December Waite Family Newsletter

This has been a wonderful month. The month of December is always a good one, due to the Christmas spirit that is in the air. It took a bit longer for it to feel like Christmas this year because in Korea they aren’t quite as into Christmas as we are and didn’t get the Christmas decorations up until a bit closer to Christmas than we get them up. It really started to feel like Christmas the second week of December when it snowed 4 ½ days straight. We have never seen so much snow come at one time. It was melting as it was falling, so we only accumulated about 15 inches of very wet snow. I think that if it would have been below freezing the whole time we would have had over two feet of snow.
The roads were terrible, six inches of slush during the day and frozen solid at night. That did not keep the scooters off the road, we did not see as many people riding there scooters around, but we saw plenty that were braving the road conditions. During the whole snow storm we only saw one snow plow, and they never plowed any of the streets, not even the main streets. The plow we saw was not working and we have no idea why it was even out. We were riding our bikes in the snow, but it wasn’t too bad, we stayed on the sidewalks where we felt a lot safer than we do when we are in the street. It was cold, and sometimes the snow was falling so hard we could barely see, but we figured that riding bikes was faster than walking, and cheaper than a taxi.
At the beginning of the month, I took the MAT, a grad school entrance exam. I had to make special arrangements and pay a fee, but I was able to take the test on the Air Base. I felt like I did fairly well. We still have not heard back from them yet, but hopefully within the next few days we will find out my score. I have applied to Utah State University; they have a Master’s in Second Language Teaching program that seems to be just what I want. There is a good possibility that I will be able to work as a Grad Instructor, or as a Teaching Assistant. Plus We like Logan, it has a temple, and it is still a pretty small town.
We did not get to go outside much this month because of the snow, but we did make a Saturday trip to the base to spend time with our friends out there. It was right in the middle of the first big snow storm and the roads were terrible. We rode the bus out to the base, the road conditions were so bad on base that they were only allowing emergency vehicles to drive. So our friends Zarai, and Liza walked out to the main gate to sign us on. They took us to the commissary and bought some hard to get items for us (meat, cheese, and popcorn) and then we made lunch and watched a movie. We had a great time, and we are so glad that we have friends on base; it is nice to be able to have normal one-on-one conversations. (Most of our conversations with Koreans consist of them approaching us and initiating conversation, and then us asking them simple questions like, “How old are you?” to keep the conversation going.) It is very admirable how hard Koreans work on learning English.
Speaking of the Air Base, our Branch President left in the middle of December. The District Presidency came down to re-organize the branch on the third weekend of December. I was called to be the Second Counselor. When there are only nine active Melchizedek Priesthood holders, the chances of being called into the Branch Presidency are pretty good. When the District Presidency was there, and all six of us were sitting up front, there were more of us than there were people in the congregation. Normally we have more people in the congregation, but because of the Holidays several people were gone.
Our students are on their winter vacation, which lasts until the beginning of February. Since they are on vacation from public school, that means they can spend more time at our academy, yeah. (Notice I did not put an exclamation point at the end of the previous sentence.) Now we have to be to work at 12:30pm, and we don’t finish until 8:30pm. Our first class starts at 1pm, and we teach seven classes a day. Before, we got to work at 2pm, started teaching at 3:10pm, and usually taught 5 classes a day and finished by 8:45pm. So now we teach two extra classes a day. Our trip to Australia came at just the right time; we were just about so tired of work we were contemplating if we really wanted to stay in Korea for the next few months.
We only spent four days there, but it was the best vacation I have ever had. For me, the trip was about visiting my mission companion, but we got to do some tourist activities. We made it to the temple, the beach, and the Australian Zoo. (Home of the late Steve Irwin) At the zoo we petted kangaroos, and koalas. The weather was amazing, hot but not too hot. They told us that they have had an extraordinary amount of rain, so it was very green and beautiful.
On the day we went to the temple we also walked down along the river, there were a bunch of lizards, they looked like iguanas. One of them was over three feet long. We spent a lot of time trying to catch one before Jay (my mission companion’s twin brother) caught one. Then we went to a market where we met an Aboriginal man who was selling boomerangs, and dijiridoos (a dijiridoo, is the trumpet like instrument that makes a humming sound when you blow into it). He did a demonstration on the dijiridoo that was amazing, but we couldn’t record it because our camera battery was dead.
The time in Australia was great, but we spent a lot of time traveling. In all, going and coming, we spent over 60 hours on buses, planes, or in the airport. It was still worth it, but I told Christina the next time we go to Australia, we are going to stay for a long time, like a month or so. When we got back from Australia, it was snowing here in Korea, and it has been pretty cold. Only down to about 25 degrees, but for some reason it seems really cold, like hard to breath cold. I guess the humidity makes the cold more severe.
Liji didn’t say anything about Christmas so I’ll just add a bit more. The only day we got off for Christmas was Christmas Day. We had to work Christmas Eve and then had to be back to work on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we left for Australia. So the week before Christmas we found out that the Korean ward was having a Christmas party on Christmas Eve. We really wanted to go to it and thought it might be worth a shot asking our boss about the chances of us getting off work early on that day so that we could go to the party. We had already heard from a lot of our students that they wouldn’t be coming anyways because they would be going to their churches for some activities. Well we asked her she seemed very shocked that we had even thought of such a think. After a bit of talking she did say she thought we could maybe get off at 8 instead of 9 and that she would ask all the students what their plans were for that day. Well just the day before Christmas Eve she said she had talked to the students and most of them would not be coming, but we would still have to stick around until 7:40. Our Christmas party started at 7, so just go 40 minutes late wouldn’t be bad. Christmas Eve morning we had 3 of our students over to our apartment to help us make some caramel popcorn for all the students at school that day. When they came they each brought us a gift, it’s part of the culture for them to do that, but it was very kind of them. We had a lot of fun playing some card games and making the popcorn, which they had never seen done before. When we finished we took them out to the school field across the street and played some Frisbee. They left and then we went the work. It was pretty much just a party day and a lot of fun. We watched Ice Age with them and gave them caramel popcorn. They we played a few rounds of the traditional Waite Family rip the tape off the box game and they really enjoyed it all. We ended up getting off at 6:50 because by that time we only had 4 students at the school anyways and we were able to go over to the Church Christmas party. At the party the Bishop talked awhile and then they had a lot of musical numbers. After the performances we had a delicious pot luck dinner.
Christmas morning we had the missionaries over for breakfast at 7 am because they had to catch a bus at 8. We made some crepes with fruit to go on the inside and the missionaries shared a beautiful Christmas story with us. They took off and then Liji and I opened our gifts. I found a note in my stocking that Santa had gotten lost and had to leave my present in the closet. I went and found a huge box waiting for me. That was so nice of Santa. It was a keyboard. I almost cried when I opened it. That was so thoughtful of him. Now I can actually practice for the hymns that I have to play in Sacrament meeting instead of sounding like an idiot every week. Liji didn’t anything so big, just a few trinkets and treats and ties, which I always win with.
We also celebrated Liji’s birthday while we were in Australia. He got a big Aussie Birthday party and had delicious Blackberry pie made by Mark’s twin brother Jay, who worked in a bakery for 7 years. It was so good, I've never had a crust that came even close to this, but Liji said it still didn’t beat his moms. He was sung to in both Aussie and Spanish. It really was a great trip. Liji has not been lying when he has talked about how great of a guy Mark is. It was really a humbling experience for me to meet them. They are truly servants of the Lord in their every act. Even though there are some very hard things that the Macphersons are having to deal with at the moment, I watched them each day doing everything possible to help all the others around them. Serving one person, after the next, after the next. I feel so blessed just to have met such people. I look up to them so much. Even though it was my first time meeting them and we were only with them for 5 days, we became part of the family. I hope that our next trip to visit ends up being much sooner than later. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. You are all in our thoughts and prayers. I know we are far away at the moment but if there is anything we can do for any of you please let us know. We love and miss. Happy New Year!