Delicious strawberry milk? March 16, 2015

"죄송한데 딸기 우유 맛있어요?"

"Sorry, but is that strawberry milk delicious?" -Elder Perry's opening line as he squeezes in next to someone on a bus this week.

안녕아세요~^^ {annyeong-aseyo = hello}

My hope that all is well. Sorry that spring break is over. 힘쇼 and stick it out until the end {maybe: "show power?"}! We've had a fascinating week as always, with piles of adventures and heaps of gratitude for being here. I wish there were some documentaries on missionary work in Korea- it's just the best life. Anywhere's good, I'm sure, but Korea must be the best.

Some stories from this past week include the temperature dropping last Monday very suddenly very low, with a lot of wind picking up quickly, leaving us kind of unprepared for our block of time on the street. Nonetheless, you gotta push through, and we met one man that we talked with for a while, who then decided he wasn't interested and went on his way. We kept contacting, and on the way home in a different part of our area we felt that we should stop at one building. The guy on the top floor was very unwelcoming, the family on the second floor politely declined learning more, and the door on the first floor opened up to the SAME MAN that we had talked to on the street an hour or so earlier. We weren't able to get in then, but we now know where he lives, and hopefully will be able to drop by later.

{Sam is one of only a couple of missionaries in the whole mission who speaks Chinese, so apparently anytime a missionary meets a Chinese speaker who is willing to talk, they call Sam}  We get calls sometimes from people throughout the mission, hastily explaining that they just met a Chinese person and to set up an appointment or whatever, then proceed to hand the phone over to the grandmother whose door who they had just knocked on, or whoever it is that they had met. I've had some of the most interesting conversations this way and developed the most unlikely friendships. Usually these people end up being Chinese, but sometimes the missionaries are wrong and just everybody is very confused.

A menu from Dos Mas tex-mex grill (from the internet)

I went on exchanges to Dongdaemun this week, which was my first area, and it was great to be back. It's a very fun area, and we had a great time. We got burritos at Dos Mas, the best burrito place that I've found in Korea, and worked hard. An older grandmother who looked familiar approached me on the street and asked an English question. I asked her where she had learned English, and she said that she learned it from Elder Nam {that means Elder South} in Imun. I then remembered where I had met her, in English class a couple times back in Imun, but as much as I tried, I couldn't get across that I was Elder Nam. Anyway, it was a fun experience- every place that I've served in so far has changed me, and it's always fun to remember those times.

Sindang {where he is now} is just an absolute blast to street contact in. We ended up accidentally at City Hall this week as we got sidetracked trying to visit a less active member, and met people from Australia, India, and just about everywhere else. I met a guy from Montpelier, France, working as a photographer in Beijing, so we definitely had things to talk about {I assume since Sam speaks French and Chinese}. We also met a group of three Chinese people, one of whom is a producer of "The Voice of China," a huge tv channel in China, one fluent English speaker who did some of the voiceovers for the "Meet the Mormons" video, and one studying bioengineering at MIT. All super cool, and were so grateful to give them a Book of Mormon and have us send over their information. We ended up somehow later on in a place that was probably 50 percent Chinese people, and it was just so much fun, in spite of everything that I've forgotten.

It was pi day this week- yes, we were doing our daily planning at 3.14.15 9:26:53... yes, we did celebrate. {great for Sam to remember other important things!}

The weather is beautiful today, and it's looking like it will be for this week, at least! What a blessing. We're just having a blast, it's such a fun time.Lots of things to laugh about, from cute kids to ridiculous missionary evasion tactics. I'm just grateful to be here. It's a complicated world, and the Gospel makes things a lot simpler.

"O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust."

-T.S. Eliot

"This solution requires you to walk by faith in a world governed by sight. You must see with the eye of faith eternal, unseen, spiritual verities, whereas the masses of mankind depend solely on temporal things, which can be known only through the physical senses." {from a speech by LDS leader James E. Faust}

I love you all and pray for you. Enjoy the onset of spring. All my love from Seoul-

E South