I Just Got Chase's Release Date! May 12, 2012!

October 30, 2011

Well, I'll tell you about this week, we were both kinda sick so not a whole lot has been going on, Elder Reyes has been pretty bad for a week straight I was just sick over the weekend but I feel ok now. I really wish this recorder would work so I could send you the stuff I recorded there is a pretty funny story on there I'll try to get it fixed somewhere and then I'll try to send it again probably.. I'm way mad that it isn't working super annoying!! so we did some pretty fun stuff this week, we got to help a member move and stuff the whole experience is on the recorder haha so I wont tell it and there is a really funny story with one of our investigators.. but yesterday at church we had one of our investigators come and we got to teach her the first lesson it went really good she is really receptive of our message! ha she thought that The Book of Mormon replaced The new Testament or something and when she was going home from church two weeks ago someone gave her a new testament on the side of the road ( just a church handing them out) and she thought she didn't need it so she just tossed it but then she was like wow that is amazing that that happened the day after I went to church for the first time ha I need one of those! haah so it was really funny she is awesome. ha then the last few days of this week we were finally able to get some rest so Elder Reyes could get feeling better!! last night the AP's called us and were in our area so we went and did a finding activity together it was really fun! I can't believe that Elder Bailey goes home in like 3 weeks so crazy. we have been really good friends the whole time I've been in Korea it's going to be so much different without him. We're going to be with the AP's all day today so I'm excited for that!!  There is a missionary couple that has been serving in the english branch but they are going home next week so we went and listened to there talks yesterday.. it was crazy to hear a sacrament meeting in english for the first time in 18 months haha that is for sure!! well I love you all and hope you have a great week!!  We had President interviews on saturday I talked to him about my release date.. It is may 11th! just over 6 months from now!!!!! crazy... were going to play soccer later today i'm excited like the whole mission is going so it should be way fun:)

I Love you all,

Love, Elder Frei

Six Months Left In Korea

October 22, 2011

Recording From Elder Frei

This week has been super busy!!  On pday we played basketball. We pretty much played all day long. It was a lot of fun. Then we had family home evening.

On tuesday we had specialized training so all of the zone leaders and district leaders went. A lot of interesting things happened at the meeting. 

On wednesday we had combined district meeting. We gave the training to all of our zone. We have a lot of good missionaries in our zone. The AP's came to our district meeting as well. They come to every single one. We went street boarding last night. We talked to some cool people like usual. We have had a lot of meetings and helping missionaries in our zone take care of problems and stuff. It has been good. We had english class last night. We taught them some slang words. They just can't understand it. They cant understand American speek. They just can't understand everyday conversation because we use a lot  of slang. It was funny to try to explain some slang words to them. 

Today has been a good day. We have tried to try some new things to meet new people. We found an old guitar at the church and we are fixing it up. Elder Reyes is going to teach guitar lessons. He is going to teach me as well. So I am going to be super sick at the guitar!! I am going to teach some members and their kids basketball. So it should be pretty cool. We will see how that goes. HMMMMMMMM 

Oh the guy that was going to get baptized on saturday is going to wait for another week and a half. The reason why is that his parents are getting baptized in a different city. So they are going down there for that. And then they will come back and he will be baptized. We are excited for that. The lady that we met at church has been reading about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and the church history. She has been talking to us about what great men they are. She wants to become like them. We are meeting with her on Sunday. 

Today we went street boarding with Elder Doman and his companion. We were walking to the cross walk and there are tons of people. It is the elections in Seoul and there was a lady campaigning. She is doing really good. She is picked to win. They were having a big rally. When we showed up everyone was following the lady and this guy came up to me and said you have to shake her hand. I didn't even really know who she was. The guy yelled at the lady that there was a (Chase used the Korean word for foreigner) foreigner here and he wants to shake your hand. So the lady came over to me and shook my hand. It was super funny. So I probably shook the next Governor of Korea's hand. We have been doing a lot of stuff with that set of missionaries. Elder Doman is from Pleasant Grove. He serves right next to us. And we have been doing a lot of stuff together. He played football at BYU. We have a lot in common. We are really close.

Elder Reyes has been real sick today. So we have had to stay in the house. So I just started calling tons of people. I invited them to this activity that we have in this place called Dong Juak. A lot of the missionaries from our zone came. Our recent convert came with us. We ended up being forty five minutes late because we we got off at the wrong subway stop. So after we found our investigator we went to the activity. It was fun. All of our ward was there. And all of the other wards were there from the stake. It was cool to talk to all of the recent converts. I have been in Yeong Dong Po long enough that I know all of the leaders from the stake. It is cool to see all of them. I also have done a lot  of the new baptism interviews for recent converts and met tons of investigators and I just feel like I know everyone in the seven wards that we have. It was pretty cool. When that was over eight of the missionaries from the zone went to a park close by and played basketball and tried to meet new people. Hopefully we got some new investigators for the missionaries in that area. Tomorrow is Sunday and our new investigator is coming with us. Our investigator Nong Jun He  the one that lived in America is coming and another one is coming. So we should have about three. Good things are happening with us and in our zone. 

I just want you all to know that I love you and I love Korea. I am so grateful for all of the things that I have learned on my mission. One of the things that I have learned is the overall  happiness that the gospel brings to your life. There are so many people in Korea that could benefit from it. But they just can't see it. They think that worldly things is what brings happiness but that is not true. That is not what brings happiness it is really through the gospel and through keeping the commandments that we are able to find it. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life. And to be able to see those blessings and to be out here sharing it with people. Sharing Christ's true gospel with them. I am really grateful. Nobody wants to listen about the Book of Mormon. They think that the Bible is all they need. Well, I love you and I hope you had a great week. It is crazy that I only have six months left on my mission. Mom is probably getting pretty excited.

Today we went and watched a member run in a race. There ended up being 2 million people. We estimated about ten thousand people and that seemed pretty high. But there was two million. It was unreal. 

My new companion  Elder Reyes played in a band before his mission. He toured Europe and America. He is super awesome at the guitar and singing. He taught me this song on the guitar so I want to play it for you. I only know one verse. Chase played a song on the guitar and sang it. It was a Jack Johnson song. It was really good. Maybe next week I will have the whole song learned. 

October 16, 2011

These words were taken from the voice recorder that Chase sent to us. 

Hey everyone! We played soccer today for pday. It was really fun. We played Koreans vs Americans. We won the main game and then the Koreans kicked our butts. We are super sore from soccer today. Tonight we are going to meet with our ward missionary leader to talk about our investigators. Tonight are transfer calls and we are pretty positive that we won't stay together. We are pretty sad about that but it has been an awesome four and a half months.

Our apartment is on the 23rd floor. It's not bad. An awesome view every night.

The subway is not that cool mom. The next time I ride it mom I will talk about it.

Tonight was a really good night. We had the meeting with our ward mission leader and then family home evening. We talked about conference and what we liked. We had a investigator there and it was really good for him.

We just got transfer calls. I am staying in Yeong Dong Po. Elder Van Hoff is transferring to Sin Dong with a Korean missionary. My new companion is Elder Reyes.

We just came down to the subway. It is crazy down here. People are crazy. There are nine subway lines. We pretty much ride it everyday. They have had to put up gates in front of the entrances because students were committing suicide by jumping in front of them.

There are mosquitos everywhere. We have to spray bug spray on us and put a fan by us when we sleep so that they don't eat us alive. I don't know how they get 230 ft in the air to our apartment. Tomorrow is transfers. We have to get up really early and go to Dong Dae Moon. 

It is wednesday. Today was transfer day. I have a devastating story to tell you about the travel there. We were riding on the subway and we had all of Elder Van Hoff's bags and we got to our stop and got off and got up to the street and I went to take my camera out of my backpack to take some photos and my backpack was not on my back. I left it on the subway!! The camera card had all of my photos from last december. I hope that someone will turn it in. People don't really steal stuff in Korea. We will see. My new companions name is Elder Reyes. He is a baller. He is from Los Angeles. I was in the MTC with Elder Reyes. It is going to be an awesome transfer. We cleaned our apartment today it looks brand new. I would send you a picture but I can't. We had english class tonight it was great. A girl in our english class told us that her hobby was licking cats. HAHA I don't know? 

We are at our church to make an english flyer. We just got done helping a member with her english paper for school. We corrected every single sentence that she wrote. She is really good at english but writing it is different. Today was a great day. Still don't have my bag and camera. Elder Reyes is an awesome cook. He made the best omelet today. We are going to visit bishop tonight. 

Today was a great day. We had weekly planning meeting. We have a lot going on. That is always good. We then went and taught our investigator that owns the restaurant. She always feeds us this really good stuff called Kim te che. She has been really sick. After that we went to the church and made flyers. And then, this will make mom really happy…….WE FOUND MY BACKPACK. Everything was left in it.!!! We visited another investigator. I have been eating a lot and I am finally gaining some weight. 

Today is Sunday and just got home from church. The first thing that happened we had a meeting with all of the church leaders to talk about our investigators. Our recent convert came he comes every week he is awesome. He pulled out the hymn book to sing and he propped it up on the bench he looked like he had been coming to the ward for twenty years he just fits right in. It was so cool. I took a picture of him and sent it to Elder Van Hoff. Then Elder Reyes gave his (it is funny on the recording he always has to ask his companion how you say something in english) introduction talk. He did awesome. We were just talking to all of the members after church and one of the members came and introduced this lady to us that had just walked in. She had gone to the english ward. But she doesn't speak english. So we talked with her for about an hour about our church and got to know her. The english branch had cooked lunch so we got to eat english food and drink root beer! It was awesome. We are going to meet her again next sunday for church. She has already started reading The Book of Mormon. And had some spiritual experiences with the reading. The stories she read brought her to tears. So we are excited to meet with her. Then we were walking down stairs to the second floor where priesthood is held and when we turned the corner and there was the member that had just got married when I first got to Yeong Dong Po. She stopped us and asked us, "Hey what does my husband have to do to get baptized? He has had all of the lessons". So we talked and I told her that all he has to do is get his interview. She wanted to know when we could do that and I told her whenever she wanted to. She told us that he is really busy next week and the week after that. She said what about this week. So it is looking like we are going to have a baptism this coming saturday. We are super excited for that. It was an awesome day at church. Hopefully it will all work out and we will have a baptism this saturday. So that was our awesome day at church. The Lord is amazing. You never know when he is going to bless you. 

The rest of sunday was pretty sweet. After lunch we went out and talked to a bunch of people. We found a few that want to meet again. After that we met with a member that needed help translating some stuff and help with and english paper. We helped her and pretty much had to rewrite everything. We visited our new ward mission leader. His name is Ochun Doke. He is sweet. I love him. He has the cutest little girl. She is so funny. When we first started meeting with him she was really shy and now she loves us. She just stares at us too. 

We have been on  the phone with our zone checking on them and to see how their week went. Everyone is doing pretty good. My new companion Elder Reyes is the best. It is going to be super fun. We are expecting a baptism in six days, we love our area, our house is super clean, we now have a 5 inch dvd player for watching preach my gospel training dvd's. One weird thing about Korea that we hate in the fall is these trees that drop fruit everywhere. When the fruit breaks it smells just like poo. It is the worst smell ever!!!!!! Koreans go around everywhere to pick them up and make tea out of it. Yuck! Gross! They are everywhere and the smell is so bad. Well, I only have over six months on my mission, pretty crazy, so if everyone wants to start writing and emailing me it would probably be a good time to start. Just Saying! I love you all and I will write you next week.

Ok mom, I'll tell you about our week really quick! we are going to play soccer today to end off the transfer, were pretty positive that we won’t be comps next transfer were both really sad haha but anyways, so I emailed you last Tuesday so I'll start from Wednesday! We had a way good combined district meeting, it went really good! The training was on proselyting and talking to people on the street and stuff! I felt like it went really good. After that I went on splits with Elder Boyer who is an awesome missionary! I love him. We had a really good day and he was really grateful to get to serve with me for a day! haha Elder Van Hoff showed me some magic tricks that I am learning and I showed them to him and blew his mind it was super funny! I'm getting good! Then on Thursday we had pretty much our only normal day of the whole week! (we had conference and tons of meetings throughout the week that made it really busy) on Friday we taught our investigator that owns the really good restaurant, she hadn't really kept any of her commitments from the last time we met but this time she was really determined to start reading The Book of Mormon and do the things we asked her to do so I am really excited to meet her this week!!! Conference was super awesome! Wow it was so good. I absolutely loved it! One of our investigators came to both sessions on Sunday, the morning session the first 3 speakers all talked about The Book of Mormon!! Afterwards I asked him what he thought haha he looked at me with a blank stare for a couple of seconds then said, "I think I need one of those books in Korean" haha it was really funny.. he is so awesome 'm really excited to meet him, conference helped him a ton! Before he only wanted to meet us on Sundays at church and stuff but then yesterday before he left the church he was like hey do you guys have time that you could meet me during the week and teach me? it was so awesome!!! I was like ya of course! Then he text me later that night and was like hey can we meet tomorrow? ha he has a really good desire to learn about the gospel now so I am really excited to continue teaching him! Sunday night we had stake priesthood meeting, it is the meeting where the stake presidency, mission president, and ward mission leaders meet and discuss missionary work. They also have the zone leaders attend as well. It is such a great blessing to be able to spend a lot of time with the leaders of the church in Korea, they are all so humble and smart and wise I feel like I'm learning non top when I am with them they are constant teachers! they had a lot of new ideas to help the work move along so we are really excited for some of the things we planned that will be coming up!! After the meeting we went with Bishop Clark to a members house and gave a member a blessing, it was really awesome. Bishop is fluent in Korean but he talked to us about how whenever he gives a blessing he never thinks about anything that he is going to say! He told us how he always feels like the blessing is coming from another source, he is such an awesome bishop. He had me do the anointing and I started the prayer and all the words to it just came out of my mouth without a second thought it was a pretty crazy experience. The Lord really does work through us to accomplish what he needs done. I think my favorite quote from conference applies perfectly to that experience, "when the time for decision has arrived, the time for preparation is over." President Monson-



I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Frei

일석이조이다. ( kill two birds with one stone)

Chase with President Lee, and Elder Van Hoff

The sign says, "repent and believe".

Chase with Elder Van Hoff.

Hmm guess I'll tell you about the week then! So tuesday was sweet, I love the temple. I think I say that every time I go, but the spirit there is so incredible and we can learn so much! All while allowing someone else to receive the necessary ordinances to receive eternal salvation. 일석이조이다. ( kill two birds with one stone) ha that is a Chinese based proverb I love those things they are really fun! Afterwards we went and ate mexican food cause it was elder Van Hoffs year in country mark so we had to celebrate of course!! Ha after that we went shopping at one of the main markets and I ended up buying some weights. I bought two 15 pound dumb bells so those were super fun to carry all the way home, but they were totally worth it that is for sure!! Wednesday we had district meeting, it went really good! afterwards I went on splits with Elder Rowe, he is one of the district leaders in our zone! It was a good day we had a lot of fun! It's always fun to see someone else's area as well and try to help and inspire them! Thursday and friday were pretty normal days, a lot of our investigators haven't been able to meet lately but that's ok it will all work out! saturday was a fun day though! a member put on this lecture about laughter and the importance of laughing everyday and stuff like that! it was really funny he made everyone laugh all the time and do all this really awkward stuff! we both thought it was super funny! I thought he was crazy when he started laughing the first time!( he kinda stomped his feet and danced around, it was kinda like a scary movie for a little bit) haha then after that we were out talking to people on the street and we met this kid that was working at a little shop but he was just practicing juggling outside while he waited for people ha it was awesome! he showed us how to do it and then we talked to him and he is way cool and text us all the time now and wants to meet so that should be really fun! After that bishop invited us and a few members to his house! (one of them was our new ward mission leader that just got called, we are really excited for that) and a few other single adults! we walked up to his house together and on the way to one of the members we were just like hey do you wanna proselyte with us? and she was just like sure! haha it was amazing! so we talked to people with her all the way to his house it was amazing. Some of the members in our ward our so awesome! I love this ward so much! Sunday was a really good fast sunday! I bore my testimony about prophets and apostles and related it to how I was really excited to listen to conference and learn how I can be better or things I can change in my own life! I didn't think it was that good but like every member told me they liked it a lot afterwards! it was kinda cool. yesterday was p-day and that holiday, I don't know what people do on that holiday, nothing too exciting I don't think haha but we all got together at our church and played basketball and threw a football around it was a blast! we had a ton of people there!  I hope that Im going to stay in Yeong Deong Po I love it here I could stay here until the end of my mission!! Well, I love you all and i'm glad you all enjoyed the package! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Frei