Typhoon Kompasu strikes Seoul

Family! This past week was awesome!!! So many awesome things happened!!! Ha I was in a typhoon Wednesday morning! It was insane there were like 60mph winds! The city got wrecked! A tree in front of my house is about to fall from it! And if it does it will fall right on top of our house!! Haha this past week we had two of your investigators tell us that they would get baptized when they knew it was true!! We had some very good lessons with them. They were amazing! I want to know everything that is going on back at home! I only got emails from Hayley and Grandma Winn this week! What's up with that?? Did you get all the pictures I, attached with that last email? When you send me a package will you put some pictures of me playing basketball and football in them? Or just interesting pictures.. All of our investigators love to see pictures of us so I, think those would be sweet to have! Ha today were going to get jerseys made for chu-suk day! That's like thanksgiving in Korea but way bigger! It's on the 22nd I think or the 23rd.. so that week my p-day is on Wednesday! but anyways we are having a big soccer tournament and we can get jerseys made for 20$! It's like legit jerseys that the famous soccer teams wear with shorts socks and names on the back of them Haha! I'm excited! Korea is sweet! Dad's birthday is coming up! That's crazy! time goes by so fast out here I can't even believe it! I love it though. So much!!! A few days ago we stopped this guy and started talking to him and he went off on us and we started bible bashing with him! ha he said we didn't know the bible and he asked Elder Christensen how many times he had read the New Testament! He said like 5!! the man said then read it 10!! He said read this once!!! And held up the Book of Mormon! He said OK! And snatched it out of his hand it was so funny! And then he was super nice to us ha Koreans are super funny like that! They'll be so mad but then it just doesn't matter! ha! the last 3 days we had someone stay at our house with us! his name is elder 정 (jung) he left for the MTC today!! Haha it was a pretty cool experience to get to know him and he's going to the MTC so I know most of the people he will meet! I had him take some letters to my teachers and a couple of elders with him so that should be pretty sweet!!


Well, keep me updated on football!! I'm missing out! Mom, you better not miss another week!

Love,

Elder Frei

I am not sure what happened last week but my email did not get to him, and I did not get his second email with pictures. :(
 

Here is an article from the Korean Times about Typhoon Kompasu.

 

Typhoon batters Seoul, west coast areas

Typhoon Kompasu struck central South Korea early Thursday morning, bringing downpours and gusts that paralyzed metro operations in Seoul and adjacent areas.

With almost all above-ground sections of Seoul's subway lines out of service, street trees toppled and winds blowing at a speed of over 20 meters per second, commuters and students were forced to undergo the worst transportation chaos in decades.

The typhoon caused power outages along the west coast and forced airlines to cancel or divert domestic and international flights.

Kompasu is the strongest tropical storm to hit Seoul in 15 years.

The seventh typhoon of the year reached Ganghwa Island on the west coast at a speed of 45 kilometers per hour as of 6:35 a.m., according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).

The KMA issued typhoon warnings for Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and South Chungcheong Province, forecasting the tropical storm is expected to move to the East Sea Thursday afternoon.

Best Zone In Korea

 

 

Elder Christensen, Chase's companion. Behind them you can see the pouring rain.

The falling tree.

Pictures from Elder Frei in Korea!

I got an email from Elder Frei today with these pictures attached :D I'm not surprised at all to see the shirt and can.... are you? ;)

View of Korea

Korean ties from the flea market... 5 for $8! ;)

Korean Mountain Dew.... I don't think Chase has changed at all ;)

hahahah.... if Chase were a shirt... I think he's found his match!!

You ate what?

Mom!

P day is Monday haha, but we ran into some problems emailing yesterday! a couple took me and elder Christinsen up to Seoul Tower! you can see the entire city! it is way way way bigger than I ever had imagined!!!! wow. but after that we came back and it was around 5 so we came to a place to email and it was closed on Mondays! so we had to go to another spot and it turns out that they closed at 6! which is right when we got there!!! so we had to come Tuesday so I don't have too much time! This past week was awesome though! I still can't really understand anyone but I do learn a lot every week! I pick up a bunch of words every day then I can hear them when people use them in conversations and stuff! This past week we had a lot going on! We found 6 new investigators! and we were super super busy teaching and everything! On Wednesday we had zone conference! it was pretty sweet! I got to meet a bunch of the elders and stuff, All of the new missionaries had to bear their testimony, I did mine in Korean and I said some pretty cool stuff! I talked about miracles and how they are a gift from God! Everyone was pretty impressed that I could do it so that was way good! ha oh it has rained here like every single day for over a week now! I guess a typhoon hit the coast or something so we got all of the rain from it! It was raining harder than I had ever seen it rain before! We had a waterfall coming off of our roof! The worst part was we were outside when it was going on so we got totally drenched! (even with umbrellas) it was insane! I'm going to send some pictures with this email! I've already taken so many haha there is so much sweet stuff! Yesterday during p day I found some nikes for like 3 bucks but they didn't have my size! ha and I found socks that had a nike swoosh on them but the logo said "nice" haha everyone uses English but they are all horrible at it! It's so funny! Oh ya when you send me packages I need a few things in each of them, Toothpaste, those little bleach pens tide to go or whatever, Face cleaner, And deodorant! I brush my teeth like three times a day. I found out why all the Koreans are always doing it. It's because the food smells terrible! haha but it's way good! I’'m still getting use to all of it though that's for sure! ha this past week I ate pig intestines!!!! it was a little bit weird but I ate all of them haha I'm way use to kimchi now though haha I never thought I would be! oh and on Sunday we went to that same couples that took us to the tower and they fed us this like baby chicken (all of it but the head) in a bowl of soup with tons of other stuff in it! It was ok, haha it's suppose to give you stamina to make it through the summer! They told us that Koreans eat it three times a year during the summer! Well that's all I have for this week! If you want to know about anything let me know and I’ll tell you! Oh I still haven't got that letter yet I think it takes 13 days from US to Korea and 9 from Korea to US. I’'ll tell you when I do, but your suppose to just send stuff to the mission house and then they give it to me. I don't know why but o well! I love you! Have a good week! I can't wait to get those football clippings and stuff! Go Mad Had! your the man. How is Zack doing in football now?

Love, Elder Frei

Living in So Deh Moon!

Mother! and family! :)

My p days are on Mondays, however it got switched to Tuesday just this week because like 5 zones went to the temple today. It was way cool! So where to begin, Korea is SO awesome. I have so much to tell you now it's crazy!! The plane ride was super long, but we made it haha we flew over Japan I got to see it cause Korean air has cameras and each person has an individual tv that you can watch them on it was sweet!!! When we got to the airport we met our mission presidents and then we took a bus for like 2 hours, after that we walked to the mission home, on the way there I watched a drunk guy get thrown out of a taxi and smashed into the concrete! It was crazy I thought he was dead for sure! haha anyways we got to the mission home and spent the night and then the next morning we had a training meeting then we met our new companions!!!!!!! My trainer is Elder Christensen! he is super awesome I love him! he's just like me we get along super good! he is in his last transfer though so he goes home in October! he is fluent in Korean though so it's pretty sweet to see how I will be able to communicate within like a year!! so after that we went to our apartment! it's pretty sweet. It's like 20 yards away form the church ha it's way awesome! My area is called so deh moon which means big west gate! It's really awesome but it's a huge area! We have over 1 million people just in our area! Crazy! Korean is so hard to understand, it's going to be a while before I can understand people but that’s ok! I’ve already gotten a lot better just in the past week. I learned so much it's insane!! ha the food here is pretty crazy. It's really weird but I'm getting use to it! ha I eat kimchi all the time and squid and I ate tons of raw fish today! so I'm adjusting pretty good because I hated fish before I got here, especially sushi! ha one thing that I don't really like yet is this soup that is just sea weeds haha. every time I taste it I feel like I jumped into the ocean and accidently swallowed water! but, add sea weed to that! but I'll probably end of liking it! ha that's all of that stuff now I'll tell you about missionary work!!!
First of all, I have seen so many miracles since I've been here. it has been so humbling. my trainer is awesome. We work super hard and do everything just like we should. I love it! Most companionships have maybe 1 or 2 investigators, we have 17! It's so crazy. Just in the past 4 days we've gotten 6 new investigators!! They are all really interested in the church! We have talked about baptism with three of them and they all said that they wanted to!! and another one told us he knows that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! Also, we have given away 10 Book of Mormons just since I've been here! Which is SO many!
A few days ago we were out "street boarding" we have these posters and we just try to talk to people and get them to come talk to us. and we'd been there for about an hour and a half. Which was how long we had planned to do it for we were just about to be done but then we were both just like let's do one more! So I said hello to him and asked him if he wanted to here what we were talking about! He said yes, which was surprising because it was like my 2nd or 3rd day and I could barely even say that in Korean, then Elder Christensen taught him and he  said " I want one of that book" so of course we gave him one and then he asked if we could teach him more right then. So we talked about our life’s purpose and a few other things. After we were done we gave him our number, he got ours from us, and then he was like what if this doesn't work? I need your email! So he gave him his email as well! It was crazy! ha and it all happened just because we decided to do one more contact! I have had many other similar things happen but I’m not going to share them all! ha I don't have enough time! but, I will tell you the craziest thing that happened the whole week! We were teaching one of our investigators that said he wants to get baptized and we were almost done and we had given him an awesome lesson. He asked Elder Christensen a questions about baptism and following Christ and out of nowhere in my head the words "straight and narrow" came to me. It kept repeating so I thought I think I need to find this scripture and share it with him, as I thought that I flipped open my Book of Mormon and to my surprise, I turned exactly to the page that the scripture was on!!! and I wasn't even sure where it was at!!!! I was like ok I definitely have to share this now! so, I said I have a scripture I would like to share! I said where it was and then I reached across the table and grabbed the top of his Book of Mormon and flipped it open! It landed exactly on the verse that I was going to share. At this point I was kind of just in shock!!! It was the craziest thing ever!! I shared the scripture with him, and it answered his question perfectly!!! It was so amazing!! I've definitly been humbled, with all of the many miracles and people the lord is intrusting me with and also with learning Korean. It is extremely challenging but I know that I will learn it with time!!! I had an awesome week! ha it felt like 1 day of the mtc so that's pretty awesome!! Korea is awesome! I love it so much! Everything is going really good! I love you all!
love,
Elder Frei
I'm going to try to send some pictures I'll see if it will work

Korean Language

we got a package from Elder Frei today of all the stuff he couldn't take with him to Korea, and we found this: 

It's amazing how the missionaries are blessed with the gift of tongues.  The bottom picture is the English translation of Elder Frei's Korean message :)

Korea Is Awesome !

Family!

It was awesome to talk to you all today! I made it here safely, it was a long flight but were all here!!! I don't have very much time so I’ll email you on Monday! I love you all! Korea is awesome! I've been awake for almost 30 straight hours so hopefully I don't have jet lag to bad!!! I love you all!

Elder Frei

Flying to Korea

Elder Frei is making the long flight to Korea today!  The family got to talk to him for a bit while he was in a layover and he sounds happy, excited, a little nervous, and awesome!! He has such a strong spirit - it touches everyone around him :)  We won't be able to hear from him for a while, because it sounds like he'll be very busy for the first few days.  Good luck Elder Frei! We love you so much!