Awesome week in 부평 Bupyeong.



Hello family!
We had an awesome week in 부평 Bupyeong. The baptism was yesterday and it went really good!! Except for our investigator, was super nervous! Ha it was really good though! She asked me to baptize her! It was the first person I've ever baptized!! Such a great experience! The spirit was so strong it was unbelievable!! We worked really hard to see this success and it has been so fun here in this area! I have made some relationships that will last my entire life for sure! Bupyeong feels like home to me now! And all the ward members love us so much!! Ha we are going with a member tomorrow to a way nice buffet! The same one that took us to eat octopus a few weeks ago! She loves me so much it's so funny! We visited her last night and she promised me she would send me packages from Korea when I go home! It was super funny! I got both of the packages you sent me on Wednesday at zone conference!! The zone conference was great! We had doctors come and talk to us then President gave some awesome training!! I love the packages! Jerky and Grandmas homemade pecan rolls it can't get much better than that!! Tell her I got them and that they are super good!! And that I say thanks! Wednesday after zone conference I went on splits with Elder Park! He is a Korean and has been in the mission for about 8 weeks!! So, his English is still really really bad so we only talked in Korean for two days!! Ha I learned some really good slang words from him so that was really fun! He is such a good missionary I was really impressed with his desire! We didn't have any appointments so we found all day and talked to like 60 people in one day in an area with a small population! It was really fun! But it was good to get back to my area!! We had a lot of preparation to do for the baptism so that took some time this week, we made her a program and just made things nice so that she could remember her baptism well!! The last few days there have been a huge festival on the main road in our area! It was pretty crazy! We found a place selling whale meat! WHALE MEAT! Ha I really wanted to eat it but we were in a hurry to an appointment when we saw it and it cost 30 dollars for a little piece! I wonder why.. haha I asked them how they got it cause obviously you can’t just go kill a whale! They claim that they find dead whales but how you can drive around in the ocean and find a dead whale I have no idea! haha sketchy.. if I ever see it again I'm buying it for sure though!!! They said it was really delicious! Haha ah I can't believe I hit my 1 year mark as a missionary this week! Time goes by so fast! I don't think I'll ever be able to understand time as a missionary haha! That's how my week went!! I'm so happy! I love this work and that I'm able to be a part of it! It is so much fun! Korea is the best, speaking Korean is even better! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Frei

Well, I already told you a lot of what happened this week! But I'll add some more stuff right now! Tuesday after the temple we went shopping and to the military base! Ha we ate real American food it was incredible! I never thought a subway sandwich could taste so good  in my life! haha and I bought two gatorades that aren't lemon lime flavored! WOW! haha then I bought some ties.. I like plaid ties a lot right now they are my thing haha then we went and visited my favorite family from my greenie area!! They are doing awesome and it was super great to see them it had almost been 4 months since I had last seen them!! I love them so much!! Then friday night a member took us out to eat! it was really good! ha we ate raw crab and some other really good stuff! they are a sweet family they like me a lot! They want to come to America sometime within the next few years and I told them I would take them around and show them stuff!! That is two families in this area that want me to do that for them! haha :) we had a lot of time to find new investigators this week and we found a lot of really cool new people so i'm really excited to see what happens from that!! haha a family moved out of our ward so they wanted to take us to a buffet but they ended up not being able to go so they reserved it for us! ha we went there on friday, it was pretty good but I couldn't even eat very much! My stomach is way smaller than it use to be it was super weird haha I felt horrible after!! It was a pretty rainy week over here but it is finally starting to heat up which is really good!! i'm excited for summer haha it will be really hot again before too long!! 

                                                                         
                                 This is Chase's apartment building. He lives on the tenth floor.

                                                                        The subway.

                                                              Splits with Elder Bailey.

                                                                One of his favorite families.

Raw, live octopus. This must be why he is so small.

Hey mom!!!! I'm sure you are about to go to bed maybe.. haha I forget no one sleeps at our house but we are a little late emailing today!! My favorite member in the ward just took us to go eat live octopus!!! It was the most fun ever!!! And we had such a good week here!! I have a lot to tell you about :)


Where is Jared Wyson going on his mission? That is super weird he is exactly a year behind me! Crazy! It was good to hear from you though! And thanks for the pictures I loved them!! We have had an awesome week here in Buepyeong! And we started this week off great so far today!! haha but before I start I wanted to ask you for a couple of things!! I could use a few more toothbrushes (with dads name on them) (gotta represent) and I could really use a new pair of running/athletic shoes! I've been wearing the same shoes everyday for a year and they are getting all ripped up! But I have to be able to run and play basketball in them.. so if you could get me a nice pair of those that would be awesome!!!!! (size 12) just in case you forgot! There was something else but I don't remember! I will have to let you know.. I'm really excited for the packages though!! I love getting mail that is for sure! I hope you wrote some letters and sent some pics because that is the best part! I love getting pics in the emails too!! It's great to see what is going on back at home!! That was really cool about your aha moment haha they show that in the finding faith in Christ video and I totally have that part memorized in Korean.. haha I love learning good stuff like that! Lately I have been studying and trying to develop the attribute of charity! It has been super good!! I've been doing it for about three weeks so now I'm into super deep stuff and have to dig super deep into stuff to keep learning!! It has been so good I've learned so much.. it's funny that the keys to develop all of those attributes are right in front of us, but they don't come until we put forth the effort to do so!! Anyways, this past week was arguably the best week we have had since I got to this area!! We got to call home on Monday and then Tuesday was p day! We were supposed to have a huge stake sports day but it rained super hard the night before and day of so they canceled it! So we ended up having a barbecue in the church instead! It was so good we ate duck, and a bunch of other really good Korean meats!!! It was really fun to just hang out with the ward! It helped to get to talk to a lot of them outside of the church setting I felt like it really helped our relationships with a lot of them!! Then on Wednesday we made banana bread and took it to my favorite family in the ward! I wrote on a sticky note hart john 6:36 "Jesus is the bread of life" and gave it to her! haha when she got it she looked at it and was like "WOW you write better than my husband!" haha and then told her little kid that he had to study hard like me haha it was super funny, then she gave this lotion for my face cause she is worried about me getting wrinkles, I think it's because I always look super tired haha and she gave me some polo cologne that her husband didn't want so I have cologne for the first time in a year! haha it was so funny.. we have a new investigator. ha he wants to take us to China town on Wednesday, it is pretty close to our area! It is where the Chinese Korean food 짜장면 originated! (ja jang meon) so that will be fun!! Then on Thursday I went on splits with Elder Bailey my zone leader, and we are really close so, and it was like the best split ever!! ha we played basketball with some kids and it turns out that one of them lived in Mexico for 6 years so he talked to us in some Spanish and we could both communicate with him still in Spanish it was pretty funny (we both had taken Spanish) ha then that night we met one of their investigators and she was from Chili!!! but she has lived in Korea for like 15 years so she is super good at Korean so we taught in Korean but sometimes she would throw random Spanish words in that she didn't know in Korean and we could always figure it out. It was way funny! She was really cool!! We've been meeting tons of cool people on the streets lately too! Things are really really starting to pick up here!!! Also, yesterday we had 3 investigators at church!! One of them was a new woman that is really cool, she is about 40 and not married but she is way nice! She will be fun to teach! Also, after church we met with our investigator and taught her and we have a baptismal date! It is for the 29th of this month!! So that is super exciting! It went really good!!! :) It was a super good week!!! I took a ton of pictures for you of stuff too so I will attach them in another email!! Then today the member I talked about earlier and our ward mission leaders wife took us to eat live octopus!!!! It was so insane they brought out the plate and it was still wiggling all over the place! I got a couple of funny pics and a video of it! It was so fun, I love the ward here so much!! haha they really liked it too because now they want to take us to eat dog! haha well that's about all for this week!! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!!



Love,

Elder Frei



Call from Elder Frei!

We got to talk to Chase today! He sounded great. He loves South Korea. He is still in Boo Cheong. He said that the members are great there and he loves this area. He talked about how much his testimony has grown and is so grateful to be a missionary. He still has is funny sense of humor. I asked him to start writing longer emails:) and to send more pictures. What a great Mothers day. Next year on Mothers day we will be in Seoul South Korea to pick him up!!!!!!!

Elder Frei and Elder Murdock making Korean food.

 Yes he looks a little bit thinner. He has lost forty pounds.

Elder Frei and Elder Hafen.

The first squatter Chase used in Korea.

Hey mom!!! I can't believe that the Mothers day phone call is over already!! ahh that's ok the next one will come just as fast! I don't have a whole lot to tell you except for what you asked about!! so ya all of the males in Korea have to serve in the military for two years each!! So it is a pretty big sacrifice for them to go on missions because after that they've given up four years of there lives!! but a lot of them still do it it's pretty amazing!! a lot of the Korean missionaries are usually older than Americans though because they will go to the army first and then come on their missions when they are like 23 or 24 sometimes 25. It's pretty crazy!! haha I can't believe that I have lost 40 pounds.. I have to say a lot of that is straight muscle weight haha but I'll get it back some day.. I'm going to try to start eating a lot more protein and working out see if I can't put some of it back on!! haha I'll try to remember to send Bad Had the phone home, if he can still remember that almost after a year it must be pretty important!! haha that is so funny. I'll see if I can find it later today or something! I love that kid. Well it was so good to get to talk to you all and I love you all so much!! I'm excited for the next phase of my mission! I'm getting to the point that there aren't very many missionaries older than me anymore!! after July there really wont be very many at all. Those will be some weird days!! but, I love you all. have a great week. I was so happy to get to hear all of your voices. I have the best family ever!!! I challenge those of you who haven't been writing me (Zack) haha to write me better from now until Christmas! this is the big gap in between phone calls and then after that one I'm really on the down hill!! well I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Frei 

Chase told us that tomorrow is his P-day but they were doing all of their emails today. It is Buddhas birthday tomorrow and everything is closed. I guess it is a huge week long celebration in Seoul.  

 

Buddha's birthday in South Korea is celebrated with a week-long festival that usually ends on the same day as Vesak Puja in other parts of Asia. Buddha's Birthday is the biggest Buddhist holiday in Korea. Throughout South Korea, city streets and temples are decorated with lanterns for the week-long celebration. In the evening of the first day, a gala lantern parade stretches for miles through the heart of Seoul.