Being here has been sooooooooo amusing. Last PDay after emailing,
we went to the 반월당 (Banwoldang?) which is kind of the downtown area for
shopping. It its kind of like a Pedestrian zone in Europe, but more
Asian (duh) and cars still drive through it (because even though it it
teeming with people, it is still a "road"). Anyways. We went there, and
to the aforementioned "Cat Cafe". It was perhaps one of the most
hilarious moments of my life. It was just this small cafe with about 15
cats running around. It was nice and clean, and all you could buy is a
drink, because I don't think anyone wants to eat cat hair. I'll send
some pictures of it. It was so funny to have a cat just come up and
chill on our table. That such a place EXISTS and is pretty common in
Korea was just hilarious to me. :P :D
Another really amusing thing about being in Korea is being an
obvious foreigner. Some people just STARE, like they've never seen a
white person before (usually young kids, or really old people), and some
try to speak English, like saying "hello" as they pass by. Other times I
can tell people are trying to not stare, but will occasionally glance,
like "what in the world is a foreigner doing here?" Haha. Which is
actually kind of weird though, because there are a lot of native English
speakers here to teach English, so it's not exactly novel. Maybe it's
my skirt and nametag :P But there have been some funny moments. One time
a young boy was following his mother into a bathroom as we were coming
out, and he stared at me as we walked by, and behind us we heard him
saying "외국인!!!" (foreigner!!!) and he skipped after his mom and
practically made a song out of it. "Wehgookeeeeeeein! wehgoooookeeein!!"
Hahah. Romanizing Korean is funny... :P anyways. It was HILARIOUS.
Another time, we passed an older lady who knew a little English, and she
called me "charming." Another time, there was another older lady, and
she stopped us to say that I look pretty, and I understand that much, so
I said thank you, and she was so surprised, and Sis Sung told me she
was saying "oooh, she speaks my language???" We talked a little, and as
we left, she told Sis. Sung to take good care of me. Hahha. Another
time, we were walking and we passed some old grandmas sitting on a...
deck? of sorts. They have them all over the place. It's just a deck on
ground level, that old grandmas like to congregate at to talk and spend
time. You take off your shoes to sit on them and such. Anyways, we were
passing by, and started talking a bit with them and they invited us to
sit down. They were really fascinated in me and talked about that for a
bit :P It is just really amusing. Sis Sung gets a big laugh out of it
every time, because she understands what they are saying. :P
Annnnyways. A big thing I have experienced this week is FOOOD.
There is too much food in my life. Having appointments is so hard
because they want to feed you sooooo much and they keep telling you to
eat, and if you don't it's rude! The first truly big meal I had was on
Tuesday. We went to a restaurant with a woman who was baptized recently,
and it was super yummy. You get slabs of raw pork, and in the table is a
hot plate, so you cook it, cut it up, and eat it with various things.
Super tasty. But plate after PLATE of it came out, I was sooooo stuffed
with meat! And then "dessert" came, which was a HUGE bowl of cold
noodles. aaaaaaaah. I was dying. My skirt felt so tight by the end of
it, and when we got home, I immediately unzipped it a bit so I could
actually breathe :P. So for the next couple of days I wasn't ever truly
hungry. But we still had meal appointments with other members.... and
they made us eat a whole ton again. It's really yummy stuff, but I just
always feel like dying afterwards! :P My stomach has only recently been
getting back to normal because we haven't had meal appointments the last
few days.
As far as missionary work stuff goes, some cool stuff has been
going on, at least in my opinion. I told you a bit about Dudi last time,
and we met with her on Saturday again and taught her about the Holy
Ghost. I love teaching in English, I can participate so much more :P.
Annnnnnnd, we invited her to be baptized! Because I'm getting trained, I
get to do that. I was literally sooo terrified, but it was fine. She
seems genuinely interested in it, and said she wants to learn more
before definitely saying yes, but that would be something she would
probably like to do. YEEEEAH! I hope we can answer the questions she has
and that she progresses.
Another interesting experience was yesterday. On Sunday, we do some
proselyting with the Elders. We went to the Banwoldang to see if more
people wanted to join our English class or listen to our message. While
walking to the spot, we passed by this girl sitting on the curb, who
stood out because she is Caucasian. We said hello as we passed, and I
kind of felt like I should stop, but we kept walking. As we walked
passed, I kind of felt like "ah man." Soon, Sis Sung asked me if it would
be weird to stop and talk to someone sitting like that, and I said no.
And she said "ah man. I kind of felt like we should stop to talk to
her." "ah man. me too." ..... we kind of frowned at each other like
"dang it." Bah. But we were long past here, and so we just did our
thing, talked with people who were interested in learning English, but
it ended early because we ran out of stickers (people would put a
sticker on a board we have about what is hard for them about English).
But still, that had taken an hour or an hour and a half. On the way
back, I was hoping she would still be there, but I thought that
would be ridiculous, it had been far too long. Both of us had a
prayer in our hearts for a second chance to just feel a prompting and to
act on it, because we felt so stupid for ignoring it. But you know
what? She was still there! We were both like, we don't care if this is
weird, we are going to talk to her!! Haha. So we did.
Turns out she is
from South Africa, and was there so long because she was lost. She's
fairly new in Korea as a teacher, and was waiting for her brother to
pick her up. We weren't talking to her long at all before he showed up.
She suggested that we exchange phone numbers so we could meet up/hang
out or something, but she couldn't remember her Korean number, so we got
her brother's number. Stupidly we didn't give her ours, so I'm paranoid
now thinking the number we got was wrong and we'll never hear from her
again, but however it turns out, it was a really good and cool
experience for me. I learned a lot from it. I kind of know now what it
feels like to be prompted to talk to someone, and how it feels to not
act on it (which stinks). But I also got to see how we get second
chances, and God knows the intents of our hearts. I would have been glad
for a second chance with talking to anyone, but it was still HER that
we got to talk to, which is what I really wanted, because I felt so
stupid. And you know, it could have been that we felt like we should
talk with her because she just needed help, and we could have helped her
get home a lot sooner, or it could be that she would be interested in
the Gospel, who knows. It's kind of hard to explain, but I definitely
learned a lot, even if we never hear from her again.
Annnyways. Not much else has been going on, I think. I'm just
trying to keep moving forward. Which is perhaps so hard because it is
SOOOO HOT AND HUMID, but it's fine. I'll have great tan lines. :P
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