안녕하세요!

This week has been pretty exciting! First time getting transferred to a different area.  It's pretty exciting though! Me and Elder Barnett got right to work in Miryang.  That night we had FHE with some of the branch members, we played telephone charades. That was super funny! We acted out things like Gangnam Style and whales.  There is one member in the branch that likes to give everyone of the missionaries a disney character, so I am the Cheshire Cat. Not sure why, but it's cool haha. 

The branch is small like the one in Andong.  26 people came to church on Sunday so it's still pretty strong. They also really seem like they want to do missionary work, so hopefully good things start to happen, the branch president is super awesome, he invited me over to meet him and have dinner after church Sunday night.  I've heard he's the best Branch President in the mish.

The next day I taught my first lesson in my new area.  It was to our investigator 유일.  Yooir, not sure how to spell his name in English... He is in prison at the detention center in Miryang.  So we could only meet for 15 minutes and then he had to go.  He has been meeting with missionaries for maybe a year and a half.  He has a baptismal date for I think July 23, which is right after he gets out of the slammer.  He is so awesome though.  He really is the perfect example of the atonement working in someones life.  He is paying the price of what he did, but know that he has truly repented he is so happy. He reads the Book of Mormon in all of his free time and has even tried  to share the gospel with other inmates! Hopefully we can get a new prison investigator soon.

Miryang is pretty countryside.  I thought Andong was small, but Miryang is tiny.  If I stop and talk to everyone I see walking from one side of the city to the other, it will only take me 50 minutes to walk to the other side! So there's not a lot of people, but the people here are nice, and lots of them will talk to us even if they don't want to hear about the gospel.

We also have a pretty neat service project every week.  We go to a members horse shelter place, and we shovel the horses poop with the sisters! It's super fun, there's a little donkey named Himang and he is super hyper. We let him out and he went nuts running around the track.  The sisters in our area are Sister EeHongbee and Sister ChoiEehyeon.  Sister Ee is from Seoul, and Sister Choi is from California, she's even more American than me even though her name doesn't sound like it.  She wouldn't even eat the Silk Worm Puppas at lunch, I downed like 10 trying to get her to eat one. They weren't bad.

We only have 2 investigators right now.  유일 and 구민준. But the second one hasn't met with us in a few weeks, he's about to start his third year of High School which is an absolutely absurdly busy year for students here, so it's hard.  But we've had a lot of time on the streets, talking with people, which has been fun. We don't see a lot of people so me and Elder Barnett talk to each other a lot.  He's super funny. He's from Idaho, he's been in Korea for 18 months so he's nearing the end, but he's not trunky which is nice. 

Anyways, thank you everyone who endured to the end of my long letter.  Hope you all have a great week and have the spirit with you this week and always!

PS this is about coldness.

You don't know what it's like to be cold.  In Korea if you put on a jacket, the cold goes through the jacket.  Humidity sucks.  I wear a jacket, a windbreaker, a suit, a sweater a beanie, gloves, and thermals and it's still cold. 

But the more you talk and feel the spirit the warmer it gets!

My new apartment is huge!

Selfie by the rice paddy.  Totally Miryang.

The view from our apartment window in Miryang

ANSWERS TO OUR QUESTIONS THIS WEEK:

1. Is your mind blown that you were transferred?   My mind is blown.

2. Tell us all about Miryang?  This new area is so different, to add to the madness of the language, almost everywhere you go in our mission has a different dialect, so after a transfer call it's a bit hard to understand.  I talked to a student last night, usually students are easy to understand, but I didn't understand this dude. Probably about half of the people I've talked to speak normalish Korean. The language is coming well though. My confidence is pretty high right now.

3.  Did you hear anything about getting a new mission president in July?  I know about the new president, I'm nervous, the Barrows are awesome.

4.  You look super skinny.  Are you feeling okay?  I'm doing fine, I don't feel skinny, I eat a lot, but it's healthy food.  Like rice every meal and kimchi.

5.  Do you get to play ball in Miryang?  No basketball :/ but there's a ball in the house that I mess with. Don't use my shoes Carson. PS can I get a pic of those? (he customized his shoes last year)

6.  What is your apartment like?  My apartment is HUGE! Three rooms and a kitchen and a bathroom! My chair is broken though... I have a bed.  

7.  The Branch?  The branch is really nice, but kind of small, like Andong.

8.  Did you get our birthday packages?  I got your presents! Thank you so much! All I wanted was MandMs and that's what you gave me! You're the best! Also Miryang is colder than Andong so I am very grateful for the thermals. And we are excited to use the blocks to teach about the church when we find Mr. X (our miracle baptism).