Korea!

I don't even know where to start! I'm in Korea at this very moment! It's great!

Clockwise from top left: meal on plane, first view of Korea,
last view of my mountains, Elder Sayen sleeping

We're in the 안산 (Ansan) area which is part of the Seoul South Stake. My companion is 이수기 자매님 (LeeSooJee or Sister Lee Sugi)! I'm the first person she's ever trained. She says her English isn't very good but pretty much she's fluent.

My trainer and my Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Turner

Our area hasn't had Sisters in 6 months. And out of the Elders, only one has been here before. The other Elder was in the MTC with me. So pretty much we're whitewashing.

Our very first day here, before we went to our apartment, we went to English class. We get to teach that twice a week and there's a nice grandma there that is a potential investigator. She calls me everyday so she can practice English. Her children live in Florida and Germany so she really wants to learn English to use when she visits them.

Our apartment!

A huge problem here in Korea is that people are often converted to the missionaries instead of the gospel. So when the Sisters left 6 months ago, a lot of the RC's are now less active. Or, they're only interested in learning English.

The Elders just referred 안다혜 자매님 to us and we taught her yesterday. She's sweet but we don't think she has a ton of gospel interest, just English.

Another problem here is that everyone is busy. If you try to talk to someone on the street, you need to stop in their path and follow them while talking. So, that's fun. We went stickerboarding near a subway exit and it was the same sort of thing. You have to walk right up to them and follow them with the sticker.

A member gave us a cake. My birthday! I'm just a little baby missionary recently born into the field

The other day, we went to the church to make some copies and the Elders were teaching a lesson in the church. As we walked past, they stuck their heads out and asked us to come meet the people they were teaching. Afterward, they told us that they had been trying to refer them to us right when we showed up and the dad was kind of hesitant but then we were there! So we'll probably end up teaching them. Miracles!

I'm a true Korean now with my Korean slippers.

That's about all I got right now... I probably missed so much. I love all your emails!

Spiritual thought: Don't just rely on other people's testimonies or do things because you like the foreigner. Figure it out for yourself! We have so many records of people who did that.

사랑해요!!

Sister Tobler

Sorry that there are no new pictures this week. I'll send them next week.

(Stickerboarding: Hold a sitckerboard and ask people if they want to put a sticker on. Our board says "What do you want to learn about?" with answers like English, Jesus Christ, Life's purpose, and The Importance of Families. After they put a sticker on, we try to talk to them about it but they frequently just walk away.)