typhooooon!!

Hello!

I'm still alive, though, according to weather forecasts, I may not be
alive tomorrow. A really big typhoon is supposed to hit this evening
and continue on tomorrow as well. Apparently it's the first of the
season. Yesterday at church everyone was warning us about it and
telling us not to go outside tomorrow. Apparently winds up to 50
km/hour. We'll see. It seems this happens every year here so people
are used to it. I'm not planning on dying and neither is anyone else.
Hopefully we'll find a safe way to do missionary work. Ha.

It has rained, poured, drenched us most of of this week--although we
did have a couple sunny days. My shoes, as my first Korean companion
would say, are rotten. Yes, yes they are. Welcome to European heritage
and water logged faux leather, my friend! It is fun to carry an
umbrella around as we walk. For the first 10 minutes we're dodging
puddles and carefully, very optimistically holding the umbrella
overhead. The next five minutes start to become miserable---our feet
ARE puddles themselves. And the next five minutes I start wondering
why I'm carrying an umbrella at all. The misery dulls a little and
it's just life. We've been walking through rivers and forcing some
laughter when cars splash us. Such is life.

We were able to teach our new member, Sister Choi, in Seoguipo. She is
young and has a tough upbringing. Usually her mom doesn't let her go
out of the house when it's raining, so the fact that it was pouring
when we caught the bus to meet her was a little disheartening. But,
miraculously we could meet and we taught her about the Plan of
Salvation again. She is so cute and loves my companion, Sister Yoon,
so much. Later that day we taught Sister Go, a 16 year old sister. She
has a hard time coming to church, but does want to be baptized, even
though she is afraid of the water. We explained that she has to come
to church if she wants to get baptized. She is sweet, but I'm not sure
how well she's grasping the concepts we're teaching. We're still
holding on and praying we can meet this week as well.

We met with a less active sister, Sister Kim, who has been very warm
to us. She said that she wants to study the Book of Mormon with us
and, in turn, learn a few English phrases to help her with her work at
a Japanese restaurant. We were surprised at her interest, and although
it kind of seems she wants to read the Book of Mormon as a favor to
us, I think if we prepare well and help her gain a testimony of the
Book of Mormon, this will be a good opportunity for all of us. We meet
with her this Friday. We talked about prayer and she told us she has
too many doubts to pray. It is prayer that removes doubts. We're
looking forward to talking to her again.

We met some interesting characters this week--a Korean man who has run
a deli in New York for 21 years and has been here in Jeju hanging out
for a year. "What's up?" was his opening line. He was a character--not
too interested in the gospel, but we had an interesting conversation.
We also met a guy from London who was visiting his girlfriend here in
Jeju. He was really nice, but told us he likes Buddhism because it
doesn't have many rules and restrictions and just focuses on loving
everyone. It was fun to get to talk in English, but not too much came
of those experiences.

This week I hit my one year mark in Korea (Aug. 30th.). Pretty wild.

Anyway, the typhoon winds are picking up here in this citizen's center
and the windows are blowing around pretty hard.

I'm grateful for the opporunity to serve and the fresh start of each
day and moment if we allow it to be that way. That's something I'm not
naturally inclined to do, but I am grateful for the moments I see
people through the lens of forgiveness and brother/sisterhood. It is
the only thing that motivates me in this work. Thank you for writing
me this week! I hope I have more to say next week. Love!