July 29, 2012

Hey everybody,

So I got a call two days ago, on Saturday morning. It was our Mission President, President Christensen. After some small talk about what we had scheduled that day, he asked me, "Elder Dean, I was wondering if you would come up and be an Assistant to the President." After a second I said yes I would. There are two APs in our mission, and one of them is going home this Wednesday, so I was called to fill the spot.

For those who don't know, AP is kind of a lot of responsibility. It's not something easy. The APs are the ones who basically help the President with everything and advise him on issues in the mission, particularly concerning missionaries' problems and how that factors into transfers--the time we decide who will serve with who and where for another six weeks. To get an idea of how much thought we have to put in that, just think about how there are 63 companionships in our mission right now. You have to have at least two missionaries in an area. Seven missionaries are going home in a week and eleven are coming in, and when you move one missionary you have to fill that space in with another one. And there are vacancies in leadership positions that have to be filled, and missionaries who don't get along, and missionaries of all ages and experience levels, and missionaries that are having a hard time and need someone to help or need to be stretched or need a break, and missionaries that have been in the same place for seven months and need a change of venue, and then sometimes missionaries that are blatantly disobedient and don't care about anything.  We have to know all of that and try to make the best combinations for the missionary work in each area, and also taking into account what will help each missionary to grow in the gospel and build a solid foundation for the rest of their lives. That's what we've spent most of my time in the office so far doing, is arranging transfers, because we have to call everyone tonight so they can start the new transfer period. There are also other miscellaneous responsibilities we have to take care of, on top of doing missionary work. So it's not a light thing. It's a responsibility that requires me to be a perfect example and to have good relationships with every missionary, regardless of how much they care about missionary work.

After I got the call, i didn't really know what to do. I was pretty torn, because I didn't want to leave Sindang and all the people there that I've grown to love, and I definitely was nervous about being AP, for a million reasons. But all the previous week I had had a weird feeling that it would be me. Of course I was like, "Wow, nice prideful thought, myself," and then thought about something else, but it actually happened! And I think it'll be good. Because I prayed about it and felt the Spirit,and I know that through the Lord I can do all things.

So on Saturday night I packed up all my stuff, and on Sunday morning before church we rode in a taxi to the church building and hid my luggage. (I have way too many things, and I have to send a package home soon. Seriously, my luggage was super heavy!) Actually on Saturday night me and Elder Jeong had a heart-to-heart about how we had both been a little prideful the previous transfer, and he gave me a lot of really good advice on being AP. Lately me and him had been pretty distant, so that was good. I'm really going to miss serving with him. On sunday evening, there was a fireside for the new mission president, and after that we took my stuff up to the office in Samcheong Ward. Usually missionaries switch areas on Wednesday, but they needed me up here early to get trained. We have a lot of office work to do too, so I can't guarantee the length of my emails from now on.

So here I am, confused and nervous and all sorts of things. But I'm excited too, I think it'll be good. If anyone has any advice on leadership, just let me know.:D I love you all, thank you for your prayers!

Elder Matt Dean

July 22, 2012

Hey all,

Wow, it's been almost 5 weeks since I got to Sindang. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. 

So, the kid that we baptized last week...he didn't come to church yesterday. In our church we believe that without an ordinance where you receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, baptism isn't complete and doesn't mean anything. He was supposed to get that yesterday, but he didn't show, and he hasn't answered our calls or texts for a couple days. We're working on contacting him, but we think something might have happened. We're not really sure. It's sad, though. 

But other than that our week was really good. I'm having a fun time with Elder Jeong. He's such a funny guy. We were talking about girlfriends the other night before we hit the sack, and the girlfriend of another missionary came up. Her name is Gretchin. So we spent  about five minutes straight just laughing about it. :D He said it sounds like a monster name; that was probably the hardest I've laughed in a while. So fun! (sorry to anyone named Gretchin out there, but missionaries need laughs when we can get 'em)

We found a cool investigator the other day. His name is Cha Ji Hyeon, and he's a sophomore in high school. He spent like 7 hours with us on Saturday--for a lesson, and then a basketball activity with our ward, and then dinner, and then the weekly Friendship Night activity, and then just playing random sports after that in the gym till we all had to go home. Then he came to church the next day, and we're meeting him AGAIN today. I think he likes us, which is good. :D If we can help him get permission from his grandma to come out to church on a regular basis things will be great. 

It was really good to see all the kids just playing random sports for a while after the meeting on Saturday. It reminded me of the stories the older members tell about the good ol' times. Back when the Church started in Korea, and really got some momentum, the kids and young adults would just hang out at the church. They played ping pong or other games and just chilled there, every day. It sounds way fun. But slowly the times have changed; because of the increasingly competitive economy and job outlook in Korea, study has taken the role of the focus of the Korean kid's life. These days junior high and high school kids in general spend from 8 to 5 at school and then from 6 to 11, 12, or sometimes 1 in the morning at "academy," which are private institutions that help your kid learn math, an instrument, social studies, etc. So now the church is empty and dark every day except Sunday, sadly. BUT--after our activity, the kids just all grabbed a ball and started hanging out. Some people played basketball, some threw a baseball, some played dodgeball, all packed together in the gym of our church. It felt really cool to see that again, to see Korean kids just being kids instead of college students.

Tomorrow for Pday we're probably going ice skating and then eating dog soup. I love Korea. :D Hope you have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean

Note from Elder Dean's mom: Matt just sent us a whole bunch of pictures on an HD card, and I will get some posted as soon as we can go through them!

July 15, 21012

Hey, so as you can see, our investigator named Yang Heeyeong got baptized yesterday! We are super excited for him, and he's doing well. He doesn't have a super amazing testimony yet, but he wants it, enough to get baptized and want to pay tithing from the first week on. He's really cool and really good at basketball. :D We will confirm him the coming Sunday.

Actually I have no time to email today, so that's all you get to hear. But it's the best news since my last baptism, so hopefully you'll be content. :D Love you all!

Elder Matt Dean

July 8, 2012

Hey everybody,

So this was a pretty eventful week. On Monday we had Family Home Evening at our Bishop's house again, which was super fun.  Me and Elder Jeong did an object lesson with his boys (all under 6 or so), where you empty out and unfold a teabag to make a tube, and stand it up on someone's hand, and tell them not to move. Then you light it on fire. :D If they believe you and don't move, they don't get burned. You should try it yourself to see what happens. As long as you use the right teabag, you really don't get burned. Do you believe me? :D 

Then on Tuesday I went on splits with a greenie, Elder Sanderson. He's been in country for three weeks now. It was an interesting experience to be contacting with a greenie again, just like when I trained Elder Greer forever ago. He's a great missionary, he has a lot of love for his ward that he's serving in and the people of Korea. It really made me glad that I can speak Korean fluently though. :D That day we had English class, which I spent playing Go Fish with three elementary-school kids. I may not have taught them a lot of English, but they know how to say, "Do you have any ___?" really well now. :D That day was when the rain really started here. Before that it had only really rained once, but from Tuesday to Saturday there was only one day that it didn't rain. Last year was longer than this year, but this year is hotter. 

On the Fourth of July we had district meeting like usual, and then ate delicious kimchijjim. That's beef or something steamed with kimchi, and it was super good. I would have gone to McDonald's or something to recharge my Americanism to celebrate if there was one in our area. :D 

Saturday was really fun. We played basketball with our investigator and his three friends for an hour and a half, and then had our Friendship Night activity. That's a meeting put on by the missionaries, where we share a spiritual thought for like 10 minutes and then have fun games for like an hour and 20 minutes. You can see where our priorities lie there! (jk) Me and Elder Jeong did the teabag on fire object lesson again (he's a pyromaniac at heart), and then we played Ultimate Spoons. It was super fun, and it ended in a sister missionary almost tackling Elder Jeong to get the very last spoon. He said that night that he slowed down a little so she could win, but he didn't expect to be shoulder checked into the wall. :D After that the senior missionary couple from America, the Pecks, dropped us off some cookies because they are super nice, and Elder Peck did some card tricks. One of them was super cool! He had Elder Jeong pick a card and put it back in the deck while he wasn't looking, and then he gave the whole deck to Elder Jeong and told him to shuffle it. He shuffled it like three times, and at this point I knew this trick would be really good. It gets better, though. Elder Peck took back the deck, kind of looked through it for a sec, and then made eight piles of four cards each in plus-shapes. Elder Jeong had no idea where his card was at this point. Then he had Elder Jeong point at any two piles. He took them out. He did it again and he took those out too. By this time all the people watching were whispering, "no way..." under their breaths. The process continued till there was only one pile left. Then Elder Peck had Elder Jeong pick two cards out of the four, which were removed. Then...he pointed at one of the last two cards, which Elder Peck removed. Elder Jeong reached out for the last card and picked it up...and it was his card. You should have heard all of us yelling, it was such a good magic trick. I definitely want to learn some good card tricks now. :D

On Sunday things were a little crazy after church, because we had to handle taking a recent convert back to his house (his leg is paralyzed), getting a new member lesson that was taught by a member going, attending the missionary coordination meeting with our ward mission leader, and teaching one of our investigators, all at the same time. Hectic. I ended up teaching our investigator, a high school student named Yang Hiyeong, who is probably getting baptized this Sunday if everything works out. I teamed up with another church member to teach him because we can't do anything alone as missionaries because of the rule. I hadn't taught without another missionary for a really long time, so I learned that I need to work on my teaching skills. My teaching was kind of boring and like a recitation. But the member I taught with was awesome. He seemed to say everything I was feeling but couldn't express, and he bore powerful testimony of the truth of the Restoration and of Joseph Smith's experience. Interestingly, I had heard that the member himself wasn't exactly the most active of people as far as the gospel goes, but he himself said during the lesson that he felt the Spirit as he recited Joseph Smith's experience and that he knew it is true. It really strengthened my testimony that God knows all of us personally and what we need, because out of that meeting, I learned how I can improve my teaching, the member strengthened his testimony and we became friends, and our investigator accepted a commitment to pray to see if God is really there. It was a really big miracle in my eyes. 

Oh, and we have a new mission President, by the way. :D He started a couple weeks ago, and I've had the opportunity to talk to him a couple times. He seems like he will do a really good job, and he still understands Korean really well and speaks fairly well too. His name is President Christensen, and I'm excited to work with him. 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week! Don't melt in the heat!

Elder Matt Dean

July 1, 2012

Hey everybody,

So the first full missionary week in Sindang is over. It was a pretty awesome week! On Monday we went to our Bishop's house and had dinner with the family of the missionary who I replaced. His time is up to go home,  and he flew home a couple days ago. But on Monday we had spaghetti with them and the Bishop's family and then played games. It was super fun. There was one game where you sat in a circle, and one person rolls a dice. Everyone has a piece of paper and a pencil. While the person rolls the dice, only the person to their right can write, and the goal is to write numbers from one to one hundred. When the person rolls doubles, the writer has to stop, he passes the dice to his left, and he starts writing. You go around in a circle like that.

It was super intense, and I barely won. :D It was really fun. Thursday was fun too--we always go to this house to teach their kids English and do a spiritual message, like Family Home Evening. We taught the kids the "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" song, and then On Saturday we had game night with our ward. Actually only a few people came, but it was super fun anyway. We played crab soccer and a game called Signs, and it was just super awesome. The ward is great, and I really like it.

I learned this week that I should really not judge people as  much as I've been doing. This guy came to learn English from us, and he walked into the church and was asking me english questions from the moment we walked into the classroom. I explained several times that we teach 30 minutes of English and 30 minutes of explaining about our church, but he proceeded to use almost an hour for english and kept going back to it even during the gospel time. Basically I felt like he didn't care about why I was in the room and he was just using me to answer his english questions, so I was pretty irritated. But then I realized that we as missionaries sometimes do the same thing to other people who come in for english--we do a shoddy job of teaching them english because we care more about teaching the gospel. That's not right either. So i decided not to judge people and just worry about doing my best to serve in any way I can, while still doing what I came out here to do.

well, that's about all. Today is a crazy day, so i don't have tons of time, but thanks for everything you all have done for me. I hope you have a good week!

Elder Matt Dean

June 24, 2012

Hey everybody, 

So, I'll tell you the story of my life last Monday night Korea time. We finished our P-day of eating pancakes and writing letters with other missionaries, and then went out to proselyte. We knocked on doors basically the whole night, which in Korea is not the most productive thing to do, but we had no appointments and it's better than wandering around. We didn't end up getting anywhere with door knocking, but we did have a 20-minute conversation with a guy that runs a Family Mart on the corner over there. (when I say conversation I mean that the guy stood there and talked to me about everything from Korean school system to economics. I hardly got a word in edgewise, but he was nice:D) Throughout the whole day I was getting progressively more excited. I might have said this before, but transfer call night is one of my favorite things ever! you go through the p-day wondering, "Will I get transferred? Will I stay? What will happen to my companion???" Then 9:00 comes, and both you and your companion know that you won't put tons of energy into planning tonight but you'll try anyway because it's the right thing to do. Me and Elder Larson finished at 9:20. Then...the wait. This is the best part of transfer call night. I sit there and my hands start shaking, and the butterflies start flying around in my stomach, and I watch the clock, and just sit there getting really excited. It's the best. :D So anyway, Elder Larson had told the assistants to the president to call us first if we were staying, because he's friends with one of them. 9:30 came....and went. Aaah! We were like, "Maybe they forgot." We were both figuring we'd stay so I can "kill" him next transfer. 9"40....9:50.... By this time we were freaking out! We played a game of Egyptian Rat Screw to kill time (which I won, haha!). Then finally at like 10:15, the call came....and it was President Lee. "Dean changno! (that's Elder in Korean) You will go to Sindang. Your companion will be Elder Jeong Hoyong." I couldn't believe it. I only got to Gangneung like 12 weeks before and everything was stacked for me to stay there and have the best last transfer for Elder Larson, but.... I got transferred. Wow. That took forever to type.

I find it funny that the romanization of 신당 turns out to be a word made up of "sin" and "dang." :D It's actually pronounced "sheen-long." Languages are never ever translated perfectly unless they are Spanish and English. This area is literally in the heart of Seoul. It's district name means "center district." It's pretty near the old downtown of Gwangwhamun, and it's definitely the most metro place I've been in so far (which, with only four areas, is not saying much). comparing it to Gangneung is like comparing night to day almost. The ward has like a hundred people. My companion is Korean obviously, and we were in the MTC together. So needless to say we are tearing it up right now! It was hard to adjust again so soon after I transferred last time; it's been really weird but really fun. I'm sad that I don't get to see Elder Larson off, and that I had to leave Gangneung, but there are so many great things about this place. The ward has fed us like three times since Wednesday, which is remarkable considering that they all knew that the missionary I replaced would be going home. last transfer was his last. And even though that missionary that they knew so well is gone, they were still willing to invite us over for meals. This is one of the strongest wards in the mission, and I'm really happy to be here. Actually the headquarters of the Church in Korea is the second and third floors of our church building, which is pretty cool. They have a lot of translators for the church that work here. Our missionary apartment is super nice too. So all in all I think it is a good change; the one thing I don't like is that the people in Seoul are definitely not as nice on the street as the people in Gangneung. They're all super-busy and they've been attacked by other churches' missionaries before; sometimes those missionaries can be pretty vicious. But I've talked to some super nice people so far. There's definitely tons more people here.

My new comp is so funny. He speaks pretty good English, and he knows funny words like "goober" and "lerpy" from serving around Americans for his whole mission. He's a really hard worker, and I'm glad to be here working with him. He's from down south in Korea, but not that far south. We have a fun time; he's one of the funniest people I've ever served with. Hopefully it rubs off on me. :D

We spend a lot of time with the youth of this ward. We figure that they are the ones that can benefit most from our strength and who can refer the most out of their friends. There's one named Hyeonchang who is so funny. he's like 13, and he's super chubby and just a funny kid. He was baptized a couple years ago, and still comes to church even though his friend who introduced him to it doesn't come anymore. We play basketball a lot with him and a couple other youth. We call him King Kong, which he hates, and one time I said it and he started punching me and accidentally got me below the belt, so I was out for a couple minutes. He felt really bad. :D We're constantly working to keep them coming out. I had a swordfight with another of the youth--I used a baseball bat and he used a mop. He cut off my leg first,and then I got his arm, and after a couple minutes of fierce battle I finally ended up getting cut in half across the chest. It was super fun. :D 

I have more I could tell about but not tons of time. I'll be sure to put more info about the new ward in next week's email. Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Matt Dean

June 17, 2012

Hey all,

So I spent most of the time that I have to email today writing a letter to my Dad for Fathers' Day and another one to my Mom for Mothers' Day, since I'm such a devoted son that I waited a month to write to her. :D So, this email won't be that long. Luckily not much happened this week. We picked up a really cool new investigator named Lee Hae Min; she's 17 and is really good at English considering she's only studied in Korea, and she seems to have some church interest too. I'll keep you posted on her. Also transfer calls are tonight, but it's looking like both me and Elder Larson will stay for another six weeks. I'll let you know about that one too. Anyway, time's just about up, so I hope you all have a good week!

If you look really closely, you'll see a Lego Chewbacca in the upper left hand corner of his sign - funny!

Elder Matt Dean