Re: 8.4 Weekly Letter2

·         Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

Oct 29 at 6:19 PM

Wow, the weeks just keep going by, don't they? It's crazy how different time seems on the mission...

We had a Halloween party on Saturday (since having one on the weekday didn't make much sense, and originally we had planned to do it on November 4th...), and it was a blast! We played some fun games together as a branch, and then we split into four different carnival-type games. They gave us tickets and then played the games to get candy. I guess I kind of forgot how excited people get over Halloween candy... ㅎㅎ We had bowling, fishing, candy pong, and whack-a-mole (but it was more like throw-a-mole, since all we had were ping pong balls). And we also had a pinata. Sister Castro was a little disappointed that it wasn't actually a real pinata--it was a box inside a box with about 100 meters of tape on it and fancy paper on the outside--but it was still pretty fun to see people beat on it. Probably the best part was our branch president: He was probably just as, if not more, excited about the games and candy and pinata than the kids were. ㅋㅋ It was fun to watch him freak out when he couldn't bounce any of the ping pong balls into the cups. 

The box inside the box.

We bought so much candy. O.o

Elder Steward, Franklin, and Elder Huillet with the pinata.
I promise that's not a real stun gun. I have no idea how that little boy got that...

We were pretty proud of this thing...

Pinata!

김동규b going at it

최윤지s. This little girl tried so hard...ㅎㅎ

Mad scramble for the candies!

최지영p being super excited about things Halloween-y

The outside of the pinata, post demolition.

We unwrapped chocolate with chopsticks. ㅎㅎ 

이승민b is a bank robber...

김동규b trying on his son's mask. 

홍희b! Love this sweet boy.

인진교b with the pole, Elder Steward running the booth,
and 김도윤b behind them doing... things. 

Cup racing. Branch president was also really good at this
(he is the one who suggested we do it, after all).ㅋㅋ

He was so mad that he couldn't get any ping pong balls into the cups...

Go Sister Castro!

Look, I made a spider, and it took me like, what, 10 seconds?

View from a cafe on a mountain

Do you see that cloud_!

Please ignore my crazy eyes...

That college life, doh...

We went on exchanges with the Sokcho Sisters and that was also fun. 이의영s came to DongHae with me and we had a good time visiting 김금순s and knocking doors. Yay missionary work! But, as always, it's good to be back with Sister Castro. :) 

I ate this spicy ramen that wasn't actually that spicy and it was SO delicious. Oh my...

The spicy sauce that was in my ramen. I promise it was super delicious.

I've also been learning a little bit about the power of prayer. You all may be pretty aware, but missionaries pray a lot (and even then sometimes it doesn't feel like we pray enough). Well, at 10:30 we turn out the light and say our closing prayers. As I've been serving my mission I've come to realize that actually praying--really communicating with my Heavenly Father--takes a little more effort than I originally thought. Here's how I know: by the time I'm done with my evening prayer, it seems that I've thought about just about everything except for what I want to say to Heavenly Father, and then I realize how sleepy I am, so I apologize and go to bed. 😳 So! I decided that was 안 돼요, and I started going into the other room to pray out loud. I cannot explain to you how much it helps. I didn't really realize it at first, but it had been a couple of days in a row that I felt really happy and willing to do the Lord's work, and when I went to the other room to pray it suddenly occurred to me that it was because I had been praying out loud. It helps heaps for the whole concentrating-thing. I just want to let you all know that Heavenly Father really listens to our prayers. He may not always answer the way we want or expect, but sometimes it's just kind of nice to know that Someone is listening, right? I know that being humble enough to speak to our Heavenly Father has helped me be happy and loving and focused, and I can promise the same for you all, as long as you're willing to try it. 

Hope you have a good week! I love you all!

Love,

Sister Chun

8.3 Weekly Letter

·         Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

Oct 22 at 6:30 PM

Good morning, world! We got up at a crisp 4:30 this morning and hoofed it over to a cute little beach spot that we found pretty near to our house so that we could watch the sunrise. It was fantastic. Actually, it was a little disappointing, since there were these massive clouds in the sky, right on the horizon, but we got to see crazy big waves (crazy big for DongHae, anyway), so that was pretty cool. I like nature! ㅎㅎ

On our way to the beach! The wind was kind of crazy, but we wore some winter layers,
so we were good all the way there.

It's Venus!

We were wearing coordinating hats and sweaters. #companionshipgoals

On the beach in the first rays of early morning.

Finally got light enough to take a decent picture. Do you see the size of that cloud_!

We took a lot of selfies, but it was only after a few minutes of that that Sister Castro pointed out we needed one of us and the beach... It was early, you know_

Poodle hair much? Cuz I do. _)

Our beach spot in the evening.

Looking pensive at the beach... ㅎㅎ

I love that soft pink color... 

Sister Castro's turn!

So, I think a lot of you may have noticed (or maybe not, since I kind of stink at taking pictures of things) is that I have dyed my hair a few times over the last couple months. Well, I decided to do it again, going to a darker color than before. What we hadn't considered, however, was that the dye from the previous time probably used some kind of yellow/orange dying agents, and the dye that we were going to use had some blue dying agents. I promise that I did graduate high school, and I know my primary colors and which ones make which secondary colors, but that did not affect how horrified we were when we realized that my hair turned out to be a little green. *facepalm* I was definitely freaking out a little bit (mostly just repeating over and over again "my hair is green" in varying tones of disbelief and slight hysteria), but when I woke up in the morning, it was still green. So I just sort of shrugged and hoped no one would notice. Luckily enough, no one at church noticed; we think it only looks really green when it's directly in the light. It's also not evenly green, so that's kind of a bummer, but at least it's not Anne of Green Gables green. 

We went on exchanges with Taebek this week, which means that we got to take four hour bus rides round-trip. :) That was fun. It was cold up there! Gotta love that mountain life. Apparently it's supposed to start snowing up there next month; I hope Sister Smith and Sister Hansen brought enough warm clothes. 

We went to visit our favorite little harmoni, Sister 김금순; when she opened the door, to our great surprise, her left eye was totally black and swollen. Apparently she had taken a fall a couple of days before, resulting in that pretty massive black eye. ㅠㅠ It made us very sad. But it was also a pleasure to bustle around her house and help tidy up--mostly just washing dishes while she yelled at me not to--and then peel some fruit for her, since she couldn't see out of her eye very well. Sister Castro visited her over exchanges and reports that her eye looks much better. She's been rubbing a raw egg over the hurt part. ☺

I heard the news about Sami and his sweetheart! Congratulations, you two! I don't think I've ever had the chance to meet Tammy (Tami, Tammi?) before I left on my mission, but I'm excited to get to know her! 

여러분을 사랑해요! I hope you have a good week!

Love,

Sister Chun

This woman is so cute! 

She wanted to take a picture near the train tunnel,
but we just compromised for one in front of it. ㅎㅎ

This is Franklin (이스민b). He comes to English class. I think he's trying to make a 평 sign (finger heart), but he just can't... quite... get it. ㅎㅎ I love this boy so much! 

LPP Passoff!

Lunch with our investigator, Annabelle.
We ate pasta literally drenched in oil, and it was fantastic. 

Exchanges with Sister Smith!
She made us those delicious Korean pancakes...

Dinner with Sister Smith. Easier to make than I thought, actually...

Can you tell how green it is?

Andy, a member of our Saturday English class.
We finished the message early, so he led us in a tower-building exercise.

8.2 weekly letter

·         Leanne Noelle Chun <leanne.chun@myldsmail.net>

So. Much. Food. _fistpump_

Grilled kimchi is a thing. A really delicious thing. 

How to make 불고기 (fire meat)_ use fire.

So. Much. 고기. Thanks to 최지영p for making us food! 

Some of our members on activity night.
We had just played Sister Sonksen's _Big Band_ Game, and it was hilarious. 

A few of the people left over after the 식사. 

Oct 15 at 5:56 PM

Wow~! This week was pretty fun! We were on exchanges with the Gangreung Sisters so that Sister Seo and I could go to Seoul for MLC. That was fun, but I missed sleeping in my own bed! 

The really exciting parts of the week were Saturday and Sunday. We had branch conference this week, so we had a branch activity night on Saturday. President and Sister Sonksen were present, and we played a bunch of fun games (Charades, Do you love your neighbor?, and Mafia) and ate delicious food. We found out later that President Sonksen is not really a game person, but props to him for participating! (And it looked like he was having fun, too, so that's good.) I seriously love these members so much! They are fantastic, and so much fun. 

Like I said, Sunday was branch conference, so we had some different speakers (President and Sister Sonksen, Elder and Sister Nielsen, the senior missionaries in Gangreung, 최지영 회장님), all of whom gave really great talks. Sister Sonksen gave her whole talk in Korean, which was kind of fun to hear. Sister Castro and I were asked to teach Primary, since the Primary President had to work in the morning. There were only four kids in Primary, and, boy, are they energetic. Two sisters, 최은지 (9) and 최윤지 (6), and two boys, 신승철 (12) and 김홍희 (10). The twelve year old so reminded me of Levi, which I remarked to him. I just said, "SeungCheor, you're like my little brother..." after which there was a pause and he said, "weird?" We both laughed and I gave him a thumbs up. Don't worry, Levi, I only think you're a little bit weird. :) Mostly I just think you're fun, which I told 승철b. Hurray for Primary! 

We also at a ton of food afterward, so that was fantastic. Sister Castro and I decided that we need to go on a diet: the tummy fat is getting out of hand... ㅎㅎ I'll let you know how that goes... 

We also walked 김금순s, the recent convert, home. She is the cutest little 할머니 in the entire world. Her leg was sort of hurting, so I held her hand as we walked: it's literally like holding hands with a kid. She had us come up to her apartment so that she could give us 배 (which we ate last night and it was so delicious) and dried sweet potatoes (맛이 조금 없어요... ㅎㅎ). She was really excited to have so many people visiting the branch today. I think she 인사ed to every single one of them. When the Nielsens left, she walked out to the front door to wave goodbye until they had driven away. By way of explanation she just said, "끝까지 인사해 야해!". We love her so much. 

This week we started reading the Book of Mormon as a mission! We'll go from now until the end of the year, highlighting references to the word "heart". Today was until 1 Nephi 4 and there are already a few of those references, a little bit to my surprise. The goal is to be able to determine how our hearts are doing as we read about hearts. Do we have hard hearts or soft hearts?  

I'm so grateful to be here in Korea, especially in DongHae. I'm grateful for everything that I've learned on my mission and everything that I'm still going to learn. Hopefully I get everything that Heavenly Father is trying to tell me. :) 

I love you all! Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Chun

최지영p, our branch president. He is seriously hilarious. His daughters are the two rambuctious ones in Primary. He always tells us missionaries to get married slow... 

Had to take a picture with the food, and 김영민b jumped in there. We love this 남자. ㅎㅎ

Our 고기 faces...

These are the two boys from Primary. 홍희 on the left, 승철 on the right. 

Kidnapped lovingly by this cute harmoni, 김금순s. 

Loved getting kidnapped by 김금순 자매님. She had to concentrate going up the stairs, though (and she also doesn't like pictures, so I had to be sneaky). 

The guy looked right at the camera, holding the gun thing, saw us filming and waved at us.
He tapped his tiger friend and told him to wave at us, too.

These women had really beautiful hanbok on. 

                                     

That, my friends, is a giant teddy bear hanging on the side of a building. I love Seoul...

Weekly planning at Ediya Coffee.
Sister Castro is better at taking selfies than I am...

This is a member from Sindang ward who saw us walking into this KFC for dinner and ran after us to buy us food. Turns out her niece is serving in our zone!