Hmm...

So, this week was good. Although, if I am being completely honest, I would have to say it was probably the hardest so far as far as the language goes. There wasn't any specific thing that happened, but just over the course of the whole week, I felt like I could not understand a single thing anyone was saying to me. It's like my brain just said "Alright, that's enough Korean for one lifetime, let's start shutting things down" and there I was, in the middle of Asia, without a single clue as to what was happening around me. Pretty crazy. I'm not a totally lost cause though. This struggling has humbled me a lot and has forced me to rely on the Savior. I finished reading Jesus the Christ this week and have been studying it alongside the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants. After all that, I am coming to realize that all the knowledge I have of our Savior is but a scratch on the surface of the incredible life he led and the terrible sacrifice he made for us. Although this week was hard as far as the language goes, I have never felt closer to Christ and my testimony of him has never been stronger. Under any other circumstance, had I experienced the frustration and struggles I have had this week, I couldn't have pulled through. But because I have been called as an Elder in the Lord's church, and because I have Him walking beside me, carrying me even, every step of the way, I have been able to look forward with faith and perservere.

Don't get me wrong, the work is still wonderful, and while this week was hard, I would not have changed any part of it. I need the growing experiences. I think that is what I am learning most of all in this mission. This life is about GROWTH. If you are matching every expectation set before you, fantastic! Do more. The Lord knows our potential and what we are capable of accomplishing. We, however are most often the obstacles in our own way. Anyway, I should probably stop right about here before I get all preachy and what not. :)

Life is good. Korean is SUPER hard, and I love every day I get to spend in the Lord's service!

Have a great week everyone!

 

Elder Jakob Tyler Fund

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I guess my parents were right. I AM spoiled :)

I don't mean to make you all jealous, but I am being completely honest when I say that every day here is like a dream. The Lord is just dumping blessings on me and quite frankly I have no idea why I am so lucky. Needless to say, it just gives me all the more motivation to work harder :)

So let me just start off by telling you about a special little city called Yeongwol. (side note, I really HATE romanization because it doesn't do the language justice, but most of you can't read 한글 so I will have to make due) ANYWAY, it would be no exaggeration for me to say it is THE most beautiful place I have ever seen in my entire existance bar none. My current area is quite large, and while we live in the main city of Jecheon, there are two other major cities in our area that we go to every once in a while. They are each about a 30 minute train ride away, so we cannot go too terribly often, but Yeongwol is one of these cities. We went there this week to visit one of our members who live there. Let me just take you on an attempted tour of my experience there.

We got off the train, and at first, it doesn't look like much. In fact, it actually looks like a small town. Keep walking however, and you start to see more shops and bigger buildings. Then you turn a corner and you find yourself looking into a huge valley. Now the mountains here in Korea are not really even mountains by American standard, more just large hills, but I have gotten used to calling them mountains, so just bear with me. Anyway, all around the entire valley are these mountains completely covered in green. At the particular time when we got there it was early evening, so it made it all the more beautiful. Then, through the middle of the valley, there is a big river. There is a bridge the stretched from where we were standing to the other side of the river where the main city was.

Looking at it, the city is like a perfect hybridization of nature and industrialism. Ahh, so wonderful and I feel like my words alone can not do it justice. Anyway, my companion and I did not cross the main bridge, but instead, a little ways down a side path, we found a smaller pedestrian bridge that looked similar to a dock, except it stretched over the entire river. As we got to the end of the bridge, we were in the big clearing and there was a giant wall of stairs in front of it that stretched in either direction. We climbed the stairs and were in the city. Looking around, I was so almost overwhelmed with how beautiful it looked. At times, I felt like I was in Book of Mormon times with how green everything was, and how close to the mountains the city was. Anyway, as we continued walking in the city, we passed by this giant artificial waterfall/fountain place. There was a water show going on (like a miniature version of the Bellagio) and there were stairs that led up to the top of the waterfall. Oh man, I hope you all are getting an idea of how beautiful this place is! Anyway, that is just a tip of the iceberg.

The rest of the week was good too, but that was definitely my highlight. Unfortunately, I spent too much time trying to describe that and I am now out of time, but I hope you all have a good week, and suffice it to say, life is FANTASTIC right now :) The Church is true!

 

Elder Jakob Tyler Fund

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I Made it to the Promised Land

And the name of the promised land is Jecheon!! :D I absolutely love it here!! It is a lot bigger than my last area. My new companion is a native from Korea. His name is Elder 류. Let me try to teach you how to say that. Let's see how this goes. Pretend you are saying Elder Yoo. Okay good. Now, say it all together as if it is one word: Elderyoo. Now take the R type sound from the end of elder and stick it at the beginning of yoo: Ryoo. If done properly, you should be pronouncing it some what correctly: Elder Ryoo. Don't focus too much on stressing the R sound. Just let it flow :)

Anyway, he is awesome!! He speaks quite a bit of English, so I'm not totally lost all the time :) And he is super nice and is a really hard worker and a good example to me of what a missionary should be like. I just love it here so much :)

This last week was transfer week so it was pretty busy. We do all the normal stuff and then somehow fit packing all our stuff in the little spare time we manage to find. When the members of my branch in Nonsan found out I was leaving, they threw a big dinner that night for me and it was really sweet. I am going to miss them. My members here in Jecheon are really cool too though! Life is just good. I'm still adjusting to the change of the new area and stuff, and I talked a lot this morning to family because of mother's day and all, so I'm going to leave it just about here for this week. I hope all of you are doing well and.. yeah! Korea is awesome :) Have a good week!

Elder Jakob Tyler Fund

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What a week!!

Wow. Yeah, let me just say that again. Wow. This has been the most
interesting week yet! Let me just start off by saying, we did some
form of service everyday this week except for our P-day. Most of it
was teaching English in some form, but still. This week has
absolutetly FLOWN by. One of the service things we did though was
helping one of our members on his farm! It was so cool to be on a
real-live Asian "farm". I put "farm" in quotes because, let me tell
you, Koreans do farming a wee bit different from us 'Murican folks.
The only crop they plant outdoors is rice. Everything else is in these
giant bunker/greenhouse/tunnel things. Hard to describe, I'll
hopefully put pictures up one day (I'm the worst, I know. Sorry!!)
Anyway, so we got to the farm and at first our member just started
doing his own thing and didn't have much for us to do, so we kind of
just watched him... Yeah... But finally he took us to an area of his
"farm" that had this machine. Let me see if I can adequately describe
this, and maybe some of you will know what I am talking about. I just
barely worked a day in my life before my mission, let alone on a farm,
so I have no idea what any of this stuff is... It was this machine
that had like a conveyor belt on it, and you put little tray things on
the conveyor belt and it takes the trays and flattens fertilizer in
them and then sprays them with this special pesticide solution (I
think) and then you pick up the trays on the other end and stack them
up. Well, we did that process... 980 times. It took probably 2 and a
half solid hours of bending to put the trays in the belt, going and
picking them up, stacking them, replacing the fertilizer, blah blah
blah. No individual part of it was difficult, but it was just tedious
having to monitor and do like 5 things at the same time. All in all
though, it was still fun to do some good service :) Plus, we got free
food afterward. Score!! :) Side note, I keep losing more weight. I
don't know what's happening. I think it should be made to all that a
mission (in Korea at least) is the best diet in the world. I'm fairly
certain that I will literally be skin and bones when I return... So
yeah. Hope you didn't expect good ol' Tubby McFat Rolls to come home,
cuz he's gone.
ANYWAY, super crazy cool thing of the week! So I went on an exchange
with another Elder in my district this week. He has been in Korea for
just over a month. Well, we were in MY area, so I had to be "senior"
and take care of everything. INCLUDING SPEAKING TO ALL THE KOREAN
PEOPLE!! Ahh!! It was so scary, ESPECIALLY when our phone rang.
Speaking Korean is impossible enough, once you stick it through and
phone and speed up their talking by almost double, you just lose all
hope. BUT, the Lord has this super cool tool called the "gift of
tongues". Ever heard of it? IT'S FANTASTIC!! The whole exchange went
very well! Somehow, I was able to translate everything for the new
Elder, and even better yet, I was able to speak comfortably with
everybody we ran into. Of course, once I got back together with my
real companion, it all went bye bye, but it was still cool to
experience for a little while :)
Thos were the interesting parts of the week. If nothing else, I have
gained a testimony that the Lord really can do ANYTHING he wants to,
no matter how small or insignificant we may think it is, in order to
accomplish His purposes. The Church is so true it's not even funny.
Everybody at home better be studying the conference issue of the
Ensign like there is no tomorrow. I have a copy here, except guess
what. It's in... KOREAN. Yeah, so appreciate how lucky y'all are to
have it in your native language.... :) In other news, this week is
transfer week and I am moving to a new area. I don't know the name of
it yet. I'm half super nervous and half super excited!! Wish me luck,
and pray for me :)
Have a good week. ^^
Elder Jakob Tyler Fund


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