Eleventh Week Email

3.20.2012

Dear Family & Friends,

So we have a teacher named Brother Peterson and he's a pretty shy guy. Well we found out this week that he has a sense of humour because he loves making fun of us for going to Korea on Monday and being scared out of our minds haha. He loves saying things very fast in middle form with connectors and different verb forms that we have never heard of haha he's the worst. We tell him that all the time so don't worry. But I thought I would start my letter off with that story because everyone in our zone got a reality check the other day during a departing missionary zone council. We talked about what was going to happen as soon as we got there and we recieved our travel itinerary. I'll be leaving the MTC at 5 in the morning and taking off around 8. I'll arrive in San Fransisco around 9 and have a 4 hour layover. After a nice long lay over in San Fransisco I make the very long trip to South Korea. The Native Koreans were telling me that the total flight time to travel between here and South Korea was 24 hours and that's not including our layover in San Fransisco. Once I land in Incheon I'll have a 5-7 hour drive (Depends on traffic which is horrible in Korea). So it's going to be a pretty fun couple of days traveling and doing nothing but sitting in a seat. But even if it was 40 hours of travel I would still be as excited as I am right now.

 

So I'll tell you how my p-day isn't going to be very relaxing. So for the past couple of weeks we have been working on Elder Hem's Family's Temple work (the Elder from Cambodia) and this week we were all suppose to show up at 8 to do a session as a zone. Well we usually go at 7 so we thought that we would just get our laundry done before the Temple so we could have a nice relaxed p-day. So we woke up at 6 to go put our laundry in and went straight back to the room to shower. After a cold shower we ran back over to put our laundry into the dryers and to my suprise my washing machine didn't work. So I threw it into another washing machine and ran over to the cafeteria to get a small breakfast. When I got back guess what happened?... The new washing machine hates me so it decided that it didn't want to work either haha. It would basically fill up with a little water and sound like it was going but all of my detergent on the top was still there. So I basically didn't care and threw it into another washing machine. We ran up to the Temple because we were running a little behind and we barely made it in time. After the session we usually go to the Temple Cafeteria where they have real food but we missed breakfast by 5 minutes so that didn't make me very happy. Especially when it was my last Temple time for the next couple years. So we walked back down to the MTC and went and checked the laundry... I'm kidding it finally worked. We went and got our haircuts and picked up a few things from the book store and now I'm sitting here writing all of you. So that's my last p-day so far and I still have a huge list of things to do. After I get my laundry I'll probably go do a practice pack just to make sure that I come in under weight and there won't be any problems the day I leave. I also have to do all of the small things like shine my shoes and drop my suits off to be dry cleaned so it's going to be pretty busy. Oh and I forgot to mention that I owe my Dad a thankyou (I promise this relates to all of these things). So the second week I was here I lost my debit card up at the Temple and if nobody claims it they shred it that night. So I have just been using my ATM card for money and it was pretty hard considering the ATM here is always broken. So I wrote home to my Dad who handles all of my personal things and I told him that I needed a new one. Well I thought my last debit card fit my personality pretty well, it was a nice picture of a golf course at sunset.... Apparently my Dad didn't think that fit me very well (honestly why would it?) So he took it upon himselft to make the big decision for my backround on my new debit card THAT I HAVE TO CARRY FOR TWO YEARS. It's a beautiful picture of all different kinds of Roses..... So thanks Dad I hope I get beat up for it haha. My District calls me pedals sometimes and they have a good laugh so I'm happy that I can provide them with some humour haha. But that ties in with my day because everytime I have handed it to somebody to buy something they comment on how cute it is.

 

So anyways the language went pretty well this week. I have had a few dreams where I would say some pretty basic Korean lines. TRC wasn't too bad this week and our progressing investigator lessons went great. We have been learning so many new things in the past week and on top of that we have to keep up on our vocabulary. I love having the Native Koreans around because they love helping us. I make all of the Korean Elders give me a hug before they leave their room every night and they have to tell me that they love me haha. We love just filling up our entire room with Elders and talking all night long so I'm sure that I'm going to miss these times.

 

Well It's been a pretty good week though even when everybody is getting a little stressed for the trip. I've been having such a great time with everybody here and I love my District and my Zone. I love all of you back at home and I'm so grateful for all of the support that I have recieved while I have been here. Just a quick reminder I probably wouldn't send anything after Thursday including Dear Elders. We don't get Dear Elders on Saturdays so I probably wouldn't get it in time and it would probably sit in a box in the mailroom for a while. Well next time you get an e-mail from me I'll be the cool kid in the future (16 hours). I love all of you and I hope you all have a great time here and I'll keep all of you in my prayers.

 

Elder Jensen