A Fairly Typical Day in the Life of Sister Oates (오츠 자매)
6:30: Wake up, pray, exercise.
7:00: Start getting ready--shower. I feel like I'm walking through water most days, so I like taking showers--I feel less sticky afterward because I'm drenched in water, not sweat. Eat breakfast.
8:00: Personal study. This is one of my favorite times of the day. I can read in English and understand what I'm reading. Yay! I'm currently halfway through the Book of Mormon again and almost finished with the New Testament. When we have lessons scheduled for the day, I focus some of my time on studying what will help investigators.
9:00: Companion study. Sister Lee Se-ri and I start with a song (in Korean) and a prayer. Then we tell each other what we learned in personal study, review some missionary rules, and then read from the Book of Mormon. I read one verse in Korean and she corrects my pronunciation, and she reads one verse in English and I correct her pronunciation. Generally we read a page or so. Afterwards, we plan our lessons for the day (wherein I have the difficult task of deciding what I can actually say) and then study from Preach My Gospel together (time permitting).
10:00: Language study. I have a goal to read the Book of Mormon in Korean by the end of my mission, so I try and read at least one page aloud. I don't understand most of it. I also spend this time preparing for teaching (ie getting vocabulary I'll need) and working on learning new grammar/vocabulary. None of it sticks. But that's okay. Eventually I'll remember what I learn. Or my brain will explode >.<.
10:30: We leave the house with a prayer and a copy of the Book of Mormon/pamphlets/fliers. We usually contact people on the street for a half an hour to two hours, depending on when we have an appointment.
12:00-1:00 (ish): Lunch. Yay! Korean food is yummy. I had bear soup the other day for lunch. It was pretty tasty. I haven't really found anything I don't like.
1:00-2:00: An appointment. If we have one. Anyway, we start by teaching English for 30 minutes (which I'm not very helpful at, due to the fact that I can't speak Korean. But I can help with pronunciation.) Afterwards, we teach the gospel for 30 minutes. Or sometimes more. It depends. Many of our investigators like to give us food, too. In Korean culture, it is offensive if you don't eat what they give you--even if you're super full. So you have to eat it.
2:00-5:00: More appointments. If no appointments, we visit less-active members or do more contacting.
5:00-6:00: Dinner! Yummy!
6:00-9:00: More appointments or more contacting or more visiting, depending on circumstances. Sometimes we knock on doors. That's usually not very successful--especially when I talk. I'm hard to understand through doors, apparently. :)
9:00: Come home. Pray. Plan for tomorrow. Update the area book (a book where we keep records of what we taught investigators/members).
10:00: Get ready for bed. Brush, floss, change into PJs...
10:30: Pray and then go to bed.
We repeat basically the same schedule each day--though, sometimes things go awry when people cancel on us. :( It's not too bad, being a missionary. The work can be fun, even when the language is frustrating. I trip over my tongue all the time. Though, I have only actually tripped once, which is good (especially if you know how clumsy I am). There's a lot of shoe-taking off in Korea, which is nice during these hot summer months. I like having appointments to get out of the heat and humidity.
Things are going well here in Korea! I hope all of you are doing well. You're in my prayers. I encourage you to feed the missionaries. We run out of money sometimes and it's nice to not have to pay to eat. Plus you'll get blessings for helping the Lord's servants. If you have time, you should teach with the missionaries. It's exciting--and not really all that hard unless you're trying to speak a language you don't really know. If I can teach about Jesus Christ in Korean, you can teach about Him in English. I challenge you to open your mouth to someone and mention the gospel and how it has blessed your life if you're a member. If you're not...well, I encourage you to meet the missionaries. We're a little weird, true, but we like to make friends.

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