Elder Beagle

Hello Everyone!

There's nothing but good things to report here from Incheon! Actually, I was a little sick for most of the week but I think it was inevitable with how cold it has been. We did get to go to the temple in Seoul this week, which involves a 2 hour bus ride from Incheon. The bus was running late, so we got there just in time for the last missionary temple session, which was in Korean. We got translators so we could hear it in English, but going for my first time in Korean was so cool.

I introduced myself in church today, this congregation is a lot bigger so I was pretty nervous, but everyone is super nice. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but when you say "Bigelow" in Korean, the first half of it sounds exactly like the word for "Beagle" in Korean. So by this time, I've accepted it and introduced myself to the ward as follows: "Hi, I'm Elder Bigelow. You know how there's a dog called a beagle? It sounds pretty similar to my name... I'm not a puppy, but I am cute like a puppy, so you can call me Elder Beagle if it will help you remember my name" It got a good laugh, and I think people will actually remember my name, they tend to have a hard time with English names.

My desk is only messy because I'm the hardest working missionary

The spacious missionary penthouse apartment

Next week is one of the 2 biggest Korean holidays of the year, 설날(Seolar) which I think corresponds to the Chinese New Year. It is a week from today, so they have big celebrations and nobody is on the streets at all to talk to the missionaries.. But we get to have a mission-wide conference which should be really fun.

And as far as mission-wide events go, this week was "korean week" in our mission, which means that we try to set high SYL (speak your language) goals and do our best to keep them. So my two companions and I decided to speak only Korean for the whole week, starting from last Tuesday to tomorrow. We actually did really well, we really only spoke English when we taught English class or spoke with people that spoke English. We made a lot of mistakes and things were pretty quiet sometimes in our companionship, but I definitely got a lot speaker with fluidity of speaking this week so I'm happy with Korean week.

The other Elder Missionaries in our ward had a baptism this week, it was a 10-year-old girl from a part-member family. I was a witness for the baptism for the first time, which was pretty special and it's awesome that our ward is getting baptisms. We're going to meet someone this week who might be progressing towards a baptism, we've been working really hard and I think we may be able to see the fruits of our efforts soon. Patience is hard sometimes, but it makes the moments of success that much sweeter.

Have a great week everyone!

Less people selling vegetables and socks on the street

Hello everyone!

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

Leaving Mokdong

Hello Everyone!

This week was definitely one for the books, there's really not much I can complain about here!

One of the adults in our ward wanted to feed us dinner, but we were on the opposite side of our area at the time she was free, so we weren't able to go to her house. So instead of trying to reschedule, she just decided to reserve us a table for 2 at VIPS, a very fancy Korean buffet restaurant. And on top of the endless buffet of fruit, ice cream, rice, noodles, and pasta, she also paid for a steak and lobster meal, both of which are very expensive in Korea. We were extremely grateful, and she even ended up feeding us two more times this week, along with other members and missionaries.

This week was pretty cold, the temperature was in the negatives as far as Celsius, so we even got some snow. But when it snows here, the snow gets run over thousands of times by cars, then it just becomes an extreme slipping hazard. I didn't quite fall over, but there were several times where I came extremely close.

SIster 우은정, Brother Hunsaker, my America away from America

Our special needs basketball team, several of them were much better at basketball than myself..

Missionaries do something called exchanges, where they spend a day with a different companion every few weeks so that they can teach other and learn how to work better. This week, we had to do that twice, so we just decided to do it for two days in a row. So my companion went to the area next door for one day, and we both got new companions. The next day, my companion came back to our area and I went to the area next door, so it was pretty hectic for a few days but you really do learn a lot spending a day with another missionary.

Mokdong actually has an ice skating rink not too far from the house, and the youth of our ward were doing an activity there so we got to go do some ice skating. You definitely gets lots of strange looks ice skating in a suit as an American in Korea, and I would hear little kids shouting "it's a foreigner!" in Korean. A lot of people here don't actually know that we can speak Korean, so often times on the bus or subway the people sitting next to us will start talking to their friend about us, you just have to listen for the words "Foreigner," "Missionary", or "Mormon." We usually just don't say anything to them, but when we answer the phone or something and start speaking Korean, the look on their face is priceless.

백상학 형제님, 백경민 형제님

On Saturday night, we got transfer calls, which come every 6 weeks and tells you if you are staying in the area you are in or if you will be sent somewhere else for the next 6 weeks. So my companion, Elder Johnson, will be staying in Mokdong for the last 6 weeks of his mission, and will finish here. As for me however, I will actually be leaving the city of Seoul this week. On Wednesday, I will begin serving in 인천(Incheon), which is a pretty big city west of Seoul, right on the northwest coast of Korea. The congregation there is much bigger, so it will be a completely different experience, but change helps to keep you on your toes. Leaving Mokdong is definitely harder than leaving to go on a mission, I really love the people here. I said my goodbye words in church yesterday, and will pretty much eat every meal from now until I leave with a member of our ward to say goodbye. So my next email will be from Incheon, and I guess you'll hear from me again then!

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Bigelow

The best that I can give will always be enough

안녕하세요!

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a great week! It sounds like California is finally getting some rain. I was worrying about that a little bit this week, so that's definitely a relief to hear.

Things are going great over here in the eastern hemisphere, not really anything to complain about. Right now is the winter vacation for the Korean students, but the kids like being in school better because during their winter break, they just have to study all day. Virtually every Korean student goes to a tutoring type of learning center on top of going to school, because schools here are super competitive so everyone is trying to get ahead. There are advertisements for the tutoring centers that say things like "If you want to be the top 1%, you can't take take a break during winter vacation." The students here work so much harder than in America, it's definitely admirable.

Mokdong Church Building

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but in America, most of the church chapels have a basketball hoop for recreation. But in Korea, they have table tennis tables instead. So on P-days or with people we are teaching, we get to hone our ping pong skills. And one milestone for me was beating our bishop in a game of ping pong!... After he beat me 6 times.

In other news this week, They called a new seminary teacher this week for our ward, so we will not have to teach seminary anymore. But she doesn't start until February, so we will at least finish up the rest of January. But since transfers are next week, either me or my companion could end up leaving Mokdong, which does worry my companion especially because he has been here for over 9 months, and wants to finish his mission here. But now that he isn't the seminary teacher, he is really worried he might be moved. But nothing is decided yet, I will let you all know next week how it turns out..

Some really great news is that we have our first investigator with a baptismal date since I got here! We met a really great 21 year old, and he is preparing to be baptized at the beginning of February, he came to church for the first time yesterday and it is amazing to see him take the steps to follow the Savior. Please keep him in your prayers! His name is 정찬유 (Jeong chan yu).

Missionary life is full of miracles, and it is also full of last minute musical numbers. It's pretty common for people to just give us a song and say "Okay, you're going to perform this in two hours with the sister missionaries!" So we often perform some iffy renditions of songs on Sundays, but we just sing half in Korean and half in English and then it suddenly becomes a cool bilingual performance. Being able to speak English is actually super useful here. We get to help lots of people by teaching English class, and most of the people we end up teaching are first found through an English interest. So I came 5000 miles to Asia and English is one of my biggest assets, go figure.

Being a missionary is seriously the best, and the closeness that I have felt to the Lord serving as his full-time servant is both unexpected and incredible. Even when I feel that I'm never going to crack this Korean language or that nobody wants to talk to us, I am never left without the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the assurance that the best that I can give will always be enough.

I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Bigelow

Get lots of new blessings

Hello everyone, I hope you had a happy new years! In Korea, they say "새복 많이 받으세요!" instead of "happy new years," It means something along the lines of "get lots of new blessings!"

As I mentioned before, we teach seminary to the kids in our ward, a scripture study class that starts at 6 am. So we started off our new year by waking up at 5 am, then heading to the church at 6 am. After about 30 minutes of waiting for the students to come, it dawned on us that it was a holiday and that nobody would be planning to come to seminary on that day. I hope that mistake is not a bad omen for the rest of the year though... One New Year's tradition that is popular in Korea is going to the beach or a mountain and watching the sun rise on New Year's day. As missionaries however, we go to bed promptly at 10:30, so there was no midnight celebration in our house.

Also in Korea, everyone ages on January 1st, so it is not like America where you wait until the actual day of your birth. Also, you are one year's old automatically when you are born here. So while I am not yet 18 1/2 in America, I just turned 20 here, which is definitely exciting.

One new food I ate this week was 추어탕, which is mudfish soup. The best way I can describe the taste is that it tasted like the smell of fallen leaves. It was alright, not my favorite food here though. The great thing about food here though, is that if you aren't particularly fond of a certain food, you can take comfort in the fact that if it doesn't taste good, it will at least be extremely healthy for you.

We still serve at a public welfare center every week, which is really amazing because all of the older people are so nice and thankful, especially the one woman that waves at us through the elevator window until the elevator leaves her floor. This week, my foot somehow got run over by a woman in an electric wheelchair, but it's okay because I think that only missionaries that work the hardest get tire tracks on top of their shoes.

Anyways, I hope 2016 is a great year for all of you! This is the one year that I get to spend entirely in Korea, and I am so grateful for that. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what I am sharing is the full gospel of Jesus Christ, restored once again to the Earth, and I came over 5000 miles to let Korea know that. 

"I speak it boldly; God hath commanded me"

-Moroni 8:21

I loved my Korean Christmas

Hello family and friends! I hope you all had a great Christmas!

We didn't have a white Christmas in Korea, but it was a cold Christmas nonetheless.

We started off the day by going caroling with the adult men in our ward. We visited all of the grandmas in our ward and wore Santa hats and sang Christmas songs to them, it was such a blast. And the funniest part was watching the grandmas argue with the men, because they tried to feed us at every house we went to. So after lots of compromises, we ended up with a belly full of hot chocolate, and a bag full of muffins and tangerines. Then, we went and got 짜장면 all together, you can't get a better Christmas meal than that. Right after, my companion and I skyped our families in the church building, which was an amazing Christmas present. The highlight of the call was my 7-year-old brother asking if I was going to turn Korean while I was here, I guess We'll have to wait to find out though..

Jesus Christmas tree and gifts #KoreanChristmas

Then, we made some cookies for our ward party. We're one of the only people with an oven in our ward, so we got selected for the task. So we struggled with our 30-year-old oven for a while and produced something resembling cookies, and they all got eaten, which has to be a good sign. 

That night, we had a party at the church. We watched the worldwide church Christmas Devotional, then had a meal and lots of games. The people hear are so fun, I didn't even know how to play the games but I still had a blast. Then, the bishop had me and my companion dress up like Santa and come through the back door with a bag full of gifts for every one. 

Super Santa Selfie

It was the highlight of the night for sure. I loved my Korean Christmas, I'm so glad I get to spend 1 more here!

The rest of the week, we were just working hard to visit everyone and invite them to the party, but we did have some fun experiences as well. We also went caroling on Christmas eve with about 12 missionaries, we sang some Christmas songs on the street and handed out our "Savior is Born" video cards.

Also this week I met several Russians, believe it or not. There is a musician in our ward that is Russian, so we visited them this week. It was a little strange at first because I think it might be Russian culture to not eat in the same room as your guest, so we were just left alone to eat our food. But after, we read the Book of Mormon in English and Russian, something I never thought I would do in Korea.

Korea is so cool, they get double the Santas

We also met a Russian man that sells clams by our house. He spoke Korean very well, so we wanted to ask him how he learned. He also spoke English very well, but he has been selling clams in Korea for 10 years, it's impressive.

I've mentioned how many tangerines we eat here during the winter, but this week we took tangerine eating to a whole new level. We visited someone that likes to wash their tangerines in vinegar and then eat them whole, peel and all. they don't like to miss out on any nutrition, so we gave it a try as well. It was strange, but didn't taste half bad. I would recommend all of my American friends give it a try!

I hope you all have a great New Year's this week! I love serving here, and I can't wait to see what miracles 2016 will bring. Best wishes!

-Elder Bigelow

Your face bloomed

Hello friends and family, I hope you are all having a great Christmas season!

This week, we got to go to mission headquarters for a special Christmas treat. We started off with a training for the first half of the day, then did a special christmas program with President Morrise and his wife. Some people performed, and we ate lots of food and sang lots of Christmas songs, it was a blast. And some of the mission president's relatives made little Christmas bags for all of the missionaries, which was very sweet, just like the candy inside.

Then the next day, we got to go the temple in Seoul, which is the only time we're allowed to cross the river. After that, we went to a giant mall and underground market to do some shopping, my companion is going home soon so he is trying to find some normal clothes. But I did find a solid pair of slippers, and they have drastically improved the 4 hours of study in the morning.

Brother Hong, the 90-year-old living legend of Korea

In the Mokdong ward, there are about 5 grandmas, and they are all really close. They kind of have their own club, complete with their own name. It translates to "more than flower Grandmas", and they are all the nicest people you will ever meet. One of them has giant shipments of fruit sent to the missionaries on major holidays. So this week, we received a 10 kg box of tangerines, along with a large case of strawberries. So we are trying to eat them all before they go bad, which definitely requires that we give some to other people.

​(just in case you didn't believe me)

This Sunday was the primary program in our ward, which is a day when the young children get to speak and sing songs in front of the congregation. Our ward only has about 5 children that are that age, and the kids got excited when we sang with them the day before, so somehow we became a part of the primary program. So yesterday, Elder Johnson and I really "became as a little child" and sat among the kids and sang right along with them. It was so fun, and all the kids are adorable. They also asked both of us to give a short talk, which was pretty scary but the topic was about how Jesus loves all of us so it wasn't too hard.

Once church was over, we of course had a meal all together. When we were there, one of the members said that my "올굴 폈어요" which directly translates to my "face bloomed" but they use it to mean that basically I smile more and look less nervous than when I first got here. Which is a good thing, I think..

We get to start our Christmas caroling to the Grandmas in our ward in the morning, then we will probably skype our families. Then Christmas night, our ward is having a party, and I'm pretty sure one of the missionaries will be Santa so I will keep you posted. Christmas here isn't nearly as big of a holiday as it is in America, but it is still celebrated fairly commonly.

I hope you all have a great week! Please don't forget to take some time to remember the real source of the joy of Christmas, our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the reason we can repent and come to know true happiness as we draw closer to our Heavenly Father. Be sure to visit christmas.lds.org this week, and may you all have a happy holiday!

-Elder Bigelow