Good picture of us doing a kimchi squat lesson on the street.

September 8, Chocolate and Investigators

안냥하새요!!!!!!!!!

Her letter probably along with your letters, if you already sent them are probably already here. I only get mail twice a month. but if she is talking about the one i sent in the MTC I got it and I sent her one back. I wish they would do something to hasten the work here more. It is super hard to work with members but there is that language barrier. That storm you experienced I have 2 weeks of that straight here during monsoon season, plus the aftershocks. so fun.....

This week has been pretty amazing.so amazing. We went to an awesome flea market, there is stuff for so cheap and you can barter it even lower. Tons of fun to see all the cool trinkets and stuff. Then we went to a buffet specifically because it had a chocolate fountain. We ate tons of it and put it on Ice cream and oranges and bananas, so good! Then for FHE we played signs, Koreans love that game.

On Tuesday we Taught a new investigator and his wife that we talked to on the street. So We taught him and his wife in a food court and it went well. They both went to seminary so they both have really strong religious backgrounds. but they just are so open and love to let us talk to them. We are going to meet with them every Tuesday. We also picked up an investigator from English Class. His name is 민경호 or Ming. We talked with him right after English class and he really wants to know about our church. He told us exactly what to teach him Gods words, about Joseph Smith and how to pray. This week picking up three investigators is amazing, and we have so many more potentials.

This week we were on the street, when both of us got a really bad feeling that we should leave the place where we were at. It was kind of a scary moment, but we left and went somewhere else. There was a more drunk people than normal and I think that is why. Usually I love talking to drunk people, but this time it was scary, I didn't know what would happen, but then we were guided to another spot where we had tons of success gave out a few Book of Mormons and received lots of numbers. It was good to follow a clear spirit to a place I think we needed to be.

Nothing else really too special.

Our ward mission leader owns all the subways in Korea so he brings us sandwiches and cookies or we go there for our meetings. I got to eat Pig liver, lung and colon/blood sausage. it was actually pretty good i knew what it was before I ate it though so no surprise. We fed a bunch of pigeons one came and then 50 came all pecking around our feet. We played Golf card game and the loser gets shocked by our bug zapper racket. We went to a members house and ate because there is something called the 100 days for babies. If they live 100 days they celebrate and give gifts and food to people. Then we went to a meat buffet and we each ate 2 pans of this meat. around 3.5 kilos each. That is pretty much each I hope you like the pictures! Love ya!!!

  Chocolate FINALLY.  Koreans don't like sweets, so we had to stop when we saw it.

 Feeding the pigeons, You feed one, millions will come. If only people would work like this.

What! Spaghetti Sandwiches

Hello Family!!!

 

Last Monday we got to go to the temple. It was really fun. I wish I would have gone through in Korean, but the speaking would be too hard. English is good too. Then it was Elder Franchina's 300th day on his mission so we celebrated by going to an American style buffet. The we went to the huge market and bought some ties, they are super cheap here and sparkly. Koreans love em. Then the korean that lives in our house bought a golf driver to learn how to play golf. He love the sound it makes as it swooshes against the grass. He goes outside and swins for excersize time, so funny! This koreans name is Elder Jang. He is our DL and we joke around with him saying he is so hansome and humble because, he is super prideful but he is the funniest person I have ever met. He has been obsessed with learning how to golf and sing I believe I can fly. In his broken english it is so funny!!!

 

We went to go eat dinner with the stake president and while we were going there Franchina was prosylyting on the bus like always, and this guy offered to show us to the apatment complex. The whole way there he walked incredibly close to him and tried to hold his hand. We didnt do anything because that is Korean culture, but this guy really liked my companion. Then at the apartment he told us he was a makeup artist and he loved Elder Franchina. Short story short we are never calling him again. It was so funny!! The sisters were dying laughing when they found out.

 

The next day we went to go visit a recent convert and teach him the doctrine of Christ. I went into the lesson not caring because he has a minor disable and never listens to us he is always shucking corn or peeling garlic. I didnt even know if he knew our names let alone the gospel, but that day he listened and afterwards we asked him to pray and he did. He blessed me and Franchina by name, blessed our familys that we can work hard. I was stunned. After that prayer I just felt so much love for him!!! I really know that he is a child of God.  Then afterwards we ate at good old McDonalds. We all ordered a McDouble, Chicken, and Bolgogi Burger coming to a total of 5 bucks each. We took the mcdoble opened it in half and put on the whole chicken. Then ate it. The Bolgogi burger is super good as well, but only korea has it.

 

With Sam this week we made a smoking goal. he will be clean in two weeks and baptized in three hopefully. Thanks for all the gum because i cant chew it in public I gaveit all to him. He was so excited and it has really been helping him. He says American gum is alot better than Korean gum. Later that day we visited a member resteraunt and ate there. Sister Goodwin, a sister in 동대문 Decided that there were too many noodle in her bowl and she was so full. so she held up a bunch of noodles and jokingly said that someone needed to ring them out. Franchina didnt even hesitate and rung them out. We exploded with laughter. She then procceded to dump noodle in her bag when she wasnt looking. so funny.

 

Fast Sundays are my favorite here because that is when the success happens. Investigators came to church, people want to meet and we find really good contacts. We met some many foriegners yesterday. From Kenya, Uganda, Chile, Brazil, Honduras, Pillipenes, Dominican Republic, the UK, Americans and of course lots of koreans. We are meeting with the Kenyan, Uganda man and guy from Chile soon. We found so many potential investigators and were wiped clean of Book of Mormons, all 6 we had on us. It was a great day!!!

 

Kind of a scary story. Our Carbon Monoxide alarm went off and our alarm was on the celing and Monoxide sinks so there was alot of it in there, so we called President aired out our house and went to the church and played scum. At about 11 we went back in. We called President again and he said it was okay. I honestly didnt know if I was going to wake up or not. So I did my repentence for the day and was peaceful going to sleep! but im fine and it was a good experience. We all cheered at 6:30 when we all woke up!

 

Now a better story. I was remembering the times when I was a little kid and you would always relate the gospel back to everything. I hated it. but We were having Companionship inventory one day and we were talking about that. It was super spiritual, then we went and taught the gospel part of English class. We abandaned our whole lesson plan and decided just to talk. it was super powerful, and now we are meeting with one person and the sisters are meeting with another. I now know that this gospel literally is EVERYTHING! Im so glad im out here!! Thanks for everything!!!

 

LOVE YA!!

Elder Miles Diede

 

ps Remember how you said not to make the spaghetti sandwiches on our missions. 

TOO LATE.

Happy Birthday

 Happy 19th Birthday Elder Diede

 Longest escalator I have ever seen

 Zone Service Project

Hello family!

 

Yes i have put on weight. Thank you for that. All from the MTC. Its all going away soon just by regular eating and walking. Well this week on my birthday I spent lots of the time playing basketball. The hoop was probobly around 9 feet so I dunked it a couple of times in games. It was funny because we had a crowd of 15 or so people watching so they would yell and scream when some one did something good. When I dunked it the koreans got so excited it was funny. A very nice ward member took us to get a cake a bakery for FHE and we chose what looked like a chocolate cake, but when we bit into it it was sweet potato! Good still. Later that night we were planning and the other elders that live in our house came in with a baskin robins box. I opened it and it was the cutest little cake ive ever seen.Our korean Elder Jahng said " I dont want to kill the cake! its murder!" It was a full icecream whale with Poprock icecream on top and cherry in the middle.

 

The next day we went to go do service at the bishops shop,washing his jewlry shop windows. He told us that missionaries were not allowed to clean, which is wrong because we can. Then he gave us stuff called duckboki which are REALLY spicy ricecakes, but not very good ones. I was literally dying as i was eating them because it fills you up quickly, and it is so HOT! Our bishop is a very hard peron to work with. We ask him what we can do to help the ward, or for refferals and he says he wants baptisms, thats all. Thats not they way it works. We need member help and the bishop doesnt really understand that. but We have an investigtor supposed to get baptized next week( his name is Sam, he speaks british english) but he cant stop smoking. He is fun comes to church, and is giving up cigarettes slowly. but almost there!

 

While we were contacting on the streets we ran into an old investigator than Elder Franchina and his comp had to drop. He got mad at us. He said he never wants to talk with us again. That is the down side to the work, but after words we bought some korean BBQ. chicken shiskabobs, Super good but Super spicy. Your mouth is dying, like your inferno chicken, but it is so good you keep eating. and food is SUPER cheap, except fruit. We dont eat alot of fruit, but the Asian Peach is literally the est piece of fruit I have ever had. They sell fruit everywhere so I can always get it.

 

We have been getting rejected ALOT latley people wont ever take our cards, but that just means the prepared person is close. We talked to a church preacher that really wants to learn about our church. Elder franchina and I have talked about baptizing his whole congregation! We meet him on friday and he speaks super good english. in English class i am know the person everyone turns to, because according to the Koreans my english pronnounciation is the best and I speak pure american english, maybe its because i have been polluted by korean fully yet.

 

Every nght we play Asian Scum, i will have to teach everyone when i come back. It is so much fun because we yell and scream at each other, at that point it is everyone for yourself. Its a card game but they have led to chasing around our house, standing up on chairs and breaking one chair. SUPER FUN!!!! We went to a meeting with the ward mission leader and found a street sign that said good-bye and the longest escalator i have ever seen!

 

Tomorow we get to go to the temple. Im so excited. It is Franchinas 300th day here so we are celebrating and going sightseeing!

 

Hope you like the pics!

 

LOVE YA

your missionary,

 Elder Miles Diede

언영하세요!!!!

In Korean culture for birthdays, the year is what matters. You cant be real friends with someone if your not born in the smae year. When I ask someone how old they are and their the same age as me there is an immediete connection for them. They will walk down the street with their arm around you and talked to you for a while. They are my favorite people to talk to! Well Korea is pretty much a huge city. I see lots of birds, earwigs, cockraches ( both somtimes appear in our apartment)( we slowly suck them up with our vaccum, it makes our Korean die with laughter!),fish and half-dogs. But maybe if I go to the country side it might be more animals. I miss tomatoes sometimes people grow them but they dont usally sell them, when they do their super expensive. There is just not alot of room to garden. Im glad that football is going well, are they both playing on the line? send me pictures! Speaking of sports, I have a request we have two kids and a less active that LOVE to talk about sports. our less active came to church just because he wanted to talk to me about basketball. so, I need you, or gavin to give me updates of eveything! Our less active likes football and that is really rare of a korean. He gets a little dissapointed when I havent heard of something and he has to explain it. So specificly Gavin I NEED you to keep me posted with NBA trades, significant games, and BYU football specificly. also this is just me being curious but did Davies get Drafted? If you can do that we could get a couple of baptisms and bring a less active in. Also thankyou for the heat shirt I love it Im wearing it right now. My zone leader is a heat fan and loves that I like them too. my scripture is Exodus 4:10-12. Yes I have a microwave, Korea is mostly more advanced than the U.S. I slept in the temple the first two nights but I get to do a session next tuesday Im pumped! also I dont know if movies come out earlier in Korean but Hayden, have you seen the Percy jackson and the Sea of Monsters poster? its pretty sweet...but very distracting of missionary work. Also Wicked is playing at the stage in Korea now, so i hear the songs and see the posters all the time it reminds me of our fun trip.

This week has been super fun last PDay we went go go buy some times i got 3 nice sparkley ties for 5 bucks. Then we went "swimming" In Korea they have bathhouses. and since it is part of culture we can go. So it was like a hot tub with jets, a sauna and a cold swimming pool. It felt so good. Today we are going to go play basketball then go to a temple or a palace or something im excited. Something about the food in korea too. In almost every resturaunt I have been to you cook your own food, and i have eatens tons of garlic its super good. the food here is nothing like back in the states.

We also did a zone service project/ hiking trip. We went to a "mountain" and hiked up the trail picking up garbage. The view from the top was amazing ill send you a picture. there was also a place where an ancient fortress used to be and an old korean told us that if we stand on that ground and breathe we are breathing in pure energy...and we all needed energy because missionary work is hard. Then I dont know If I told you already but We teach English classes. There is a guy named Tony that comes that can say what ever he wants to say but he still comes. He thinks i am a farmer because Im from Montana and that i have the most "honest english" or best pronounciation because I am full blood american. Its so funny.

We met with our investigator Sam and taught him about the word of wisdom. He is a  smoker but he wants to stop. He came to church for the first time yesterday and we could see him bouncing. He was so jittery. He finally had to go take a smoke break. We set a goal with him to cut down one cigarette a day. He smaokes about 8 a day, which is way low for koreans. Korean cigarettes are skinner and easier, so koreans smoke about 25-30 a day. We went to go visit a refferal in a 25 story apartment building, he wanted nothing to do with us but we got to see a great view from the top of the building. Then at night we ordered fried, garlic and sweet and sour chicken. The Koreans love it! and I cant blame them it is super good. We made a bet this week between the two companionships this week the first one to get 140 contacts buys chicken. its a fun competition. Funny but weird story. Like I said Korea is really developed but there are still lots of homeless weird people. I was on splits with my zone leader who has been in the country 22 months we were prosylyting. We were walking along with 3 college students when we look down and there is a super old guy with his shirt off and pants halfway down sleeping on the sidewalk. It tottally threw Elder Coats off the 전도 ( prosyliting) learn this word its alot easier to type.) It was SO Funny!

Then on Friday we were fasting for one of our investigators and went 전도ing. The first guy we talked to said he didnt believe in christ but when he went to hawaii americans were nice to him so he wanted to be nice to us, so he took us to dinner. We talked alot about the gospel. They were amazed at my korean and how well I used chopsticks. They thought i was a genius and were really impressed with me. As they night went on him and his wife became really interested in our message, we got their phone number, the problem is...they dont live in our area so we have to reffer them..i hate that.

But Life is good in korea, tons of fun! I love this work ans I love being here. I re thought you coming to korea and right now i never want to leave!!! We will se how i feel at the end of my mission but it would be cool for you to experience korea in its full glory!
Love you!
Elder Miles Diede

I am in Korea Aug 4, 2013

안냥하세요 from Korea! First anwsering questions. I experienced no night, but I did sleep. The flight was good i sat next to another missionary so i talked to him I had an isle seat. Jetlag...you have no idea I just collapsed at bedtime, i was so tired! We talked to lots of people about the church on the plane since there were 30 of us. I had a package waiting so i guess it doesnt take that long. I opened it just in case in had candy that would melt(it did) but i saved the wrapped stuff until my actal day.

Alright. My trainers name is Elder Franchina he is from draper. He has been in korea for 8 months and only in our area for 6 weeks. he is very nice hopefully i can attach a picture. Our area is called Dongdaymoon. It is it is inbetween the center of seoul and the outskirts. Our house is super nice. We live right next to the church. We have the biggest house in the mission and we are the only elder house with AC. It is SOOO hot here. 4 times as bad than the time we went to the east coast. I sleep on something called a Yo. ( just like couch cusions with no couch. actually really comfy, but im so exahsted it doesnt matter. I came so close to talking with tim I missed him by 10 minutes. It was his temple day when we were training in the mission home.  Yes my Pday is on monday here so as i write this your sleeping.

Lots and lots of proslyting or 잔더ing. We just walking in circles around a GIANT crosswalk and talk to people. or on the subway or buses. I can say alot of stuff that i want to say but its the understanding that kills me. You say the same thing over and over so you pick it up pretty quickly. I love it. it is so much fun!

Then i had the opportunity to teach an investigator. His name is moon chay. He speaks english so we teach him in english, but it is still way hard.  His need is gaining a spiritual desire, he will keep all reading commiments because it is interesting to him but wont pray or do any spiritual stuff. We taught him about prophets and a little of he word of wisdom. it was an awesome experience.

Whats the status with Matt and Beau. Talk to them have them email me I want to hear from them.

Korea is awesome. So much different than what I imagined taller than New York way more packed and WAY more green. It is super green here. I love it though it is way fun! it is hard work but it needs to be done! Thaks for the package, that was really nice but way expesive. i think letters are alot less expesive. I should get one sent off soon.

Well I got to go do laundry. I need some more clothes to sweat in this week! I love ya! Thanks for all the support pictures and info. i hope you had a good time with the lights and wellards on the river. Dad looks way different with the beard. no wonder he was a mob member:) Love YOU!!!

xoxoxoxo

Elder Miles Diede

 OHH I forgot to tell you. It always rains. It starts so quick we we walking back from our bishops store and it came down in 2 sec. then we had to run through it. i was soaked in 3 seconds. Also my ward is SUPER nice they LOVE me because im tall, traying to learn korean and my name is easy to pronounce in korean( 디디) We have FHE tonight where we are eating it is going to be way fun!

July 4

 Can you understand any of this?  I am beginning to understand.

Happy Fourth! Miles will be for sure in the Seoul, Korean Mission.  The one he has been called to.  He is doing great.  Mostly sends quick emails and then letters.  DOING GREAT!  Loves the MTC.