August 5, 2012

Dear everybody, 

This week has been a pretty crazy week, for sure. Just like last week. :D We have a big meeting tomorrow when we meet with the next tier below us of missionary leaders to discuss plans and goals for the mission for the upcoming month. It's called Zone Leader Council. We've been spending a significant amount of time every day preparing for that and just keeping the office running. Here's an example of that from my journal, which I am now typing instead of writing (which is a great perk of being in the office :D):

"We’re trying to do study this morning, but Elder Lee Gyeomjin (from now on Elder Lee) had to translate between a mission president in America and the stake president of one of his missionaries from Korea. The sister missionary has some severe mental problems and she needs permission  from her parents to get medication, so her president had to call us on Presidents’ phone and Elder Lee called the stake president and translated. It sounds like everything went really well. This is probably going to happen a lot. :D "

Here's my journal entry from last Friday:

Friday, August 03, 2012

Today we went to the embassy and the Korean driver’s license division to get my license. It was a crazy day. We finally got my license after having to go back to the office to get my passport, and the picture came out super well. I really like it because my eyes look super blue for some reason. :D but they misprinted my name on the card so it says MEAN MATTHEW TYLER. I thought it was really funny. :D I really appreciated the efforts of the ladies working at both buildings; they were really nice even among stressful situations. I want to be the same as I work here in the office.

That took the entire day and it was a headache, but I can now drive on the crazy Korean streets. :D Actually driving in Korea seems kinda scary, but  there is a method to the madness. I just have to learn it. :D 

Let it be known that from now on, you can just assume that I'm really tired every day. I just won't be typing it anymore. :D One good thing that happened today was that I got four letters from people! Woo! Now I have nine people to reply to, so that'll be an adventure. It was hard enough to find time to write letters when I WASN'T in the office... 

I gave my self-introduction talk at Sacrament Meeting at our ward (Samcheong) yesterday, and it went really well. I was up on the stand trying to think how I could get them to laugh, and then I remembered that Koreans have a great national pride for the Korean language, so I decided to mention how my Dad would always say "kapshida"and "kidohapshida" instead of "let's go" and "let's pray" as I was growing up, and sure enough, they laughed. :D I think that first day went really well, and I can tell that I'm going to have a good time with them. I just have to figure out how to get close to them so I can help them. 

The thing that's keeping me going right now is that Zone Leader Council ends tomorrow. :D There will always be another big meeting after that, but next week should be relatively normal. I think that I need to find out how to do more things in less time, like study, good planning, and my journal, on top of all the other things I do. The biggest challenge to that is having to do it all while attached to another missionary who has some similar responsibilities but some other different ones too; matching schedules isn't always the easiest thing. But I'll figure it out. 

Well, I'm off to have lunch before we do some other crazy thing at the office. Zone leader council is over tomorrow....yes..... :D Have a good week, love you all!

Elder Matt Dean