Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Fifth MTC Letter 10/11/2013

(I've added clarifications in italics ~ Julie)

This week wasn't very eventful. It was just a regular week. 
We got a new shipment of Korean-speaking missionaries last Wednesday. I think there are 22~24 of them. I helped to host that day. I hosted a sister going to Georgia, a sister going to Manchester English speaking, and a sister going to Manchester Mandarin speaking. I see the Mandarin speaking sister a lot because her classroom is on the same floor as mine. My building has Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. We got 590 new missionaries on the day. I finally found Brian Stout (a friend and distant relative from our English speaking ward in Tokyo). He's on the West campus so I can only see him when he comes to main campus for Conference and devotionals. We normally get shipments of Korean-speakers every three weeks but we're getting a new batch this week - a week early! So we'll have more districts than normal. We'll have 110 missionaries in our zone/branch. I figured out why I had to wait so long (she waited 5 month and 1 day from her call to enter the MTC). The last batch of missionaries going to Seoul South left a couple of weeks after I got here, meaning they entered the MTC on July 24thor something - before my availability date. The districts above us and below us our going to Deajeon. Some missionaries below us are going to Busan, California, and New Jersey. New missionaries two batches before us went to Canada and Australia along with Seoul and Seoul South. We're going to get our batch of native Koreans in three weeks and then we'll fly out with them after two weeks!

Sister Perrington told me that she talked to Dad. Brother Perrington mostly said that they're(Koreans compared to Japanese) more aggressive. They're not as reserved. And this I have observed with the natives that have come in. They're very loud. The sisters sleep next door to me and they keep us up all night with their giggles and chatter. But we forgive them because they're so cute. (The Perringtons were in our English Stake in Tokyo, and also lived in Korea. They are now in Natasha's District Presidency in the MTC

We watched (General) conference in the gym. My district was asked to usher for all four sessions, plus for the Vocal Point devotional on Sunday night. I liked ushering. It was nice to do something for someone other than myself. And it was fun to people watch. 

Life is so simple. It's interesting to see how simple my life can be and I can still be content.

I used to wake up at 6:25 (we need to be out of bed at 6:30). But I started waking up at 5:50(some other girls in my district wake up early too so I'm not breaking any rules) to get some more study time. It's made a HUGE difference. I was concerned about the lack of sleep because I was exhausted as it is but I think I've been less tired. It's very interesting. And I've been improving in the language. But there still aren't enough hours in the day to everything that I need to do. With my half-way mark drawing near, I made some goals of where I want to be in the language when I leave the MTC. But every hour is scheduled out and there really isn't that much time for personal study unless I want to take more time away from sleeping or exercising or something. 

Do you have questions about Korean? One of the teachers who teaches another district came in to help us last week. She's a linguistics major and so she could tell us about the mouth-movements and why things are the way they are. It was the best day of my life. And I can ask hanguk-saram-dul questions about Korea. 

This email isn't very spiritual but it was kind of a blah week. 

Love you!!

1 comment:

  1. Ha! Brother and Sister Perriton were my mission president and wife! Good luck in Korea!!!

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