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

November 28, 2011

Hi! So today we are going to do a service project at Gwanghwamun--we will go and make kimchi! Yeah! There will be tons of people there that aren't members of our church, even, along with all the missionaries. It'll be super fun, I'm way excited. This may be like a once-in-a-mission experience. Unfortunately it means I didn't have time to read any of the emails I got this week or to write an email of any considerable length this week. Sorry about that. However, our leaders want us to do it like this, so that is what I will do.

I'm still in Bong Cheon! I'm still a District Leader! And I'm training this transfer! My companion's name is Elder Greer. He is from Arizona, but he was actually born in Thailand. He was adopted into a Mormon family, and now here we are. :D We get along great, and we've seen some awesome miracles since he got here. I'm really excited to serve with him.

I'll give you more details next week, when I don't have the opportunity to do an awesome 5-hour service project. I love you all, have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean

November 21, 2011

Hey all,

So, there are transfer calls tonight, which means the next six weeks of my life could be radically different than the last six were...or maybe they'll be exactly the same. Nobody knows for sure till 9:30 p.m. Seoul time, which is the fun of getting transfer calls. You get your fun and excitement where you can get it on a mission. :D

This week was pretty good. The war museum was actually closed on Mondays, so we couldn't go inside, but there were some really cool airplanes and tanks outside that we got pictures of. I got this way cool one of me on a self-propelled Howitzer, it's a great picture. :D We'll have to go some other time to see the inside exhibits, I hear they're amazing. I'm at the place where you have to switch every 10 minutes again, so this will be short and I don't have time to put the pictures out today. Maybe next week.

Today for P-day almost everyone of my MTC group got together at the Olympic Park they used in the 80's and ate lunch at this way nice buffet. It was so fun! It was great to see my missionary friends again, I forgot how funny they all are. It was a party out there for sure. :D We got some good pictures together. I actually wrote letters, too, which doesn't happen often for me. P-days are just really busy.

Other stuff for this week...not much, actually. It was a pretty normal week for a missionary. Oh, it was super cold last night! I forgot how cold it gets here in the winter. I'm so glad I'm not a sister missionary, they must freeze, since they have to wear skirts. Suits are so nice, you can bundle up as much as you want under your suit and it still looks fine. :D

Thanksgiving is this week! The English branch here volunteered to have all the American missionaries over to a ward member's house for a meal on Thursday, which I think is really cool. Hopefully I don't get transferred out. I'm kind of torn; I kind of want to go, but I kind of want to stay, too. We'll see what happens, and as always I will follow the Lord and my mission president.

You know you're in Korea when...

• The Church members always give you food, every single time you visit their house.
• Every single person has dark brown or black hair. Think about that for a minute.
• A lot of cars have little foam things on the ends of their doors so they can push them against other cars. In a city with 25 million people, having to do that is pretty normal.
• Hot dogs come individually wrapped.
• Usually when you go out to eat, one person will pay the bill for the whole group, and then it's expected that next time someone else will do it.
• The post office workers close early on weekdays and aren't open on weekends...oh wait, it's like that in America too. Why don't they work more hours?!

Ok, I'm out of time. But I love missionary work, no matter how hard it is sometimes, and I know this work is the work of God. Thank you all for being such a good influence on me, and I hope you have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean

November 14, 2011

Dear everybody,

Wow, it's almost been a year now! I'm starting to be an old missionary, there are people I don't know that are younger than me in the mission now. It's a really odd feeling, actually, being this old. Here is a list of some of the things I have done in the past year:

- Im finally starting to get the language down. Korean is not easy, but it is worth it.

- I'm starting to learn to love other people, even when I can see their faults or when I think I have better ideas than them.

- I've been involved in the conversions of two people. They did all the work, though, I was just kind of there to direct them.

- I became a Senior Companion, a Trainer, and a District Leader, though not all at once. (that would be craaaaazy)

- I've gotten a lot of great packages from my wonderful family, and a lot of letters from my awesome friends. (Sorry the replies are so long in coming....)

- I've done half of a really hard thing, and managed to have fun while doing it.

- I've burned my mouth on a lot of spicy Korean food.

- I realized how much more I should appreciate my family. You never really appreciate something till you lose it.

- I've learned how to take care of myself while living away from home.

- I've learned how to deal with rejection and failure. There's always more of that on a mission than you'd like.

- I've learned to love the Lord and rely on Him. I'm still not perfect at that, but I'm trying.

- I've gained a much deeper understanding of the basics of this Church and how happy it can make people.

- I realized how lucky I am to be an American.

- I've ridden on approximately 600 buses, if you average it out to be two a day or so. That comes out to be....about 600 to 700 dollars, just from riding the bus. Whoa!

- I've seen how narrow-minded I can be, and I'm striving to widen it up a little.

- I've learned to love kimchi. Who said fermented cabbage can't be delicious?

- I've gained a lot of self-control as I've worked for a cause that's bigger than I am, something that doesn't give monetary or reputational rewards.

- I've started to learn how not to be so much of a stick-in-the-mud. I don't know how much progress I'll make there, but we'll see. :D

- I've gloried in the fact that I don't have to worry about homework, a job, or a girlfriend here. (Only one more year of that left, darn it... :D)

- I've gained a testimony and a conviction that this gospel we teach is Christ's true gospel, and that by following it anybody can improve their life and gain peace and happiness.

- I've had so much fun! There are great times on a mission. It's not the funnest or the most exciting time of my life, but it has its moments.

That's about all for now. Things are really great out here, and I really love my mission. It's made such a big difference in who I am, in what I think, in what I plan to do. The most important changes I've gone through are things you can't really put in a list like that; they are changes that have strengthened my character, that have just made me a better person than the Elder Dean that left Utah a year ago. Add that to all the good I'm doing here, all the lives I'm changing, and you really see the wisdom of the Lord in sending us out on missions. We get to take part in helping other people improve their lives and change and come unto Christ, and we join them on their journey. It's not a thing where we missionaries say, "Ok, go down that path" while we sit complacently on the roadside; we learn, we change, we grow, and we walk with the people we teach. That is the glory of a mission: we do good things while we're here, and then we come back and do good the rest of our lives too. A mission is hard, but the changes I'm making from being here are more than worth it to me and to all the people I will come in contact with for the next 50 years or however long I'm alive. I love my mission!

We're going to the Korean War Memorial today. It's going to be so awesome! I'll take lots of pictures and maybe send them back eventually if I feel like it. :D We went to a lantern festival on Saturday night with an investigator and a recent convert; it was so awesome! There's a small river than runs through a part of Seoul, not the Han river, that had huge lit-up lanterns in the shape of people and stuff, that illustrated Korean traditional stories and nursery rhymes. I took lots of pictures of that too, I'll try to send them home next time maybe.

You know you're in Korea when...

- Every single home has hardwood floors, no carpet.

- You DO NOT wear shoes inside the house, or else!

- You don't eat a meal at the table, you sit on the floor cross-legged and eat off a low table that's maybe a foot tall or so.

- The fruit is absolutely delicious!

- Most bathrooms are all tile, and they don't have a bathtub, just a showerhead coming out of the wall. No shower curtain, either.

- You can buy fish-shaped pancakes filled with bean paste off the street. So good!

Well, on Thursday (my time) I will have officially been out for a year. It's been a long journey, but those ones always make the best stories. If Frodo had gotten the Ring to Mordor in three days, would that have been interesting enough to make three epic movies out of? No. Same with a mission, only I'm doing stuff that's way cooler than dropping some dumb ring in a volcano. :D Thanks for supporting me through this journey I've been on; anybody who's reading this has contributed to my life, and I'm so thankful to all of you. Have a good week!

Love, Elder Matt Dean