Beagle hot dog, my search is now complete

Hello Everyone!

This week, I got to experience one of the most unique Korean sports: Screen Golf. So a lot of people here like golf, but the problem is that Korea is a tiny country with a lot of people, so there's not a whole lot of land to build a whole golf course. There are a few in the countryside, but they are very far away. So to accommodate the city-dwelling golf enthusiasts, screen golf is pretty common here. It consists of hitting a real golf ball with a real golf club, but the golf ball hits a screen about 10 feet in front of you. But the sensors in the room pick up the speed and direction of the ball, and so you get a projection of a simulated golf course on the screen in front of you. It was pretty sweet.

​PLease excuse my form, for the record I was by far the worst in the tournament..

Another sport that we play a lot here is badminton. In fact, in the area next to us, there is a professional badminton player that chose to serve a mission. He's ranked 5th in the entire country, but he gave up a lot to come and serve a mission. And he has actually used badminton a lot in missionary work, we have been able to meet quite a few people by inviting them to play badminton with him. There really is so many ways to do missionary work.

I've mentioned before that the first half of the last name "bigelow" in Korean is the same as the Korean word for "beagle". So this week, we found a hot dog restaurant with the "Beagle" hot dog. My search is now complete

This week, I also got to know something known as exchanges, where we switch with other missionaries for a day to help with training and the missionary work in their area. So this week I spent a day with both Elder Sabey and Elder Young. They were both with me in the missionary training center when we all knew nothing, so it was nice to be able to reunite and do some missionary work together. And since I have only been in Suwon for a week and my companion left for the day, we had quite the adventure trying to navigate the city. I'm just really great that my Korean ability is to the point that I can at least ask for directions...

Our area is doing well! We are teaching a few people, and they're all great. This week we're focusing on helping them all prepare for baptism, I think we could have some people that are almost ready. The work here definitely isn't easy, but I've found no joy greater than helping as many people as I can to make the most important steps that anyone can make in this life.

Have a great week everyone!

Zone leader in Suwon

Well as of last week, we are allowed to wear just a white shirt without a suit jacket when we're outside. Which was great for 6 of the days this week, but then there was also the day with torrential downpours... All I can say is, I'm glad that my shoes don't have holes in them yet, because we walked through a whole lot of puddles this week.

Despite that, things are going really well! The beginning of this week was full of goodbyes in Incheon amidst very fancy dinners, I'm definitely going to miss Incheon. One of the guys that we are teaching there even held my hand for a little bit, which is not actually weird here, it just means that you're really close, so I was honored.

Also this week, I got a new start in Suwon! Suwon is a city South of Seoul, it's still a pretty big city, but you definitely can tell the difference from Seoul here. Samsung's headquarters are here, so a significant percentage of residents here work for Samsung. As the Zone Leader though, I get to travel often to other parts of the surrounding areas, which means I'll finally get to see some Korean countryside after all this time in the city.

I'm serving with Elder Karlson for the next 6 weeks, he's from a city near Denver, and only has 6 weeks left before he goes home. We live with two other missionaries, Elder Young and Elder Lant. Elder Young was my companion in the missionary training center, so it's fun to be able to talk about the same things we talked about in the Missionary Training Center, but in Korean this time.

I introduced myself at church on Sunday, there are about 80 members of the congregation here and they are all really great. I'm really looking forward to being here, hopefully I can spend a little bit longer than 3 months here this time.

Anyways, all is going great! The work is busy, the people are nice, the Korean language is hard, this church is true, all is as it should be. 

Have a great week everyone!

The world just became 10X more beautiful

Hello Everyone!

This week has been great! It's warming up quite a bit here, so luckily we can wear just a white shirt from today onward, no more sweating in a suit coat :)

Also this week, all the cherry blossoms bloomed, so the world just became 10x more beautiful. They are only in bloom for about a week or two, I think the name in Japanese(sakura) is a lot more famous, but they are called 벗꽃(beot-kkot) here in Korea.

This weekend, we got to watch General Conference, our church's biannual worldwide broadcast, which was super good! The missionaries sat in a different room and watched it in English, which I was fortunate for, because watching 10 hours of straight Korean that I can't understand very well would have been a challenge. I'm not sure if I had a favorite speaker, but I enjoyed the multiple talks that taught about humility, and especially about being both a perfect leader AND a perfect follower, just like Jesus Christ. This weekend, I was just especially grateful that this church is led by a living prophet today just as in times of old, and the fact that he will never lead us astray from the will of God.

As far as the work goes, all is well here in Incheon! We weren't able to meet a lot of people this week, but everyone in our area is doing well and we're teaching lots of great people. Unfortunately, this week in Incheon will be my last...

We got transfer calls this weekend, and I will be moving on Wednesday to 곡반정(gok-ban-jeong). It is in the city of 수원(Su-won) which is the southernmost part of our mission. I can't seem to stay in one city for very long, but I get to see lots of different parts of Korea which is cool. THe area I'll be in has a lot more countryside, as opposed to Incheon or Seoul which are all city.

I'll be serving with Elder Karlson, who only has six weeks left on his mission. I was also assigned to serve as Zone Leader while I'm there. The 115 or so missionaries in our mission are divided into 6 different "Zones," which helps with organization and distribution of missionaries. So for each zone, there is two Zone Leaders who help train, serve, evaluate, and watch over the missionaries. Usually it is a more experienced missionary called to do so, but I'm going as still a pretty new missionary. I've been a little apprehensive about my ability to help these missionaries that have been doing this for 3x as long as me, but I have faith that the Lord wants me to serve there for some reason that I don't quite know yet, so there I will go. I'll let you all know how it goes next week, wish me luck!

Have a  great week!

-Elder Bigelow

Coagulated cow's blood

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a great week, and for those of you that watched our church's General Conference broadcast, I hope you enjoyed it!

As a clarification, I have not actually watched General Conference yet. Because of the time difference, they show it at our church one week later. So I will watch it this coming weekend, no spoilers please!

And after this week, we are allowed to wear just a white shirt without a suit for the next six months, which I think will be a relief since it is really starting to warm up here. And all the missionaries here love to talk about the humid summers of Korea, one of my companions even said "Prepare to never be completely dry for about 4 months." I'll keep you all in the loop...

We do volunteer work at a welfare center that provides meals to the elderly every week, and they give us a free lunch after we do so. And I think that is where I get to try the most new Korean foods. This week's menu items were:

설짓국: A soup filled with some vegetables, along with coagulated cow's blood.

낙지: Octopus. There were octopus that were about 3 inches tall, served in a nice sauce

I did get a little sick this week, although not from eating the above foods. This weekend was accompanied by a small fever, but it's all good now. And before I got sick, we did get to teach a lot of people this week! One young man in particular, we are teaching in English because a English speaking family introduced us to him, so we are teaching him in their home. This week, while we were teaching, he decided that he wanted to get baptized! So we're working towards that in about a month, and we're super excited for him. And we have several others that we are meeting with that definitely could be ready to be baptized soon, so things are going well here!

I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Bigelow