The time has gone by so fast! September flew by and this month is doing the same. It has been a fun, busy and educational month and a half.
School
It has taken a lot of getting used to and making adjustments, but it is going really well! I love my students more every day and I think they are pretty much adapted to me. At first I think it was really hard for them because Dokcheon has never had a teacher that doesn't speak Korean. My students would come up to me and ask questions are just start talking and all I could say was "Hongul bola" or "I don't know Korean." Because they are so young I don't think they understood that really, as much as I want to understand them, can't do so, they would get frustrated or worse look so sad which made me sad. But we've gotten used to each other now and found different ways of communicating.
One of my favorite things that happens now is something I like to call "da la hey po se oh." This is roughly how you pronounce the phrase "repeat after me" which I use quite frequently in class. Now my students like to find me before and after class and teach me a little bit of Korean. It's so funny because they say the phrase exactly like I do in class and then make me pronounce different words in Korean, usually followed by laughter because I can't say it right!
My third graders still give me a headache most days but even they are getting a little better and the other day they even bombared me with like 30 origami boats and animals. Guess they kinda like me after all. :)
Chuseok
The first week of October Korea celebrated Chuseok, comparable to Korean Thanksgiving. At church there is a girl my age named Hye Sun, she is awesome and she speaks english! We have become pretty good friends and her mom invited me to celebrate Chuseok with them. The Elders also came and it was great! There was so much food, some of it very good, some of it...interesting, but it was cool because it was all traditional dishes. They explained that Chuseok is for remembering ancestors and really when they described different things families do, it was kind of like Memorial Day as well. Later that night Hye Sun told me to come back to watch the light show they do on the beach. I'm glad we went, it was pretty cool and they did a special number with a traditional song and images for the holiday.
Jinju Lantern Festival
A little while ago I went with my friends Katie and Megan to the Lantern Festival in a city called Jinju. It was a lot of fun! Jinju has a gigantic old fortress and was the sight of some important battle against Japan hundreds of years ago. The fortress and museum alone where pretty cool but all the lanterns made it even better! They go all out for this festival, seriously there were probably thousands of lanterns all of the place! Some represented important artifacts, some the different animals for each year, you know year of the dragon type thing, some were promoting diffent places and events. We got there in the afternoon and walked around the fortress for a bit and there were a lot of people but not bad. Once it was dark and the lanterns lit up, the place was nuts! There were soooo many people, it was hard to get anywhere. At one point we had to cross the bridge to get to the side we hadn't been to yet and we held on to each others bags so we wouldn't get seperated. It probably took us 30 minutes to cross the bridge, and once we got down to the venders it was just as congested. We finally decided to go back and then realized we had a problem.
None of us thought this festival would be such a huge thing with so many people, so we didn't think to reserve a hotel room. We started to walk down the street right along the river/festival and there were tons of hotels...all sold out. Not even the jimjilbangs had room. Needless to say we started to get a little worried. Finally, at the very end of the street there was a big hotel that wanted 160,000 won for a twin bed. We started to think we would just have to find some nice benches and hope it wasn't to cold that night. Not too worry, we had a better idea of going back toward the bus station about 15 minutes from the festival and see if there were hotels there. We finally found one! And it had a bed! I will never complain about any mattress every again, believe me anything is better than wood floor!
The next day we went back to the fortress, it was nice and not many people were there so we got to see some of what we had missed including the museum and a 3D movie about the battle that happened there.
Temple Trip
I finally got to go to the Temple last weekend! I have not been since I left Logan so it was wonderful to be there! It looks a lot like the Temple in Lima, which brought back so many awesome memories! We left Mokpo at 3:30 am and got to Seoul around 9:30ish, I of course was out the entire way! We were able to do to sessions and then we had a little extra time. I was wandering around and found a building behind the temple that said bookstore. I walked in, heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and saw the shelves full of Preach my Gospel and scriptures, and no joke, I started to cry! Sometimes I am so sentimental, but I miss working at Deseret Book! Mostly I miss the awesome people I work with, but it felt so good to be in that familiar place! Afterwards, I found out that upstairs they have a family history center so I went and did some work there for about an hour before we left. It was such a great trip and I think next time I will stay overnight and visit a few more places around Seoul while I'm there. Apparently the Temple here has sleeping accomadations which I've never heard of, but I think it's great so maybe I'll try it out next time!
Good Old Mokpo
I really love the city I live in! I thought it was about the same size as Salt Lake City, but I looked it up and actually Mokpo is bigger. Probably not bigger than all of Salt Lake County though. Anyway, Mokpo is not a huge city for Korea, but it has enough to do and it's pretty here. After I get home from school most days I go on a walk to explore what's around and every day I found some new part of town. There are quite a few other english teachers that live here as well so it's nice to get together with them and visit different places. A while ago Katie, Nancy, and I went to Mt. Yuldalson, which is a pretty large mountain in Mokpo. We climbed up to the monument there and took pictures bc the view was pretty, but then we realized you could climb higher. So we did, and so you could againg go higher, so we did. It was so funny bc we kept getting to another stopping place and even though we had not planned on hiking that day we thought we might as well keep going since we were already there! We reached the top right as the sun was setting and it was sooo pretty! We could see the ocean and the whole city backed by mountains. It's moments like that I wish I had a camera that could actually do justice to a scene like that!
Anyway, I have made some great friends here, which also makes all the difference! I love our ward, they are so kind to me, and I got a calling! I get to teach the primary kids songs in enlish! There are not very many of them but they are super cute and I love singing with them! Also, I've been able to help the Elders teach a few people in english and that has been really great!
I think you're probably done reading by now so I will post some pictures! I hope you are well and happy! One of my favorite quotes:"You don't find the happy life, you make it!" Sis. Hinkley Love you!
