The life in 전주 (Jeonju)

Hey everyone!  I've moved to a new area a few weeks ago!  A nice big city called "Jeonju" and famous for having delicious "Bibimbab" (비빔밥)  which I still have yet to eat here!  But anyways, my new companion is Elder Peterson from somewhere near Spanish Fork, Utah and who's been a missionary about 7 months longer than me.   We get along very well and have an awesome ward here ('중앙 와드').

Just last week, I got my Christmas package! Yeah, not a typo, my Christmas package!  I guess it got lost in the mail somewhere and finally resurfaces 7 months later! I also got some new white shirts from Mom, so those are super nice! Compared to my other shirts they're just so white and clean!!  I'm really enjoying my new area and the missionaries in my zone are all awesome!!

Hope you all are doing well and what not!!  Stay safe!  Enjoy the rest of your summer!!!

My Christmas package!!

The most recent converts in the ward comparing their Pokemon cards :)

Well, It's Been a While!

Hi everyone!!! Sorry it's been so long since my last entry!!  I had to learn how to better prioritize my time!!   Hope you are all doing well!

Soooo to sum up the last little while:

I am going on my sixth month in Nonsan ('논산'), a little country city kind of close to Daejeon.  I am on my 9th week with my super awesome companion Elder Burton (he's included in this email list... ;) haha but really, he is awesome!)

In our little branch of 25+ members (including the primary kids), 3 of the kids were baptized last week!  We went to the city Gongju ('공주') for the baptism (because their building has a baptismal font!) and it was such a sweet spirit filled experience!!

The rainy season started last week in theory....but it still has only rained once!  But it is pretty overcast a lot and very, very humid!!  I'm starting to keep my eyes peeled for new white shirts at the stores because mine are starting to be quite worn out!

The rice fields are all planted and green and growing - along with all of the bugs that live out there too!!

We're learning how to be very creative in finding new investigators.  We have the belief now, that no idea is a bad idea until you've tried it!  And it's usually those new ideas that bring miracles and success.  God knows when we're really trying and makes up for our shortcomings!!

We saw a really cool miracle last week in a small countryish town in our area called Buyeo ('부여').  We had effectively gotten ourselves lost after we had gone for a while.  But we found the bus stop that went back into the city, and after waiting a little while, a car pulled up.  The woman and her husband in it asked where we were going and if we needed a ride.  As we talked to them in the car, we found out that the woman's older sister is a member of the church in Daejeon.  Although they didn't have much interest in the gospel, we had a nice conversation and were able to give them our number and tell them that if they ever needed anything or wanted to learn about the church, to go right ahead and call us and we'd love to help them.  So that was a really cool miracle~!  God truly knows all of His children and where they are and what they're doing.  There are just too many 'coincidences' for them to be coincidences :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week and I want you all to know that I love you and I love this work!  It truly is the Lord's!!

~Elder Woods

Just Some Pics

 Here are some pictures of some cool things in Nonsan!  

We have some pretty nice hiking trails surrounded by graves and cool Asiany things right by our house!

 

 

9 months and going strong!

Can't believe that I've already been serving for 9 months!!  I've been very terrible about updates on my status here!  But let me explain - ...no there is too much. Let me sum up:  

 

I have been in a countryside city called Nonsan for a month and a half with my awesome companion Elder Baker from Farmington, Utah who has been out for 6 months now.  We have a cute little branch with about 35 members.  

 

We walk a lot everyday (miles and miles) talking to the people on the street who for some reason have either seen us countless times, or for the first time.  We occasionally will run into foreigners on the streets and just wonder why in the world they are in a small city like Nonsan.  

 

We met some new investigators this last week that are college guys and we played basketball with them - we were way out of shape and practice but they still thought that we were incredible haha.  

 

I am ever slowly learning the Korean language and I love the people here!!!  I'm really excited for the next transfer with Elder Baker and the chance I have to be serving in this awesome area!!! 

 

Hope you are all doing great!!! Love you all!!

Transfers!!

This last week we got our transfer calls and then we transfered! I am now in Nonsan (논산) with Elder Baker (who has been out for 5 months on his mission).  We are the only team here in Nonsan (which is a countryside-y city) and we're getting ready to tear it up together on the streets!!!  Sorry my emails have been sooo lame lately!! Sorry!!! ㅋㅋㅋㅋ  (the Korean "hahaha" -  sounds like a bunch of K s)

 

Hope you're all doing well! Love you!!! This church is true!!!

Happy New Year! ~ 새해 복 많이 받으세요!!

I found this soda at the store! It's Psy!

Well this week on New Year's we went to bed the normal time and got up about the normal time, but in the morning, we went out into the winterland of falling snow to try and watch the sunrise with one of my investigators.  Unfortunately it was too cloudy for such an endeavor, but we stopped at a convenience store and had a "fancy" new year's breakfast there!

Us chilling on New Year's morning!

For family night we did minute to win-it games and I wrapped up an investigator like a mummy!

We used coupons and bought Pizza Hut (it would have been about $60 without the coupons! Pizza is expensive in Korea!)

Me and the church and the moon!

I don't have much time for things beyond this, but have a great New Year's everyone! You're all awesome!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wow.  It's weird when you realize that Christmas already happened. And then weird when you realize that it happened recently.

This last week one of the sister's investigators got baptized, and it was such a nice baptismal service.  Her family was referred by a member and her (the one who just got baptized) mom and little sister will probably getting baptized soon!  When she came out of the water and got cleaned up and came back out, it was incredible to see just how bright she was.  It was almost as if she was glowing.  She was so happy, and her family was so happy, and it was awesome!

The baptism

This week my investigator gave us chicken and I found the feet~! And so of course, I ate them! At least, I had a few bites before my investigator realized and made me stop....Dang it... ^^

Eating chicken feet!

Also, our ward had its Christmas party on Christmas Eve and I was recruited to be Santa and give the primary kids presents.  They gave me the gifts, bag, and clothes, and I got suited up and did an excellent job (in my opinion at least).  In Korea, Santa speaks English and doesn't know Korean, so that was a lucky break for me!!!  They call him "산타 할아버지" which basically means like "Grandpa Santa" in English.  So that was fun!

My santa getup!

My loving family sent me a Christmas package back in November....But as of yet, I have not received it.  And the mission office hasn't either...So maybe there are some kids in Africa having a super awesome Christmas right now with my package!! ^^

Our Christmas

On Christmas day, after studying, we went over to a member's house and spent the day with them.  We had 6 American missionaries all skyping home, and so we had to coordinate well with times and the few computers available to us there.  That was super fun (and kind of bizzare) to get to see my family again! But I really felt super strong as soon as they were on the camera, how much I love them all to death.  In my 6 1/2 months of serving so far, I haven't seen or heard them, so it was so new to talk to them again.  Mom and Dad are just as awesome as ever! Holly and Justin were, well, Holly & Justin.  Roger is turning into too much of a stud for his own good, and Henry was just as fun and energetic as ever.  It was literally the fastest hour of my life.  Every time I checked the clock, 10 minutes had gone by. Crazy!  SO basically this is their shoutout from me; that they're the best and I LOVE THEM!

SKYPEing the family!!! (They're the best!!!)

On that lovely note (get it? "LOVE" ly??? Sorry if my level of wit has declined after speaking mainly Korean...), after Skyping we played cards and Settlers of Catan (the Korean version) along with eating, which was super fun.  And I guess that basically covers the big stuff.

The intense hour+ long game of Catan

So, I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and that you all have a MARVELOUS NEW YEAR!!!!

Elder Calvin Woods

Staying for another transfer!

So we just got our transfer calls today, and I will be doing basically the same things in the same place with the same companion next transfer as I did this last transfer! So yeah!!!

 

 

Last night, our ward's 10 missionaries had a Christmas dinner at Brother Holley's (one of the members in our ward) house! And it felt so much like Christmas and a Christmas party.  It was weird!!!!  There was food from Costco and just American food.  There was like: turkey, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin and apple pie, fruit salad, etc...And there was a Christmas tree, decorations, and it was soo cool! Two of the sisters that have been in my district here since I first arrived finished their missions today! So last night was there last night! So weird!! They're done!! I wonder when I'll see them again!!! Who knows??

 

 

Anyhow, it's been deathly cold this last week (yup....I know. Texan...) and I hope I don't freeze to death or anything!

 

You're all the best! Enjoy your Decembery Christmasy time!!!

SNOWWWWWWW!!!!

Wow!!!! I saw snow this week!!!!!  The most I've ever seen!!! (Texas kid.  Cut me some slack)

So that was like the best thing ever! It's all gone now, but it was great for those few days it was here! It made the cold weather totally okay! Now it's just cold...But that's okay because I have a scarf!

Anyways, this past week we had a baptismal service (last Monday) and it was awesome!  They were for 2 of our sisters' investigators.  I was requested to do a piano battle like I did a few months ago at another baptism, and I went more for style rather than for actual skill.  So it was funny I think! Koreans really think vibrant American body language and acting is super funny, so they really liked it!

Also, we had a mission tour. Elder Aoyagi of the 70 came to our mission and we got to hear him and his wife speak to us. They're Japanese, so he spoke in Japanese, which was then translated into Korean, and then translated into English for the newer elders!  So that was quite the experience!  3 languages going on there!  But that was a great experience hearing from him and I was able to get some good personal revelation!

This past week was great! We're doing well, working hard, and helping people progress in the gospel! Have a great December week wherever you are! (cause December is the best!)

Love you all!

Elder Woods

Wow, Thanksgiving!

We were severely lacking in the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, jello, rolls etc etc department, so we ordered chicken!  It was soo good!!!!  (I'm just trying to make myself feel better about it...But it really was delicious!)

Our Thanksgiving

A couple weeks ago for FHE (us missionaries in the ward do it with some members and our investigators) for our activity we played 'spoons,' but we didn't use spoons... We used chopsticks! ...So I guess we probably should have called it 'chopsticks'....It was pretty difficult explaining the game in Korean, but somehow we managed!

 

Recently we've gotten two new investigators who are absolutely awesome!!! We gave them the English names of Spencer and Jason.  They were both referred to us by a member in the ward who was studying at BYU last year (served a mission in Anaheim, CA a bit before that) and came back to Korea to go to the military service cause it's required for Koreans.  But he's been here a few weeks and he got us these two amazing investigators.  People we couldn't have found or set things up the way they are, without a member behind it.  Member missionary work is SOOOO important!!! (just wanted to put a plug in for that)  Spencer wants to learn English, wants to learn about the church and gospel, and wan'ts to go on a mission of all things!  Jason after talking with our member, wants to go to BYU-Hawaii to study really really bad.  So he wants to get better at English with us and to work with us to strengthen his very very small testimony and to become a member.  They're super funny and great to meet with! I love them soo much!  Whenever we meet them, I never want to transfer out of this area because they're just the best!!! I have such high hopes for their progression!

 

The coffee shops around Gwangju (my city) are all putting up Christmas trees and Christmas lights, but the Christmas spirit is nothing like in the states.  Totally different and kind of bizarre. It's just like any other holiday here.  Weird...

 

Anyways, love you all! Have a great Decembery week!

Out of email time!!

So I don't have time, but here's a delicacy we ate this week!

~~~~SOOOOO COOOOOOOOLD~~~~

Sorry it's been so long! Wow I'm just such a slacker when it comes to the writing part of my blog entries.  I promise it's not because I don't like you! (Well....maybe a lit-  just kidding, just kidding!) It's just really hard to type everything in an hour time slot!

Well let's see...how much have I not told you about....  We had a Halloween party! That was fun and it had a big turn out of church members and their friends and their (the friends) families.  (I mean, yes the members' families too of course, but just to clarify I wanted to just-...well you get what I mean)  For the party I dressed up as Draco Malfoy. Super easy costume for a blonde missionary with a green necktie.  But slicking my hair back was a task! Elders Wagner and 박인오 had to both be in on it to help it work (even with a bunch of gel and hairspray!!)

After English class! The girl on the left is 박유진

Jumping around here and there, one of the sisters in our ward leaves on her mission TODAY!!! (November 17th)  Her name is 박유진 (so I guess like 'Yoo Jin Park' in English... you have no idea how hard romanization is; for Korean names especially!), and she's super cool! Fun fact about that, she will 귀환 (finish her mission) about 1 month before me! So, if my last area of my mission is back here, it'll be as if I never left to her, haha.  She's going to the SLC Temple Square Mission.  So if any of you are ever at Temple Square and see a Korean sister (there's only 3 of them counting her), you should talk to her and see if she knows me, cause hey, wouldn't that be legit?!

Me and my new companion 하용식!

We had transfers (about 2 weeks ago...) and I got a new companion! He's a Korean and his name is 하용식 (Ha Yong Shik). He's pretty cool! Everyone told me that your first Korean companion is really different and difficult.  At first it didn't seem like it could be that different, but it really is.  Not tooo much really, but just the feeling in the companionship and the way you do practically everything is just a little different than you're used too.  The culture really does play a big part in all of the difference!

We had a ward activity last-last Saturday, and it was a chilly kind muggyish day.  And the first part of the activity was a 식사 (meal).  So they fried 삼겹살 (Korean bacon) over a fire, had cuties and 감 (persimmons) and also lots of rice cookers.  The cookers were just sitting out on these picnic tables and it was just sooo.....Korean.  The second part of that activity was making pottery.  All of us 10 missionaries in the ward wrote our names on the inside of our Ward Mission Leader's bowl, so that way he remembers us forever!!!

Lastly it has been soooooo cold!!!! Gosh, and it's only going to get colder! Ahhh!!!!

Just a bunch of Korean girls that wanted me to take a picture of them after English class

Hope you're all doing great!!! You're the best! Thanks for being patient with my lack of emails lately!!!

Blog titles are really hard to come up with...

So this past week we got the chance to meet with some new investigators that we found who have so much sincere interest and potential to grow in the church.  They like us and what we're doing, and the message that we're sharing, which is so important.  One of the guys named Kim Charles (김 차르스) worked as a seaman on board a ship from when he was 19 to when he was 30.  So he has so many cool stories about that.  He's in his early 50s now, and works as a real estate agent with his wife at a cute little shop.  Family means the world to him (he has 5 siblings! 5!!! And he's a Korean!) and he is just so sincere with us.  And he speaks English really well!  Also, a guy we met on the street a little over a week ago came to church yesterday and just loved it.  It was the primary program, which was so cute.  They were little kids speaking Korean, so it was really hard to understand a lot of it (how are little kids so dang good at Korean?!).  But the Spirit was really strong throughout the whole thing, especially when they were singing.  Music is one of the most amazing gifts we've been given.  I love it so much!

 

Elder Wagner practicing his photographer skills

Last night, the 6 elders in my area all went to Brother Holley's house and had dinner there with a recent convert who is about 17 years old.  That was super fun! They made us American style food, and I think it was my first real meal with members/investigators/or others, without chopsticks!  Fork, knife, and spoon.  That's it!  And they have a super cool view of Gwangju from their house.

 

 

This week was busy, but good.  Like usual, we're always going around place to place, having appointments here, and having appointments cancel on us (or just flat out not show up) there. And I love it! :)  This work and this church are true.  It will bless the lives of all those who seek to find the truth held in it, and for those who have found it, as they continually live it and draw closer to their father in heaven and their savior Jesus Christ.  I know that this church is true, and that the Book of Mormon is God's word; and through studying the words it contains, we can find a peace and joy in this life that we didn't know we could ever have.  I love this work and wouldn't rather be doing anything else. And I love all of you! Pray often to your Heavenly Father, search the scriptures, and keep God's commandments.  It will bless you life.  Stay safe and stay strong all of you!  It's not easy, but it is worth it.  I testify of these things in Christ's name, Amen.

  You're all the best! Keep it up!

~Elder Calvin Woods

Things that probably didn't happen to you this week

Well, a couple things that I bet didn't happen to you this week go as thus:

• Eat squirming octopus (with some suction cups sticking to your tongue!)
• Almost get hit by a bus with maybe a foot of clearance at most (and have it hit the traffic cone just next to you, causing the cone to fly up and hit you in the arm)
• Play duck-duck-goose with a bunch of cute little Korean kids at a hap ki do academy
• Eat a half gallon of Baskin Robbins ice cream
• Eat Betty Crocker brownies made out of a box you found at E-mart with all English instructions (maybe you did the brownies part though...)
• Teach Koreans English tongue-twisters and realize that every Korean can say "Toy boat" 5 times fast with absolutely no problem (for us Americans it's nigh-impossible)
• Get asked at family home evening at a members house with all the missionaries in your area there along with some other members too, to sing...And so you decide to do a rap in English about modesty instead.
• Find a super good suit sale with all of the suits ranging from $40 to $80!

When Did the Conference Fly By?

Wow, first off general conference was soooo amazing!  It went by soooo soooo fast though!!  So in Korea, because their time is so much earlier than in America where General Conference is held, they watch conference the following Saturday and Sunday.  All of us English speakers in the two wards that meet at our building (missionaries and members) had our own little room set up for conference with a TV.  And it was so fun! I loved getting to hear all of the different messages from the General Authorities.  I really loved the Saturday Morning Session.  That was probably my favorite one.  

 

Our room for conference

And now that conference has passed, it's suit-wearing weather in our mission!  From now until April, we're going to be wearing our suits whenever we're doing missionary work; AKA, all the time! Luckily it's not too stifling hot anymore, but the weather hasn't completely transitioned to Fall yet.  It's teetering on the fence.  I can't wait till it starts getting cool all the time outside!

 

I forgot to mention about 3 weeks ago when we had a baptismal service for 2 sisters.  And one of them (이송이) asked me a few weeks in advance to baptize her.  And that was such an honor and such a spiritual experience.  Our ward missionary leader baptized the other sister. After the baptismal service there was a mini 'talent show' kind of thing.  And Elder Wagner volunteered me to play piano in it.  So Elder 박 and I (he's insanely good at piano) had a 'piano battle.'  We played a few songs each going back and forth with the songs getting crazier and crazier, and more and more complex the whole time.  And while the other person would play we would make fun of them to the audience.  It was really last minutely planned, but it turned out to be pretty comical and funny! Now the ward members always come up to me and ask if I was the one who played piano then, and tell me how good they think I am (this even happened yesterday from our bishop's wife, haha).  They're all so sweet haha.

 

This past week we had a ward activity out in 나주 which is a more country-sidey area next to ours.  It was at a soccer field and it was really pretty fun.  The place looked a whole lot like Asia (probably because it is I guess....).  The best was when Elder Wagner found a football (a very poorly made one, but a football nevertheless) that a member must have brought, and we started passing it back and forth.  The members were so amazed at how well we could throw a football!  They had no clue how to throw it correctly and just kind of threw it like a baseball and it was super funny.  Let's just say, us Americans looked pretty snazzy throwing the old pig-skin around!

Some pictures of the park the ward went to

 

We had an amazing lesson this week with one of our investigators named 권승천.  He's fluent in Enlgish but we still teach him in Korean.  He met with some other missionaries about a year ago, but he works for the city and got really busy. But we found him out of the area book and called him and he wanted to meet.  So this was our second lesson with him, and we taught him the Gospel of Christ.  The Spirit was incredibly strong during the lesson.  And he asked the most golden questions about baptism.  "Is baptism essential for my salvation?" "What if I were to die right now; could I be saved?"  We were able to explain and testify about the necessity of baptism to him and he committed to be baptized when he comes to know more.  It was the best lesson I've been in.

 

In regards to Korean, I'm progressing a lot.  Nowhere near that 'fluent' level, but I pick up on a lot more of what people say (as in I know a few of the words or feeling of what they're saying some of the time).   And I can speak a lot better when I teach.  I'm able to teach all of the lessons independently if I needed to without any Korean resources to use as back-ups, so that's good!  And I passed off our mission's Initial Pass-off!  Only 5 more levels to go! ;)

 

A cute English mistake

Korea is great and I love it! Hope all of you are doing great in wherever you are! Stay safe and stay awesome! Love you all!

 

Time Keeps on Slippin'

Wow, so sorry about no entry last week.  I don't think anyone exept missionaries understand how much of a struggle emailing everthing you're supposed to is in your hour time-slot.  But I'm doing my best here!

 

So to recap for the past two weeks:

 

We finished the transfer and our district changed up just a little.  Elder Cowles left for 전주 and got replaced by Elder Hogen, a completely new greenie fresh to Korea (I was with him in the MTC for 3 weeks).  I got sick that week off of 김밥 and had to stay at home for an eveing throwing up. No fun... :P  But the week was good overall.  

 

We met some good new investigators this past week that we've started to meet with.  Our 3 Cambodian investigators with baptismal dates have dropped off the face of the earth lately though and we haven't been able to contact them.  But we won't give up on them.  Hopefully they pick up their phone soon.  Elder Wagner had to go to MLC (missionary leadership council) on Tuesday and so I went on a split with Elder 박 and Elder Hogen.  That was fun and interesting at the same time.  Poor Elder 박 had to deal with two 'greenies' for the day haha.  The next day was combined zone conference which was just a lot of meetings all day.  But it was fun and cool to see some misisonaries from the other zones.

 

I can't think of too much crazy stuff to include.  I got a haircut today! That's exciting I guess. Korean people have a really hard time cutting American hair.  It's just different and they really don't know how.  Luckily it doesn't look too bad or anything.  I'll just leave it to pictures to make sense of everything. So yay!  Korea's going good and it's crazy I've been here almost 2 months already! Love all of you! You're the best!

 

Me with: 이지선 자매님 who just finished her mission!

박인오 장로님

 

 

Elder Cowles

We had to break into one of the rooms in our house.  It got locked from the inside to we had to go through the window!

Korean desserts look pretty weird sometimes....