April 1, 2012

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the Sticks! So, I ended up getting transferred, unfortunately. I'm kind of torn with that. I really miss Bong Cheon, a lot, but the missionary work in my new area is pretty awesome! I went from one of the most densely-packed areas of Seoul to a city on the east ocean called Kang Neung. It's in the infamous Kang Won Do, the province to the east of Seoul. Everyone told me that it's such a hard zone because there are no people, and because it's basically countryside. I didn't let any of that bother me, though, and when I got here I was really glad that I hadn't. The people here are SO awesome! In Seoul, the people on the street pretty much won't talk to you ever. But here, almost everyone will at least shake our hands and talk with us for a second before they politely tell us they aren't interested. I don't know if I can adequately describe the difference because not many of you will have experienced it, but it's almost like night and day. The people here are so nice, and my new companion, Elder Larson, said that the frequency of lessons we've had in the 5 days I've been here is way more than he had for two transfers before that. So, I love my new area. :D

My companion Elder Larson came from Mesa, Arizona. He's been out maybe four months longer than I have, and we are serving as zone leaders together. That means we are responsible for filling out reports and conducting meetings for four other companionships, This zone is smaller than other ones I've been in; usually zone leaders are over maybe twelve or 14 other missionaries. It's still a lot of responsibility, though, and it's a little stressful at times. But I figure that through doing this hard thing, I will have to turn to the Lord more than I was before, and rely on His help more than I ever had before. And that will be valuable experience for the future.

The area, Kang Neung, is probably the biggest city in Kang Won Do. It's about the size of Salt Lake City. I can see the ocean in the distance from our apartment building (our apartment is sweet, by the way!). The pace of life is so much slower here. In Seoul everybody is running, the air is thick with exhaust, and the people aren't that great; here people just walk, they actually talk to you, and the air is clean and smells like the ocean sometimes. We did have rain through the yellow dust a couple evenings ago, though, so it basically rained mud lightly all night that night. The cars were completely covered, it was kind of funny. :D We are a three-hour bus ride out from Seoul. The branch of the Church here is about 30 people, and it's doing ok. There's a lady from Oklahoma that converted to the church about five years ago, who came to Korea to teach English. She's way funny, and she uses really big English words. I have a hard time following her sometimes, actually, because I'm used to English that sounds like "How are you?" and "Where are you going?" Hopefully college won't destroy me when I get back. :D

Elder Larson is maybe 6'3'', and about my level of skinniness. He likes basketball and he did a year at ASU studying civil engineering. His family is ridiculously big; immediate family is seven, but when you go back two generations and then forward a couple, it includes like 150 people. He is a really good missionary, and I think he was glad to have me come because he didn't really get along with his last companion. We are having a really good time, and we get along well.

So in short, I really like it here. I miss my last companion and my last area, and the ward members there, but I really think life will be really great here. It looks like I'll be here for a long time, maybe till the end of my mission, but I think it'll be good. I'll organize my thoughts for next week, I'm still a little scatterbrained from the big change that I went through. I'm finally starting to get settled in though, and things are good. God really helped me to gain peace and comfort in this move with new, big responsibilities; I was stressing a little my last morning in Bong Cheon, and I felt impressed to read an article in our church magazine, the Liahona. In it I found counsel from our church leaders about handling this kind of responsibility, and though it didn't come out and say everything would be ok, it gave me peace of heart and an assurance that I can succeed as a leader. I take that as an answer from the Lord that He's behind me. I promise that He is behind all of us, even when we don't really see it. I'll make some interesting news to tell all of you next week; in the meantime, I hope all goes well for you!

Elder Matt Dean