Week 97: Buddha's Birthday and District Activities

View from the train

Discover Elephant

Trumpet and Thump 

Long nose but Short Tail

Stop the Problem

How?

Take the Train

The proof is sunburn

Elephant

So it was Buddha's birthday last week. For P-day we celebrated by going to a waterfall and a nearby temple. There are pics, but I gotta steal them. So more on that later. 

Sleeping in the car

 On his actual birthday though we went to District Sports Day for the second year in a row. It was so good. The young adults in Gangneung (This phrase can either refer to the whole district or just the Gangneung branch. Pretty handy) were in charge. They really nailed it. We played a lot of 족구* and Taebaek won the big relay race at the end. It was intense. But no missionaries got injured this year, save some really nasty sunburns. (I was pretty OK, don't worry, Mom)

On the train

Also. Other memes happened. Oh yeah, we rode the train home. I love the train. 10/10 would recommend. Also because of that we figured out how to get to the biggest cave in mainland Asia or something. 

Then we had more memes. More pizza in Donghae with my son. I always have sweet potato pizza with cheese crust. It's a delight. 

Did we have more memes? Oh yeah, our English Class Member (she's kind of our investigator now, honestly. Like, we read the Book of Mormon with her at night, and half the time English class is just a member present lesson with her) was in charge of some festivals in the surrounding towns. We went both days to talk to people, and she really appreciated it. We also met a cool stamp guy, and I totally bought a personalized stamp. 

Random church

And yeah, Saturday we picked up trash in the beach in 강릉 so that took up the whole day. We couldn't even see our grandpa to remind him about church. Luckily Sister Lee was at the library Sunday morning and reminded him. Apparently he just got up and left his stuff at the desk because he was worried he'd be late for the meeting. 

He was half an hour early. 

And yeah, Sunday was really good, and finally less stressful. It all just went smoothly. Almost as smooth as Elder O'Brien's mango juice. We had some random visitors from Utah, and one of the visitors will be a senior missionary starting in July. She really liked the 강원도, but she's worried that since she's Korean she'll have to translate for other old people in the office. But she was fun. Apparently she owns a sandwich shop in Layton. 

And yeah, after sacrament meeting one of the members just went out back and set up the church farm in less than two hours. It was really impressive. Now we just need to water it, and have really good lunches at church.† I love Taebaek. No one would ever do this kind of thing in Utah. 

But that's about all. Love you all! Maybe we'll get some pics^^

Best Wishes,

Elder Newton

 

* As near as Mom can tell, it's some kind of soccer/tennis hybrid sport.

 † "We just pick what we need on Sunday. It's all simple things like peppers, tomatoes and lettuce. Also sesame"