Hi all! This week I promised to write something better than last week. Which I truly intended to do. Alas, there's someone who wants to use the computer nearby who is trying to be patient...but as I know how hard it is to be patient, I think it best for me to help him by giving him a chance to email as well. Anyway...

I want to make a confession to you all. I've wanted to come home several times this last week. I know I make it all sound glamorous, being in Korea and learning Korean...but it isn't always that way. This is hard. Really hard. Ridiculously hard. I feel like I'm trapped in the mud some days and will never learn Korean or help anyone or do anything right. When I was young, I thought missionaries were always happy and that everything always worked out for them because they were doing what God wanted them to do. They would never want to go home because they were saving souls, right?

Of course, now that I'm a missionary...sometimes it's hard to see the impact we have on people. We've been asked to speak to at least 140 people each week as a companionship. It's hard, because most people say they're busy and don't want to listen to us (especially since I'm really only capable of talking at people now rather than with people). Our investigators sometimes make big changes in their lives...but mostly they seem a little on the lazy side. (It's hard to remember to read from a book you'd never heard of before, after all.) And it's full of disappointment--people cancel their appointments, and people decide they don't want to meet with us, and they don't want to do anything we ask them to do, and they're afraid to change. So it's hard.

I also used to think that missionaries learned their language in no time at all. After all, the gift of tongues is a miracle. So shouldn't it just come overnight? Or maybe in a week? That would be nice. I could live with that if I went to bed and then woke up speaking perfect Korean. Lamentably...it's hard! I suppose I could put forth a little more effort, but as missionaries in Korea, we speak a lot of English because we teach a lot of English. If we found more investigators interested in the gospel, it would be much easier... That was another thing I thought was easy. However, solid investigators who progress are hard to find. Usually when we get a referral from someone in one of the wards, however, they do much better. So, if you know anyone who might be interested in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you should talk to the missionaries.

Obviously I haven't come home. I've come close to making that decision a few times...but if life were easy, people wouldn't write songs about it. If missionary work were easy, then there would be almost no point to it. Following the Savior was never guaranteed to be easy--His life certainly wasn't. There are good times. There are times that I love. But I wouldn't experience those times without all the times where I feel wholly ineffectual at being a missionary or helping people. Life isn't easy.

So, my message to you is just keep working! If I can be here in Korea learning Korean and teaching the gospel to people who sometimes don't really care, you can keep going too. There is help if we ask for it--we're not alone. I love you all!

Sister Oates

Greetings from Korea! I don't have much time today to leave a long message (plus I didn't really think of one this last week), so today it will be short and hopefully sweet. I want to tell you about my fun experience yesterday and today going on splits with a greenie.

So, Sister McKay was in the MTC with me--she arrived six weeks after I did. She's amazing, and she ended up with my trainer as her trainer this transfer. Which is awesome--I get to see her almost every week for P-day. And we get to go on splits with each others' companions. I wrongly assumed that I would go on splits with Sister Lee twice this transfer...nope! I found out on Monday that I would be going on splits with Sister McKay. Ahh! I started to panic. She's on her first transfer and doesn't understand most of what people say, and I'm on my second transfer and also don't understand. And neither of us is particularly gifted with Korean.

So...I was very worried. I figured it would be terrible, because August is really hot, and we would probably spend the whole time just proselyting.

It turned out to be not too bad. Thankfully all of the appointments for yesterday cancelled (teaching a lesson would have been very hard to do successfully), so we decided to heart attack doors (attach hearts to the door with tape) and deliver cookies. We cooked a lot of cookies and had a very good companionship study (that was a little long, admittedly) before going out into the heat. I found my way around by myself. We didn't get lost. We found apartments and delivered cookies (without actually having to talk because it was an attack). Then we taught English class and went home--I could've done a better job talking to people, but it was pretty fun. Sister McKay and I got a lot of compliments.

It's amazing how the Lord can work with such imperfect beings to do His work.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week! Next week I promise to have a better blog post.

Sister Oates

Alrighty...yet again, this week I was busy trying to learn my new area after my transfer, so I didn't put too much thought into my blog for this week. But I figured I could give you a glimpse of Korean life, since most of you faithful readers have never been here. I'll also compare it to my time in China, for those of you who've been following my blog for almost a year.

Korea is a beautiful country, and Koreans are very proud of their culture. They are very clean (which is definitely not the case in China) and sort their garbage into recyclable, non-recyclable, and food garbage. They also sort their recyclable garbage into plastic, paper, etc...which is really neat. They even do it at restaurants like McDonald's. They care about the environment and want Korea to be clean in the future, which is great. I'm not so much a fan of the food garbage, though...there are little traps in the sink that catch all the food when you wash dishes etc...then you put it into a garbage bag and take it down to put it with the rest of the apartment complex's food garbage. It kind of smells. But is used for fertilizer and whatnot, so that's good.

When you arrive at a Korean's home, you take off your shoes at the entrance way and then sit down on the floor. Koreans don't have carpet, like the Chinese, so it's a little uncomfortable for foreigners for the first few weeks. (Actually, sometimes it's still uncomfortable, but my feet don't fall asleep as much). Generally you sit cross-legged. Koreans love to feed missionaries, which is awesome. You eat on the floor with a small table. Kimchi is always on the menu. It's delicious. Before you eat, you say that you will eat well, and then you wait until the host/oldest person starts to eat before you eat. After you eat, you always say that you ate well. Koreans like it when you compliment their food---which is easy to do, because it really is delicious.

Korean chopsticks are metal. And flat. Which is really nice...but hard at the same time. In China, I got used to round chopsticks, so I still sometimes have a hard time picking things up. But that's okay. Unlike a lot of Chinese food, Korean food generally doesn't have bones with meat, which is nice. It is very rude in Korea to pick your teeth in public after a meal. Koreans eat a lot of vegetables. It's very healthy food.

They usually don't have dessert--if they do, it's fruit. When you visit someone, they typically give you some fruit or a drink even if they're not feeding you lunch or something. It's rude to not eat what they give you...so there are days when I'm very full because everyone that day decided to give us food.

Koreans are very polite to one another. They bow in Korea when they meet. Chinese people don't bow. Respect is very important--there are different ways to conjugate verbs depending on the level of respect you want to show. As missionaries, we always speak in middle form or high form...but when people are close (like family members or whatnot) they speak in a more familiar form. They love to speak to foreigners, and will compliment you frequently. It's a good thing to play the humble game and compliment them in return.

Korea is a lot more advanced technologically than China. They're on par with the United States for most things and have better technology for others--like phones. Korean cell phones are cool. And Korean cameras--a lot are touch-screen cameras.

If you ever have a chance to visit Korea, you should! Have a great week!

Sister Oates

The only thing constant in this world is change. That's a really trite and hackneyed phrase, isn't it? Of course, it's true. Everything changes. The weather changes from monsoon season to typhoon season. Buildings change-spiders spin their webs and mold starts to grow, making something that was once shiny and new older and mature. We all get older. We lose skin cells. Mosquitoes annoy people the world around.

We're all changing, even when we're not noticing it. I suppose the reason change is on my mind is that I've been transferred. I got a call from President Perriton on Tuesday morning saying I would be, and by Wednesday night, all of my things were in my new apartment. I said goodbye to the people I met and taught, and am now going to have to introduce myself to two new wards (which is something I'm not particularly looking forward to due to my limited vocabulary and ability to speak Korean). I have a new companion, and now live on the tenth floor of an apartment complex. I don't partiularly like heights. This change, obviously, was a big one. Big changes happen in the blink of an eye. Sometimes they make our lives better--like the birth of a child--and sometimes they can make us devastated. Big changes are really easy to notice.

But I want to focus on small changes. Everyone is changing every day, and if we're not careful, we might never realize what's going on unless we measure how far we've come. For instance...I feel like I can't speak Korean any better (or maybe even worse) than I could at the MTC. But this morning as I was practicing reading in the Book of Mormon, it only took me about five minutes to make it through a page and a quarter. The first time I read from the Book of Mormon in Korean, it took me ten minutes to make it through one column. And I'm sure my pronunciation was terrible. Of course, my pronunciation is still not very good, but when I read with investigators, I don't feel like I'm a baby anymore. I feel more like I'm about to go to kindergarten. (Someday I'll understand what it is I'm reading...)

I've also lost weight in Korea, though it doesn't feel like it to me. Actually, I've been losing about 1-2 kilograms each week. But I can't notice the change. Which is why it's good for us to point out changes in other people for the better. Compliments are wonderful. Koreans are great because they compliment everyone...so, I encourage you to be more like them. Say something nice to everyone you talk to today about some change they've made. Encouragement helps us all continue to change and be better.

Have a great week!

Sister Oates