자! 태백으로 가자!‏

Hi!

I'm currently e-mailing you from the wee little town of Taebek. I found out it isn't farther north of Wonju than I thought, but in fact actually south. Still to the east, though. I'm about three hours bus ride outside of Seoul. Not a very fun experience. But! I have a new companion - again. His name is Elder Grose. The last transfer really slipped away with Elder Hess, but it was a whole lot of fun to get to serve with him. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm excited to learn a lot with Elder Grose. He sounds like he's really good at Korean, too!

Anyway, for last updates out of Wonju - I got to meet some of my favorite people yesterday. We met with Mia, she prayed again for us at the end of the lesson. She's also really been wondering a lot about how she can gain a stronger faith in God, and she also wonders how other people have gained it themselves. I'm really excited to hear about her progression. I took one of her name cards, and I'm going to stay in touch with her as much as I can. She told me to come back to Korea and work at her english academy after my mission. ;)

We also got to meet with a lady named Mona. She's about 60 or so and seems to be really prepared. She had a sister die about a year ago - she used to be Catholic, but after she died, she isn't really sure what to do with herself. so, she stopped attending church and really "lost her way". So the last time we met with her, we explained an overview of the Plan of Salvation, and yesterday when we met again we talked to her about the Spirit World, and the Celestial Kingdom. She really enjoyed it, and I think she'll be moving along really well as Elder Zabriskie continues to teach her.

Other than that, Elder Cameron and 14 other missionaries are dead now. Their corpses are being carred to America probably as I type this. A tear shed for those lost! I'm excited to see what this next transfer will bring - our new mission president will be coming in. I got to see President Cho one last time before he left - it was really cool. I think the new mission president will change a few things around - I think it'll be pretty great.

Other than that, not too much else. Elder Zabriskie had a drunk man dance for him last week, the drunk man even made him rub his abs. Then he did a peck dance for him, and then we left. Maybe not as good as Elder Jones' story, but I almost starting rolling on the ground laughing.

anyway! Things are still going great. Hope all is well back home! Stay happy and healthy!

Love,
Elder Webster

A day late...

Hi!

I'm e-mailing a day late because we went to Seoul yesterday. We had a mission conference because this is the last transfer of our mission president. Him and 15 other missionaries will be dying this coming transfer. It's a big loss! But, I'm excited for the new mission president that'll be coming up.

The trip to Seoul was pretty awesome. We went to the temple, of course, and then for the rest of that day we got to wander around and do basically what we wanted. Elder Hess and I went with Elder Cameron and Zabriskie to a few popular shop places. We met a lot of really great foreigners, and two members. We went into a place that sells foreigner goods, and this guy walked in. He was a little bit intimidating at first, he just looked at all the missionaries in there and said "Hey. Are you guys hungry? How many are there? Do you like chicken? Come next door." and then walked out. But of course, we all followed. We found out that he served in the Seoul mission about 20 or so years ago, and just wanted to give us food because he saw us. IT was really nice, and a lot of fun!

After that, we were walking around in a popular shop and I heard "Hey missionaries!" Turned out to be another member - a father and his daughter. They are in the military, and are just enjoying their stay in Korea for a little while. We gave them directions, they wished us well, and we went our opposite ways again. It was really amazing - and the fact it all happened on the day we went to the temple was even better. It gave me a good boost and just made the day great.

The next day we had a seven hour meeting with president - because it was his final words, he gave a really great talk. We also got to hear all the dying missionaries' final words, too, which was all just really great. It was a good meeting, and we had live transfer calls there, too. So we got to find out where everyone was going. I was anticipating leaving, and indeed, I am! I'll be moving to a place called Tebek 태백. Which is still country, but even MORE east and farther from Seoul. I'm going out to the boonies, indeed. But it's all up in the mountains, and I've heard it's just wounderful! I'm excited. Not looking forward to moving, but I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'm a little bit nervous to be moving from my first area - the elder I'm serving with is one transfer above me, so the Korean thing will be interesting too. But, I've only heard good things about the area! So I'm really excited. Elder Hess is going to the office and, although he isn't looking forward to it, I think it'll be pretty good for him.

Anyway, short e-mail this week. That was the most exciting stuff that happened. I took out some money from my personal account - I owed the mission a little bit of money because I bought a few things. It was only about $50. That's about it! I'm still alive and all things are going great. I hope everyone is still doing good out there! :D Stay happy and healthy!

-Elder Webster

Badmitton, new investigators, and the close of a transfer!‏

Hi!

This transfer is almost over. We have two P-days left! I'm not really sure where all that time went. And this keyboard sucks, so forgive spelling mistakes. anyway, there're a lot of missionaries leaving this next transfer - about 15 or so I think. So because of that, there'll be a lot of areas closing or minimizing. Too bad! That means that my little area of Wonju might be shrinking.

But speaking about our little area, we had a really great time playing badmitton the past week. Now, if you're thinking about the badmitton that the Fox and the Hen played from the Robin Hood cartoon... you're wrong! koreans play badmitton as a sincere sport - it's ridiculously intense. I'll ahve to get a video of it sometime I think - the next time we go and play. One of our investigators - Mia - is the wonju representative in badmitton. So, hopefully we'll get to watch her play. She's been doign pretty well with her progression, too. We taught her again recently - it wasn't the best lesson (mostly because Elder Hess made me be the one to lead the lesson, and there wasn't a lot of time), but we taught her a little bit about Mosiah chapter 2 - King Benjamin's sermon. It was pretty alright.

In other news, we've been finding a couple of new investigators, as well. We finally are seeing a little bit of more harvest from our English class. She's an older lady that is having some difficulty because she had recently lost her youngest sister. To be honest, when I heard that I kind of felt like Ammon because I got excited because of her difficult situation. i know that she's ready to accept the message! It'll be a lot of fun to teach her I think.

Other than that, not too much else has happened this past week that I can remember really. I've thought of a coulpe of things for my next package - I've decided I really like those Nature Valley bars. They're easy to grab if I happen to miss a meal or am late for one. So if you could send some of thsoe again, muchly appreciated! I can't think of anything else that I really need. I bought a SD Card reader, but... I'm not in wonju right now! I'm actually in a place called "Dong-hey". We're on a Zone Activity right now, and we're headed to (as Elder Cameron said) "the world's largest cave in Asia". I've been awake since about 5:30 already, so this day might be deathly, but I'm excited for the activity! I'll be sure adn take a lot of pictures and show you next week. Next week we'll be headed to Seoul for another temple day and the mission conference - our mission president is going home, too! This next transfer is going to bring a lot of changes I think.

Anyway, stuff is still going well. Still really enjoying my time out here in the country, the language is getting a little bit better too! I hope everyone out there is doing great! Stay happy! Be healthy!

Love,
Elder Webster

A trip up to the mountains, and living the college life.‏

Hi!

This past week has been pretty good.

Elder Hess and I taught the best lesson that we've both ever taught since we've been out. The spirit was really strong, we both spoke really good Korean, and everything just flowed really well. We taught a new investigator family that we got as a referral from another investigator - it's a really big blessing for us because the whole family seems to have interest. It being the best event of this week, I'll outline basically what happened...

We met them on Saturday night, and for the first little while we just kind of talked to them for a little while in English (the mother and daughters lived in New Zealand for two years - the youngest daughter is pretty much fluent, and the oldest daughter is really good. The mother is ok, and the father understands a lot but doesn't really have any interest in English anyway). The oldest daughter told us how she went to Seoul a couple of days ago as a school and got to go to a movie production studio there. While they were there, they got to make a video commercial. It was really, really funny. She showed it to us, and the song they sang still gets stuck in my head. It's about this girl that is doing really bad in school, so she starts thinking about suicide (sad topic, but stay with me). While she starts thinking about that stuff, random people will pop out and stand next to her and start singing:

"Oh no, don't do that!
Oh no, don't do that!
Oh no, don't do that!
자살 하지마새요!" (don't commit suicide)

I wish I could get the internet link that she showed it to me - it's so funny! It's any Korean anyway. But after that we started talking to them a little bit more - and then we moved onto the gospel topics.

We had a really cool example that was made from cups that showed the organization of the church in Christ's time, explained the apostasy, and then explained the Restoration. Basically you set up cups as the base to show the original organization of the church when Christ was alive - the original twelve apostles, and etc. Then you pull those cups out to show the apostasy. Then you rebuild it with the names of our living apostles as the Restoration. The family all understand wonderfully - the father had a question along the lines of "Baptist comes from Christians, Presbyterian comes from Catholics (and so on), where do you come from?". So we explained again that this is Christ's purely restored church, not just another branch off. It was really wonderful.

Now, I have to tell a story about what happened before the appointment to lead up to this part of the story. We didn't get the chance to eat dinner, so we went into a Family Mart (7/11 basically) and got some food there. Elder Hess decided to buy a liter of juice, because a liter of juice was the same price as one of the quarts. So we drink the whole thing, eat our food, and then head over to the appointment.

we both had a liter of juice sloshing about in our insides.

Can you guess what happens?

During the lesson, just after we had explained the Restoration, Elder Hess exhales and says "... I'm sorry. Can I use your bathroom?" Let me reiterate that this was one of the best lessons we've ever taught with the sort of spirit that was guiding us the whole time.

I was laughing so hard! The kids were laughing pretty good, too - so I explained that we had both drank a liter of juice before we got here. The family was pretty ok with it, anyway. I still make fun of him about it.

But onto other things, we made a few new contacts this past weekend with some college kids. Basically, I got to see what the college life is like in Korea... We went out to eat with one contact, and then he decided to take us on a drive into the mountains a little bit. After that we introduced us to some other friends that we contacted, and we hung out at Dunkin' Donuts for a little while. It was really funny. We had to explain to them that we don't drink, smoke, drink coffe, can't watch movies or listen to the radio while we're missionaries. Maybe "flaberghasted" would be a good word to describe them.

But anyway, I hope that turns out and we get to meet with them again.

In other news and needful things... send me pictures! I need and want some more pictures that I can show people - more family shots and more pictures of the hikes, the scenery, and that kind of stuff of Utah. Koreans really enjoy it. Also pictures of the temples would be good, too. I only have Provo temple and Seoul temple.

Other than that, all is well! I'm still looking for a SD Card reader so I can send you people some pictures, and am still wondering about the price of 8 or 16GB USB sticks in America.

Anyway, all is well! I hope everyone out there is doing great! Especially you two out there in the Land of the Faster-Than-Korea Rising Sun! Happy Birthday Sister Jones! :D

Stay happy! Stay healthy!

Love,
Elder Webster