안녕하십시오

Hello!

Snow in Gangneung!

This week was a good one with lots of traveling and incoming warm weather. I wasn't too cold this week, so it was good. In our zone, instead of wards and stakes we have branches and districts because there aren't enough members yet. So we had district conference yesterday and Saturday over in Gangneung. An area seventy attended and spoke about missionary work. The subject of the conference was D&C 88:73, "Behold, I will hasten my work in its time." The Korean translation is a little weird, but it was a good topic. Our mission president and his wife also came! It was a good conference, but we spent a solid 5-6 hours on the bus that weekend. Not super fun.

The new families son. He's the most adorable thing. I wanted to hold him so bad.

A new family moved into our branch! A husband and wife and 15 month old son. They both served missions over in the states, the husband in New York and the wife in California. They're SUPER cool, and we got to help them move into their apartment on Wednesday. Refrigerators are heavy.

Kimchi squat with our groceries.

Not a lot of people could meet this week... Everyone was busy and didn't have a lot of time. But we did meet a sweet guy from Pakistan! He speaks a little English, a little less Korean, and works here in Korea. We met him on the street, and he'll be able to meet this week sometime. Elder Hansen and I ordered him a Book of Mormon in Urdo, his native language, so he can enjoy it in his own tongue. Looking at the Urdo Book of Mormon, Korean looks so EASY. Korean still seems a little unfamiliar when compared to English, but Korean felt right at home while we were checking out the Urdo language. They don't even have normal numbers!

English, Korean, and Urdo Book of Mormon copies.

I thought a lot about the Plan of Salvation this week. The Korean sister in our district told a story about a Grandpa who wouldn't leave a store, and the manager got mad. The manager asked the grandpa over and over what he was doing and when/where he would go, and the grandpa finally answered: "I've been thinking about those questions for a long time." I'm so grateful that we have the answers to those questions. So many people don't have those answers! We know why we're here, we know where we're from, and we know where we're going. There's so much power that comes into our lives from having that knowledge.

For Grandma Dot. I bought fruits and veggies.

Korea is still cool. I ate some spicy squid, and it was pretty gross.

I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

Delicious kimchi tofu soup. The food here is amazing.

Batman. I've still got it.

조금 심심한 주

Hello! This week was good. Pretty typical week, but good nonetheless. It's warmer, so that's good.

Last monday, we traveled ALL day to get Elder Hansen a foreigner card. It took forever. But I got in some sweet naps on the bus. Those are really hard to come by. Afterward we played some pingpong and then went to a member's house to have family night with their family. Super fun. It was Elder Hansen's first time having a meal with a member, so it was a good learning experience for him. When eating meals with members, it's important to be super polite and follow certain customs: Kneel until you are told to sit comfortably, and then you're allowed to sit cross legged. And you have to eat A LOT, or they think that you think the food is gross or something. I love Korean culture. I was reminded of my first couple weeks in the country, where absolutely nothing was understood. I felt a little bad for Elder Hansen, but I think he'll turn out okay.

Elder Hansen took this picture. I had no idea that they took it.
Just a typical night trying to get ready for bed and making calls. :)

We work with a less active named brother Bay who works as a math teacher at an academy close to here. He's super funny and likes speaking english and reading the Book of Mormon. He just doesn't come to church because he's super busy. I called him to follow up on his reading in 1st Nephi chapter 4. He excitedly replied that he had read it, and then said in his heavy Korean accent: "Ayduewoujeh(Edwards)... Nepaee SLAYEEDEH Lahbane???" It was so funny. He was kind of thrilled to read about that in the book of mormon, and went on to tell me about how Nephi did it according to God's command. Super cool guy.

Another less active named brother Hwang we're working with came to church twice in a row and then got the priesthood yesterday! We're happy for him, but it'll be a trick to keep him coming out to our church. He thinks every church is good, so he doesn't always come out to our church.

We went to Gangneung this week for Zone training meeting. Gangneung is about a 1.5 hour bus ride from Wonju, and it has at least 4 feet of snow there. The streets are practically shut down because the traffic is so bad. I felt bad for the missionaries in Gangneung... they spend a solid amount of missionary work time shoveling the church driveway almost every day. Wonju didn't get tons of snow, so I didn't have to shovel too often.

We taught our pastor investigator the Restoration this week. It went surprisingly well. He didn't really believe in the Great Apostasy... but he did agree to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. He's a pastor for a Methodist church here in Wonju and super nice. He's pretty firm in his church, but we'll see where that goes.

I'm good. Being a father is still kind of scary, but it's awesome. Elder Hansen is pretty innocent... so maybe I'll feed him some dog soup or something. He'll like that, I think.

Korea is still awesome! God is watching out for the people here and helping us missionaries along. He lives and knows all of us perfectly. For that I am so grateful.

Love, Elder Edwards

The other side of missionary life :)

그리니 받았다!

Hello! This week was a fun week full of first times and new things to try.

It poured rain the first 2 days this week, which made missionary work a little hard but we managed. We spent an hour or two at the church playing ping pong (on P-day) which was pretty fun. I'm pretty much a ping pong master now.

Elder Murdock and I in Seoul on Wednesday night.

We headed into Seoul on Wednesday night and checked out some language books at the giant book store there, ate at KFC and Baskin Robbins, and slept at President's house for the night. The next day we went to transfers and had training for about 3 hours and then got our new companions!!! I won't lie, I was SO nervous. My new companion's name is Elder Hansen, and he hails from Brigham City! He's cool and awesome and blonde and ready to do the work of Salvation. He's got his head on straight, knows why he's out here, and isn't afraid to go out there and talk to people. I'm so excited to work with him. I feel very inadequate and unprepared, but I'm super excited. I just hope I don't ruin him or anything. I felt akin to maybe what new parents must feel... kind of a "Holy cow we have a baby and we're supposed to raise him and take care of him and the hospital didn't tell us hardly anything and he looks so fragile and I didn't really want to be a parent anyways what am I supposed to do?!?" But it's all good. I'm up to the challenge.

Our house in Wonju. My companion is the one next to me. :) 

We met a lot of awesome people this week who said they would like to meet later... we will be meeting with a lot of potential investigators this week. I'm so happy! I feel like more people came in with the new transfer. New things are good.

My sleeping skills have improved. I can now sleep while sitting cross legged. I have to be really tired to do it, but I can. I feel some pride and some shame. I also thought staying awake in church would be easier as a missionary... but it's definitely harder. It's a struggle every week to stay awake in there.

I had some seaweed soup this week. It tasted like the sea. Not like delicious grilled shrimp and crab, but more like a wave slammed a handful of rotten seaweed in my mouth. I ate a whole bowl, because being polite is important.

Korea is awesome. I like being a new parent. It's scary, but awesome.

I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

Badminton with one of the less actives that we're working with.

A potential investigator. He LOVES me. And kind of loves Elder Murdock. When he found out Elder Murdock was leaving he took us out to dinner and then took us to a photo place. It was kind of weird, but the picture is TOTALLY worth it. I don't think I'll do it again.

오캐.

It was a good week this week. All desire to write this email suddenly left me, so I apologize if it's lame. 지겹다.

This week contained the biggest holiday, which is the Korean New Year! "Korean New Year" sounds like it should be some super awesome festival with giant dragons and enormously colorful fireworks and people wearing weird Asian clothes and using chopsticks. All are false except for the chopsticks. The Korean New Year consists of going to your hometown and making and eating lots of food, similar to the American Thanksgiving. But in Korea, there's a HUGE emphasis on ancestors and respect for their elders. Families gather together, the wives make food, the children play, and the men get wasted drunk. It's a pretty good holiday. But there's no fireworks or anything, so that's kind of a letdown.

Making pot stickers. "Mandoo" in Korean.

For the Korean New Year, we got to go to Seoul and have a mission conference on Thursday. It was awesome. Wednesday night, we did a session at the temple and then slept there. Thursday was filled with listening to President and his Wife speak and a few musical numbers. The President's wife Sister Christensen decided that she wanted to put together a band for the conference, so I got to play the trumpet! It's been a LONG time. But I managed to squeak out enough notes so it didn't sound awful. :)

My trumpet. She's not as good as my one at home, but she played just fine.

Transfer calls came! Elder Murdock is leaving to Nokbun, which is in Seoul and the ward has over 100 members. It's HUGE. And I will be training!!! I'm going to get a brand new missionary and teach him the ropes!! It's going to be awesome. I'm really excited. I'll stay here in Wonju and train for probably the next 12 week (a regular training period time). I'm really looking forward to it. I'll drop Elder Murdock off and pick up my new missionary on Thursday morning! 

Life is good, and so is Korea!

Love, Elder Edwards

This is the mountain man that I talked to last week. Elder Murdock took some candid pictures. That's me! Doing real missionary work, speaking real (I hope) Korean! Cool, huh?