World Cup Stadium and much, much, more

This last week has been such a good week. I have failed to mention that a couple weeks ago we got a new member to our Air Base Branch who is a girl! It has been so nice for me because for the last while I have been the only girl in the ward. Her name is Zarai, she is originally from Mexico but lived in Texas since she was 11 and she is now 26. She is tonz of fun and it is just so nice to have another girl to talk to at church and when we all get together for fun. On Wednesday we met with the new investigator couple who we were supposed to meet with last week but they had to cancel their appointment. Their names are Chris and Agnes. They are both Korean but Agnes lived in Canada since she was 8 so she actually speaks better English than Korean. They have a cute chunky four month old baby. They treated us to some ice cream. We were excited about getting to know them better but we just found out that they have now moved to Soeul for a job that he got. After meeting with them we had an appointment with the Lim family to discuss teaching English to their kids. They want us to teach English to their 2 sons but after talking with our Principle we know we can't because of the visa's that we have. It is illegal for us to teach outside of a school. If we did we would get fined. So we had to explain this to the Lim family. While talking with them we decided that we would try and meet with there sons for fun as often as we could and take them out for some fun activities, and we would speak with them in English and help them with their pronunciation while going out and about. We don't mind because we really like their kids and enjoy spending time with them.

Wednesday night we had Family Home Evening at the Air Base and we basically just had a planning meeting for future activites, but it was good to just be with everyone laughing and having a good time. Here we are planning out our trip on the map.

Thursday we rode our bikes over to Lotte Mart and had a good time looking around. Friday and Saturday morning we went out and played Frisbee at the field across from our house. We gave ourselves a pretty good workout passing up and down the field and running out for passes. Because it's so humid we start sweating fast but it sure is fun. At 2 on Saturday we met a group over at the Air Base and we all went to Jeonju together for a professional soccer game. The soccer game wasn't until 7 pm but everyone wanted to go to Jeonju early to look around the city a bit. Jeonju has a TGI Friday's so everyone went and ate there. Liji and I brought our own food for dinner so we wouldn't have to eat out so we just went exploring a bit while we waited for everyone to get finished eating. We went up to the ninth floor of Lotte Department store where there was an open park on the top of the building. From there we could see around the city and saw that there was a river really close that looked pretty clean, which we were excited about because all the water areas in Gunsan are really dirty. We went down and found the water to be great. Now we want to go back to Jeonju and follow the river up to the mountains which is not too far away.

After everyone was finished eating we met them back at the cars and drove over to the Jeonju World Cup Stadium for the game.

We bought the seat tickets that were the cheapest and it was the young fan section. And let me tell you they were some good fans. They were standing and chanting the whole game. They even lit up some flares.

Here's our group all together. As you can see a few of them bought some team jerseys. I really wanted one but they were like $40.

We drove to the game with our friend Jeremy and after the game he happened to break his key off in the trunk of his car. He had a spare key but it was in his dorm back at the air base. So we decided to have him drive back to the base which was about 40 minutes away with the other car and then they would come back and get us. So Liji, Tyler, Zarai hung out at the stadium for about another hour and half. There was an open area near the stadium where many people were out kicking a soccer ball around, riding bikes and playing basketball. So while we waited we played frisbee and then just talked for awhile. While we were talking two teenage girls came over and wanted to take pictures with Liji because they said he was handsome. It's amazing how brave and forward the Koreans are. I think Liji is going to get too big of an ego while we are here. Funny, Funny! Luckily we weren't farther away from Gunsan when this happened and that it wasn't later than it was. We ended up getting home a little after midnight instead of the 10pm that we should have. It was such a fun day.

On Sunday we had another long and good day. Our friend Ji Sun and her two younger brothers finally came to church. The missionaries actually had someone from the ward with a car go and pick them up. I was so happy because I have kind of felt that it would be really hard to get them there without having someone just go and pick them up. Hopefully they can now start to make this into a habit. Ji Sun is baptized but her two younger brothers are not and we really want to get them baptized.

The missionaries in Iksan, which is a city about half an hour away, had an investigator who is from the Phillipines and speaks better English than Korean so they wanted her to be able to attend a church service in English. So they met us at the Gunsan Chapel after our Korean service so that we could all go over to the Air Base together for the English meeting. The investigators name is Melinda and she brought another woman friend of hers who had two children. The four missionaries and the investigators to taxis over to the Air Base and Liji and I rode our scooter over. Two of the Base members met us at the gate entrance so that they could sign us in and escort us onto base. They can only escort on 4 people per person, so when we have a lot of people it can turn into a big confusing mess sometimes. I got to talk with the two women investigators for quite awhile while we waited for everything to get figured out. Both of them came to Korea because of a Church called the Unification Church. I guess the church goes to the Phillipines to find women and bring them to Korea on the bases that they will provide them with a husband. It is not a good situation that these two women have got themselves into. Many of the husbands are very mean to their wives and hit them and also their mother-in-laws are very mean and hit them. Melinda divorced her husband 2 years ago and she wants to leave here but she can't because she doesn't have the money. Her friend(which I just can't say her name because it is just too hard) is still married and in a bad relationship. She wants to go back to the Phillipines but she says that she has to stay here for her kids because they can't leave the country without their father's permission, which they don't have. It is just a very sad situation. Both of the women are so great. Liji and I taught the Sunday School lesson on the Second Coming, so we modified it a lot because of the investigators and they did so good at participating and it seemed that they could feel the truth of the things we discussed. Melinda already has a Baptismal date for next Sunday and the Elder's asked me to speak at her Baptism. Please keep them in your prayers that all will go well. After church we stayed at the Base to have the weekly dinner for all the denominations and it was good. I am just so greatful for all of the wonderful people that we have been able to meet here.