of missionaries with about 16-20 people or so) came up and did a skit and musical performances. Our zones' skit was a fake district meeting where we did impersonations of some of the funnier missionaries in our mission, and it was so funny. I'm pretty sure people laughed the most at ours. :D I'd explain all the jokes in it, but you don't know any of the missionaries, so it's kinda pointless. Rest assured, however, that ours was the best. :D The other skits included one about Harry Potter becoming a missionary and converting a 전도사 (other church's missionaries) named Voldemort; a bunch of missionaries playing a board game in real life that involves Old West style shootouts; and just funny skits about hard things or awkward things or fun things about missionary work. It was awesome. We have some real musical talent in our mission, let me tell you! It was a great conference overall. Then after the conference we went to a nice restaurant and partied and stuff till we had to go home.

Then on Friday, our local church group had a party. I played solos on the trumpet, which was awesome, and I played them almost perfectly and with feeling. My companion got a video of me, and maybe I can send it home somehow. The Christmas party involved just a lot of musical performances and dances; the sister missionaries that work in our same area had been doing a dance class with the members that we participated in, and we got up to do our dance and we completely botched it. It was awesome! It was just a really fun party. Right before we had to leave they had one of the members come out dressed up as Santa Claus, and about 5 seconds later one of the little kids that had gathered around him said in Korean, "Hey, you're not santa, you're Park Jin Woo!" It was really funny. I got lots of vidoes from that and I'll try to send those home too.

Then on Christmas, me and my companion made bacon and eggs (not a common breakfast in Korea) before going to church. Our toaster handle doesn't stay down on its own, so we have to put a wire on it to hold it down while the bread toasts; I put some in and promptly forgot about it. A few minutes later I was wondering why there was so much smoke in the room, and then I realized that all the smoke was coming from our toaster, not the stove, so I had to run over and get the blackened cinders out before they lit on fire. :D But it was ok, I didn't burn the house down. We went to church and handed out the cookies we had made the previous night, and had our musical Sacrament meeting. Then we went to the Stake center (a larger unit that multiple wards meet in) and had a Christmas concert with the whole stake. I was in the ward choir, and I also played the trumpet with the choir for a couple songs. It was such a good night. I felt the Spirit so strong as we were singing up on that stage. I may be really, really far from my earthly family here in Korea, but I felt much closer to Christ than I ever have before yesterday. I'm here doing His work the best that I can, and He isn't leaving me alone.

The best part of the night was when we went to a subway station with about 15 other missionaries and sang carols! There was a drunk guy that apparently loved the attention, because he was jumping around and trying to sing and just being ridiculous while we were singing. He wasn't violent, just drunk. He did attract a lot of passerby, though; at some points there was a considerable crowd watching us. It was so fun just to stand there and sing. I sang "거룩한 밤" ( O Holy Night) as a solo while everyone else hummed, and it was so awesome. Then we went home for the night. So all in all, I had a good Christmas, and got great presents from my family, and I felt the love of God very strongly. What more could I ask for other than being home for it? But in a way, I felt like I was home to some degree. Anyway, my Christmas was good, and I hope all of yours was too. :D Merry Christmas!

Elder Matt Dean

December 18, 2011

Hey, awesome family,

So, I got your package! Woo! I was so excited to get everything in it, you have no idea. Thanks especially for the toothpaste and the Legos, and for sending a lot of unwrapped stuff in it that I don't have to wait for. I love the Legos so much (Note from Matt's mom: we sent him a Star Wars Legos Christmas advent calendar), I forgot how fun they are. My favorites so far are Chewbacca with a lightsaber, those tan battle droids from Episode 1 that have funny voices, an Imperial shuttle, and a black version of R2-D2. I think the last day is Yoda dressed up as Santa Claus with gifts on his back, which should be pretty funny. :D When I get done with building them all I'm going to take them all apart and use them to build a way cool starship or something. I'm way excited to open the wrapped ones, but thanks so much for sending it, it really means a lot and helps me to feel more at home and to feel the Christmas Spirit more.

So how's the Christmas spirit coming along over there? Do you have any snow yet? We have none still, I'm pretty doubtful about Korea's ability to provide the kind of snow I like. But we will see. Hopefully the weather proves me wrong! Things are feeling pretty Christmasy over here, since I'm playing the trumpet with our ward choir for "Silent Night" and "O Come All Ye Faithful," and then a solo for "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." It should be really fun. The christmas conference is this Thursday, and I'm really looking forward to it since it will be my last Christmas in Korea.

Actually it's only six days left till Christmas for me, because we're a day ahead of America over here. :D This week was pretty good. We got special permission from the President to watch "A Christmas Carol" for English class (the animated one with Jim Carrey). It was awesome, especially because I love that story. It really motivated me to do more good in the world and be a better person in general. The book is better, though. :D

That's about all I know. I hope everyone stays safe as the weather gets worse, and with the timing my email next week should get to you on Christmas sometime. :D We have our Christmas conference this week, and it'll be really fun. I'll let you know how it goes. And I just realized I miscalculated the time, so I now have 40 seconds left to finish this.

You know you're in Korea when:

-          reading the nutritional facts on American products is enjoyable

-          using American toothpaste is fun

-          there's usually no sidewalks and

-          there's mirrors in most elevators.

I love you all, have a good week!

도인수 장로

Love, Elder Matt Dean

December 11, 2011

Subject line: It's beginning to look a lot like 크리스마스

Hey all,

December is going by way fast! It's almost halfway over already. It's interesting how the time is picking up for me the older I get. I'm starting to get old in the mission now--I've trained two missionaries and one of them trained again, so now I am a grandfather. Hopefully they will train too and my family will get even bigger.

We're all preparing things for Christmas already--they had us send in pictures for a slideshow, and we'll be doing a white elephant gift exchange on the Christmas Conference on the 22nd. That day will be a party, because we have the conference from 9 to 3 and then P-day from 3 to 9. So awesome. :D I'm excited for Christmas with our ward, we have a musical concert thing on Christmas day and a party a couple days before that. It's going to be great!

The missionary work is going ok. I'm learning every day, that's for sure. Lately I've been learning patience and living by the Lord's time instead of my own. And it takes a lot of love to go out and proselyte sometimes, but we do it anyway because of the good we can do in others' lives, even if they don't accept us right away. I was at a way good meeting this week, and one of our Assistants to the President told a story I thought was way cool. He said one time when he was doing missionary work more for the numbers than for the sake of the people, he talked to a guy on the street for 2 hours, but the guy said that he didn't want to meet. The missionary was really dissapointed and irritated, because he couldn't even put down that that two hours had counted for a lesson because he didn't get a return appointment. About 6 months later he was at a big church meeting, and he saw the same guy out of the corner of his eye and went over to talk to him. "Hey," the guy said, "You're the Australian. I got baptized last Sunday!" He said that was one of the most powerful moments of his mission. The man had met missionaries before, but it wasn't until the missionary I'm talking about had talked to him for forever that he decided to really investigate the church and find out if it was true. Elder Mejia (the missionary) didn't get to put it on his stats, but largely because of him that man decided to get baptized. It was a really cool illustration of how we have to do missionary work for the right reasons, not for the numbers or because we know we should be doing it. We have to do it because we love the people and we want to help them be happy. If we can do that, we can be successful. It's hard to do missionary work that way, but it's the best way, and the only way to do it by the Spirit of the Lord.

I learned a lot of other things from that meeting too, that will help me be a better missionary. Now I just have to apply them somehow... :D That's always the test, when all is said and done. You can learn a lot from the Bible or meetings or whatever, but how well you apply and live it is the real test of who you are.

I'm thankful that we have Christ to cover our mistakes when we don't do as well as we should, as long as we follow His teachings the best that we can.

So...I maybe might have forgotten to do a lot of "You Know You're In Korea When..." moments. :D It's not like I don't have any more important work to be doing, right? :D Here's a couple I can think of now:

When the soap in public restrooms is sometimes attached to a metal stick that comes out of the wall near the sink. Don't ask me why.

When everyone waits for the oldest person to eat first to show respect.

I'll do better next week. :D Love you all!

Elder Matt Dean

December 4, 2011

Dear everybody,

The last couple weeks have been awesome! I'll start from Thanksgiving. There is an English  branch of our church in Seoul which is pretty big, and families from the branch volunteered to have all the missionaries inour zone over for Thanksgiving. We went to the Hildebrands' house, along with another family from the English branch. It was so fun. They had four kids, and the other family brought about five, from 2 to 12 or 13 or so. We came in and sat on the couch for a minute, and it was pretty weird at first, but then the kids started showing us their toys, and next thing I knew I was on the floor playing with all of them! It was nice to be around American kids who aren't afraid of me. :D We were quoting the movie "A Christmas Story," the classic, and telling each other about funny videos we'd seen on America's Funniest Home videos. I just had a blast with them. Then we had the dinner, and it was delicious. The turkey was huge, and they had pies and everything. The whole shebang. It was a really good thanksgiving, and I really appreciated their generosity.

Next thing...My companion is a greenie this transfer! He came in a couple weeks ago, and he is awesome. He's super obedient, super fly at Korean, and he studies and works really hard. I'm learning things myself as I train him. We're doing pretty well out here in Bong Cheon, and we're seeing lots of miracles. For example, we were walking on the street to go to a member's house, and this guy who was parking his van said hi to us. We said hi and kept walking, but we both got this feeling that we should go talk to the guy. My first thought was, "no, that's weird, he's in the middle of parking his van," but we really felt like we should go back, so we did. It turned out that he was pretty good at English, and we talked about religion for about ten minutes and then set a return appointment. He drives a van for a daycare, and he has breaks at certain times of the day, but he can't drive the van on breaks, so we had to go and meet him the next week in his van. We talked for a while and built some 정, and then we taught him a lesson about the church right there in his van because it was raining. :D That was one of the most unique lessons ever for me. I also taught one in an elevator, but that was just a practice one at the MTC. Anyway, he is a really good investigator, and we're looking forward to meeting him more. He had a lot of questions about whether God really exists, and if so, how he can get to him. We have the answers, so it went great. :D That was a really good miracle in my eyes--that we were prompted to go back and talk to him when it would have been just as easy to keep walking.

Another miracle: I now have a trumpet in my possession!!!!!! Woo! It's only temporary, though. One of the sisters in our church found out that I play the trumpet, and since she's organizing our ward Christmas concert, she was able to get me a way old tester trumpet from a music store that they use for practice. From the looks of it they might use it to clean chimneys out too, but it still plays pretty well. :D I'm playing along with a choir, and I might play a solo too. I'm so happy to be playing again, it's so great! I used to think it was really annoying back in America, but I found out how much I missed it when I came here. And now, for this short time, I can play again. I'm so happy!

So, I'm doing really well right now. I'm still not the best missionary that baptizes someone every month, but I'm learning and hanging in there. And I'm learning so much that applies to my life, too. Life is pretty good right now!

You know you're in Korea when...

There are zillions of red neon crosses on top of buildings for all the churches here. There are really more churches than I ever thought possible in one country.

When you don't order chicken nuggets at McDonalds, you order puppy nuggets. Ok , just kidding, that might only be in North Korea. :D

When you can buy fish-shaped fried bread with beans in it on the street that tastes super good!

When sales tax is already factored into the price on the tag at all stores. So nice.

When forklifters drive at 30 mph on the street. It's a little scary. :D

When all your tupperware at the house smells like kimchi.

When lots of people wear surgical masks on the street because they think the air is bad. I don't believe it.

Thank you all for being so great. Love you!

Elder Matt Dean