Monday was a pretty bittersweet PDAY. Today was Elder Woo's last PDAY as a missionary. We ended up at a meat buffet for lunch as a district. Together we are quite the sarcastic bunch! It was a blast. The district then traveled to the 만수 (MahnSu) church to play games but Sister Bagley and I had to go grocery shopping. We were quick and found ourselves on our beds in no time. I got a good few letters written as well as a solid 40ish minute nap before our PDAY time was over.
Immediately after waking up and getting ready (again) we rushed to a member house for a practice lesson. 김미란S (Sister Kim) is so awesome. Sister Bagley and I didn't teach very much tonight but Sister Kim complimented us like crazy on our Korean haha. She's cute. Once we left her house we hopped in her to car to travel to FHE together. There was a traffic jam right in front of the grocery store where she wanted to make a quick pitstop. Instead of waiting maybe two or three minutes she instead decided, with no warning mind you, that it would be a good idea to jerk the wheel, get us up on the sidewalk, and then parking herself right in front of the store entrance. She quickly ran out and left me and Sister Bagley in the car questioning what had just happened haha. Once the shock wore off, we had a good laugh before the member returned with a bag full of fruit.
Once at the church we quickly realized that the members were throwing Elder Woo a goodbye party. There was a bunch of food being prepared and a number of kids running around. The missionaries entertained the kids until it was time to eat. I'm grateful that Sister Bagley and I didn't eat dinner prior- the 고기 (meat) buffet kept us full for a good few hours. FHE ended and we were shooed off by the members in order to arrive home on time. Our ward is The Best.
Tuesday was pretty monotonous until about 6PM. We spent our time trying to visit former investigators, but most of them have moved and changed there numbers (Koreans move and change their cell phone numbers SO often... it's annoying and it makes missionary work way harder ha). After our day felt less-productive than most, we made a plan to meet up with Elder Berry and Higham to contact a referral. Per our bishop's request, he wanted us (the sister missionaries) to teach this referral, but we asked Elder Berry to help us in setting the appointment, because he is so good at Korean. Just before the time came to visit- the phone rang. The Elders had already made the visit, made return appointment, and stole our potential investigator! Rude. We decided to greet her anyway... She was so kind and seemed to really like us. I hope the elders come to their senses and choose to refer her back to us. Oh well, we are all on the same team of bring Seoul, I mean, souls to Christ, right? ^^
To end our night we visited our ward mission leader's house. 오관철B (Brother Oh) and his wife 이은성S (Sister Lee) are spectacular human beings! They gather their family for multiple missionary practice lessons each week! This was one of them. When Sister Bagley and I arrived their family- parents and six out of eight kids- were gather in the living room sitting on the floor waiting for us. What a site it was seeing so many eager faces ready to be taught. We taught the first lesson about the restoration. After I recited Joseph Smith's first vision they all ooo'ed and ahh'ed. Haha they are so cute. The oldest son is preparing for his mission in about a year and he said he wants to memorize the first vision in English- we told him we would quiz him on Sunday hehe. Once the appointment ended we head home. Man I love that family! All ten of them!
Oh! And on the way home we ran into an old old grandma. She more or less demanded me to marry a Korean man after my missionary service haha. The conversations I find myself in are hilarious nowadays.
Wednesday was so great!! 정혜연S (Sister Jeong) is our favorite less-active to visit and today she asked for our help. The 'AnyTime' convenient store that she works at was pretty busy. There are a few schools near by and all the kids come to the fences and yell, "언니! 언니, 음식주세요!" Literally it means 'older sister, give us food.' Haha she needed someone to stay in the shop while she ran back and forth with the orders. We used it as an extra hour of language study as I tried to translate my mother's delicious banana bread recipe for Sister Jeong. When she was finally about to sit down with us we shared a small message then just got to talking. She asked why we were members and why we came on missions. It was a good spiritual discussion, but some how my retarded-self got us talking about other things that were far less important. We were all cracking up so it wasn't all bad. Soon we said goodbye and head to another appointment.
Thursday turned out to be another monotonous morning, but an eventful evening! I'll begin by talking about our investigator appointment with 정현지S (HyonChi- our 14 year old miracle that just showed up to church last Sunday). As we began teaching, we found out that her father, a non member, had met with some elders maybe 10 years ago. Apparently they made a lasting impression and he ordered his daughter to begin coming to church, so now she does. Maybe 15 minutes into the lesson her mother and little sister showed up and sat in. 이은성S (Sister Lee- from the ward) came with us and helped us in introducing the gospel. It went really well and we might even be able to teach and potentially baptize a whole family soon! It was unbelievable!! Once we left, we quickly evaluated with Sister Lee before apologizing and having to literally run to the next appointment at the church. All the running ended up being for nothing, because the potential investigator left and decided she wanted to meet with a Korean haha. Oh well! Our member, 백하영S (HahYoung- 20 Korean age meaning she was born in 1995 and in her last year of high school) still showed up. So while we were all at the church, we decided to do a practice lesson instead. HaYoung is HIL-ARIOUS! It was tough trying to answer all of her 'why' responses to everything we said, but it was good practice in the end. During the lesson her father called and told her to go bring us over for dinner ASAP. I forgot to mention that Sister Bagley and I were trying to fast today, but this last invitation would be the third meal fed to us even after explaining our fast.. Members and investigators don't care, they just want to take care of us haha. So off we went for a delicious dinner. Time was short, but it was so much fun. 백용실B (Brother Beak) and his family is literally our favorite. For some reason he has nicknames me 'Smart Sloan' and brags about me and Sister Bagley as if we are his pride and joy. He is so proud of all the work we are doing. Over and over he told us that the members had high expectations for the sisters and they we are exceeding them- booyah! This ward really is on fire with missionary work!
Friday... How do I even begin. I think it's first necessary to say that almost every event written in my planner has been whited out, written on, and whited out again. Nothing went as planned. We had three potential investigator appointments that all fell apart or that we ended up referring to other sister missionaries in the zone. It was a strange day. We instead had our weekly planning session and completed some assignments given to us by the bishop and other leaders in the ward. It felt productive but I didn't feel much like a missionary today. To end the evening we made plans to take our favorite less-active member to dinner. 정혜연S (HyayeYohn) is so cute!! We waited for her parents to come down to the shop before we left. We ate noodles and laughed the whole time. In the middle we received an anonymous phone call from Elder Woo- I guess Brother Woo now... wow that's strange. He was bored and anxiously awaiting his girlfriends arrival in Busan. I miss him. Anyway, HyayeYohn dubbed me the nickname 'Sneaky Sloan' after I paid for our dinner before she had the chance. It is Korean culture that your elders can tell you to do anything but the flip side is that they have to pay for every meal you eat together. Instead I went American style and was sly about the whole thing. ^^ She was grateful and bought us chocolate milk back at the convenient store. We stayed to talk with her parents. They had all kinds of questions about missionary work and our church- maybe a couple more potential investigators? It was a great night. We said our goodbyes and ran home.
Once HanAh left, ward members were waiting for us to play soccer. We changed and got right to it. It was way productive! President Christiansen from the Seoul mission nixed sport proselyting, because elders would go play basketball or soccer for 6 hours as a way to try and find people to teach. I never thought it would be effective until today. This ward activity was put together last minute, but still it worked out for the best. A few kids walking by ended up joining and we talked to maybe 15 people over the course of about an hour and a half of playing. It was so much fun! I even made a goal... But also made us miss a lot too haha. We all went to dinner together- 자짱면! So yummy! Sister Bagley and I sat at a table with Brother Beak and Sister Park. They are The Best! The last hour of the day was spent talking to people on the street. It was a great day!
Sunday was probably the most eventful day of the whole week! I loved it!! First, church. As we waiting outside to greet people, our investigator (정현지S) just strolled past us like she knew what she was doing haha. I just smiled and followed behind her. We walked to the first class a few minutes early. The members were all so great at welcoming her again and just making her feel needed. It was great. Church flew by! When it came time for sacrament the pace slowed down when the stake speaker had to fill 25 minutes worth of time. Everyone was falling asleep. Once it ended, the ward members cleaned up the chapel as usual and we saw our investigator off. She is so cute and really such a miracle.
We ate lunch with some ward members then made a pit stop at home to drop off the food we had just received. The phone rang with a request to come over to 백용실B (Brother Beak)'s house. We came and ate cake together with him, his wife (유경숙S), his daughter (백하영S), and family friend (박화성S). Maybe 30 minutes later we were out the door. Brother Beak was on his way to a stake meeting in Seoul and the rest of us went to a park to proselyte together. We split up- Sister Bagley with the young woman and me with the two adults. It was a blast!! Our goal was to talk to 31 people and we ended up with 62! Talk about a miracle. It was a gorgeous park with a bunch of people. Seriously I love the members so much. They love us and missionary work- such amazing people. To end our time together we ate dinner then were dropped off at the church for our ward missionary coordinating meeting. We discussed our experience with the member split and 오광절B (Brother Oh- our mission leader) was so impressed and excited to try it out as a ward activity. Winners!
On the way home we added 6 more people to our proselyting number, but the last man... It's a long story, ready? So he is maybe in his 50's taking his dog for a walk. We are maybe 30 feet from our apartment building when he stops in place and asks if he can buy us something to drink. I realize that sounds bad in English, but in Korea people ask to buy us things all the time because we take time to have a conversation with them. Okay anyway, I am cautious and asked if it was an alcoholic drink. This man was taken back, almost looking offended at the question and replied, "아니!" meaning "No!" We began to follow him towards a convenient store that apparently had a secret room in the back... we found ourselves dodging under a plastic tarp thing as I turned to Sister Bagley and said, "Is this a bar?" Before we concluded that yes, it was in fact a bar, we were sat down at a table in the corner. This man said something to the waitress- I said, "Not alcohol right?" and he said, "Yeah, of course not." But low and behold there were three beers sitting on our table in now time. The strange thing is that as Sister Bagley and I assessed the situation we say people that were either drunk or passed out drunk but still we didn't have a bad feeling that we maybe should have. Anyway, I explained that we were missionaries and instead we were forced to drink two bottles of coke and a bunch of chicken before we were permitted to leave. Also, no one in the whole bar spoke a lick of English so the entire time Sister Bagley and I are narrating the situation with the most sarcastic statements that we could muster haha. It was funny. Also, when the man decided to take a bathroom break we wasted no time in ripping open my bag and shoving as much chicken as we could inside. Nobody saw us... except this one drunk man across the way. But let's be real, he wouldn't remember, right? To top off this strange set of circumstances, we received a call from District Leader Elder Berry. He was calling to receive our weekly stats. When I explained where we were, he ignored us and asked me to just tell him the stats over the phone. To that I replied, "Hold on, Sister Bagley has to pray for our chicken." To which he replied, "Wait, what? You are seriously in a bar eating chicken? I want chicken!" I am happy to report that our district leader could care less about our current situation. But don't worry we were out of there in no time and able to send our stats in before curfew and conclude our Sabbath day with yet another successfully awkward missionary experience. Our lives...
Have a good week!!
I love you all!! 사랑해요! 보고싶어요! I miss you!
사랑하는,
슬론 자매
Sister Sloan
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| My poor backpack..I'm trying to make it last another 6 months. My last sewing job held for a month. How long do you think this will last? |
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| This is what happens when ward members try to text us in English. haha. She meant to say, "Maybe Elder Woo had your glasses in his pocket" so cute! |
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| What if I jumped? |
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| Bus ride home with Elder Knapp. |
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| Got myself a face mask. |
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