Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Update

On Saturday we went to a beach nearby and had a fun time swimming.


There was this huge hole in the beach that we aren't really sure what it was from, but we had fun jumping into it.


These two have been such a help to us and such good friends. It has been so fun getting to know them better. One thing they LOVE is rice krispy treats. We wanted to make something for our students at school so Liji asked one of our friends from the air base to get us some marshmallows, so we could make some rice krispies for our students. I mentioned this to Chi hoon at church on Sunday and that we would make some for hime also. Well he is not shy when it comes to things he wants so he invited himself over. Sunday night we had him and Sister O over for dinner and then rice krispies and we watched the movie Legacy. They hadn't seen it before so we set it to Korean. I've already seen it enough that I wasn't lost at all. As far as the rice krispies go we ended up having to use some different cereal because we couldn't find rice krispies but they still turned out good.
I'm just finishing up making the rest of the marshmallow treats to take to our students.


They were happy to get them. This is Kurt's class. They are all boys, like Alex's class but not quite as out of control as Alex's class. I really like having them. They are so much fun.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Meal at the Gunsan Ward

I don't have much time, so here is a video for you to enjoy. This was from 2 Sunday's ago of our meal after our church meetings with the Gunsan Ward. We had Beep em Bap, it was so good:)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

A VERY Eventful day in Jeonju

This last Saturday we took a trip to Jeonju. On the scooter it took us about 40 minutes. When we left we weren't sure what we were going to do, we just wanted to look around. Well below is what we found.
This is a wasp that we found on our window screen Saturday morning. Liji wasn't sure what it was and he tried to catch it because he didn't think it had a stinger. But we ended up seeing a dead one later on at an Ecological Museum that we found in Jeonju and indeed it is a HUGE wasp

One of the Guardians to at the city entrance.
On the way in Liji spotted a sign to the zoo. We decided to check it out and ended up having a great time at the zoo. The next few pictures are of our time there. Our favorite part was feeding the animals.





A new type of fish, we'd never seen before.

How would you like this spider on your head?











After the zoo it was getting really hot, so we went over to the swimming hole that we have already been to a couple of times, to cool off.
Of course Liji spent most of his time trying to catch little fish.





After swimming we went to an Ecological Museum. It was mostly geared towards kids, but we still had a great time.


Here is the wasp that is the same as the picture of the wasp on our screen this morning.
Here in Korea, we have been hearing about these beetles that they have. Many of our students have them as pets. Well, at the Ecological museum they had a section just about these beetles.

Here's Liji shooting the beach ball through the hoop, with this air blower.

Huge Larvae

Liji was in Bug Heaven!




Big swing on the side of the river path in Jeonju.

We found an old traditional village and this is a big tree inside the courtyard.

Old Castle

Finally we went to the Market Place in Jeonju to shop around and Liji wanted to eat dinner there. As much as I didn't want to I consented because I knew if I didn't Liji would call me a sissy and be mad at me for being not being willing to try new places. Well this soup below explains why I am always so hesitant. We didn't know what anything was on the menu besides knowing that it would be served with rice, so we just order 2 of the cheapest meals. Well this is what I got. Those little chunks of meaty looking stuff we think was intestinal wall cut up into small squares, and the round dark red things is blood sausage according to Liji. Liji liked it, but I did not go near the intestine or the blood sausage. I just put the broth and onions from the side dish onto my small side bowl of rice and filled up on that. Liji got to finish off the remaining chunks. Which he was happy with. Augh, so gross. I wish I could be a little bit more adventurous when it comes to my food, but man this was just too much.

After eating we went to E-Mart and found some great deals there in Jeonju. I got 3 pairs of really cute capri's for only $12, and Liji got a pair of pants and some shoes. What a fun day.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

On Thursday we had to say goodbye to Elder Truhaft. He has been here in Gunsan since January and was actually transfered this time. We were sad to see him go. He has been such a help to us since we have been here and we are grateful for him. He is such a great missionary and works so hard. I've learned a lot working with him.

These are the lockers in E-mart. I guess if you don't want to bother with your kids throughout your shopping trip you can just lock them up for 100 won and get them on your way out. Pretty convenient, don't you think?

For family home evening with the base members this Wednesday we went up to a great look-out at this mountain. Here is a group shot I got together, so I'm not in the picture, but this is pretty much all the regular attenders to our Ward. We are small, but we have such a great time together. We got to the top just before dark so sadly there are no pictures of beautiful landscape, but Liji and I will go back there later, on a clear day. Our Camera didn't work that well with the lighting, but Zarai's camera worked great. So I will hopefully post more pictures later, when I get the pictures from her. It was a really fun trip.
This is Elder Jeong who is serving in Gunsan. His father decided to be baptized though and he lives in our District so, Elder Jeong got special permission to attend the baptism. We went with him and it was a really great experience. The spirit was so strong. Now their whole family is baptized and they can prepare to go to the Temple. So exciting! We are so happy for Elder Jeong. He is one of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met.
Playing frisbee with some kids at the park.
Really old gravemarkings

These next pictures are from last Friday when Liji and I went back to the swimming hole we found and brought the proper attire this time.

Video playing frisbee and the other is of the cutest girls ever playing rock,
paper, scissors. If we haven't mentioned this yet, it is HUGE in Korea.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Crazy Boys!

One of the classes that Liji and I teach consists of 8, 13 year old boys and they are off the wall. You might be thinking, oh that's a small class size. Yes, they are boys but how difficult could it be. But they are literally 8 of the silliest, most hyper, crazy boys you will ever meet. Liji just gets sucked into their crazyness and they have a ball together in his class. For me however it is a bit more difficult. I think I must try too hard to keep them in line and quiet so we can actually have a lesson. Because by the time their class is through I'm usually on the verge of ripping my hair out or just breaking down in hysterical laugher from the things I have just witnessed these boys do. Just to give you a little idea of what an average class with them is like; I will give you a little description. First I have got to get everyone to stop singing and talking long enough to start a lesson. They do well for a few minutes then I've got to yell at someone for standing up on top of their chair or on top of the table for some odd reason; I'm not really sure why they do that. It is mostly 2 of the boys inparticular that do that. We move on and then I've got to tell someone to put their shirt down and stop showing off their chest. I've got to tell Wade to stop banging on his desk like a drum, Jim to stop mauling Alex and practically kissing him; when he then tells me that he loves Alex. (They are not gay, it's just part of the culture to be very touchy, feely.) Then I've got to tell Hunter to get down from standing on his chair again. Tony has got to stop using his dictionary playing a game so I take that away. Then I take away a razor blade from Jeff who is using it to cut and sharpen the plastic case from his pencil lead. Throughout all this I'm also trying to ignore Wade constantly saying to me, "Your, Hot. I love you." I tell someone to get down off their chair about 3 more times and someone to stop singing about 10 times. We finally make it throught the lesson and so I decide we'll have a little fun and play a game. I ask everyone to stand up. That was a bad idea. I now have 8 boys standing up, dancing around the room, singing, and some hugging eachother. Utter chaos. They finally calm down enough so they can listen to my instructions on the game we will be playing. We have fun playing and then, finally, class is over! And I am exhausted. This is no exaggeration! Liji loves having them, but for some reason the schedule always ends up that I am having them a few times a week, when we normally only have the same class about 1 or 2 times a week. I am getting much better at having them and things are starting to go well, so I'm not quite so tired at the end. But man, these boys are definately an experience.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Good Times

On Sunday Liji and I went for a long drive on our way home from the Air Base after church. We found this cool Spring built down in the ground. We took the picture above by setting up the camera on a rock across from us. We are getting pretty good at our picture taking using out timer. We have to be so we can get some pictures of us in it together.

Here's some more pictures from the soccer game in Soeul.



This is just one of the many castle structures used as a Wedding Hall.

Last Wednesday we went out with the Elders to a park up in the mountains to help them make some contacts. We have done this a few times and it works pretty well. Liji and I play frisbee on this dirt area in the center of all this exercise equipment while the missionaries talk with the people out exercising or just visiting the park. And most of the time while we are playing frisbee everyone is very intrigued and wants to try and throw the frisbee, because they don't have frisbee's here. So it's nice to have the Elder's there that we can call over and help translate between the people that are asking us about the frisbee. Well while we were out on Wednesday Elder Jeong started talking with the lady and found out that I told her I liked Bulgogi so she took us to a meat restaraunt and brought along 3 of her girlfriends. She is the lady that is sitting on my left in the picture below. She is 43 years old and has 2 sons. She was so kind to us and we hope to see her much more.