2012.12.30 email and pictures

Dear Home,

Good news: I've got picture capability. Bad news: Letter time is getting shorter by the week. Sorry about that. But I suddenly learned something new about P-Days. They're time to form relationships with companions. You do a little during the week, but so often you only get a chance to talk about work. The things we can do to help the Lord's Kingdom.

Anyway, P-days are the chance to get to know each other, have memories and all that. Without a good relationship with your comp, missionary work dies. The spirit only comes when both of us are in gear, and we need it out here.

So, I might not have as much time to write. Gotta find a way around that. Maybe next companion I'll have more email time. Not sure. For now, I won't waste more time on it.

This week was a blast. I got to hear your voices! Pretty incredible. Far away, but not far enough not to feel you guys's love. Thanks for everything.

By the way, I'll try to pull out the christmas money today, might not do the shopping till later. As always, time is lacking. I'll get to it, I promise. And we've been thinking of how to do it. I might use the other gift money for a scarf. Think about it later...

Rest assured, I'm not neglected. I've got good people looking out for me, in every way I can say. And the members spoil us big time. In fact, President came by for interviews, we legitimately cooked a full on ham dinner for him. A member gave it to us. One of those honeyglazed ones, you know. Then I made some potatos au graten, (never thought I'd make that out here...) Elder Dyer is pretty good in the
kitchen, we did a lot of tag teaming for this one, it was legit.

Tons of food, love, miracles, etc. Pretty good. A little stress, a lot sometimes. But I'm good. Anyway, picture time.

~Elder Robarts

I love you guys so much.

Nice little place in Suwon We did a service project around there

Get this one to Anh and Ben. "I found Dorean" Ben will understand. =D

Yeah, we cooked a feast... I took a picture with all of in it with president too, but I accidently chopped myself out. You'll get that later.

My thankful chain this year. Thanks! I definitely want to do that again next year. It was a great way to relax at the end of a day.

he roof was locked, but I got this. It's a picture from our apartment. Yeah, compared to Korea, this is country side. I'll try to get a better "city" picture later. Hard when you can't do it while proselyting.

My very first district in the field. Pretty fun. It feels like ages ago. MTC? I feel like that was before I left home. A little weird.

My companion didn't want to get in the picture, so Elder Dyer Subed. Merry Christmas!

here you go. Us at a member's house. Merry christmas!

Maybe I'll end with this one. Kind of fun right? Might send this back with the next package. Trying to think who might be able to use it. Haha, came in handy though, but you won't see why for two years. I've got a nice video of a missionary act to share. 

Holiday hiatus

The holidays have disrupted the regular flow of mail.  The holiday takes the place of P-day which wreaks havoc on email, shopping, and laundry.  Except, fortunately, Elder Robarts and company have a washer.  No dryer.  They have drying racks. But email time is forfeit, especially with the Christmas phone call.
 : )

Elder Robarts did send a package home which we opened during his Christmas phone call.  Almost forgot, but opened it toward the end.  The package contained different snack foods from Korea, a fan for me : ),  postcards, a set of chopsticks & spoons, some coins, and a Korean flag. Fun to enjoy a little bit of Benjamin's new world.

Postcards from Korea

 Seolaksan Mountain

Ventilation hole of Haminjeong at Changgyeonggung Palace

inside of Korean ceramics kiln

Sandaenori (traditional mask show) fromSongpa

potter

gate and decorative of Injeongjeon at Changdeokgung Palace

living utensils in a traditonal house

Buyongjeong at Changdeokgung Palace

 

room of a traditional house

room of a traditional house

 

Nakseongjae at Changdeokgung Palace

Chuyandmun Gate of Daejojeon at Changdeokgung Palace

  Hyangwonjeong at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Gangneung Hyanggyo (County Public School)

a well at Yanghwadang of Changgyeonggung Palace

Jangdokdae (outdoor stand for Korean traditional jars)

2012.12.17 no email email

Sorry guys. No email this week. We ran into a guy proselyting on the street, and from the sounds of it, he really needs the gospel. Long story short, P-day ran out of time, so no luck.Love you guys! Sorry, talk to you next week!

 

~Elder Robarts

snail mail written 12/03/2012

Dear Home,

It's December! Almost Christmas time!
And of all places in Korea, I'm in a place that celebrates it.  I'm incredibly blessed here, and I'm not entirely sure why.

But first item of business - - Transfers: I'm staying in Pyeongtaek along with Elder Barney and my companion, but Elder Burningham will be serving as AP now, so he moved out.  More time to work in the area.

Mail situation:  my snails are being kept at the beach for a while.  The post office is a little out of the way, and we don't get to go often.  Not a super big priority in this area...  

Anyway, I'm glad to be here a little longer.  After a long drought, we finally found a group of new investigators, and I'm really hopeful about what we can do.  One of them is a family that actually found us online, spent a pretty long time looking, too, from the sounds of it.

...Just emailed, so we'll switch gears.  I covered most of that.  Things are going well here.  Now I mostly want to cover fun facts and events of the week.  (We've got next to no time today.)  I'm writing in a cab now, we're doing some shopping before Burningham leaves.  Then we have appointments...

So this will be fast.  First off, my B-day was great.  The guys got some awesome food and a cake, and the work has been going well.  We've been blessed.

Looking forward to the holidays, bu there are going to be some huge changes coming up.  One is English class.

And yet again, no time.

I'm sorry.  P-day was short today.  I guess I'll save it for next week.  Odds are I won't get the chance to send it by then.

Sorry, small letter is better than no letter.  I might have a shot of sending this today.

Love you!
Elder Robarts (in Korean)

snail mail written 11/26/2012

Dear Home,

So much to write about, so little time, and it could be a month before your read it.  Where to start?

First off, it's the holidays! Still can't believe it's been so long.  But we go lucky here.  We had Thanksgiving with some of the American members, and we still haven't finished all the pies we got after a ward Linger Longer.

I've seen a couple Christmas trees, too.  It's hard to think that you guys are doing the same things.  In my mind, its' still August.

Anyway, it's not all fun and games.  With the weather getting colder, people aren't thrilled to stop and talk to us.  It's getting harder to find new investigators, and we lost a lot of the ones we were working with.  One is only interested in English, not gospel.  Ton's of others just got busy and don't have time anymore.  I wish I was better at talking to people, or even just understanding what they say.  It's still hard.  Probably will stay that way.  I'll just get better at working around it.

I'm learning a lot of new things, though.  One is that Koreans are pretty smart. All of them.  A few of our investigators had exams last week and this week, and from what I hear they're pretty intense.  But they come up with everything.  chalkboard eraser cleaners.  lots of ways to open doors or turn on sinks, rarely with your hands.  The kick switch for the sink is actually pretty nice.  Saves time doing dishes.  I can't even remember all the odd little things I've seen.  I should get better about writing those down.  Sorry about that.  I'll try to come up with some before I finish this.  heated floors, drains in bathrooms)

On another note, I found some awesome stuff during our personal studies.  One was on page 164 of Preach My Gospel.  It talked about the same spirit of service we feel in the temple is here in the mission field.  And vice versa.  It's all the same work. For a temple addict, that makes me feel a lot better about not being able to go.

But it also got me thinking.  There are so many who weren't able to  serve missions that wanted to.  I just wanted to take a moment and say that you don't have to worry about it.  You can still serve, and I can personally witness that there are spiritual blessings you can see from it.  It's an incredible blessing and opportunity.

Oliver Cowdery's testimony of the Restoration at the end of Joseph Smith History is pretty amazing, too.  Lots of little things that let you feel the spirit and find new things you'd never noticed before.  The hardest part is recording it all, something I've struggled with.  Not writing, just organizing it. For a year I just dumped it all in one journal.  Big mistake.  I'm glad I did it, but it's near impossible to find anything.

Now I've gone a little over board.    One for the temple (white journal), one for good missionary quotes and scripture references (black journal), one for Priesthood blessings, ordinances, temple names (small plates), and the large plates, pretty much everything else.  That is currently divided into my study journal, personal journal, and family journal.  May add more latter.

I really want to have a inspiration journal and a journal with favorite scripture passages, topics, etc, but both of those will take time.

Why am I writing this? Well, it might be useful to someone who who through the same dilemma as I did, but mostly because I wanted to talk about my family journal.  Once I know the mail is safe, I may try to send them home.  More day to day accounts of what's happening.

I always write, but I don't always write in the same places, so there may be gaps for days.  I just wrote in the personal journal, but it's better than these bulk accounts where I forget everything.

I can't do it until I know I won't lose it though.  That's the hard part.  We'll see.

Lot's to do, but I'm finding some nice tricks.  Using multiple journals has made a huge difference in finding what I need again.

But a brief return to my life here before I close.

The apartment is getting a lot cleaner.  Elder Barney and I have really wanted to work on it, and he's done a ton.   It's amazing how much you can get done in a couple months.  Little bits here and there.  It's a lot nicer when it's clean and we have space.

Last week we explored shops near the house.  I found some speakers, so I've been working a bit on organizing music.  Picking out the good mission ones.  Slow working, but good.

We've been calling a lot of former investigators.  So I've been able to practice over the phone Korean a lot.  A little harder, but not too bad.  I don't understand things normally, so it's all about the same.  = D  Little by little.

I don't want to lose the language when I get home though.  This stuff is hard to pick up.  I want it to stick for a while. 

As for sharing the Gospel., I'm learning to speak more simply, and that's helped a lot.  My long-winded nature is a curse out here.  It's been so  hard sometimes to find the one thing I should say.  The short, powerful testimony that invites the spirit.  But it's still mostly my companion.  He does almost all the teaching.  I just try to follow along and hope for the best when it's my turn.

I love you guys.  Still no luck on making a trip down to the little folk village, but hopefully we'll get the chance next week.

For now, this is it.  Got lots of notes to write.

 Take care ! and let me know how you guys are doing.  ^^
               (Elder Robarts in Korean)


So... the letter from last week will get sent with this one.  We never got to go to the post office.

PPS:  This Saturday we had an awesome service project as a Stake for Mormon Helping Hands.  I'll try to send pictures.

snail mail dated 11-19-2012

Dear Home,

Out and about today. Forgot a pen.  Luckily Elder Barney let me borrow this (pencil).  Luckily, there's not a whole lot this time.

First off, you guys are the greatest. I got the Thanksgiving package last week, so I started my thankful chain.  I tried to send the progress picture, but no luck.  I counting it as language study, too.  Practicing spelling and what not.  (I'm not actually using language study time, don't worry.  Just a couple minutes each night.)

(in ink)  Alright, we're back!  And I found a really cute little speaker to keep on the desk instead of using the apartment set in the front room. Gets the job done well.  And it packs really well, too.  Happy campin.. ^^

Also, Mom, you're a genius.  Washed my sheets today, that mission ready blanket you gave me, already dry.  Faster than the sheets.  Both that and the towels are incredible, especially with no dryer.  Makes life a ton easier.

So this week we had Stake Conference with Elder Ringwood there again.  That was good, but my favorite part was the choir.  Koreans like singing a lot.  Lots of good music lately.  The Osan military branch had their Primary presentation this Sunday.  I forgot how good Primary songs sounded.  And now I've got some speakers for the journal writing time (not sure if we can play music during study time).

Love this place.  There's so much to learn, I need to practice just talking to people, but it's good.  And by very small degrees, I'm starting to understand this language.  It's still hard to understand people when they talk, but I can usually guess.  And I'm usually wrong, but I'm getting closer.

But the people are the best.  Brother Kim is leaving on a mission soon, but he's helped us a lot.  we can always count on him to help with a lesson.  And he's helped a lot with Korean, too.  He doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so we help each other grow a lot when we try to have a conversation.  One fun thing was trying to translate something from Korean to English, just the two of us.  We actually did pretty good.

I'll miss that guy.  If you can find him on Facebook, that would be awesome, but it'd probably be hard.  I'll figure it out later.

Other people:  President Furniss.  Awesome guy, I've talked with him for a while, and you can easily tell how hard a worker he is.  Our Area Authority told him to take more P-days.  And when a General Authority says you need to take a break more often, you know you're working hard.

I don't know how he does it, but he also is really good about questions in emails.  With how many he gets a week, it's impressive that he's able to respond to them.  He's good at listening and getting you excited for the work.

Sister Furniss is great, too.   She felt like a real mission mom right from the get go, and  every time we get a chance to talk, she's fun, and when she talks about the love she feels for her missionaries, no one could question it.

So, my companion: He's pretty cool.  Sometimes we have language barriers with communicating, but not bad.  He's a really good trainer.  Definitely likes to be a trouble maker with other missionaries, it's kind of fun to watch, but when he gets in a lesson, it's like a whole other person. I just wish I could pick up Gospel teaching tips from him more.  I can't understand much of the lessons, except for bits here and there. So all of these examples of teaching to the culture and people haven't really sunk in yet. It's great for learning Korean  though.  And it's fun to share English terms every now and then.

snap! only fifteen minutes left.

Elder Barney and Burningham (I am guessing here, Elder Robarts' handwriting can be difficult sometimes) are great, too.  Barney came out of the MTC at the same time as me so it's been great having another greeny to talk with.  And Burningham, our district leader, is hilarious.  He and Elder (something in Korean) are great together.  They've been in this area for 3 months together, so they're pretty well used to each other. Never a dull moment.

and we wrap up there.

Love you!
Elder Robarts (in Korean)

2012.12.10 email

Dear home,

Man, life is crazy. Tell everyone thanks for me!

Last week was transfers, so everything was thrown into chaos. The only  letter I wrote was one I wrote in a cab. No time. But it's in the  mail. and this week is all prepped and packed in a package I'll try to  get sent to the base tomorrow. It might get there before my other letters. Fingers crossed. It's not as fun as I thought it would be. We never went to the folk village, so no fun trinkets or nativities, but I found some stuff, and I've got a little more time here, I'll try to find something before I leave.

That's it on that. Other big news, it's snowing! Not sure what your weather says, but the phone said -10C or something. Winter sure came out of no where... Fun though.

Lot's of love, but almost no time to share it. I'm getting super excited to hear you guys. I miss you more than I can say, but I'm in a pretty comfortable place. It's fun seeing Elder Dyer--new trnsfered in
missionary-- react to everything. Like a kid in a candy store.

Peongtaek is nice...

See you guys soon!
~Elder Robarts

2012.12.02 email

Dear Home!

First off, I'm really sorry. The snails aren't haven't trouble swimming. Half of them are just trapped on the shore. The post office is kind of out of the way, (not all that bad, but we rarely have time) and I don't get to go very often. One of the few downsides to my current area. My trainer isn't a big fan of long letters. But don't worry, I've got a small army I should be able to send today. Week 4, Week 5, and if I write it fast enough, this week. Last week I had to write about 10 of them. Love you guys. Promise. They'll get there.

As for your letters, I think there's about a 3 week delay. Not sure.

But that's not important. Big news: Transfers. I'm staying in Pyeongtaek, but Elder Barney's trainer got sent to Daejeon to be an AP. Should be a pretty crazy transfer. But I will be here for Christmas. We're eating breakfast at a member's
house, so we'll probably call while we're there. Plan for 11AM my time, should be 7pm sac time. But if you could, leave some wiggle room, apparently plans are highly subject to change in the mission field.

Man it's crazy. Who would have thought I'd be here for the holidays, in a place that actually celebrates them... Lot's to be grateful for. Speaking of which: after a long drought, we found a group of new investigators! One of them is an awesome family. We didn't actually find them, they found us. Looked online for quite a while from the sounds of it. Mostly for english, but they're pretty open to hear our message. Hopefully it goes well. Gotta get my Korean up, it's coming,
but painfully slow. I'm just glad conversation is getting easier.

I miss you guys so much. Remember the post office I was talking about? I haven't been able to get a hold of the flat rate box yet, and we haven't had time to visit the folk village, but I'm still trying. It'll probably be late though. Definitely not in time for Christmas like I was hoping. But I've got six more weeks, so I should be able to, right? Here's hoping. I'll keep an eye out for nativities too, but so far I haven't seen many.

Gotta start wrapping up. I still have a letter to write to president, and I'm hoping to print some things Bro Petersen sent to help with Korean. Could you tell him thanks for me? I wrote a couple notes for him and Sis Wadsworth, but it's in the huge batch going out today, so who knows when they'll get there. I got an email out to my district at least though. I've really wanted to do that.

I love you guys. Give it a couple weeks, the snails want to see you too. We've just got to finish fighting our way to the shore. =D Haha, hopefully communication will be a bit smoother next area.

But again. Christmas. my time 11am Christmas day, your time 7pm Christmas eve. Here's hoping this time will go better. Anyway, just give me the number to call, and also some skype info. We might try that, so I'd like to keep options open. Can't wait to hear you!

~Elder Robarts

PS:Sorry, wrong email place. Can't send pictures.