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

July 31, 2008

Hey Parents How are you? Im doing pretty good. This week has been the same old stuff, lot's of contacting, lot's of studying, and some teaching. Our investigators are doing pretty good. Our two with baptizimal commitments are okay. One of them is kind of being difficult and we may have to move his date back a week or two. He is so stubborn sometimes it's frustrating. He says that he knows that the book of momron is true but he says that he doesn't believe in Joesph Smith yet, we keep telling him that it is impossible for the book of mormon to be true with out Joseph Smith being a prophet because he translated it but i don't know he is a pretty trippy guy. He has been praying about it everyday for the last couple of days so hopefully he will get an answer soon. Our other kid that is getting baptized is still amazing. He didn't smoke for 3 days straight but then yesterday he smoked 1 ciggarete which was kind of a bummer but he promised he wouldn't smoke before we meet him again tomorrow. This week we had a combined district meeting with our zone and it was pretty fun. There are now two missionaries in my zone that are younger than me which is pretty crazy, it still seems like i'm a greeny. At the meeting we found out that Elder Bednar is coming in August to speak to us and the Seoul mission and i'm really excited about that it should be really cool. Haha i'm a little nervous though, Elder Bednar is pretty intense he will probably beast us. Um lets see i don't think much else really happened other than that.. Haha i think every week i have less and less to say because it really is just the same stuff, i have been taking progressively less pictures too because i have seen everything in ì‹ ê°ˆ so i there is nothing that is worth capturing anymore. It sounds like things are going pretty good at home. Mom i am excited to see how school goes for you i bet that will be fun. If Stacie goes on a mission will she wait until January to go? That will be crazy for you to have two kids on a mission at the same time, maybe she will get called to 한국! That would be tight. How is work going Dad? Is it super slow or are you doing okay? I don't understand why the economy is so bad all of a sudden, it definitely wasn't great when i left but now it's horrible. Haha i'm sure Barack will fix it when he takes office though eh Dad?? K so i don't really have much else to tell you so i will answer you questions now Mom. Nick wrote me a way good email last week and it was super good to hear from him, i know you will probably read this brosif so thank you that ment a lot to me. I am still with Elder Dryden and it's going pretty good i guess. We get along just fine and we haven't fought at all but it's just a lot different from what it was like with Elder Andersen. Elder Andersen was super intense and energetic and he made me do stuff so i always felt like i was progressing, but Elder Dryden is way chill and quiet and he doens't make me step out of my shell ever so i have had to motivate myself to progress. We are working hard though so i guess that's all that realy matters. I already talked about our investigators so won't go into that anymore but i can't exactly figure out the schooling system in Korea. Supposedly the kids are on summer vacation right now but they all still go to academies to study everyday. The academies are ridiculous, during the school year the kids go to school from 8-3 and then from 3 till like 10 they go to the academies and study more. So the kids all say it's summer break but they still study just ast much during the school year. I think their colleges are similar to ours as far as semesters go but the college students are the same way as the highschoolers, they all still go to college and study for like 8 hours a day even during the summer. Haha i always try to tell our investigators that they need to chill out and have some fun during the summer but they don't listen to me. I don't know how they do it i would go crazy studying as much as they do. Well that is about all i have to report for now so i think i will wrap this up. I love you though and thank you for the emails in prayers. Your amazing and i'll talk to you next week.

Love Elder Musso

July 24, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm pretty good, im soaking wet because it's raining like crazy outside but other than that im really good. Im still in ì‹ ê°ˆ which was kind of a bummer at first but im over it now, this next transfer will be amazing. This past week was really good, our investigators are doing way good and we picked up a couple of new ones that seem like they will progress really well. We gave a kid named ì´ìŠ¹ìž¬ a baptisimal date for August 16 and he was totally cool about it, haha his biggest worry about it was the day of the week that it is on. He really is amazing. I don't think i have ever mentioned him before but he is 25 and he is going to college to be a mechanical engineer. It was pretty crazy how we met him actually. We were contacting in the down town of our area a while ago and we ran into a guy with a ping pong paddle in his hand so i started talking to him about ping pong. We talked for a little bit about that and then i started to tell him about the church and he didn't really seem interested so we gave him a pass along card and told him to give our card to someone that wants to learn from us. We always do that to people that don't have any interest and nothing ever really comes out of it. A few days later though we were walking down the street by our house and this guy yelled at us from across the street and started asking us about our program. He said the he was friends with the guy we met and that his son wanted to learn from us. So we met his son and he has been doing so good ever since. He is a smoker and we taught him the word of wisdom last week and he has been cutting back 2 cigarettes a day and saturday he will be done for good he says. He told us yesterday that he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and it was so cool. His little sister is coming back from studying in Russia for a year this weekend and so we are going to start meeting with them together and i have the feeling that she will get baptized too. There really have been so many little miracles that have happened in the last 3 months that i have been in Korea. I was reading in Alma the otehr day where Ammon and King Lamoni run into Lamoni's father while they are on the way to get Aaron out of jail. As i was reading this i though wow that is a really big coincidence that they just happened to run into the king and because of that he ends up converting to the gospel and so do thousands of his people. The more i thought about it though, and as i looked back on some of the extraordinary things that have happened to me i realized that there really aren't any coincidences in missionary work. Every cool thing that happens really is a blessing from Heavenly Father even if it is something as small as someone giving a pass along card to their friend. Let's see, other then that i don't really have much to report about the week, oh yeah there was a typhoon this weekend though and that was pretty crazy. By the time it got to where i am it turned into just a tropical storm so it wasn't super windy but it poured rain all day friday, saturday, and sunday. It was pretty fun but it made contacting really hard. Supposedly there is a bigger one coming again next week so we'll see how that goes. I'm running out of time here so i'm gonna answer your questions Mom. We find out about transfers on the saturday before transfer day so we know who is coming and who is going. Transfer day is always on thursdays and everyone that is transfering goes to a big subway station in Seoul to meet their new comp. It was so cool last transfer when we went, haha when we walked up there was just a see of white shirts and the middle of the station. I bet it really freaks the Koreans out but it was way cool to see. Everyone in the mission has P-day on thursdays except for President and Sister Burton and the APs. I don't know why but their P-day is on fridays. I cant really think of anything that i need as far as a package goes, i think i am doing good. I will let you know a little bit later if i need anything though. Well parents i need to wrap this up my time is about gone but thank you for the emails and the prayers. The work here really is going amazing and it's such a blessing to be able to watch peoples lives change as they are converted to the gospel. Haha the language is still rough but i think that i'm getting better slowly but surely. I love you and i will talk to you next week!

Love Elder Musso

July 17, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you? I'm good. This past week was pretty much the same as the past 5 of this transfer. We just walk around all day and contact and then teach at night. Haha we have been meeting with our investigator that is getting baptized like every day lately and that has been pretty fun though. He is a pretty trippy guy but we have really grown to like him a lot. This week i went on exchanges with the district leader in suwon and that was prett fun. It's always nice to get a change of scenery, even if it's only for one day. We also had a combined district meeting in suwon yesterday with everyone in my zone and President Burton came. It was good to see him like always, something about talking with him always pumps me up to get out and do work. Everything in my area is pretty good too, i am definitely getting ready to transfer though. It's hard walking up and down the same streets every day for 3 months and i swear i have talked to like every person in our little town. This next transfer is going to be really big because there are 10 missionaries going home and 8 coming in so hopefully i'll move. If i don't it will still be okay though, next transfer we should have 2 or 3 baptisims here and it would be cool to be apart of that. Oh yeah guess what happened this week? We were walking around one day and started talking to this college student in korean and he was answering our questions in english and so we told him that he speaks amazing english (haha we tell every person that even if they can only say hello but this kid was way good) and he was like yeah im from america. So we started talking about where he was from and he was from strongsville! He went to St. Ignatious in high school and he was just studying here for the summer. It was pretty crazy, haha his accent made me miss Ohio. That was probably the only crazy thing that happened, it seems like i am just starting to get used to things here and so i don't have as many stories to tell. Oh yeah i did learn something this week from the district leader though. When we were on splits he was telling me how the like to go visit members and give them food and how they like to bring ice cream or something for their investigators so i have been trying that lately and its so fun. Haha like everytime we've met ì •ê²½ì„­ we have brought him his favorite ice cream and he loves it. Oh and yesterday we were walking to the bus in suwon after our meeting and i had a package that Melissa sent me and it had some salt water taffies and i gave them all away to some kids we were talking to, they loved it. It's crazy how something as small as giving candy to kids or taking food to a member can increase your charity and love for them. The Korean people really are so amazing, the part in my partriacle blessing that talks about me growing to love the people i serve is definitely coming true; i really do love them more and more every day. I think that is about all i have to report so i wil answer your questions now. My shins are doing better now. I havent really been excercising a lot in the morning and so they have chilled out some. I tried to put the arch support from my soccer shoes in my dress shoes but they make my shoes way to tight so i don't know if i will be able to do anything as far as that goes. I think i will be fine as long as i dont jump rope that's what made them act up again. Our leaders have been telling us to get a service project for the past couple of weeks and we have been trying but we haven't been able to find one. We went to the city office the other day and asked them if they had anything we could do and they said no, so right now we are just doing english class for service. The people are mostly middle class here. ì‹ ê°ˆ is a pretty old city so there are a lot of old nasty appartments but it's okay. It seems like the money in Korea isn't as evenly distributed as it is in america though. Most of the people are just middle class and all about the same and then there are a handful of ridiculously rich people that drive the nice cars and live in way nice appartments. The economy here is really bad right now though so a lot of people are having a hard time getting jobs. The people all have health insurance from the goverment which is a good and bad thing. It's good because everyone can get medical help if they need it but people also go to the hospital for the most ridiculous things because its so cheap. Haha i swear if people here stub their toes or something they would go to the emergency room. I haven't been sick at all which has been really good. I think that we can get everything we need in the drug stores and sister burton is on top of her game with taking care of all of our health worries so i should be fine. Well parents that is about all i have to report from this week, haha i am sorry i know i end my emails pretty abrubtly but i always have to hurry and get them sent before our time is up, the computers shut down after exactly an hour. Thank you for your letters and prayers though they really help. I love you and i hope all is going well at home!

Love Elder Musso

P.S. i need an election update, haha you need to step up your game with that! Oh and Whit i will start thinking of some names for you baby, i could probably come up with some pretty sweet korean names if you want!

July 10, 2008

Hey Family! How are you? I am doing pretty good. Today has been a way stressful day though which isn't tight. We went to 수ì to play soccer with our zone again and we got bad directions from some of our investigators so we were lost for a while and had to get a taxi it was bad, and now we have to hurry and email so we can go home and shower and make it to an appoinment by 5:30. Haha i guess i am probably so stressed because i won't have much time to write Melissa, i guess my letter may only be able to be 5 pages today instead of the usual 8, so Melissa i know you'll be reading this and i apologize in advance for that. Soccer was pretty fun today. I couldn't play all that well because my shin splints have gotten really bad so i kind of just gimped around the whole time. It was good to see everyone in the zone though. Well i don't have much to report this week, it was a pretty uneventful one. Actually i do have one piece of good news though. We gave one of our investigators a baptisimal commitment on sunday and i was pretty happy about that. His name is ì •ê²½ì„­ (jung gyoung sup) and we have been meeting with him for a long time. I think we met him a week or two after i got here. His baptisimal date is for august 16th. All of our other investigators are good. It's pretty hard though because we have some that i really like and that i have become really good friends with but we will probably have to drop them because they aren't willing to come to church. It doesn't make sense to me why it is so easy for some people to come to church and then so hard for others. Well i guess i only have 10 minutes to write because the place is shutting all of there computers down so i am sorry but this will have to be way short. I will answer the questions really fast though. The girls mom is still pretty wierd, she avoids us every time we go to their house. But the day is pretty good though i like him alot. Koreans usually go on vacation to the south to pusan and all of those cities. They don't go often though because the men are always working and the kids don't really get summer breaks from school. We are actually really close to china, just right across the yellow sea. There are lot's Chinese people here and we like to talk to them they are pretty cool, we actually have a chinese investigator that we meet every saturday. And yes i have eating ë¶ˆê³ ê¸° (bool gogi) it is one of my favorite things in the whole world, but im not exactly sure what fire meat is. Sorry i need to wrap this up but i love you parents so much. It's good to hear that you had a good time with uncle mike and aunt becky over the weekend, im pretty jealous that i wasn't there though im not gonna lie. I'm going to hold you to that trip to myrtle beach haha so you better be serious about it. I miss you and please keep praying for me i know it's helping. I'll talk to you again next week!
Love Elder Musso!

July 3, 2008

Hey Parents! How are you?? I am doing really good. I just got done with taking a Korean test so i am actually at the mission home right now which is always fun. Haha the test i took was super hard but i passed so it's all good. Lets see... I don't have much to report from this week, it was pretty average. Our investigators are all doing pretty well, we don't have any really promising ones though. It's been a little bit hard the past few weeks because we baptized our three best investigators so we have pretty much had to start over with the whole process of finding people. It's been pretty rough to contact lately too because its summer break for all of the colleges so we don't really have anywhere we can go to get lot's of contacts. We went contacting for like 5 hours one day last week and only got 25 contacts, it wasn't cool. Other than that everything is pretty good though. Elder Dryden is pretty tight, we get along well. His personality is like completely opposite from Elder Andersen's but i guess that all of my companions are going to be different. We haven't been able to pick up the slack that Elder Andersen left when he transfered but we are working hard so hopefully our numbers will start going back up. K i really don't have anything else to tell you about my week, sorry this email will probably be pretty lame but i need to hurry because we have to get home, but i'll answer your questions. Haha i am not exactly sure where they get the dog from. I know it's not like a persons pet or anything they have a special kind that they breed just for food but i'm not sure if they have like dog farms or something. I actually ate pig intestine yesterday too and that was pretty interesting. Korean's really eat some crazy stuff, haha 6 months ago i don't think i ever would have dreamed that i would be eating dog and pig intestines. Our church building is actually right by our house, it's like a 2 minute walk away. Our church meetings start at 10 and yes we usually have to go out and contact after they are over. I don't know what but saturdays are usually insanely busy but sundays we can't get appointments to save our lives. At night we either have to be in the house by 9 or 9:30. If we are teaching a lesson we can be home by 9:30 but if we are just out contacting then we are in by 9. Right when we get in the house we plan for the next day and talk about our lessons and stuff and then we make all our phone calls and confirm our appoinments and then we just write in our journals, study a little bit if we have time then go to bed. Haha the whole phone calling thing is a joke, Koreans talk sooo fast on the phone and i swear they speak a different language. I'll do an imitation for you when we talk at christmas time. Our study is always in the morning. We do personal study from 8-9 comp study from 9-10 and language study from 10-11. Study time is like my favorite part of the day i love it. Before i came on my mission, and even in the mtc studying for 3 straight hours would have been torture but now it flies by and i always wish we had more time. During personal study we are supposed to study the scriptures for 30 minutes so lately i have just been reading the book of mormon, and hten for the last 30 minutes i either read conference talks or study preach my gospel or something like that. During comp study we make our final plan for the days, talk about our lessons and investigators and practice teaching and stuff. And then during korean study usually i just study vocabulary and grammar and lately i have been trying to read the book of mormon in korean too. Yes i can open your pictures on the computer, there is a way to put them on my translator too but i haven't had time to figure it out yet. Well parents i know this is short and pretty lame but i need to start wrapping this up. Thank you for your letters and prayers though they really help. Haha dad you need to step up your game though, you haven't written me for like 3 weeks! The church is true though parents, it doesn't matter how mean some koreans can be one the street, there is no doubt in my mind that its true. There is no way that missionary work would be progressing like it is all around the world and there is no way that i could be learning Korean like i am if the church wasn't true. I love you and i'll make of list of things to tell you for next week so my letter will be better. I hope all is going well in America!

Love Elder Musso!