I found the church! The address I got from the church website wasn't the best since they only had it in English and not the official Korean address. I gave it to the taxi driver and it frustrated the heck out of him because it made no sense, even though I wrote it in Hangeul. I just kept saying "mormon" and "church" and "I don't know!" repeatedly in my broken Korean. He made a few phone calls and eventually figured it out though. He was nice enough to write the correct address down for me too so I don't confuse the next taxi driver. My bad.
The church was teeny tiny. Probably about 20 or so members from the looks of it, but they're constantly growing. They have 6 missionaries, which is crazy for such a tiny ward/stake/branch (?). The sisters are Korean but the Elders were all from the US.
The first person I met was Brother Kim - he's the first counselor AND the ward mission leader. He speaks pretty good English and found me standing in the hall looking lost so he guided me inside for Sacrament meeting. He had two little daughters, both dressed in traditional dresses and his wife spoke okay English too. His daughter likes to give high and low fives - I think she learned it from the elders. It took a while for them to realize I wasn't the new sister-missionary they'd been expecting (probably once the bishop started speaking rapid Korean to me and I just stared blankly).
I sat down near the back (there were only 3 rows of folding chairs so it wasn't like this was far from the pulpit) and the missionaries all approached me and immediately setup a system for who was going to translate for me for each meeting and talk. They kept assuring me that Korean would come to me the longer I stay. I felt like a bit of a nuisance since every talk was accompanied by muttered English translations. And I tried to sing in Korean but everyone kept taking away the Korean hymn book and handing me an English one so even the hymns made me stand out (and I hate when people can hear me singing >:( ).
It was great though. I met a girl in the ward about my age, Dambin, who speaks good English (it's so rare in Chuncheon but seems to be more common amongst the Mormons). I think she's over the young women or something. She translated for me during Sunday School (it got confusing when she gave me Koreanized names for the books in the Old Testament). So, we're besties now and she wants to hang out and help me to get acclimated. Brother Kim checked in on me a lot throughout the meetings and invited me to his house for dinner sometime this week. I also had an old man following me around every now and then saying "En-gu-rishu teacha, you teach me En-gu-rishu!" and then rambling off in Korean while I smiled and nodded. The Elders told me he's a bit senile.
Koreans applaud a lot during church. Kind of threw me off. We had a baptism right after church, which I stayed for. One of the middle-school girls in the ward's best friend was getting baptized. It was a very modest little baptism. The talks were fairly brief and then we went to the baptismal font, which is in a closet-sized room. I was squished against the far wall. But it was very beautiful and the ward is very tight-knit and friendly. They seriously function as a whole, I didn't see one person who wasn't participating in one thing or another. They told me it's been hard deciding who would feed the missionaries each week since there are so many missionaries and so few ward members. It makes it extra nice that people were offering to feed me as well.
Anyway, after the baptism, I hung around to chat with some members. They were excited about having a new person and I got the usual questions - "how old are you?" "are you married?" etc. The bishop's super nice, he doesn't speak any English but he made sure to get all my contact info and let me know about stake conference in a couple weeks before I left. It's still such a challenge trying to give my name to people. The ward has it down as Whitney being my last name and Stewart being my first because I forgot to switch the order. And they kept trying to call me Whitlock since that's one of the Elder's names :/ Stewart's the worst. It's even harder to pronounce than Whitney
I've spent the rest of the day trying out the bike I found in my laundry room and lesson planning. Chuncheon is full of bike lanes/trails so me and Erica explored a few between lesson planning. Having people act like they've just seen E.T. every time we pass is getting real old. I want to dye my hair black and wear sunglasses everywhere.
Anyway, first day of actual lessons is tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous. I don't really understand the curriculum and the homeroom teachers have given me very little to go off of so hopefully everything goes okay.
Talk to you later!
-Whit
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