한국은 아직 재미있어요

Wonju was WARM this week. I hung up my overcoat last Tuesday and vowed to never wear it again until next winter. That proved to be a mistake because it's still not quite swimming season by any means, but I keep my promises. For the first time in a long time we played sports outside on P-day without freezing to death. I'm still bad at basketball, but it's fun. Everyone stared at us 4 foreigners playing basketball, so everyone saw my complete lack of skill, but it was totally worth it.

Member meals. They're the best.

This week was a good one. Elder Hansen and I met a man on the street and invited to meet with him later to share more about the Book of Mormon, and we met him the next day and picked him up as an investigator! He's 87 years old. We taught him a little about the Plan of Salvation last time, and we'll teach him the rest next time we meet. It was pretty cool how we met him... We usually take one way to the market, but Elder Hansen saw our 87 year old man way down a different road and decided to go talk to him. Old people usually don't listen to us, but this one did. :)

Two of our investigators left Wonju this week to go to Seoul... So we have to refer them to the missionaries over in Seoul :(

Two of our investigators, who left for Seoul to go to school. :(
We played basketball with them last Pday.

Two weeks ago we met a guy from Pakistan named Ahmed on the street, told him who we were, talked about the Book of Mormon a little bit, invited him to learn more, exchanged numbers, and parted ways. He's not super good at English, but he gets by. We called him to meet, but he said he couldn't leave his house for a couple days. So, we told him we would visit his house and he sent us his address. Elder Hansen and I hopped in a taxi, told the driver the address, and headed off. We had no idea where the address was, but the driver did. He drove for 25 MINUTES. It was so so so far away. But we eventually got to his house, which is in the middle of nowhere. That stupid taxi put me $20 in the hole. But, we gave Ahmed a Book of Mormon in his native tongue of Urdo, and taught him a little about it. We ended up getting home at 10pm because it was so far away. Apostate missionaries all the way! It was really cool to share with a Pakistani man in the middle of nowhere.

"... to every nation, kindred, tongue, and [statue]"

On Saturday night we met with a man who told us his story that he had met Jesus 29 years ago on the top of a mountain, obtained eternal life, and was now called by Jesus to give people eternal life. It was pretty difficult teaching someone who firmly believes he has a divine calling from heaven. I tried to tell him that we had one too, but then he asked if we had seen and touched Jesus... and the lesson kind of went downhill from there. He then called us to repentance with the bible, which I think he has completely memorized. 

Korea is still awesome.

Love, Elder Spencer Edwards

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?

I would give up chocolate, but I'm no quitter!

It was a good week this week. We got some rain, we didn't get any snow, and it was surprisingly warm during the days and bitter cold at night. It reminded me a bit of Utah weather... bipolar.

These candies are the Korean equivalent of Hi-chews, and I found a giant one. 

That was a good night of happily eating candy.

I went on exchanges with one of the zone leaders a couple weeks ago, and while we were knocking doors we found a dude who was kind of mad at us for scaring his daughters by knocking. But then it turned out that he was fluent at English and super nice and willing to talk with us. We've met him twice since then, and he fed us some delicious lamb and promised us to refer some of his friends to us so that we wouldn't have to knock doors all the time. Super cool guy. His English name is Antonio.

We met a foreigner this week. He's a 65 year old white guy from Missouri, and he's been in Korea for 6 years. He can't really speak any Korean. He's an English teacher here, which is the most common profession for foreigners in Korea. (I think. I've only met foreigners that are teachers. But I kind of made up that stat.) We then talked about why he hated America so much, tried to give him a Book of Mormon, but he hopped on a bus and we never saw him again. He was funny. But it sure seems like a lonely life living in a foreign country completely alone.

We had a super awesome investigator who was SO interested in our church and the Book of Mormon. I texted him the other day, asking him if he had time the next day. His wife texted back and told me to that if I never contacted again, it would be good. So, being the good boy that I am, I called him a couple of days later and got an earful from his wife. No more investigator. That was kind of a downer. We have been rejected SO many times by the wives of people we talk to. I guess they don't want their husbands to be deceived or something. Except we help people away from deception, not toward it... Oh well.

Elder Murdock and I were late for an appointment, and there was a mountain in the way between where we were and where we needed to go. So we decided to hoof it over the mountain. We talked to two people on the mountain, and both took a Book of Mormon and were really receptive! I think we'll be doing mountain proselyting more often. I'll be needing some different shoes. 

Our mountain adventure.

We came back and talked to one of the guys on the mountain again after our appointment punked us, and we talked to him for a solid hour. He says that he goes up there everyday and sits and watches nature and thinks about the purpose of life. I tried to talk about the Plan of Salvation, but then he talked about why money is the most important thing in this life. And he was serious! It's so weird to me that people actually think that way. But he told us to visit any time at his little mountain hideaway.

I taught myself how to whistle this week. I have a solid 3 note range. It's a work in progress.

Transfer calls are this Saturday. Weird! This transfer FLEW by.

Life is great! I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

My breakfast fell on the floor this morning. I was really sad. But I remembered that we vacuum monthly, and that teenage boys NEVER walk on our floor with their dirty feet, so I ate off the floor. I felt sufficiently uncivilized. Also, the machine on the right is a Korean vacuum cleaner. The whole house is a kind of wood floor, but people never sweep. Always vacuum. And the red circle thingy in the back is a rice cooker. We eat rice everyday. It's good.

나는 멋있다

A view of Korea. It incorporates some of my favorite parts of Korea:
Me, random fields, huge apartments,
traditional Korean houses (the roof), and beautiful mountains.

Hello from Wonju!

It's been a pretty typical week of missionary work... not too many cool stories or experiences to share. Just that doing the Lord's work is awesome and I'm having the time of my life! I'm tired a lot and stressed sometimes/a lot, but the work is awesome and I'm so happy to be doing it. Korea is still pretty awesome, and Korean food is the best thing ever. I miss shakes and good french fries and starbursts and subway sandwiches every once in a while, but Korean food is the bomb. 

Mmmm... Soup. Fish, kimchi, and tofu.

We had dinner with an investigator, and there were some really spicy peppers there. I took a small bite of one, and managed to hide my pain and tears for long enough to tell Elder Murdock to eat a whole one because they weren't that spicy. He shoved a whole one in his mouth. I think he cried for a solid half hour. I felt some shame, but it was mostly just really funny. It reminded me of the time that I made Dallen eat that pepper at the Chinese restaurant for a quarter. Totally worth it.

Me and Mona Lisa.

We had Zone Conference this week in Gangneung, which is about a 1.5 hour bus ride from good old Wonju. President Christensen and his wife and the Assistants came! It was really awesome. They gave some great talks about Testifying, Obedience, and Hard Work, which is our mission vision. (Dad: basically our mission X statement.) Super good talks. I love Zone conferences and Mission conferences. I always leave feeling inspired to do and be better.

A SWEET tunnel we found.

It's interesting how few foreigners are here in Korea. We see a fellow foreigner only about twice a week. Elder Murdock says that there are 200ish foreigners in Wonju, but I've seen a total of 5 (some more than once) in the 4 weeks I've been here. So, people stare at us ALL the time. Sometimes secretly, but mostly just blatantly. Kids 8 years old and under usually jump a little bit when they see us. It's kind of funny. It's especially bad when we go into a restaurant as a district... People stare at us and whisper about the "Waygookeen"(foreigner) the whole time. but usually we can use our foreigner power to get people to talk to us on the street, because we look weird.

Korea is great! I love you all!

Love, Elder Edwards

A view of my desk and me diligently studying.

My sweet tie and grandma pants.
Grandmas in Korea wear pants like these all the time.
In typical fashion, I bought myself some.

The view that Koreans see when I knock on their door.
There is a camera outside that they can activate to see who
is there and talk to through the phone inside their house. :)