World Cup and P day (14 Jun email)

P-day is officially on Monday from here on out. Change your calendars or whatever....

So, Saturday was the first game of the World Cup. The whole country shut down. I knew soccer was big all over the world, but I didn't understand that it really takes over the world. It was really fun on our bus ride home to see the masses of people in red jerseys (is that spelled jersies?) and with their glow-in-the-dark red devil horns wandering around (still haven't figured out what the mascot is that htey wear horns....I thought it was a Tiger...I'll ask someone next time with World Cup comes up...which won't be long). My companion and I decided that we have to go on a hunt for some of those light-up horns, though. That'll be fun...."The Mormon missionaries walked into my store asking for devil horns the other day!" I'm excited to find them.

The night of the actual game we were instructed that we weren't allowed to call anyone....which makes planning the next day practically impossible...so, instead of planning, we sat on our balcony on the 13th floor (is it a bad omen that I live on the 13th floor?) and watched all of the people and families all gathered at home together to watch the game. I've never seen so many families home all at once...it was a miracle. Korea should be in the World Cup more often :). There was such an intense...energy...in the air. It was fun because we didn't even have to see the game, we knew EXACTLY when we scored because the whole city (and probably country) went into an uproar....at which point my companion and I would jump up and down screaming and cheering out the window. We didn't even see the game and we got to cheer for it. We celebrated for BOTH of the points we got---and several other things...not sure what they were :). It was way better than the Superbowl could ever be.

Thursday wasn't all that long ago, so there's not a lot to say. We miraculously ran into to not one but TWO of our potential investigators who have been really difficult ot get a hold of. That was pretty cool. At that point it doesn't even matter that the Less Actives we were heading out to visit weren't even home. No effort is wasted. The Lord will take every ounce of effort and make it productive to His cause.

Things are going really fast. I can't believe it's already the third week of this transfer. Sister Cramer has been here 2 months now. That's really amazing to me. Time flies when you're having fun.

The funny thing to me is that I never really had any idea what to expect on my mission. Lots of people told me it would be hard. And they were right. Others said I would really grow. And they were right. Soem people said that it'd go faster than any other year and a half of my life. And they were CERTAINLY right. But no one ever told me how much FUN a mission is. I think people don't like to talk about how FUN their mission is for fear that other people would think that if you thought it was FUN then you must not be a good missionary--you must have just messed around. Well, I'll tell you from experience that all of the good missionaries know that a mission is fun--that it's the most joyous work you could ever do. People who just mess around don't think it's fun...they think it's prison. But a mission is truly so much fun! Every day is just such an adventure full of love and life and miracles.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here in Korea, particularly in my beautiful little naval town of Chinhae. There's a certain magic and pleasantness in the air that just can't be found anywhere else in the world. It's like a fairy tale land or something. Amazing things happen here every day.

Everyone stay safe and happy and cool. Remember who you are...and don't do anything I wouldn't do!

~R~