오빠 강남 STYLE!! (Gangnam Style)

(Aimee wrote this quite email first to see if anyone was online:) 

hey is anyone in the house?..... tell them all that  I’M GOING TO GANGNAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i’m super excited!! there’s only elders there now, so i’m opening the area for sisters and I’M TRAINING again!

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TRANSFERS CALLS!!! BIG NEWS:: I’M OPENING GANGNAM FOR SISTERS....AND I’M TRAINING AGAIN!!!

yep...so now you can tell everyone i’m serving in Gangnam because everyone has heard of Gangnam!!! i’m super excited!!!!

and its crazy cuz i’m opening the area....AND i think there’s only american sisters coming this transfer, so i’ll be training someone that speaks NO korean!!! it will be hard and crazy, but i’ll finally learn korean now!!!!

Sanbon is kinda a tiny, nice little city, but gangnam is HUGE and there are SOOOOO many people. its going to be quite the adventure! HAHA CHRISTMAS IN GANGNAM! everyone in gangnam is rich and everyone jokes that the girls all look the same there because they all get plastic surgery. ....i’m going to have start dressing nicer :)   But i think the ward is really good and i heard they give the missionaries tons of food since they’re all rich!  And it will be nice to have an american companion for christmas. Christmas is kinda just a ‘couples’ holiday here. for giving your boyfriend/girlfriend a gift....its not a huge family holiday.

We had a stake music meeting this week and some of the stake members made a band. They were actually way good and they played ‘Open Arms’....by Phil Collins? ??  i can’t remember the singer.....anyways...i felt guilty that i enjoyed it so much since we’re not supposed to listen to music...but it was a stake activity so....^^

I gave a farewell testimony in Sanbon ward on sunday. It was historical because it was my first talk in church without notes or anything. Normally when i spoke in church i had it all written out in korean and i was just reading to be safe...but for my testimony/farewell stuff...i just did it off the top of my head and it went pretty well. Its stuff like that that really pushes me to learn the language better.

I’m kinda sad to leave sanbon but its fine since i’m going to gangnam..i wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. I realized i live in this apt and in this area longer than any other place my whole life except for home.....6months.   its been good though, and i’m glad to move on to something thats REALLy going to stretch me. Heavenly Father keeps taking me up by degrees....giving me as much as i can handle at a time. First was just coming here and adjusting...then training so young and with little experience...now opening a new area and training a green american. He knows what i can handle and i’m glad He’s helping become so much better.



IN RESPONSE TO A QUESTION ON MISSION GOALS

none of our investigators (none that i’ve taught)  have really PROGRESSED towards baptism. thats one of the things thats been so hard for me here....i feel like we’re not really doing anything because the changes we see in people are just small and gradual. missionary work is just different here.

we don’t hardly teach discussions....we’re usually around 5-8 ‘other lessons’ for the week with  maybe half being a real discussion from the  PMG lessons. ....  we don’t count proselyting hours...just the number of contacts. our goal has been 50-60 conversations per week. we only count convos....in the seoul mission a contact was just anything where you brought up the gospel...so people were doing like ‘robot’ contacting....where you just stand at a crosswalk and someone comes up...you rush through this 30sec flood of  “hi, we’re missionaries...we teach about....”  and people hated us for it, because it was all for the numbers. now we just do conversations.  really try and build good 정 first,,, (like good feelings..)    anyways, but lessons are hard. we have to go out and find first, which takes a lot of time...and many ppl just want us for our english....



PICTURES

1. We had a Halloween party for our english class. this is that family thats moving to America...they’re the best i love them. I made apple pie and caramel corn for the party and some of our students brought a TON of american candy from costco so it was like real Halloween!!  We played some games and carved a pumpkin. Most of them had never done one before so it was really fun!



2. the party



3. taking last pictures in sanbon area.....i was telling sister lee  to “cut it off at the waist” but this is what we got instead.



4. apple pie and Hee Ju and Yoon Ju....they’ll be in the states soon!  i told them i’d come visit in portland when i get home!