June 27, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you?? I am doing pretty good. This last week has pretty much been the same old stuff, lots of street contacting, lot's of studying, and some teaching as well. We're having a hard time finding new investigators lately though because usually we would meet quite a few college students but all of the colleges are on summer break until september so we have no where to meet them. And not only has it affected us getting new investigators, but also our number of contacts as well. Last week we went to the down town of our area and contacted for like 4 hours and only got 30 contacts! It's hard trying to talk to old men all the time like that, they never really want to talk so even if you say high and try to shake every one of their hands only one out of ten or so will actually stop to talk. Other then that everything is good though. Our investigators are okay, we don't have any really good looking ones right now but that all can change really fast. After we baptized Ryan and the two girls we have pretty much had to start over. Yesterday we had zone conference in ìˆ˜ì› and it was amazing. We had a little health thing for like an hour from the area doctors and then President and Sister Burton spoke and then the assistants did training. President and Sister Burton really are the best, everytime i talk to them they like recharge my batteries and make me stoked on missionary work again. The both talked about the Savior and faith and Sister Burton talked a lot about Moroni 7:33. I love that scripture it has become one of my favorites. Let's see i don't have much else to report so i will answer your questions Mom. My clothes and shoes are doing pretty good. The rain is really rough on my shoes but we've been lucky it hasn't been raining all that much, i think it only rained a couple of times this last week. Elder Haviland seems to be doing really good. He is way excited about being a missionary. Haha it really was soo good to see him, i was pretty stoked. He is serving in ì¸ì „ which is the western part of the mission by the airport. It sounds like things are a lot different for him because he is in the city and i'm out in the sticks but he said that he really loves his area. I have only talked to Elder Hadley once but he sounded like he was doing good too. Oh yeah i forgot to tell you that i saw Elder Hutchings at transfers it was fun to see him too. He is serving in the beverly hills of Seoul so it sounded like the people were a little mean but he likes it i think. The whole money situation is good. We are only allowed to spend the mission money on groceries and transportation and stuff like that but we always have enough so it's fine. Haha it's funny that you asked about food this week, I have quite the story to tell you! In Korea it is kind of a tradition in the summer to eat ë³´ì‹ íƒ• (bosheentang) which is dog soup. One of the members in our ward loves the stuff and i was talking to him on sunday and i asked him when he was going to take us out to eat it. Haha i was really just joking around but he got all excited and told me that he was talking us this week. So on tuesday night we went to this shady little restaraunt and ate ë³´ì‹ íƒ•. Usually when they eat dog it's only in a soup but he not only bought us the soup, he also bought a huge thing of just straight up dog meat! Haha when the waitress brought it out i really thought i was going to die but it actually was pretty good. It was a little bit too chewy for my liking because they leave the skin and fat on it but it definitely wasn't bad. The picture that i attached is my first bite of dog! Haha my time is almost up here so i can't tell you more about it but make sure you save that picture i'm going to want to keep that one! I want to tell you about something that i learned this week really fast though. We were talking to an investigator this week about happiness and as we were teaching him i realized something about the gospel. He said that he wasn't happy and we read him Mosiah 2:41 and promised him that if he would keep the commandments and live what we teach him he would be happy. He still didn't really believe us so i decided to tell him about my situation. I told him that i am in the middle of no where, in Korea. I can't speak any Korean, i have no money, i can't talk to my family, i can't talk to my girl friend, and i was soaking wet (it was raining really hard that day). If you look at my life from a worldly perspective i have absolutely nothing to be happy about, but i have never been happier in my entire life. I know that i am doing what i am supposed to be doing and i am doing what God wants me to do. Because i am doing he is blessing me and i truly am happy. The gospel really is the only way to find true happiness in this life, i know that now more than i ever had. The church is true! Sorry i have to get off my time is up, haha i hope that makes sense. I love you Mom and Dad i really do. Thank you for your prayers. I'll talk to you next week!
Love Elder Musso

June 19, 2008

Hey Family! How are you?? I am doing way good. I just got off the bus from the temple and it was amazing. The temple here really is so cool, its crazy to be in the middle of the second biggest city in the world and have it be completely chaotic and then walk in the temple and have it be perfectly quiet and peaceful like always. It takes 2 hours to get up there and 2 hours to get back though so we aren't going to have much of a p-day today but it was worth it. My zone did a session with the ì¸ì „ zone so Elder Haviland was there, it was so good to see him! Haha it was one of the happiest moments of my mission. President and Sister Burton were there too and it's always fun to see them. They are amazing i love them. I am going to apologize at the beginning here, haha this will probably be pretty short because i had 10 emails to read before i could start writing but thank you for writing me. Mom it sounds like you're having fun in Cleveland, make sure you let everyone know that i miss them. Haha and Dad you got a blackberry? Thats pretty trippy! Whit and Weave i loved the shirt about Weave's boys, haha where did you find that thing? And Stace your boy toy is very handsome, i hope things are going well with that. Oh and yes Nick if you are reading this how about you right me once in a while huh?? Haha it would be nice to know if you are still alive or not. Everything is going pretty good here though. The confirmations were really good, and Ryan and the girls are all doing really good. Ryan really is amazing. We met him yesterday and talked to him for a while and he has such a solid testimony. He took the TOEIC, which is the english test that all Koreans have to take to get jobs, a couple of weeks ago and he got the result back and he did way good. He said that he thinks he did so good because God is blessing him for getting baptized. Haha and at church this new girl moved into the ward and she is pretty cute so we tried to hook Ryan up with her but he told us that he wouldn't talk to her because he comes to church to pray and not to meet girls. He's pretty funny. My copmanion is pretty cool. He's a good missionary but his Korean isn't the best so we have a hard time figuring out what people are saying to us sometimes. It gets pretty frustrating when you ask people questions about the church and then you have no idea what they answer. Other than that it's good though, i have pretty much been the senior companion for the last week and it's been fun to have a little bit of responsibility. Lets see next question. Haha yes there are flowers around, that was a really random question. In the parks and stuff they have really pretty flowers but i haven't really noticed on people's balconies. Families don't really have pets. A few people have dogs but they are all lap dogs because they all live in aparments and they have no where to put big dogs. We do our laundry at home but we don't have a dryer so we just hang dry everything on the balcony. Oma asked about the weather.. The rainy season officially started yesterday and it rained harder than i have ever seen in my life. The streets were all rivers and i decided that i am probably going to have to get used to being soaked from my waste down for the next month. When it's not raining it's really humid at hot, We are pretty much soaked either with sweat or rain constantly. And as far as the shopping goes, i don't know exactly where people shop but it seems like most of them go to the markets and subway stations for everything. The markets are just streets with little shops and stands everywhere and you kind find pretty much everything you want in there. The subway stations are amazing here! They are all pretty much malls and everything is soo cheap. We went to a big station in Seoul today on the way to the temple and it was so cool, i'm a little jealous of the Elders serving there. They had ties for $3 and dress pants for $15! It was pretty sweet. Sorry Mom i answered all of those really fast but i wanted to get them all in. My time is up so i need to go but thank you for all the emails and the packages. You're amazing. Thank you for your prayers, the Lord is really blessing me, there is no way i could be doing what i am doing with out his help. I love you all and i'll talk to you again next week!
Love Elder Musso

June 12, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you?? I am doing good. This past week was crazy! Can you believe that i have already been in Korea for 6 weeks? Time as a missionary is really wierd, it seems like i haven't been in America in forever but it also doesn't seem like me and Elder Andersen were together for a whole transfer either. So i have some kind of bad news, this morning was transfers and Elder Andersen transfered to Seoul to be a zone leader! President called us on saturday night and told us and i was so mad! Haha missionaries are almost always with their trainers for at least 2 transfers, and they never get left behind in the area after 1! My new companion's name is Elder Dryden. He has been in Korea for like a year and he is from Idaho. I don't know what President was thinking, i'm sure that Elder Dryden is a great missionary but he still doesn't know the area or the members or anything. These next couple of weeks are going to be pretty interesting.. The baptisms on sunday were awesome. I really am soo lucky to have had that much success in my first transfer, a lot of missionaries go months and months without any baptisms. In the picture that i sent you the man on the left is 이환백 ( the girl's dad) the taller girl is 이희원 (Jessica) the other girl is 이명원 (madison) and 이용우 (Ryan) is the stud on the right. Aren't they all just amazing?? The baptism was at the stake center in suwon and a lot of the ward members came so it was fun. Haha everything went pretty smoothly except the water was freezing, and i messed up a little bit on the prayer one of the times, but i didn't have to re-do either of them so it was good.The spirit was super strong the whole time and i was so happy for all of them it was amazing. I thought i would have a ton to tell you about it but that is really all i have, haha i will let you know how the confirmations go on sunday though. Lets see on to the next question.. For meals most of the time we just eat in our aparment. The members always want to feed us but we aren't supposed to eat dinner after 6 and most of the men don't get home until later than that. We are allowed to eat past 6 one night a week so we can eat at member's houses but a lot of the time we are too busy with appointments. On tuesday though we went to one of our ward missionaries house and ate with her and her husband and it was so good. She made us steak, bacon, bread, potatoes (haha i didn't eat the potatoes of course but elder andersen loved them, he actually told her that i was alergic to them i was so thankful for that) and salad. It was soo good to have a meal with meat as the main course! Korean's don't eat much meat, it's usually just rice and kimchee. When we eat at our house we usually just have rice and something along with it. We have been eating a lot of tuna lately because it's way easy, and i have been trying to eat kimchee at least once a day. We also bought some big sheets of see weed and we have been rolling our own sushi lately and that's been good, haha they usually don't turn out all that well but it's still fun to try. We teach or English class at the church in the primary room, haha and yes mom we teach them decent english and not just "gang talk." Our class is every wednesday night from 7-8:30 and usually we have around 15 people there. Haha oh yeah and the slippers that i had on in that picture are from the primary room, you have to take your shoes off to go in so they have slippers that you can wear. I have played soccer 3 times, once with the other missionaries at the olympic stadium, once when i was on exchanges with the zone leaders, and then on saturday morning. The elders in suwon play every saturday morning and they want us to come but it takes like 40 minutes to get there on the bus so they said if we go we have to take an investigator with us. We are meeting with a man that lives in suwon and we talked to him about playing so hopefully we will be able to go every week. On saturday mornings they usually play with 8-10 missionaries and about that many Koreans. As far as the whole letter thing goes, i don't exactly know how long it takes for your letters to get here. I think it probably takes about a week for them to get to the mission home but then i usually don't get them for another week or two because they sit in the office until someone picks them up. How long are my letters taking to get to Melissa? I think they take about a week but im not sure. Well i think i covered all of your questions Mom and i am about out of time so i need to wrap this up, but i love you and miss you so much. Thank you for all of your prayers and keep them coming! Haha i think i am definitely going to need them these next couple of weeks because i'll have to be the senior companion until Elder Dryden gets everything figured out. I hope all is well back in America!
Love Elder Musso
P.S. I want some pictures please!

June 5, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm doing good. Getting emails from everyone always makes me happy. So wow Whitney is pregnant huh?? That is pretty trippy im not gonna lie! Haha that will be crazy to come home to a year old niece or nephew. It's kind of a bummer that i won't be there when Whit has the baby but it's cool i guess. Everything is still going good here. We are still insanely busy and super tired but it's fun. This weekend should be amazing. We are baptizing 이영우 (Ryan), 이희원, and 이명원 on Sunday and we are super excited. Haha it will be such a relief once it's finally all over. We have definitely had to work for all three of them. I'm going to baptize the girls and Elder Andersen will baptize Ryan, i'll make sure to take lots of pics to send you. Other than that this week has been pretty much the same as the last 4. Haha oh yeah except the rain. It has rained every day this week and supposedly it's not even the rainy season yet! We've been pretty blessed though, it seems like everytime we are inside teaching it rains super hard, and then when we go outside to contact it stops. I don't know what we are going to do in couple of weeks when the rainy season starts. We are supposed to get 140 contacts a week (a contact is introducing yourself, teaching a principle or bearing testimony, and giving them a commitment) and people don't like to stop and talk in the rain. Haha i guess we may just have to go door knocking all day or something. So i was thinking this week as we were contacting and i decided that diversity is pretty much the coolest thing ever. There are so many different groups of people in Korea it blows my mind. Just this past week we talked to people from Malaysia, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Iran, Uzbeckistan (sorry i have no idea how to spell that), Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt and China! It's fun to meet people from all over the world, especially the middle eastern people. I think it's pretty messed up how Americans hate everyone from the middle east just because they are middle eastern and muslim! I was a little bit nervous talking with them at first because i thought that they would despise us because we are American (especially the guy from Iran), but they all turned out to be way nice. The Iranian guy is actually engaged to one of the women in our ward and so he has been coming to church every week lately. I think it would be way cool to teach him but i don't know how we would, he doesn't speak much Korean or English and i don't know if the Book of Mormon is translated into his language. Haha i'm sorry this email is pretty random i know but i am kind of at a loss of what to say. I was looking at Elder Andersen's email from his mom just barely though and she sends him like 5-10 questions a week that he answers in his emails, and he said that helps him with what to say. Haha so if you would send me a list of questions that would be much appreciated. Oh yeah i did save one last story to tell you though. So i am officially a Korean missionary this morning. Haha in Korea there aren't special foods for breakfast luch and dinner it's just all the same, but they do have cereal in the grocery stores so we usually just eat that. I ran out of cereal this morning though so i decided that i would have a Korean breakfast and i ate kimchee and rice! It was pretty intense im not gonna lie, and you probably don't think thats a very big deal but once you try kimchee you'll understand. Haha eating ridiculously spicy framented cabbage isn't exactly the best way to start your day! It was fun though i enjoyed it. Well parents my time is up so i need to go, im sorry this was kind of a lame email i'll try to do better next week. I love you though!

Love Elder Musso