I am officially settled into my new area here in Incheon, and I'm having a great time. I'm serving with two companions for the next six weeks actually, which is usually not typical. One of them is Elder Bryner, he is from Utah and goes back to America in about 6 weeks. The other is Elder Woolwine, who is from Arizona and has been in Korea for a little over a year. What will probably happen is that in 6 weeks, Elder Bryner will go home and Elder Woolwine and I will both stay here in Incheon. Serving with 2 other companions is so much fun, although we all share one cell phone which can get difficult at times.
Incheon isn't that much different from Seoul, lots of huge buildings and lots of people, although I feel like there's less people selling vegetables and socks on the street here. Probably the biggest difference here from the last area is the house we stay in. In Mokdong, I could see 95% of the house by standing in one spot, but in Incheon, we live on the 28th floor of a pretty nice apartment building. We live with two other missionaries, so the house is pretty big in comparison. And our apartment has a gym in the basement, so we go there for our 30 minutes of exercise every morning which is really nice
This week was the coldest predicted of the year I think, so the fact that I made it through is a relief. There wasn't any snow, just lots of 0 degree Fahrenheit days, where you use a scarf to protect your face but then your breath freezes on the scarf instead. We are able to be inside a lot of the day though, which comes in handy. The church here is also a lot bigger than my last area, it is the biggest LDS building in Korea currently, I would definitely get lost in it without my companions.
I didn't introduce myself at church this week because the schedule was pretty full, so I'll do it next week. But our church attendance was about 100 or so, which is definitely bigger than MokDong. There's one English family in our ward, and the people that normally do translation for them were busy or gone on Sunday, so we had to split up as missionaries and translate for their kids. So I ended up in the Primary, live translating from Korean to English for the first time ever. It was pretty nerve-wracking at first, but the kid I was translating for is a genius and knew everything being taught already so it wasn't as stressful as I thought it was going to be.
We had to leave church early to go to an area of Incheon called SongDo, where there is a group of all English speakers that meet to have church. The University of Utah has a campus in Incheon, so we meet there for church. Most of the members work for the college or at an English school nearby, so there's about 25 people that attend. We helped teach primary, then ate a meal after church like they do every week. It was an American food feast, which I have to admit is nice every once in a while..
This area is so different from Mokdong which is crazy considering they're only about an hour away, but the one thing that is always the same is this church. Everywhere you go there are faithful members, and everywhere you go, this church is as true as it always is. I'm extremely grateful for this church led by Jesus Christ, and even more grateful that I get to be a missionary representing this church.
Have a great week!
-Elder Bigelow
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