L.A. Riots

So last week for pday....we went with the elders to a little batting cage place near their house. We got there and were waiting for the elders and starting talking to the owner. Turns out he lived in LA for like 20 years and so he speaks good english and he knows all about the states. We had a really good chat with him and he even started asking about the book of mormon...he has known the church for a long time but no specifics. Anyways...the elders and us are all friends with him now and he really likes us. I think he was impressed with mine and sister mineer’s baseball skills. he has probably never seen a girl at the cages his entire life....  Ok well, the coolest part was we were talking about how he lived in the states with his family for so long and asked him if he wanted to go back. haha he said ‘no...its too dangerous...’  and then he told us how 2 shops that he owned got burned down during the LA riots!!  haha he was there for the whole thing, just hunkering down with his family for a few days while the city went crazy—i was so excited that he was actually there for all that history....!  i only get to read about that in books and stuff!    anyways...we’re going to go to the cages a lot...its super fun and we’re all determined now to get him baptized!

The rest of the week we did a lot of member practice lessons. The branch presidnent wants us to do one lesson a day with a member and most the members don’t live right in Icheon. So we usually spend quite a bit of time traveling to and from these member appointments each day. But its been a really good way for Sister Mineer to get acquainted with the members and the area right off the bat.     We got to go back to my favorite member house...its the one that is way up in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and its super pretty. We always ride a bus to a nearby terminal and then they have to come down from their house in their car and pick us up and take us 15 minutes back to their house. It’s kinda a hassle for them i think, but they’re always super nice about it and right now they have their 2 grandkids spending the summer with them—the grandkids live in the states and so they like having us around because we’re american....

We started helping another member, a 19 yr old, start studying for the big english test she has to take to get into byu-hawaii like she wants. we’re going to start doing short study sessions with her for english practice. we do a lot of that kind of thing here....just helpin the members with whatever they need help with since they asked us to do it. we’re happy to help, it’s just weird to me still that we do that kind of thing so much.

So i guess something fun for the week about korea.....they eat tomatoes like a fruit. we always hear growing up that tomatoes are really a fruit and we just can’t believe it, but here they really do use it as a fruit. they will put cherry tomatoes on cakes or other desserts...they always have them on fruit trays and stuff....and they love to take a couple of the big ones and throw them in the blender and just drink it like a smoothie. it was really weird at first...i didn’t like it last summer, but now i actually like the tomato juice. i still steer clear of them on desserts and stuff, thats just not right.  but we’ve probably had tomato smoothie juice given to us almost everyday this week.

k well there’s not a ton else going on. i’ll update you when there is!   I just have a few more weeks to get sister mineer all acquainted with the area before i’m out!  i’m leaving her this week and going to seoul on exchanges so we’ll see how she does.  everything is great! i’m enjoying to the end!

Sister Washburn




1. elder webber and sister mineer in the batting cages.




2. the family that lives up in the mountains and their grandkids




3. sister mineer bleached her hair with a $2 box of hair dye.   i guess it turned out ok for $2 . haha