September 25, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm doing pretty good. I am actually in down town Seoul right now because we had to go to the hospital this morning (i'll tell you more about that in a minute) and so we just came to this library that is by the hospital. This week was pretty good though. It has just been the same old stuff. Our investigators are all doing pretty good, it seems like the old guy that we are teaching is finally progressing towards getting baptized and a member from my old ward reffered a family to us so we are really excited about that. Member referrals are amazing, President Burton told us that only like 5 percent of regular investigators get baptized but 40 percent of member referrals get baptized so hopefully this family will be in that 40 percent! Haha this week i went on exchanges with elder andersen in his area and it really was like the most fun day of my whole mission. It was just like my first transfer and we dominated seoul together. It was so nice to have a companion that is better than me at korean and can actually help me learn new things, i was only with him for one day but i think i probably learned more from him in one day than i have from my other companions in the last 3 transfers. He is going home in like 3 months though it's pretty crazy. Lets see i don't have much else to report about the week so i guess i'll tell you about my hospital visits. So on tuesday i went and had an ingrown toe nail cut out and it was alright, i didn't think it would be a big deal at all and i thought that i would be fine to be out on the streets walking all day like we normally do, but it has hurt pretty bad. Haha i have had to wear sandals with my shirt and tie because i can't put my church shoes on, i look pretty funny gimping down the street in sandals trying to street contact. The doc told me not to walk around for a few days haha but i felt like Ether where he saysthat he couldn't be constrained from preaching the gospel because of the spirit which was in him. I couldn't help it i had to get out and do something! I went back this morning so the doc could look at it again and he said that he's a little worried about it getting infected so he gave me antibiotics and told me to go back on monday. I don't know when i'll be able to wear shoes again, hopefully soon though. We have interviews with President Burton tomorrow and i think i'll ask him to give me a blessing so i should be good after that. Don't worry Mom im fine, haha i probably shouldn't even be telling you this but i don't really have anything else to say so yeah.. Well i'm sorry this is short but i think im going to wrap it up, you didn't send me any questions so i dont have much to say and we are going to the korean version of disney land today (haha i'm going to make my companion push me around in a wheel chair) so i don't have much time. I love you though and thank you for the emails and the prayers. Can you believe it's almost October?? We are going to be talking on the phone in no time! I miss you all and hope you have a good week.

September 18, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm doing way good. My new area is still amazing and the weeks are still flying by it's crazy. This past week was pretty fun, it was a little hard with the holiday because we pretty much didn't do missionary work for 3 days. On saturday we had our sports day and that was a lot of fun, our whole zone got together at our church and we played dodge ball and ping pong. After that on saturday night we had our weekly planning meeting and so we really didn't do anything all day. Sunday was pretty fun. It was a little bit hard being away from home on a holiday. It shouldn't have been because it isn't even our holiday but everyone went to the home towns to spend time with their families haha and we just had our companions! We had a dinner appointment on sunday night that was really fun though. A guy in our ward was the mission president of the pusan mission and right now he is the mission president of the mtc in seoul and he invited us over to his house to eat. We went with the other two missionaries that we live with and then two others from the area next to us it was a good time. On monday we had zone conference and the mission home and that was pretty good. It got a little boring towards the end of it though because they were just drilling into our heads the importance of teaching with members. Lets see what else do i have to report... Oh my companion is still good i guess. We get along really well but its hard because he and i don't exactly have the same thoughts about being obedient. He likes to sleep in and not exercise in the mornings and i don't think he has been to be on time a single night yet but i have talked to him about it so hopefully he'll step up his game. Oh Dad you asked about the language.. Haha it's rough! Naw its coming along i guess. I still don't understand very much but i think i do okay with talking. All the missionaries and members love to tell me how good i am at korean for my age in the mission but i don't know what they are thinking because i can barely even have a conversation! I should go senior companion in the next couple of transfers though and that will really help my korean. Dad you also asked about money and eating with members. We get 140$ on the 1st and 15th of every month and that usually is plenty. Haha last pay period i had like 2 dollars in my account at the end because me and my companion went to outback and got ribs but that was the first time that i've done that. (P.S. you have no idea how amazing it was to eat ribs after eating rice and kimchee every day for the past 5 months!) We don't eat with members all that often, no more than once a week. Usually we are to busy at night and the members are super busy too. It has been way nice living with a korean though. He cooks for us all like every meal and it's super cheap. Usually i spend about 20 dollars a week on groceries but this week i will probably on spend like 10 because we are always just eating rice. Haha this morning for breakfast i ate 김치 찌개 which is kimchee stew, who would of thought before i came on the mish that i would have been eating rotten cabbage stew for breakfast? Suprisingly though i have developed quite the taste for kimchee, there definitely isn't anything like it. Anyways i am running out of time here so i am going to answer your questions Mom. Yes i would love for you to send me an absentee ballot (haha i have to support my boy Obama!) but can you still get them? I am pretty sure i registered to vote when i got my motorcycles liscense so that shouldn't be a problem. I don't really care what kind of journal you send me anything will work. My new area isn't exactly sky scrapers because it's not in Seoul but it's lots and lots of appartment buildings which are all 20-30 stories high. It's crazy to me that a 30 story building isn't even tall in Korea and the highest building in St. George is under 10 stories. My area is pretty busy though, especially at night. During the day it's a little bit hard because all the men that live here work in seoul so it's just women on the streets. We went to the one member's house for dinner on sunday but it wasn't really for the celebration. They have their big meal for breakfast and then they have a ceremony where they honor their ancestors. I'm not exactly sure what they do to honor their ancestors but i know a lot of people go to their parents graves and do something. I'm assuming they just remember them and give them thanks but i really don't know, it was always kind of awkward when we asked people about their ceremonies. Well parents i need to go my time is up here but i love you! Haha thanks for beasting everyone Mom, i got some good emails this week. Oh yeah Dad real quick about the pictures thing, i am going to send my memory card to Melissa tomorrow so she should get it in a week or so and i sent her some like a month ago too i don't know if you have seen those ones or not but giver her a call and ask her. I hope all is going well back home and i'll talk to you agian next week!

Love Elder Musso

September 11, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm doing way good. My new area and zone are sweet i love them and my comp is pretty cool too. Today is kind of a trippy day though because it isn't our p-day this week but we are emailing and shopping today. On saturday sunday and monday it's korea's thanksgiving and so we are having p-day on saturday this week. I guess that everyone leaves the city and goes to their parents houses out in the sticks so we aren't really going to be able to do anything this weekend. Saturday should be super fun though because our zone is getting together at our church and we are going to play sports for a few hours. I can't remember if i told you this in my last email or not but there is a super nice turf soccer field right next to our church that we are going to play on and im stoked! Haha i don't know what we're going to do all day on sunday though. There will probably only be like 10 people at church and then we have no appointments the whole day and President Burton said that he doesn't want us to go and knock doors because Koreans are super intense about the holliday. I guess we will probably just end up walking around all day. This past week was a lot of fun. We were in a 3 some the whole week because the Korean elder in our house had to go to the army for the weekend in busan and that was fun (I don't know if i have told you about the whole army thing here but every kid has to go to the army for 2 years and after that 2 years that have to go back for 3 days a year for like 5 years). Our investigators are pretty good, it has been a little bit hard to meet with them because everyone is getting ready for the holliday though. Haha one of our investigators is the coolest person that i have ever met though. He is 87 years old and he has a beard down to the middle of his chest. He loves everything about the church and he wants to get baptized but he says that he won't get baptized anywhere but this lake on top of a mountain in north korea! Haha i guess the elders have been trying to talk him out of it for like a month and a half but he is set on it. We are teaching his son to though so hopefully when his son gets baptized it will have a ripple effect on him. I will make sure and send a picture of him, you have to see him! Yesterday we had combined district meeting at the mission home (the mission home is my stake center now so all of our meetings will be there) and it was so funny to have Elder Andersen be my zone leader. Haha he is such a geek i love it. My zone is amazing though i'm excited about it. I don't really know much about my ward yet because we haven't met most of the members because of stake conference last week but the ones that i met seem tight. Some of the guys in our ward get together on saturday mornings and play soccer in our gym and we played with them, it was a blast. Haha they were soo stoked that i'm a soccer player, it definitely scored me some browny points. Well parents other then that i don't have much else to report so i think i am going to wrap this up. Oh yeah i have 2 questions for you though. What is my blood type? Koreans think that your blood type defines what kind of personality you have and some people have asked me and i don't know what it is. And what does Musso mean? Haha our super old investigator wants to make me a Korean name but he wants to know what Musso means first because all korean names are made by chinese characters that show their meaning. Can you believe it's already been 7 months though parents? Time really does go by faster and faster every day. I'm going to be home before we know it! I love you though and thank you for your prayers. Oh haha and Mom i think you need to beast the rest of the family for me because you're the only one that has been writing me lately and it's not tight! I hope you have a good week!

Love Elder Musso

September 4, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I am doing way good, i just met my new companion and got to my new area and it is amazing. I'm in a place called suji and it actually is right next to my last area and in the same city but it's all good i'm stoked. My area has a brand new church that is giant and the supposedly the ward is really good too. When i talked to President Burton he said that this ward is the closest one to an American ward in the mission. Ever since the new church building opened last year they have been baptizing people like crazy here so it should be good. My companion's name is Elder Terry and he's from Provo. He seems pretty cool but it's hard to tell the first few days with new comps because you don't really open up to each other for a while. I'm in a four man house now and one of the other missionaries in my house is Korean so that should be pretty interesting. The apartment is pretty ghetto but it should be alright, haha we were super lucky in my last house to have mattresses though i think in every other house in the mission there are just little pads that you put on the floor to sleep on. I'll send a video of the house and the church to Melissa in a week or two so you can see it. Oh yeah another cool thing about this area is that Elder Andersen is my zone leader now! Haha we are both pretty stoked about it and hopefully we will get to go on exchanges with each other this transfer. Hmm other then that i don't have much else to tell you, this past week was pretty uneventful. We did a lot of walking around trying to find people to talk to this week. All the college classes started again this week so we went to 3 different universities but didn't have much luck. I feel bad for Elder Dryden and his new missionary (Elder Dryden is training), they are going to have a heck of a time trying to find new investigators. Street contacting is pretty bad when you don't have people to talk to and i swear i had talked to every person in my whole area in the last 4 months. It definitely will be nice to have a fresh start. Well i don't have much else to report besideds that so i will answer your questions Mom. The temple sessions are in both english and Korean. When we go on p-days with other missionsaries they do the whole session in english because they have all the senior and military couples there as well. When we go with our wards though they do it in korean and we just wear headsets. The mission home is on the other side of Seoul from the temple and it is like an hour subway ride away. The misison home is in Songpa which is the south eastern part of Seoul and the temple is in Shinchon which is the north western part. It'scrazy to walk up to the temple from the main road. You go up this hill with a bunch of random apartments and things and then all of a sudden the temple pops out. Haha in the picture that the church has of the temple they must have done some serious photoshopping because first of all the sky is almost never blue in Seoul and the temple is surrounded by other buildings. As far as the whole bargain shopping thing goes I haven't done a whole lot. Most of the really cheap stuff is in the subway stations and i'm not there all that often so i haven't gotten anything. In Seoul there are huge markets with really cheap stuff two but i haven't been there yet either. I have heard that there are 1 dollar ties at this one subway station though i need to go get some. And about the weather.. The rainy season ended at the beginning of august and then we had the "dog days" which are the hottest 15 days of the year and now it has started to cool off some. It is still pretty hot during the day but it gets really nice at night. Next weekend is Korean's thanksgiving and supposedly after that it will cool off a lot. Well parents my time is running short here so i'm going to wrap this up but thank you for the letters and the prayers. I hope all is going well at home. Can you believe it's already september though?? Christmas is right around the corner! Haha i love you and i'll talk to you next week.

Love 무소 장로

August 28, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I am doing good. This week was straight up amazing. Elder Bednar was so good, haha and no he didn't beast us. It was a lot different than i thought it was going to be. To start off he asked like 15 people what the questions of their souls were and then he just went through and answered all of them. It was way cool because he was asking questions the whole time and we could say stuff whenever we wanted, i was expecting it to be like one of his conference talks but it was really just a big discussion. I wish i could tell you all that i learned but i don't have nearly enough time. I think that one of the things that stuck out to me the most though was when someone asked him about how we can tell the difference between the spirit and our emotions. He talked about the scripture it moroni 7 that says that good thing comes from God and then he said just be a good boy and work hard and the spirit will guide you. That was really powerful for me because it's hard to tell if we are really following the spirit or not sometimes, especially when things aren't going our way. He also talked alot about faith that went along with his talk from this past conference. I can't really explain what he said in writing but yeah it was really good and i learned alot. On sunday we went to see him speak again with our ward when he spoke to the members but it ended up being kind of lame. There were so many people there that every single seat in the chaple and the over flow rooms were filled so we couldn't even listen to him. I was a little bit frustrated because it took the whole day to go up there and back but it was so cool to see how excited the members were to be there. There were soooo many people it blew my mind. I heard that he did the same thing in the members meeting though and he just answered their questions of the soul the whole time. It is amazing how powerfully and fluently he can speak off the top of his head like that. The only thing i heard about the members meeting was this, he said that when we say "amen" at the end of our prayers it isn't the ending of the prayer its the beginning because it is when we start to act. I have found that to be way true the last few months. I have learned that we can kneel and pray to recieve blessings all day long but Heavenly Father doesn't bless us until we get out and work for the blessings. Other then that my week went pretty good. We are still kind of having a hard time finding new investigators but we gave another one of our investigators a baptisimal date this week. It is to a girl named 소서노 ( so so no haha she has a funny name i know) and she is doing really good. We have only been meeting with her for a couple of weeks but she came to Elder Bednars meeting with us and felt the spirit so she wants to get baptized. When she came to church on sunday we introduced her to a girl that is her same age and they seemed to like each other so that is a really good sign, it always helps if people have a solid fellowshipper. Oh about that Mom you asked about how the ward does with fellowshipping and they do pretty good i guess, it has been a little bit hard because there aren't many college kids in our ward and that is all that we have been teaching. Sometimes it's a little frustrating trying to get members to help us out but its cool i guess. Haha if the missionaries brought an investigator to church in our home ward the members would swarm them but the culture here is definitely different. Transfers aren't until next week and i will know if i am staying or going on saturday night. I still want to go somewhere new pretty bad but it would be okay if i stayed because then i would be here for ê¹€ì •ìˆ˜ and 소서노's baptisms. In my inerview President Burton said i could transfer but i will just have to wait and see. Oh and about the whole emailing thing i am pretty sure i can't email anyone but family. I am going to ask President but i think it's 안ë¼ìš”. Well parents my time is about up so i am going to go. Hang in there with school Momma I'm sure it will get better, haha it doesn't suprise me that you are to nice though. I listened to Elder Ballard's talk from last conference this morning and it made me miss a ton you Mom. Thank you for all you do, your amazing. I love you and i will talk to you next week!

Love Elder Musso

August 21, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm doing pretty good. This past week was stressful but good. It's always alot of work getting the baptisms together and making sure that all the ward comes and brings food and everything but it ended up being really fun. I baptized ì •ê²½ì„­ (the short guy in the pic) and Elder Dryden baptized ì´ìŠ¹ìž¬. Um haha i don't really know what else to tell you about it, oh i didn't mess up on the prayer again though and that was good. It's scary to have a bunch of people watching you like that. I'm sorry in advance though this is going to have to be pretty short because we are going ice skating in suwon today. Haha i am pretty stoked to ice skate, its been forever since i have been. Me and Elder Dryden are wearing regular clothes too and its pretty wierd. I haven't worn jeans and a t-shirt for like 3 months! Everything here is going pretty good still though. This week is going to be really hard because we baptized our two best investigators and combined we taught them like 8 lessons a week for the last couple of months. We have been having a hard time finding new investigators lately too but hopefully it will get better once school starts in a couple of weeks. We have interviews with President Burton yesterday and that was fun like always. He's amazing, i love him. Tomorrow will be a pretty exciting day because we are going to see Elder Bednar, i am a little bit nervous because he will probably beast us but it should be really good still. It is a perfect time for him to be coming too because i think we are all in need of a spiritual boost, i think august is the hardest month for missionary work because it's so hot and everyone is on vacations. The weather has started to cool down a little bit though and that has been really nice. Next month is supposed to be beautiful so i am excited for that. We went on exchanges with the zone leaders on monday and that was really fun, and it's always good to get a little bit of a break from my companion. Haha i love him and he's way tight but 24 hours a day for 2 and a half months is a long time. Transfers are two weeks from today though and i have a pretty good chance of going somewhere so that will be good. There is always a chance that i could stay which would be a little rough but i'm sure i'll survive. We have a couple of really good investigators right now that will probably get baptized next transfer so that would fun. Haha we are meeting with this girl right now and it's sooo wierd. We have been meeting her with ì´ìŠ¹ìž¬ because we aren't allowed to meet girls alone but yeah it's pretty bad. Haha it's crazy how awkward i have gotten after only 6 months. Well i need to start wrapping this up but i will answer your questions really fast Mom. I already covered the baptisms but haha i said we were broke at costco but don't worry about it. We have enough money to buy food just not from costco, it was super expensive and everythign is in bulk so that doesn't help. We get new missionaries every transfer so now i will have 3 sets younger than me in a couple weeks it's pretty trippy not to be the youngest one in the mission. Well parents i need to run, sorry this is short but Elder Dryden is waiting for me. I love and miss you! I'll talk to you next week.

Love Elder Musso