Elder Huckvale's Great Adventures: Week 12 - Before The Dark Times...Before the Great Apostasy

Title - Obi-Wan Kenobi is explaining the history of the Jedi Knights to Luke and he ends by saying, "that was before the dark times... before the Empire".

Pictures - Korean imitations (per Chad) of Burger King and Mountain Dew; feast they were invited to; baptism he attended the first week he was there; last picture is of the Piano Guys (if you look REALLY HARD, you can see Elder Huckvale in the back left corner. His little red head.) :)

Hello Everyone!

It has been a great week in Korea! I actually got to teach a person who we had a scheduled appointment with! I ate at a Burger King! The Piano Guys did a fireside for us! Wow!

But first, I will talk about my situation in Korea...

I am currently serving in the 신당 (Sindang). Sindang is the most densely-populated area in the entire Seoul mission. It's all city and it's right in the middle of Seoul. So yeah. There are a ton of people. Anyways, I live in an apartment with my companion, Elder Jeong, and two other elders, Elder Jones and Elder Bean. It's actually a really nice apartment. The lame thing is that the bathroom sinks don't actual drains, the water just falls onto the floor and goes down the drain that the shower water goes down. The shower is just on the wall and the entire bathroom has tile floors. It's kind of weird. Also, there isn't a garbage can. There aren't garbage cans hardly anywhere which is kind of struggily. Also, you can't throw out food in normal garbage cans, you have to put it in separate bags and then leave those bags out separately from the rest of your garbage. It's really annoying. They don't have napkins here either, they just use toilet paper. The food is really awesome though. We eat out a lot because there are a lot of really cheap places in the area. If we don't eat out, we usually stay home and eat rice with whatever we can find in the refrigerator. We live right next to the equivalent to a place like Chinatown in America but Americatown in Korea so there are a lot of foreigners near where we live. There's also an U.S. Army base where we live. Americatown, 이태원 (Itaewon), is also the sketchiest part of our area (of course, dang Americans). We don't live there though, so it's cool.

So on Tuesday, we had scheduled an appointment with 변정용 (Bieon Jeongyong). So we went all the way out to where he was going to meet us and then he told us he couldn't meet with us because he had just started a game with his friend (He goes out to this place to meet up with his friends every day from 11 to 4). So we just gave him a Book of Mormon and then went to our next thing: Service at the old folks home! We get to go to the old folks home every Tuesday and help them do a craft with them and then play games with them. It is really fun and an awesome service project.

So then on Thursday, we were actually able to meet Bieon Jeongyong (the one who cancelled on us). We taught him the Restoration and it went great! He seemed to really have an interest in the gospel, especially the before and after life which is great because next week we're teaching him about the Plan of Salvation! Choice! He is a really cool guy. I asked him to be baptized and he said no but it's cool because we're still going to meet with him. After that, we went back to where the church is in Sindang because we were going to meet this other guy who we met on the street. I think that he's a little bit senile so he didn't show up. So Elder Jeong and I ended up teaching this guy with a patch on his eye and we bought him 호떡 which are like these pancake things that either have honey and seeds in them or vegetables and noodles. They are really good. Anyways, he was an...interesting character. At the end of the lesson, Elder Jeong kept asking him if he wanted to be baptized and the guy kept falling asleep. It was pretty funny. Then he kind of just left. I didn't really understand what was going on. All I knew is that he just kept talking when I would try to teach him. Apparently he was talking about the government system in Korea...? Later that night Elder Jeong convinced me to go this place called Burger Mine and do the buffet that they have there. So we did. The burgers there are actually pretty good for Korean burgers. I was able to get down two burgers and Elder Jeong was able to eat three. We finished at about 8:55 and then had to run home (it's down the street from our house thankfully). So yeah, we made it home with like 30 seconds to spare before 9. Noice!

On Saturday, a sister in the ward threw a dinner party for all of the missionaries in the ward (there's about 15 or something). We ate 삼겹살 (Samgyupsar) which is often compared to bacon on steroids. It was awesome. We got to take home some of the leftovers. They had so much!

On Sunday, we had scheduled to meet with a member family on the American military base for dinner. I was really excited to meet with them and have an American meal for a change. So we got there, and Brother Hill met us to let us in and...I couldn't get in because I didn't have my passport or my foreign card on me. Struggily. I was really dissappointed about it and felt really bad that we couldn't eat with them. Brother Hill was really nice about it though, he went back to his house and they packed up a meal for us and he brought back for us. So we ended up taking it back to the church and eating it there. They gave us Diet A&W Root Beer! Choice! After that, we got to have a special fireside put on by the Piano Guys! It was awesome! They're all members and two of them actually served missions in Korea! How freakin sick is that!? One of the guys (I think it was John Schmidt) was the missionary for the ward of one of the sisters in the audience! Wow! The music they played was awesome! They also bore their testimonies which was also awesome! They are all such strong and faithful members of the church!