Subjects are elusive‏

First a funny story and then a sad story.

Funny story is that on Tuesday Sis. Montgomery and I were trying to find a house in a remote area out near the factories but were having no luck (this is no Utah gridlock). Finally we decide that there's a police station conveniently close so we'll go ask for directions. WE show us and explain where we're trying ot go and they keep telling us to wait. This didn't make ANY sense because this is a smallish town so they aren't busy and NO ONE was around. Eventually two officers show up saying that they'll take us to the address. So, I rode in the back of a police car for the first time in my life. THat was fun. Then, when we get near the area (you can't drive a car everywhere in Korea) they tell us to wait in the car and not walk too much (we're missionaries---walking is what we do!) and they go through the maze of houses on foot and find our address. Then they came back and got us and took us right to it. The best part was that they decided to do the knocking for us. Here we are tracking down this less active people lost track of 10 years ago---with the police. THey start knocking and screaming "is anyone home" and "open up" in Korea. THey even opened a window and stuck their heads INTO the house to make sure the poeple weren't jsut avoiding us. I'm kinda glad no one was home because we'd have scared the living daylights out of them! It was great though, we had two cops doing our missionary work for us!

Now the sad story:
So,my bag got stolen. Here's my story (and I'm stickin' to it): Sis. Montgomery and I found this GORGEOUS neighborhood in the country while we were tracking down a less active. It was like something in Europe or Nebraska or....it was just a pocket of peace. We reach a T in the road and there's this beautiful red-brick road with trees reaching over it (both of which are very rare in Korea). WE decide that this little roadway is the PERFECT place to take your classic "missionaries walking in the road" picutre, so we put our bags on the side of the road, she grabs her camera, two copies of the Book of Mormon and a tupperware to set the camera on top of to take our picture. Then this man comes out of his driveway and beckons us over to say hello. We figure he'll take the picture for us so we walk over there. As we're walking I turned to Sis. Montgomery and said "Are we just gonna leave our stuff back there?" She turns, pauses, shrugs and we continue on laughing. We're just gonna stand in this guy's driveway and chat and we can see our stuff, right? No. The guy invites us into his yard for a tour of his garden and then he has us sit on his patio furniture. He offers us a beer and then coffee. Finally we agree to peaches so we go inside to eat peaches, all the while our stuff is out on the street---and I'm kinda squirming with anxiety. I figure it'll be fine though, because it was a really nice neighborhood. Well, after the man had gifted us towls and shown us his whole house and most of his family album we finally make it back to the street and low and behold our bags are nowhere to be seen. We ran back to the guys house and ask him to call our cell phone which was in my bag. Of course that didn't work---who answers a phone they stole. So here we are stranded in the country with no money and no identity (our foreigner cards are in the bags) and no way to contact anyone because all of our phone numbers are in the phone or in our wallets---which were in the bags. So we start asking people if they saw anyone with multiple bags walking and it raises quite the hype in the street. About 10 grandpas are standing around yelling at us telling us how stupid we are (which we were well aware of) and someone had called the cops. So we rode with the cops to the Police Station(second time this week!). They filled out a lost property report but couldn't file it because neither of us knew our passport numbers. So, it was a waste. Police in Korea are....kinda useless. Luckily the nice, rich old man gave us money to get home and I remembered my old phone number in Gupo so we got the Mission Home's phone number through my old companion. It was an adventure. It's been really stressfull trying to do missionary work with all of my missionary stuff gone. The worst is that my camera was in the bag and despite my best plans to send pictures to everyone next p-day (today) all of the pictures are lost forver. I was gonna mail home that SD card today, too (it was nearly full) and buy a new one. Sad day. I probably won't be able to afford a new camera which kidna stinks. So sad. Other than that it was just bank cards and stuff that are stressful to take care of. I also lost my little Korean hymnal and my list notebook (my favorite souvenir from Korea---it's a book I write lists of things in---things like the movies Sis. Beckstead needs to see, and funny quotes and funny t-shirts I see---so sad). I'm fine though and surviving well. The mission is taking good care of us.Okay I'm outta time, but I thought I'd mention that we got a great tour of the countryside today. A woman who attends our english class (and hopefully will become our investigator :) ) offered to take us to see the lotus blossoms and the lily pad ponds and then we went to the beach and saw some pagodas and....it was just a day full of fun. It was like a giant roadtrip. The only difference was that instead of eating PB&J in the car we atew rice and kim(seaweed). Yeah, welcome to Korea. It was a lot of fun though. The countryside is beautiful and there's not much of it left here, so it was great to get out into rice-field country and smell some fresh air.

Much love to all!

~R~

P.S. I got pictures from Dad but now I want pictures more than ever (since my camera is gone). I'd love to get them from all of you.

P.P.S. Sorry I won't be able to send pictures to any of you--ever. I'm sorry I procrastinated---and that I was dumb enough to leave my bag on the street. Sad day.