This past week was my first experience teaching only in Korean, as the title to this blog says. Well, kind of says. I don't actually know how to make the Korean sounds using our alphabet. So if you try and sound it out, you might sound like you said "Korean taught". Maybe. I don't think I quite sound like I said that when I speak it to Koreans. Pronunciation is fun. And frustrating, at the same time. Learning a language is not easy. But that's okay! It's fun. Korean is a really neat language. The verb goes at the end of the sentence. And the subject is quite often implied. Much more interesting than boring old English. It's really fun being able to write using their alphabet, too. Korean has an alphabet, which is really fortunate. Chinese doesn't. And that scared me from learning the language in China, as great as pinyin is.

Totally random tangent. Anyway, I taught for the first time in Korean on Saturday. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, though I had a hard time remembering some of the words. (It isn't often that the word to disobey comes up in a conversation.) We (consisting of myself, Elder Vezzani, and Elder Heyrend) taught four young girls originally from Korea. The oldest, Sister Lee, is only 16. The youngest I think was somewhere around 5 or 6. She's really cute. She tries to communicate with me and I have no idea what she's saying, though. The other two girls are really smart, and seem to be enjoying school in America. Anyway, the lesson went well. I got to teach about prophets and showed a picture of Moses. Pictures are great. I love 'em.

Things this past week have been a little on the unusual side. Sister Peterson and Sister Olgilvie left for Korea last week. I sleep in the same room as five sisters headed to Japan just so I'm not alone. I also spend time with them at gym and whatnot. They're (Sister Lung, Sister Nishida, Sister Hobson, Sister Evans, and Sister Lindsey) really sweet. And I'm glad that I've been able to meet them, though I don't particularly know them very well. Most of my day is spent in the classroom with the elders. Our zone is down to the seven of us--Elder Kaing, Elder Peterson, Elder Vezzani, Elder Heyrend, Elder Stubbs, Elder Bessey, and myself. I appreciate how much they generally try to do what is right. Sometimes I feel like I'm their older sister...but often I find them teaching me.

Hmmm...what else is there to tell you about? The weather here is great. Of course, if you're also in Utah, you know that already. We have good food at the MTC. We get ice cream every Sunday and Wednesday. Last week we heard from Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve. He encouraged us to be bold when saying we're following Christ to those interested in the message of the restored gospel. It was pretty neat.

Things are going well here. I hope that everything is going well on your end. I wish that I could write you all letters, but I only have so many addresses...if you want me to write you, you need to write me first.

Annyong he kassayoh!

Sister Oates