Dear Family and Friends,

 

This has been such a crazy eventful week! I will try to remember all the important things that happened. After about 16 or 17 hours of traveling, I finally arrived at the mission home on Tuesday night (Korea time). It was pretty interesting though because for us, the sun never went down from when we woke up Monday morning in America until when it set on Tuesday night in Korea. We followed the sun around the earth, so I pretty much just had one massive 30-something hour day. The first night in Daejeon, we went straight out on the street to proselyte. I was pretty nervous. We had an experienced missionary with us, so it wasn't too bad, but it was tough. It's still not super easy and it's hard when I don't really know what people are saying, but I'm getting better at it and it's definitely less frightenening than the first time.

 

We spent a couple days in Daejeon doing some orientation stuff and then we got assigned to our first areas. I am serving in Mokpo! It is a decent sized city, but small compared to Daejeon. But it is right on the coast on the southwest edge of Korea. I can see a inlet of the ocean from my apartment. I have a bunch of pictures from both the MTC and here, but I forgot my camera today, so I will try to send some pictures next week.

 

It is still pretty crazy to me that I am actually halfway around the world in Korea! Here's a few things I have noticed so far. I was actually surprised how much English there is here. English is a pretty big deal in Korea, so there are a lot of signs and stuff with English on them and a lot of Koreans have decent English. But even though English is pretty common, Americans (or any other people other than Koreans) are really rare here. It's pretty crazy! I would say that 99.9% of the people here are Korean. I might be overestimating, but we were pretty suprised when we saw 3 or 4 foreigners in one day. That's rare. It's fun. Because Americans are so rare and English is so popular, sometimes people get excited when they see us, especially the little kids, because they love to practice their English on Americans. So sometimes we'll get bunches of kids yelling "Hello!" or other English phrases from windows or from cars as we pass by. It is funny.

 

As far as religion goes in Korea, there are actually a lot of Christians here. It is super crazy, too, because there are TONS of churches in Korea! I can see 4 or 5 just from our apartment. It is like walking through Orem or Provo and seeing a church on every corner, except instead of all being our church, every single church has a different name and a different congregation. It's crazy. The tough part about it is that so many people have the mentality that because they go to a church and "believe in Christ," they are good to go, so they are happy that we are missionaries, but say something like "Oh, I already believe. Go save someone who doesn't believe yet." They aren't looking for a "true" church. They are just religiously complacent, which makes it really hard to do work here. There is also a lot of cultural pressures against the Word of Wisdom and stuff too, which also makes it tough.

 

As for the work, this week has been a pretty rough first week. We are the only two missionaries in Mokpo (which actually covers a pretty huge area), so there is a lot of responsibility. Also, this is my trainer's 6th transfer in Mokpo, so he will probably be leaving after this transfer, which means it's all on me to learn the area and keep any momentum going when the switch happens. I feel like I've definitely been experiencing some "growing pains" as I've tried to figure everything out and fill the responsibility of being a missionary. But I think I am starting to get the hang of it. My Korean still is not very good at all, but I'm learning little by little everyday and I know it will come even if it's not as fast as I would like it to. This has also been a tough week for the work just because we haven't seen hardly any success. We had 5 appointments cancel this weekend and an investigator who can no longer come to church because he has a class at that time. We do have one investigator with a baptismal date, but he is struggling with the word of wisdom and finding the desire to quit drinking. We went hiking with him on Saturday and he drank a cup of coffee and took a couple swigs of alcohol from his bottle while we were on the hike. It wasn't fun to see. But we will keep working with him and I really hope that he turns around. Mokpo hasn't seen a baptism in over a year and we are determined to do our best to change that this transfer. So the work is not easy by any means, but I know that it is God's work, so as I continue to do it in His way and diligently consecrate myself to this work, He will bless and guide our efforts.

 

Other than some disappointments and trying to adjust to a whole new world, I'm doing really well. It's not fun to see so much disappointment, but I am keeping my head up and will keep doing my best. Often we just do not understand the full grand scheme of God's will and His way, but I know that as I trust in Him and just give my best, that everything will work out for the best. I know that He is always there, ready to bless and deliver, but we need to do our part and we need to remember that it mus alway happen by His power, in His time, and in His way. But when it does happen His way, we have the absolute guarantee that there is no other better way. I love that. I also hope you all had a wonderful Easter! What a blessing it is to remember our Savior and His Atonement, the most significant, loving, eternal, powerful, intimate event in all of history. I am so grateful for His sacrifice. May we all seek to better sacrifice and consecrate our lives to Him through our service and love!

 

Thank you all for you prayers, your love and your support. It means so much to me and is always very needed. I love you all!

 

-Elder Tolman

This next email is from Skyler to me regarding giving people permission to email him.  You all may email if you desire as you read in this message:

Skyler's email is: skyler.tolman@myldsmail.net
I was just wondering who you gave permission to email me. You can give it to anyone that I actually know. I think I said to only give it to a few people last time, but I mostly just didn't want to have it posted on my blog for the whole world to email me. So go ahead and let everyone know if you haven't already, and then if you can, mention to have them put their physical address too in case I don't have time to email them, but can write them a letter instead. Thanks! Love you! Bye!