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

September 18, 2011

We don't have a lot of time to email today so I'm going to tell you about the rest of the week from Wednesday on! Actually there wasn't a whole lot that went on cause it's only been like 4 days since I emailed you!! But yesterday we did meet one of our new investigators!!! He is 29 and just moved back from America like 2 months ago!! He went to Boise State and then BYU for a summer semester! He is super cool and loves basketball so were going to play with him! He really likes the church too! I think he will get baptized really fast!! His name is 나정희. (Na Jong Hee) he came to church yesterday and then to a fireside last night! It was really good cause he got to meet a bunch of members from other wards at the fireside it was perfect!! Also I got to see my two favorite members from my last area! And the daughter of one of my ward mission leaders! She has her mission call and is serving in the Temple Square mission! She's way excited ha she wants to write me, I told her I would come visit her when I get home! She leaves in January! Ha on Saturday we were going to visit a member, we were going up the escalator when this lady just started talking to us and asked us where we were going! Ha then she asked me if I could play any instruments! I said the piano but just a little bit! Then she was like do you want to learn how to play one? haha I just said yes then she was like what do you want to learn? haha I was kinda joking and said the Ocarina! haha then she was like ok I'll teach you how to play it! Then she asked me if I had one, I said no! Ha she was like then you need to buy one I'll sell you one for 50 bucks they are usually 150! ha I was just like I'm a missionary so I don't really have any money! haha then she thought about it and was just like give me 30 bucks, I'll teach you for a month, and give you a ocarina for free! haha then she showed us a spot where she wanted to meet us the next week and left! haha it was super funny! I might go back but I haven't decided yet.. haha she said she would listen to what we had to teach and come to church with us so maybe it would be worth it! It would be a really funny experience. Haha one more funny thing, yesterday we were eating lunch and two sisters from our ward called us and were at the church and said they were super hungry and asked us to bring them some food! haha they were all going somewhere so they didn't have time to go home after church to eat! i was like ok but we don't really have any food! because we shop on Mondays so Sundays we are usually out of everything! and we definitely were this week haha. We ended up making them a couple of sandwiches, some snacks, and taking a thing of milk to them! ha they were really grateful but it was really funny! To repay us they want to take us to dinner on Tuesday to a Thai restaurant so that should be really fun! hmm one more thing, we were meeting one of our investigators that wants to get baptized but has a really bad word of wisdom problem! We have been helping him lower the amounts that he drinks so that he can stop, I don't know that it has been to effective so the last time we taught him we just asked him about baptism and if he would be able to quit drinking. He told us that it would be really hard and then just joking said maybe if I get a girlfriend I will stop. haha.. It went silent for a little bit then I just looked right at him and said I know the Lord wants you to stop drinking and follow the word of wisdom so you can get baptized! After that he committed to stop drinking in 1 month! It was pretty amazing now that I think about it!  So hopefully he can do it cause if he does he will get baptized for sure! I love you all so much thank you for your support! I have the best family ever. The gospel is true. I love doing this work and always trying to find ways to help others come unto Christ! I love the knowledge of the gospel I've been able to obtain during my mission and I'm so grateful for it! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Frei

Celebrating Chuseok (Thanksgiving in Korea)

9-14-2011

Ok mom I'm going to tell about the week now!! So, Tuesday we had zone leader council! It was really good President gave a really good training!! Then we had combined district meeting on Wednesday and all the A.P.s came! There are 3 of them now! Ha they gave some of the training on Tuesday too and district meeting is when we train the rest of the zone so it put a little bit of pressure on! ha it went really good though! and the A.P.s said that we did a really good job too! After that we went on splits with Elder Bailey! We had a sweet day planned out but a couple of our appointments ended up canceling but it still turned out to be a really good day! We had English class that night as well and it went really good! One of the single adults in our ward went on vacation to Thailand and she brought us back some souvenirs! It was really nice of her! On Thursday we went on splits again, this time with another companionship from our zone! it went really good we had a great day and met some really really good new people on the street! it was awesome!! we had a lot of time to get out and talk to people and we ended up talking to 52 people that day!! pretty cool! on friday we met an investigator that owns a really good restaurant by our church! She makes this stuff called 김치찜 (kimchi cheim) it's one of my favorite foods! I will take you there when you come here for sure! anyways she fed us for free and then we taught her!! It went pretty good we're really excited to go back this friday and teach her again!! Saturday we started off the holiday weekend right!!! We taught another investigator saturday morning, she is doing really good as well! her name is 김아름 (Kim Ah Rum) she is progressing really good as well! I got a call right when we finished from my favorite members from my greenie area!! They wanted to come to my area and visit us!! So we went to a park and rented bikes and rode bikes around for a while! it was so fun I missed them a lot! They are the family with the three little girls!:) Sunday was the first day of the holiday so people were all leaving the city!! there weren't very many people at church either haha! A member from the english branch introduced two girls to us though so we are going to start meeting them that was really cool!!!  Monday was the day we had the conference! The main day of the holiday! It was really fun!! We had a huge lunch and then afterwards we all played volleyball and basketball at our church! it was a really fun day!! then at 7 a member invited us over to her house and fed us! it was so good! it's like thanksgiving day! but Korean style of course! lots of kimchi;)  Yesterday was the last day of the holiday and the town was still a ghost town!! ha Bishop invited us over to his house and we ate with them! having an American Bishop is great! we ate Tacos! it was super good!! it's good to have everyone back in town today though! it's like the whole city just paused for 3 days and now everything is just back to normal! pretty intense holiday! I can't believe that it is my 2nd one I have had in Korea, time flies. Well I love you all! thanks for your support! Zack, stay off the twinkies while your down for 6 months! Mad Had, keep smashing people! Pud Master you too!!

Love,

Elder Frei

p.s. I'm about to send a package home it's got some good stuff in it!

AMAZING WEEK

First of all I want to start off by saying we had an AMAZING week and saw so many miracles!! We had 5 investigators at church yesterday! The most I've ever had on my whole mission!! Two of them were referrals from a less active family we have been working with that comes to church every week now!! Her son also is preparing to serve a mission! They are awesome!! She brought a family with her to church! And they are really interested in why there are so many churches and really want to know why!! They have so much interest I am super super excited to teach them!!! Also, Daniels sister came to church as well!!! We met with her afterwards and set a baptismal date with her for September 25th! So we were really excited about that too!! Also, we found 4 new investigators this week! I want to tell you the story of how we met one of them! So, during personal study on Friday morning I was reading the Book of Mormon when all of the sudden the idea came to me that I needed to mark a proselyting Book of Mormon (the one I would use when I talked to people on the street that day) I had never ever done this before so I thought it was kinda weird but then I just did it! I highlighted and marked with a tab the title page, last 2 paragraphs on the introduction, Alma 7 and Moroni 7 some of my favorite scriptures!! I didn't give it out all day proselyting and we had talked to a bunch of people! We had a lesson at 6:30 and taught it and still had an hour and half left in the day! So we decided to go visit a member but we got there and she wasn’t home!! All of the sudden another members name popped into my head! So I just said out loud "let’s go visit 조병갑" he is in the stake presidency and super awesome!! So we decided to do that! We got to his house and you have to buzz the person that you’re going to visit to get into the apartment, (it's kinda annoying) we were deciding on a scripture to share and a lady walked in and put in her password so we just followed her in and were standing inside then she told us to go back out and ring the person we came to visit and that we couldn't just walk in.. haha I started giving her an excuse why we did it and we weren't going to go back outside but then the door started to close and I just decided to go back out for some reason!! So we were outside again just about to ring the bell and this guy walks up to us and says in English "do you guys need something?" haha we were shocked and just kinda looked at him for a second! But then we got talking for a minute and he invited us up to his house and we got to teach him and it was super awesome!! He knew a few people that were LDS and we set up a time to go back and visit him so we are really excited for that!!! I was really really blown away by that experience!! Then we were walking home after and we passed this older guy and he just stared me down as we past! So I turned around and he was still just walking the other way looking at me!! Haha so we stopped and then he motioned for us to come talk to him!! We set up an appointment with him and met him the next day!!!! It was awesome! This was an amazing week!! I’m really grateful for everything that happened this week and feel really lucky to have been able to see so many amazing things!! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!
Love,
Elder Frei