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
