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

August 14, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I am doing good. This week has been really good. Can you believe i am already 1/4 of the way done? I was trippin out pretty bad about it yesterday i'm not gonna lie. Haha it seems like everyday i am here i don't want my mission to end even more. When i first got here i was looking forward to time going by fast and getting home and starting my real life but now i just want to be a missionary forever. It definitely stressful at times and it's always a lot of work but it's so much fun and i really have never been happier. I used to laugh at Elder Andersen when he told me he will probably cry on the airplane home but now i'm starting to realize what he meant. Anyways enough of that, haha 18 months is still a long time. On tuesday we had zone conference and it was so good. President and Sister Burton focused on the Savior the whole time and it was really powerful. It was all the way out in ì¸ì²œ though and it took us 3 hours to get there and back but it was still amazing. Our baptism is still on for this weekend and it has been a battle getting everything ready but it always is. Haha the week before a baptism everything that could possibly go wrong always does. One of our investigators is really solid and he is pretty confident about everything but the other one is a little nervous. He has a testimony and he did realy good in his baptisimal interview but he is just scared of enduring to the end i think. It should be good for him though because he is really taking the coventants seriously. All of our other investigators are good. We gave another one a baptisimal commitment for the 30th so we are excited about that too. Haha once again this guys only concern with getting baptized was the day of the week that it was on because he had to make sure he wasn't working. We really have been soo blessed to find such amazing investigators lately. Other than that i don't have much to report about the week. Haha oh yeah i reached a big milestone in learning Korean this week though. I had a conversation on the phone for like 10 minutes in Korean and understood almost everything the person was saying and i set up an appoinment to meet him. Haha this may not seem like much but Koreans are insane on the phone and it's so hard to understand them. The language is still coming along, slowly but surely. Learning Korean has given new meaning to the term line upon line precept on precept. Korea is amazing though i love it, haha i think i am going to start praying that Stacie will get called here. That would be tight. Oh wow i almost forgot, Whitney is having a boy?? I'm so stoked, i'm not gonna lie i wanted it to be a boy all along, he will be such a stud. It's a bummer that i won't be there to see him born but it's cool i guess. What are you going to call the baby if you name it Hudson though? Haha Huddy? I think you should name him Seong Jae or Jung Sup after some of my homies here in 한국!Whit are you starting to get big yet? You need to make sure to send me some pics of your belly that will be funny. Anyways i don't have much else to report besides that so i think i will answer your questions mamma. Yes Koreans say their last names first. and yes i am Musso Elder. All korean names have 3 syllables and the first one is their family name. There are only like 5 or 10 that are really common and there are only a couple hundred last names in all of korea. The most common ones are ê¹€ (kim) ë°• (park) ì´ (Lee) and ì • (jung). Then the last two syllables are their first names but we never really say just their first names. I guess that Koreans only say first names when they are talking to their friends or family but we almost always say both names. I already told you about ë°• but yes its very common haha and every korean is obsessed with Park Tae Hwan. They were pretty bummed that Michael Phelps beat him though. The Olympics have been really fun though, everyone here is extactic about them, haha and yes Dad we try to use the olympics when we contact. I think i am going to try your approach about the people being family with Michael Phepls though, haha i liked that one alot. Our next transfer is on September 4th so today we are half way through this transfer. The next 3 weeks should go by way fast though because we have Elder Bednar and interviews with President Burton still. I already covered the baptisms but i will fill you in on all the details next week. Well i am about out of time so i am going to wrap this up but i miss you and love you! Good luck with school Mom (haha i could start calling you grandma, how does that sound??), i am sure your going to do awesome. THank you for your prayers everyone and i'll talk to you next week.

Love Elder Musso

August 7, 2008

Hey family! How are you? I'm doing really good. Today has been the best P-day ever. We went to the temple this morning and that was amazing like always, and then on the way home we stopped by a costco in Seoul! It was soo crazy, there were white people all over and it looks just like the one back home. We bought a package of muffins and a huge thing of peanut butter. We would have gotten a lot more but we are broke and couldn't afford anything. After costco we went to a church that they are building a few blocks away and it was so cool. It's the biggest church building in all of asia! It really is massive, it's 5 stories tall. It isn't all the way done yet but supposedly elder bednar is going to speak there on the 24th. I took a video and some pictures of it and i'll send them home in couple of weeks so you can see it. Other then that this week has been just the same old stuff. Our investigators are doing good though. We are still scheduled to baptize two of them next saturday and we are going to give two more of them commitments next week. It has gotten really hot lately so contacting has been pretty rough, haha yesterday we just walked around for 5 hours because we didn't have any appointments but usually it's not that bad. The rest of this transfer should be really fun though, next week we have zone conference with Elder Havilands zone, in two weeks we have interviews with President Burton and Elder Bednar is speaking to us on the 22nd, and then on the 24th he is speaking to the members and we are going to go with Ryan to that and then the transfer is pretty much over. The time is really starting to fly by so fast. I was thinking about it a couple of days ago and it really tripped me out that it has already been 6 months. It was a little bit frustrating because i still suck at Korean really bad and i feel like i am already running out of time. I really will be home before we even know it. Well that is really all i have to report for this week and we have to hurry because it's already 5 and we have an appointment at 6 but i will answer your questions really fast Mom. Haha yes we have toilets here, well in most places. In our house and in the churches and stuff there are all toilets but in the subways sometimes they only have the hole in the floor kind. I haven't had to use one of those yet but i think i need to experience it before i come home so i will make sure to let you know how it goes. The olympics are all ready all over the news and the people are always talking about it. Haha i don't really remember what the olympics were like back home but it seems like the people here are a lot more stoked about it than i ever was. In English class last night we talked about it for like a half hour. Bush stopped by korea on his way to the olympics and that was a huge deal as well. Everyone hates him and the our government because Korea is importing American beef and all the Koreans think that it has mad cow disease. Thousand and thousands of people protest in Seoul about it every night it's pretty funny. We were on the subway today and some protestors came in and gave everyone flyers about it, have you seen anything on the news about it back home? Haha it's pretty stupid but it's fun to talk to people about it. I already talked about the Elder Bednar conference a little bit but yeah all the missionaries in our mission and the seoul mission will get to hear him talk and if we can get an investigator or recent convert to take us we will get to see him again when he speaks to the members. Well parents that is about all i have to report, i'm sorry this is short and pretty lame but i don't have much time today. I love you though and thank you for all your prayers. Good luck with school mamma, I miss you!

Love Elder Musso