Thirty-Seventh Week Email

안녕하세요

So this has been the most ridulously busy week of my life in Korea
haha. Transfer day was a joke with the plans that they gave us but
something super cool happened. I was able to ride up to the office
with my Trainer who actually came home last Saturday. He had to spend
almost 5 hours with me in the Daejeon city train station so that was
super fun. And I was also able to see Elder Brown my MTC companion for
the first time since I have came to Korea. He's still the same and
it's so fun to be around him.

Well my new area is pretty much the opposite of my last area in size
haha. I am in a city called Suwon 수원 and my area is called
Gok-ban-joung 곡반정 (I'm pretty sure that's not how you spell it in
english) and my new companion is Elder Meigs. Elder Meigs is probably
one of the coolest Elders I have ever met. And when I came here it was
like being thrown in the deep end haha. I have a ward with 120+ people
and so many investigators. Saturday was just appointment, fast walk to
a bus stop, and appointment all day long. It was such an amazing day
though and I love it. And our ward has some of the coolest people.
Elder Meigs and I were caught off guard pretty bad yesterday when we
were talking to one of our member's who is fluent in english and all
of a sudden this American girl runs around the corner saying "I hear
english!" haha. She's a student at the University in our area who just
arrived in Korea. We also have a New Zealander, a Japaneese family,
and some of the funniest member's ever. But lets just say I don't even
have time to think this week it's been so busy. But I think my
favorite part about this area so far is the families that we are
teaching. The little Kids are so funny and the Parent's know our
member's so they are really listening to what we teach and it really
makes a difference for them to have a friend who is a member. It
creates an immediate support system and our investigator actually
seems like they trust us a lot more.

Well I have to get going but I love all of you and I hope you have a great week.

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Thirty-Sixth Week Email

Hey Tawn Tawns,

 

Yeah I don't really feel like writing a huge e-mail this week. I was in Gwangju on monday and we didn't have a ton of computers and 6 of us needed to e-mail so yeah that was a bad idea. But I have some news for you. I'm gettng transferred! yeah! I'm going to Suwon 수원 which is just as big as Gwangju so Im super excited. My new companion will be Elder Meigs and he was the AP when I came to Korea. He's super awesome and I've been around him a few times so It's going to be so much fun. I'm pretty sad that I'm leaving Gwangyang though. I have loved it here, It has been hard but I have learned so much. It's just such a small area and sometimes it can be a little frustrating.  But my ward mission leader cried last night when I said goodbye to him and I'm going to have lunch with my branch president and my Investigator who is a great friend. He added me on facebook and I think you accepted him. But pretty much if it's in Korean accept all of the friend request haha because I'm going to start telling people to add me.

 

Well I have to get going now. I'll write a big e-mail next week but I love you Tawn Tawns and tell everyone that I love them. 

 

Elder Pooh

 

p.s. for my birthday I really only want a letter with pictures. Sure I always need stuff but I'm honestly fine with everything I have now. And even though I never write back I just want a letter and I'll try to write back.

Thirty-Fifth Week Email

안녕하세요

Hey Everyone. As always another fast week in Korea. One of these days I'll think of another way to start my e-mail.
Well it was the normal week for us in Gwangyang. We spent a lot of time on buses and walking around apartment buildings. We also had a lot of appointments this week which was really nice. We have a few people that we are meeting with twice a week now and they are so much fun. We also met a few new people this week. A really cool thing that happened is that My last companion Elder Ward and his Greenie (Elder Pobst who came to Korea with me) handed a guy one of our english cards about 4 months ago. We met him the other day and he might be one of the nicest guys that I have ever met. He told us about his life and he has a really amazing story. And it made me so happy that I could be one of those people that he told.

Another fun thing that we did last week was we had somebody that we were meeting with that actually lived in the Sister Missionary's area so we actually had that person start meeting with the Sisters. (we 소개'd them for people who can read that haha.) But the cool thing was is when we introduced them to the Sister's we taught them a lesson with the Sister's and it was so amazing to see two Korean's who are amazing teach a lesson haha. But it was also a one of those moments where I was just thrown into the deep end to learn how to swim. I was assigned to teach the first few parts of the lesson and we didn't really discuss who would do what so I ended up giving a small overview and starting the lesson and it was just such a great feeling when I finished teaching. I stumbled a little bit but it was a fun time.

So yeah it was a good week in Korea. My Branch member's are amazing and I love them. I get to give a talk at church this next week. I'm going on another split. And the best thing is that I get to meet with my Investigator's who are so much fun.

Well I love all of you and sorry this was a short e-mail but I have to go get a haircut. Have a great week.

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Thirty-Fourth Week Email

안녕하세요?

Are you at peace? Yeah Korean is so much fun.... and hard.

Anyways another fast week in Korea has flown by. It's so strange to me that it's almost September. This week was a pretty fun week though. It started off on monday with our Branch President and his family taking us and the Sister missionaries out for a p-day activity. Well he took us to this river clear out in the country side and we went fishing with him.... But instead of fishing poles we used throwing nets haha. It was probably the coolest thing ever. I caught a few and our Branch President caught about 15. Well He really likes taking the missionaries fishing and I think the reason why was after we had caught all of this 6-8 inch fish he sat us down in the water and handed each of us a fish. He pulled one out of the bucket and cleaned it was his thumb haha so of course I was excited to clean fishes with my hands but the Sister's hated it. After we cleaned them our Branch President's wife turned on the grill and they battered the entire fish (head, fins, and bones included) and fried them. He gave us an option to either eat them plain or deep fried haha. It was my first time eating every part of a fish like that but it really wasn't that bad.

After our p-day my District leader came to my area on a split and I went to his area with his companion who is in his 2nd transfer. It was a great time for both of us because we really had to speak a lot and get around the city that we both didn't know very well. We spent the two days walking around their area which is giant and seperated by a ton of mountains. It was so much fun though because we are having a district conference so we have been inviting so many people to come to that and so many people that we met just loved the missionaries. And they would always laugh after I told them how long I have been in Korea and how long Elder Culver has been in Korea. So after two days of just finding people and talking to a lot of people on the streets we traveled back to my area. Since we were having zone conference the next day we had those two Elder's stay the night at our house and had to wake up at 5 am to make it to the conference on time.

Zone Conference was really different this time. Usually we have 3 zones come together in Gwangju but I guess the area 70 told our Mission President to try having zone conferences with each zone seperately. But it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. I always love going back to Gwangju (my first area) because it just feels so familiar. But we had a great zone conference and I was not picked to give the required talk about a christ like attribute or the Joseph Smith story in Korean so that's always a relief haha.

Well there's my week. We also had a district ativity inviting people to english class in the Sister's area. but I'm out of time so I guess I'll just have to tell you about that some other time. As always I love all of you and I hope you have an amazing week.

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Thirty-Third Week Email

안녕하세요

   So life is just swell in Gwangyang 광양. It's really starting to cool down at nights and we have been meeting so many amazing new people lately. We have also been traveling a lot for combined district meetings, zone conferences, and district activities so it has been really fun. Also i think Elder Clyde and I finally found our stride working in Gwangyang. We have the buses figured out and have really been starting to be able to get around a lot more effectively instead of missing our buses and taking taxis haha.

   Well not a whole lot happened this week. We spent a couple hours of each day knocking on doors and that always makes for some good stories. We also spent a lot of time yesterday with our Branch President and his wife taking the sacrament to sick members, and visiting members. It's always super fun because they treat us like family members. When we go to their house they feed us just like they feed their kids with japhaghetti (It's like top ramen but with a bean paste type sauce which is delicious and super cheap) and when we visit member's we listen to them argue with eachother in the funniest ways about doctrine or missionary rules. And they really just treat us like member's of their family and it's probably one of the coolest feelings when you are on the other side of the world with a language barrier haha. But when I see how amazing their family is and how much they love the gospel it really shows me what the gospel can do for anyone.

   Another cool thing that happened this week is we started teaching a family of three. When we met the father at the grocery store he was very excited to talk to us in english. He started asking about what we teach as missionary's and told us why he stopped attending his church because through his study he learned something about the second coming that wasn't in line with what his religion was teaching at the time. We shared a quick message about our beliefs and they matched what he had learned. He was fine with meeting again and when we did we came to learn that he and his wife were actually Jehovah Witness's. We didn't really ask him why he had said those things before but they took us to a nice cafe and we just talked about the plan of salvation. It was a very intense conversation at times but by the end of the meeting he just thanked us for being so nice and patient. They actually invited us to their house this week to learn more about the Book of Mormon and how it works with the Bible and I think all of you know how much I love the Book of Mormon, so I'm just excited to meet with them again. They are such a nice family and He is a really fun guy to talk with.

But yeah not a whole lot happened this week so sorry. I love all of you and I hope all of you have an amazing week.

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Thirty-Second Week Email

Dear Family & Friends,

So this has been a super interesting week in Korea. I had a two and a half day split with my District Leader and splits are always super fun especially when you just got a new companion to the area haha. lets just say there could be better times to do splits. Anyways after we got done with that we have just had our days packed. I love the days where I leave the house after study time and I don't get back home until 9:30 because of appointments. And that happened 3 days in a row this week so that's always fun.

 

So a pretty fun thing that happened this week was we got a call from one of our members who owns an english academy. She was super stressed because her foreign teachers all couldn't show up that day and she had a client who drove half an hour to talk to a foreigner. Well she contacted us and sent him over to the church to meet with us. Well in our mission we have to do this program where we teach 30 minutes of english and 30 minutes of gospel. So we told him about it and he was just super happy to be talking with foreigners who could also speak a little korean so we could help if he needed it. Well after we finished up the english part we started teaching the gospel. It's hard to explain but he was happy when he got there and started talking to us but during the gospel discussion he just had this blank look on his face. He wouldn't really respond back to our questions and all I could think about was that he only wanted to meet with us for english. But we continued on with the lesson the best we could and just like in many other lessons, just as soon as we were closing up we pulled out the Book of Mormon. He sat up a little and you could just see the interest that he had. He asked the usual questions like do we believe in the bible? does the bible talk about this book? and we just used the scriptures to teach him about the Book of Mormon. I'm so jealous of how well the scriptures can speak Korean haha. But we read Moroni's promise together and just asked him to read the introduction later. I still wasn't sure what would come out of the lesson but we really did everything we could to teach simply and have a good time. Well today I walked into the library to write this e-mail and guess who was sitting at one of the tables with a smile on his face and showing us the Book of Mormon he pulled out of his bag. He showed us how far he read into the Book of Mormon after reading the introduction and all of the witnesses. And I'm still just in shock. I can see him right now and it's just the coolest feeling watching someone read the Book of Mormon for the first time. I can't even begin to explain how much I have learned about the Book of Mormon  on my mission and how I'm continually learning new things everyday.

 

Well as always I love all of you and I hope you had an amazing week. I'll try to make this next week a lot more exciting so I have more to write about.

 

Elder Jensen

Farming Peaches with our investigator and his family. Yay!

Elder Clyde, he's super tall.

Thirty-First Week Email

Sorry everyone, Micah and I have been gone on our vacation so I wasn't able to send last week's out. Ryan didn't have too much time to write everyone so I edited what he sent me ;)

Hey Tawns,

So crazy week so far. It has been a huge holiday in Korea for the past
5 days so I could literally not get to a computer. Our city only has a
library where I can e-mail from so now I can e-mail you. Sorry I
probably won't write a big e-mail to everyone.

It sounds like you're having an amazing time in Europe.... so spoiled
haha. I loved how detailed your e-mail was and I laughed out loud a
few times. I can picture you and micah in the tiny stair well just
exhausted and giggling.

So yeah by the time you get this Elder Ward will be in america. My new
companion is Elder Clyde. He's from Springville, Utah. It's been a
time for adjusting haha. I love him and he's a cool kid but it's a 

time for adjusting. He's 2 meters tall so he's huge. But yeah with

Elder Ward I learned so much and he's a kid I would hang out with
after the mission for sure. But yeah I'm just super busy because I
have to introduce this area and all of our Investigator's so it's been
a lot of work.

Well yeah this week like I said I've had to really be the leader in
going places, introducing people, and really plan the lessons with our
Investigators and it's been fun. It gives me a small preview for when
I become senior companion and I think this is such a good thing for me
to experience. And my language has really had to pick up a lot lately.
My understanding is doing pretty well and my speaking is progressing a
lot. I'm making phone calls and planning meetings so it has been
pretty awesome. Elder Ward really encouraged me with my language and
really taught me a lot.

So yeah this last week has just been crazy getting Elder Ward packed
and heading up to Gwangju and working super hard with Elder Clyde but
I'm super excited to see what happens this transfer. I'm totally
having dreams with Korean in it and just sitting in a crowded place
with a bunch of Koreans speaking Korean feels so normal now. I think
it's just such a cool feeling.


I love Korean food so much. They have places here called kim bop na ra's
김밥나라 and they are like the mcdonald's of Korea. They are everywhere,
super cheap, and super delicious. It is sucha missionary place to eat
now. And I think I have told you but since my mission started now I'm
eating onions, tomatoes, peppers, and seafood like it's nothing. It
actually tastes good to me now.

 I love you!

Elder Jensen