Are you Arabic?

Hello everyone!

Well, I'm here in 안성 (Anseong) now, Monday and Tuesday was spent packing and saying goodbye to lots of church members and people that we have been teaching that I was able to get close to during my time in Suji. I can't fit all the pictures in my email, but they are all on DropBox! Here is one though, this is 최석원, the ex-pastor that we have been teaching for a while, he's the best~

Then on Wednesday I met Elder Price, my new companion in Anseong. I made sure to get a picture this time Mom :)

Elder Price is super cool, he's from a city called Cedar Hills near Provo. He was actually companions with Elder Curtis (my last companion) in the MTC(he's been in Korea for 4.5 months now), and he is also the first companion that is younger than me. He likes singing, all music, and running and he is a killer missionary. I'm super excited to work with him.

We live with a companionship of 2 Korean missionaries, Elder 추지웅 and Elder 김지현, and this is also the first time I've lived with a Korean missionary. They are also both super cool, they are great cooks and it's like a nonstop language exchange in our house.

As far as the Anseong area goes, it is quite the change from all my other areas. It is pretty much all countryside, with a very small section of city near our house. All I can say is that I saw cows here for the first time in Korea, and I saw many cows this week. Most of the people that we meet on the street have talked to us before, so it's definitely a smaller community feel here. 

The branch (our church congregation) had 15 people in attendance on Sunday, 4 of them were missionaries, and another 4 were people that weren't actually members of the branch. Everyone there is so nice, and I'm excited to be serving here. I'll let you know more next week!

-Other things this week:

-"No I am not Arabic": Because I have dark hair and dark eyebrows, there are so many Korean people I meet that think I have ancestors that are Arabic. This is how the conversation goes every time:

"You look like you have ancestors that were Arabic"

-"No, I don't have any ancestors from that area"

"Are you sure?"

-"Yes, I'm sure"

"Oh... where are your ancestors from then?"

-"Mostly from the England, Scotland, Ireland area"

"Are you sure? You've got to have some southern European in there if you're not Arabic. No Spanish or Italian blood or anything?

-"No, I don't have any ancestors from there"

"Are you sure? There has to be some other blood there.."

-"I think there may have been some Native American blood in my family at some point in time"(the only explanation I can give that satisfies them)

"Ahh, that makes sense. Now I understand. You're native American!"

-English class!: Here in this area we have a very special service project, and that is teaching English to North Koreans~ I don't know if you can call them refugees, but there is a school for kids that came over the border from North Korea, or their parents came across the border, or they came from China. Kids that come from China or North Korea are often made fun of or left out by other kids in normal schools, so there was a school created where they can have a healthy environment for their education. And so once a week, we visit their English class and help them practice their English. It's super fun, and I'm excited to keep volunteering there!

-There was somebody in this area from Laos that was planning to be baptized the week before I got here, but then he called the night before and said something about his mom in Laos not wanting him to get baptized, and we haven't heard from him since (he doesn't have a cell phone so it complicates things a little bit). So we are just going to have to go to his college campus and pray that we'll find him so we can talk to him and see what's going on. So pray for us that we'll be able to find him!

That's it for this week, I'll let you know how things are going next Monday!

Love,

Elder Bigelow