The Great Area of ShinChon

Dear Family and Friends,

So this week has been filled with interesting things.  Let's start with the most important:  So they had a sale a Krispy Kreme and I hope about 24 donuts.  I've never tasted anything so delicious.  It was a buy one dozen get one dozen deal for $11 which is super cheap for Korea.  I couldn't pass it up.  Well that definitely wasn't the most important thing that happened this week, but I certainly enjoyed it.  I attached a photo of my Krispy Kreme run.

ShinChon has parties constantly going on everywhere.  When we talk with people every night, we almost always run into some show or some super loud jam session.  Since we live close to quite a bit of colleges, we talk with a lot of college kids and they really like to party at night.  On the other hand, I don't really know exactly what happens because we have to be in by 9 each night anyways.  But from the sound and look of it, there is never a dull moment in this crazy place.  Last night, we were walking home, and I looked over to my right, only to see a guy peeing undiscreetly behind a pole!  I quickly walked away and asked my companion about it. He didn't seem surprised at all.

So on a less disturbing note, our investigator, Idongwon, accepted a baptismal date.  After coming to church this sunday, we met with him and had a great lesson.  If all goes well, he will be baptized on November 1!  He's a super awesome and it's super fun to sit with him and help him progress in this wonderful gospel!  I love meeting with all of our investigators and helping to answer their questions and come to know God.  I feel like I learn so much from them each day.  T.G. is continuing to meet with us and talk with us.  He has quite a few questions, but those questions help me realize things that I haven't ever considered.

After our lesson with T.G. on Sunday, he gave us a ride home.  Seoul is even crazier from the inside of a car!  It felt so good to be back in a car for the first time in about 3 months.  I miss a lot of things about home for sure, but the experiences that I continue to have here make it all worth it.  It also continues to rain here.  When it rains, everyone has an umbrella.  Koreans are always extremely prepared for the rain.

Exchanges also occurred this week.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with that term,  Once a transfer the district leader works with each Elder in his district.  They are companions for the day while the other Elder works with the District Leader's companion.  On Wednesday,  Elder Christensen, the district leader, went on an exchange with my companion, so I was with Elder Day.  Elder Day has been here for four weeks also.  We had quite the fun time trying to figure out what people were saying to us on the streets.  In one day overall, We contacted 98 people and got 7 phone numbers.  Plus we set up an appointment to meet again with one person.  I still have no idea how I understood what people were asking me, but I do know that the Lord has got our backs. Even though both of us struggle in the language, everything went really well during that day.  It still continues to amaze me how much God blesses each one of us.

I again thank everyone for all their wonderful support! This work is not easy by any means but it is so much fun!

Your favorite (and of course humble) missionary,

Elder Wheeler


(Editor's note:  Chase and his companion had to go into the Seoul South mission [south of the Han River] to get a foreigner's card for Chase.  The photo of the building was from that excursion.)

Almost like being at home!

3rd P-day

Dear Family and Friends,

Well this week was another tiring week.  As my companion always says, "Everyday is leg day."  Basically we are always walking up and down stairs.  We have to walk up 10 flights of stairs to get back to our apartment each day.  Not sure how much weight I have lost, but I think quite a bit.  We do a lot more moving than in the MTC haha.  Luckily my shoes are holding up well.  I have a couple of blisters and the odd ache here and there but I'm all good.

So the ward that I am serving in is called shin chon ward (신촌). There are a lot of great families in the ward.  I'm not very good with Korean names, so I can't remember very well.  Its such a big ward that it's hard to talk with everyone, especially in Korean.  So I'm trying the best I can to continually get to know some more people.  We always try to invite members to lessons, but they're all so busy so it is difficult.  I love the ward a lot and I love how nice they are about my not so good Korean.

Every Tuesday and Saturday at the church, we teach free English.  On Saturday, we split into groups, give lessons for an hour, and then rejoin for a spiritual thought.  We gave the spiritual thought on Saturday.  It went well which was good.  There are about 20 people who come each week to English class.  It's super fun to teach English because I get to talk with people who are struggling in a language just like me!  On Tuesday, its a free English talking class.  Less people show up to that one.

The prices of food here are very different.  It is overall more expensive.  We get about $160 dollars every two weeks for food, travel, cleaning, etc.  The office takes care of all of our housing bills and costs.  It costs a little more than a dollar each time we take a subway or a bus.  It definitely starts to add up with how much traveling we do.  Gas station food and drinks are pretty cheap.  Usually you can get a bottle of water for about 50 cents.  Other than that, its expensive.  Peanut butter, honey, butter, cheese, meat, and chocolate and very expensive.  So pretty much anything delicious is expensive haha.  But I'm doing fine money wise.  McDonald's is about the same, but here they have free delivery.  If they had that in America, it would not be good. One thing that they have here is carbonated milk, called milkis.  Its actually super good and I drink it all the time.  Oh and I brought some Dr. Pepper last P-day.  It tasted so good.  We have a washer in our apartment but no dryer.  Korea doesn't believe in dryers.  So we hang our clothes up on these racks.  It helps them last a lot longer but they are more wrinkly.

This Sunday we had Stake Conference.  We are in the Seoul Stake.  It is super weird to not have President Hettinger as my Stake President.  I pretty much understood nothing in stake conference except when a member of the seventy spoke to us in English.  He gave an amazing talk about turning our "tents" or ourselves away from Sodom or Satan and towards the temple.  One of our Chinese Investigators, who we have seen in a while, named Paul came with us.  He seemed to enjoy it.  We has taught a lot of lessons this week, but didn't seem to make much progress. We met with T.G. quite a bit this week.  He really likes our message and thinks it makes sense, but doesn't think God exists or cares about us.  We are working a lot with him about prayer and how to receive answers to his prayers.  We weren't able to meet with Idongwon and Ominsuk this week unfortunately because how busy they are.  Everyone in Korea works so hard all the time.  It is amazing.

Quick Story of the Week:  The night after the adult session of Stake Conference, we took the Subway home at about 9:30.  We were on the right track to get home when Elder Julseth decided to try a faster one with few stops.  We ended up waiting for a long time for the train to arrive.  When we finally got on, I decided to go sit next to this Korean man on the Subway and talk to him.  I was surprisingly able to understand what he said and able to share the Book of Mormon with him.  He ended up reading the whole introduction the the book right then.  I was able to give him the book and get his phone number with the help of Elder Julseth.  I felt so good talking with him and even though we got home at 10:30, it was well- worth taking the wrong train.  We have been getting denied a lot recently by people on the streets, and this was definitely a small miracle.  We were able to meet our goals for the day just through getting up the courage to awkwardly talk to someone.  And I know that if we put in effort to do follow Christ and serve God, we will be rewarded openly.

Love your favorite missionary,

Elder Wheeler

Blood on the Sidewalk

Friends and Family,

Well this week went a lot faster and we have been constantly busy, which is a good thing.  Elder Julseth walks super fast everywhere and it is almost always a struggle to keep up.  My legs/feet are slowly getting used to all the walking/running that we do everywhere.  We live about a 40 min walk away from the church building which is more than slightly inconvenient.  Sometimes we take buses and the subway, which is nice, but it costs money.  The public transportation is honestly amazing here, but all the subway lines are confusing.
 
I'm getting along super great with my companion.  He works really hard and is super obedient.  He follows every rule with exactness and that's a great example to me.  The other two Elders in our apartment are funny and hardworking.  We all get along really well, except for when they don't clean up after meals sometimes.  I never really realized how much I like everything to be clean.  Thanks Mom for that one!  We all sleep on these mats/pads calleds "yo's."  No one sleeps on the big mattress against the wall (from last week's photo).  Apparently one of the Elders awhile back found it on the street and decided to bring it in....
 
There are 8 Elders and 2 Sisters in our district.  The other four Elders live right next to the church and don't realize how good they have it.  Our schedule for a typical day consists of exercising, eating breakfast, and getting ready from 6:30 until 8.  From 8 to 1, we study and eat lunch.  Since I'm new, they have us do two hours of companionship study.  One of the main things I'm working on is a language pass-off program.  In this program, we have to teach a certain number of things, memorize vocab, along with other sorts of stuff.  After that, we usually talk to people on the streets until dinner.  After taking about an hour for dinner, we again talk to people until 9:00 and at that point we come back to plan for the next day.  Lastly, depending on what lessons we have scheduled, we adjust our schedules accordingly.  We schedule stuff on our planners, and no mom, we don't have I-pads.  We do have a flip phone, though, that helps a lot when we are trying to contact investigators.
 
The food here is pretty much all over the board.  We spend most of our meals at home where we cook.  I can't really cook, but I'm still alive so that's a bonus, right?  I've had Ramen quite a few times here.  Korean Ramen is spicy, way better, and flavorful.  Sometimes we eat out when we don't have time to go home.  I've had some pretty good McDonald's and I've also been to some authentic Korean Places.  We have had chicken casa or (치킨 가스) which was dynamite.  Occasionally, we eat at a member's home, which is always interesting.
 
I love my Mission President and his wife.  They care and are super committed to the work.  We actually live in a place called Gongduk (공덕), but our area is Mapogu and Sodemoongu.  Our area goes down to the Han river and is such a cool place.  Stuff is always happening - it's just like one big party all the time.

Recently, we've been teaching a lot more people about the gospel. We have been teaching a 40 year old guy with a wife and a kid who we met on the street.  His name is 오민석 (Ominsuk).  He seems to be super interested and loves the temple.  He always buys us drinks and food from the local gas-station marts.  We are also teaching 이동원 (Idongwon).  He is 21 years old and is curious about our beliefs.  It actually amazes me that so many people are actually interested.  I think that If I hadn't been born into the church, I probably would have never given this gospel a chance and met with the missionaries.  I'm so glad I was raised as a member so that I could share this happiness with others.
 
Lastly, we taught this guy named T.G.  He is 25 and thinks that a lot of the things about our church make perfect sense like God's plan for us.  However, he doesn't believe that God exists.  I was able to tell him that if he prayed to God, he could know He was there.  As I said that, The Holy Ghost confirmed what I was saying.  It was quite the feeling of joy and peace.  I really hope he prays and comes to know for himself that God is there.

Last Sunday we actually had a guy come to church!  Oh and at church, they had me speak in Korean.  I've spoken in front of thousands of people but I was not as nervous then as I was in front of group of 150.  I did alright though and a bunch of members came up to me and told me how good my Korean was.  My Korean is slowly starting to improve.  I can say some of what I want to say, it just goes really slow.

Here's a quick story:  This week, we were walking along the road back to our apartment when we saw a trail of blood.  After following it, we came to this big pool of blood on the ground.  We then looked up and saw a smashed store glass window that was boarded and taped up.  I'm not sure what happened, but I attached a picture of the window.  I leave that up to you to figure out what happened.
Love your favorite Missionary, 

Elder Wheeler 

Seoul Korea Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

What are the Odds?

In a city of almost 10 million people, what are the odds that one of Mom's friends would happen to ride his bike by Chase on his 10th day in Seoul?

First Week in Seoul

Dear Friends and Family,

 

I have no idea where to start with this week.  It has honestly been one of the craziest weeks in my entire life.  It started with the super long plane ride.  I got the lucky opportunity of sitting next to quite the Elder.  He got plane sick and at one point spit all over me...luckily, I made it through, so Woohoo!  But I was super tired after we arrived in Seoul because I got almost no sleep those entire two days.  As soon as we arrived, President Christensen had us hop on a subway and start talking with people about the gospel.  It was nerve racking but fun at the same time.  I helped hand out three Book of Mormons which is pretty good considering that I could say next to nothing.  After traveling to the Mission home was over, we had some nourishing Korean Pizza and then went right to bed. 

 

The next morning, we did some initial training and then we met our new companions.  My companion is Elder Julseth and he is from Saskatchewan, Canada.  He has been out for about 11 months and speaks Korean really well.  We are serving in the 신촌 (Shin Chon) area.  This area contains the Seoul Temple and we'll get to go on Friday for the first time.  We live in a very small apartment with two other Elders- Elder Bishop and Elder Thompson.  Elder Bishop is from England and he has been out for the same amount of time as Elder Julseth.  Elder Thompson, on the other hand, goes home in like 3 months.  Our apartment is about a 40min walk from the chuch and, like all missionaries say, it is uphill both ways.

 

So, this city is super amazing and absolutely insane.  No one obeys the traffic rules or listens to cops.  I've seen bus after bus just run red lights time after time.  The motorcycles and the taxis are the ones you have to watch out for, though.  I think I've almost been hit a couple of times...  Since we have been here, we have done tons of talking to people on the streets and seeing if they're interested in our message.  Its super hot and we walk so far each day.  After about the first two days, I thought my legs were going to fall off.  However, I always manage to make it home against all odds - haha. 

 

I've already had some fun times on the streets.  During my second day in the area, we said hello to this guy in Korean and his first response was "I hate Mormons" in English.  Luckily my companion was able to save the situation, but I was completely caught off gaurd.  We also met a funny man who was spitting all over the place as he tried to talk about his inventions and his theories (also in English).  I had to move out of the splash zone and after 20min, when we finally got a gospel point in the conversation, he decided he was busy.  It's awesome times like these that make me glad that I'm a missionary!  That may sound sarcastic but they actually cheered me up becuase at least I could understand them!

 

The Korean culture here is becoming more and more westernized.  Its actually pretty interesting to think about how different it used to be.  The food is still different though! An awesome member named 안경찬 (Angyongchan) took us out to a great Korean restaurant where I was able to manage using chopsticks.  We also had hot dogs at the temple missionaries' home yesterday.  I've never been so grateful for hotdogs in my entire life.  We haven't met with any investigators since I got here, but we will soon.  Everyone's schedules are packed with the huge holiday 추석 with is basically like our Thanksgiving.  It continues on til about Wednesday.

 

Lastly,  We had an amazing mission-wide conference on Saturday.  President Christensen spoke to us about concecrating our time to the Lord.  Afterwards, we had a disscusion as a zone about prayer.  It was really great to refresh on how important prayer is.  Well I'm about to run out of time, but this was an amazing and tiring week.  I miss you all!

 

Love,

Elder Wheeler

Elder Wheeler and Elder Thompson

Chase' new home

Elder Julseth and Elder Wheeler

Seoul Korea Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

What do you drink when you are in Europe or South Korea?

Chase Arrives Safely in Korea

Ripping My Shoe

Dear Family and Friends,

So basically I have four more days left in the MTC, and I can't believe it.  It's crazy to think that I entered the MTC about two months ago.  The group of about 20 missionaries headed to the Seoul South Mission left this morning.  It's even weirder to think that the group I spent so much time with has already left.  For all who don't know, I'm flying to Seattle on Monday morning and I'll be leaving from Seattle at about Noon.  Then after a 15 hour flight to Seoul, I'll arrive at the Incheon Airport at about 3:15pm on Tuesday.  I will lose a day because of the international date line.

So in other news, I have had quite a few uplifting experiences this week.  For example, during class with Brother Christensen, we talked for about three hours, the entire class time, and discussed ways to deal with difficult companions.  We talked a ton about never judging others for the mistakes they make and especially not talking bad about them with others.  Nevertheless, it is our job, as companions, to step in between your companion and Satan in order to keep your companion safe.  Luckily, at the MTC, I've been blessed enough to have two companions that I don't have to worry about.  Beyond that, Elder Bluhm always makes sure we're making the right decisions and acting as representatives of Jesus Christ.

We also had a great devotional that outlined some really great points.  One of those points was on forgetting yourself and getting to work.  Each day here, I've continued to work harder and harder in order to learn Korean and become better.  I have had many failures, but I can see my own personal progression.  I always thought that I was working hard at home, but as always, my parents were right.  I wasn't able to see the potential or the capacity I had for myself, but God was definitely able to see it.  I'm not saying the I'm perfect because I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm far from it.  I'm just saying that with God, we can make monumental improvements in our lives.  I've got a long way to go and the task seems very daunting, but I know that God has got my back.

The Korean Language is coming along fairly well.  Every once in a while, I'll have a discouraging day or one where I can't seem to make progress.  However, it amazes me how much I have learned in these few nine weeks.  I've learned hundreds of vocab words, tons of grammar forms, and how to pronounce and read this difficult alphabet. This is quite the testimony builder to me of prayer.  I have spent a lot of time on my knees praying, more than I ever have in my life.  And I have received more guidance, direction, comfort, and power from God than I have also ever received in my life.  Our Heavenly Father listens so intently to our prayers and He wants us to speak with Him.  All we need to do is reach out to Him, and He will always be there for us.

This week, instead of skyping Korean members for TRC (Teaching Resource Center), we just taught each other.  This occurred because they didn't have anyone available.  It turned out well because we spoke only in Korean for a straight hour.  It was great practice.  It seems like we are always teaching which really helps me so much.  It really builds my confidence and shows me what I need to work on.

It has been raining a ton here at the MTC, more than I've ever seen in Provo during the summer/fall.  It always seems like there are dark clouds above our heads.  I greatly appreciate it because at least I'm not getting roasted alive back in Phoenix!  One of the things that I don't appreciate is how everything I wear seems to be falling apart. I have ripped a huge hole in my shoe which I proceeded to duck tape.  Don't ask me how this happened because I have no idea haha.  I have also ripped holes in my socks and lost buttons on my suit coats.  However, I was able to get my suit buttons sewn back on.  Overall, the MTC has definitely been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but I've grown immensely because of it.

Thank you all again for your daily prayers and letters of support.  I am extremely grateful for them.  I send my love and prayers to you on the daily!

Love your favorite Elder,

Elder Wheeler