Sunshine and Basil--March 2, 2015

{Sam's English seems to be getting rusty :-} }

Good afternoon! Happy March. It comes quick! Fastly flow the grains of time. The weather is great here today! Snow and cold yesterday and it looks like the same, but today sunshine and soul. We'll miss the cold soon enough, I'm sure.

I've resigned myself to the fact that there will always be too many stories and not enough time to begin to pack a week into an email, but I'll always do my best. We're having a lot of fun. I'm starting I think finally to understand responsibilities and roles a bit more, but there is always so much more to learn, and ways to do things better. What a great group of people to be working with. President and Sister Christensen are fantastic, the missionaries are wonderful, the work is moving along, and things are great! The mission got almost 15,000 contacts this week- working hard!

Seoul Tower, from Google Images

This week was the first of March, which isn't a big deal in the states, but it's Independence Day in Korea celebrating liberation from Japan, so there were huge crowds and tons of security at Gwanghwamun yesterday in spite of the inclement weather. The President made her way there to make a speech, and there was drumming and dancing all day long. It is a lot of fun to be so close to everything- Gwanghwamun is at most 10 minutes away, and we have a great view of Seoul Tower as soon as we step outside.

We're having fun proselyting and teaching- Brother Sin should be baptized this month on the 22nd; please keep him in your prayers! He's quit alcohol completely and is working on smoking. There is definitely a lot to do, but it's so good to be able to get out and just talk with people. It's the best thing.

MLC {mission leadership conference} is tomorrow, and we still need to finish preparing, and after that we'll be going out to Kangwon-Do until Saturday. I'm pretty excited, I've never been out there before! We'll go to Taebaek and then Kangneung, on the East side of the country, about 4 hours away. It looks like it will be pretty cold, but it should be beautiful. We'll do some exchanges and then have the same conference that we had here last week for the missionaries out there. Hopefully no fire alarms this time.

We went again to try taking the driver's test again this week. We got there at 8:23, and there was a spot open, so I ran over to the other building in time for the 8:30 test time. With a 77/100, a solid C+, I didn't nail it, but got over 70, and that's what matters. I tried to strike up a lively conversation to prevent too much focus on the driving, but on the first left turn as we were talking, the instructor said "We can talk, that's fine, but you've got to focus on the test. You're not in neutral." She saw right through me. Every time you stop the car, you need to put it in neutral, and I think I forgot a solid 6ish times, at -3 points a pop. ("'We're stopped, does that mean nothing to you?") I told her I would put a sticker on the dashboard. When I changed lanes, I would look back to check the blind spot, but that's also different here. She was confused, and kept saying to just check the mirrors. Anyway, all's well that ends with a Korean driver's license, and I'm legal here until December 2025.

We made a sample video this week with missionaries showing what they learned from the Book of Mormon, and President showed it at a social media expo that several hundred people showed up to, I guess. There's a lot of great push in Korea right now for missionary work through social media means. We'll finish it up and mail it out- the image of the church in Korea is beyond terrible online, and so we're trying to combat lots of negative image by putting as much positive as we can out there, and the more people that look at it, the higher up we are on the search list.

We ate this week at the Lusvardi family's home- a wonderful, fun family with adorable children. Lots of good things to say about dad, a wonderful reminder that little acts of service can have far reaching consequences. After delicious cookies and salad and tomato-basil pizza, we're certainly grateful!

Yesterday, both a Taiwanese young man and a Mongolian family that said they would be able to make it to church were not able to come, but a group of four soldiers from Utah stopped by, and it was fun to translate. We talked about relying always on God, and I learned how to say "altruistic." Unfortunately, there's a lot of words a lot easier than that that I still don't know.

We met a woman on the street yesterday sorting garbage whose husband is passed away living with 3 young daughters. She just has a hard life and seemed like she needed help. We weren't able to do a ton yesterday, but we look forward to keep meeting with her. There are a lot of hard things in this world, but sure a lot of peace and comfort from knowing that Christ is there for us. It's the best job in the world to be able to talk about that all day, every day.

I love you all and hope that you have a wonderful next week. All my love from Seoul-

Elder South