안녕하세용! <3
Greetings from a warming and beautiful Seoul. It rained a couple nights ago, so the air has been better since then, but it's still not great.
It's been a fun week!
We were able to meet with Paengwen for one last time before he headed back to China, but he'll be back fairly soon, I believe. He was as happy as ever, absolutely jubilant. The next day was zone conference {when missionaries from the same broader area meet together}, which was great! Afterwards, I went with Elder Luker, who leaves this next transfer, to proselyte at Koryeo Dae. Going back to Dongdaemun {where Sam was first assigned in Seoul}, and especially Koryeo Dae, is always like going home. Love it. Elder Luker is incredible, and we had a great time. We went hard- there's just no other option.
That evening, we met again with brother Nam, with whom we met last week. It was a good experience to be able to testify, and really affirmed that the Lord will bless you with the ability to say what you need to say, through whatever means, pictures or Chinese, or what have you, it needs to be said. Although we had no time for dinner, a quart of strawberry drinking yogurt and a baguette were enjoyed later on. Sa Gae texted that night and said that he was back in town, so we planned to meet on the weekend. After planning on Friday, Ungsam suddenly called and said that he really wanted to meet with us, and was one minute away by car. And so, as usually tends to be the case with him, we ran full sprint to the church and said our hellos. As for trying to slow down a bit and take a step back in our work {Dad keeps trying to encourage Sam to slow down just a bit}, we're doing our best. We do sporadically do yoga in the morning or the evening, so that's been good.
Later on, I went out to dinner with Elder Osborne and one of their new investigators, an eighteen year old from Azerbaijan. We talked as best as we could, we didn't really speak any mutual languages, and went out for chicken kebabs at his request. As we talked, we quickly realized he had absolutely no interest in what we were saying, and our conversation tended toward the awkward. The kebabs were fairly small, and he ordered six for us. We tried to not eat a lot, and as they were gone, I thought we were preparing to leave, but he got up and ordered four more. For the sake of time, that is how we ended up spending $25 won on kebabs, and went home later to eat an actual meal.
{Sam wrote a few months ago about the very important Korean concept of "jeong" -- affection, love, connection -- that not surprisingly often gets tied up (and probably often misused) around food. We suppose this snippet is related to missionaries trying to figure out how to use Jeong properly and not get taken for a ride!}
As we went out of the restaurant, though, a bit peeved, we were walking and saw a foreigner, and to take our minds off things, just went to talk with him. Turned out we didn't even need to, he came and said hello and shook our hands, and with a wide smile introduced himself as Mr. Shamis Al-Shamis, from Oman. Turns out he is (from?) the Sultanate of Oman, and he had gotten to Korea two days before. He works with foreign affairs, and is here kind of as a gesture of friendship/learning Korean trip. His master's degree was in English, so he spoke very well. He needed to fix his watch, so as we walked to and from the store we had a great time discussing religion, buying bananas, Thai tones, and ancient anecdotes. We will meet up again soon, in sha'Allah.
There was a massive fireside in the South Mission yesterday with Elder Nash, of the Seventy. He gave a great talk, and we went down with Sa Gae (!) and Xue Yi, a Chinese investigator that we talked to on the street first transfer (청수 스왜그). Both enjoyed it, and we had a fun time. It was wonderful to see Sa Gae again, and he and Xue Yi talked a lot and exchanged numbers, so that was great. Chinese Gospel Principles continues to grow, and we are very excited for that as well.
All my love! Sorry for the brevity~
Elder South 
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