Kyleigh in Korea
mission week 10
Hey Everyone!!!!
Some highlights from my last few days in the MTC:
-Received a letter from Bella in Berlin. I about died. I adore her so much!!! Thank you Mercedes <3 She gave me lots of great advice and her letter gave me a leap of faith to start the mission field strong.
{Bella in Berlin is a former Sister missionary who served in Germany several years back. She is an LDS blogger who has encouraged and inspired countless number of girls preparing to serve. Kyleigh came across her blog as she was preparing for her mission. She instantly felt a connection to her, and took a lot of her advice to heart. Kyleigh's friend Mercedes recently contacted Bella and told her about Kyleigh. Bella took the time to meet with Kyleigh's girlfriends as well as write to Kyleigh before she left the MTC. Pretty darn cool!}
-Took a pic with Murray peeps. Karly Stowell, Jared Walton, and McKay Pett! (Zac Pond was also there in the MTC)
-Got to watch President Boyd K. Packer's funeral. Very spiritual experience.
-Never had to speak in Sacrament. Yahooo!
-Signed Bye Bye Books for dayzzzz. {Bye Bye Books, for those of you wondering, are like autograph/yearbooks that all the missionaries sign in the MTC before going their separate ways}
-Our branch sang us a goodbye song that they had rehearsed. It was so sweet!
Monday July 13, 2015
We woke up at 2:45 am to finish packing and get ready. We had to be checked out of our room and on the bus by 4:30am. It was so strange leaving in the middle of the night. I felt like I was escaping prison camp...I'm free of the MTC compound :) We road front runner up to SLC. I woke up just in time to see IMC in Murray and say goodbye. That was a blessing. We road Trax from SLC to the airport. Thank the heavens for Elders who lugged my EXTREMELY heavy carry on bag around the airport for me hahahaha. Got to talk to the fam at the airport <3 In Seattle we ran into a huge group of missionaries going home. Kind of a weird feeling.
Tuesday July 14, 2015
Our 10 hour flight wasn't too bad. I signed Bye Bye Books, painted my nails, and tried to get a head start on handwritten letters. We arrived in Seoul about 3 pm. The airport is huge. I could hardly stay awake on our plane ride to Busan. The Mission President, his wife, the AP's, and the office Elders were there to greet us. We ate snacks at the Mission home. They also told us that our Mission would be reading the entire Book of Mormon this transfer. So I tried to get started on that...made it three pages in and crashed at 9:45pm. Only five'ish hours of sleep in 30 hours plus jet lag equals ready for bed.
Wednesday July 15, 2015
We woke up and ate a delicious home cooked meal for breakfast. Started training and paper work. Ate lunch and then got introduced to all of the trainers. My trainer (although I didn't know she would be my trainer til the next day) was the first Sister to run into the room. I loved her from the moment I saw her. I'm pretty sure I got the cutest, most stylish, Korean trainer ever. We get along great. We had to go out and proselyte with each different trainer. Basically I felt, and still feel like, Kirby Heyborne in the church movie "Best Two Years"...when he said..."that's not the language they taught me in the MTC"...THAT'S ME hahahaha! I can't understand anything anyone says!!!! We went to eat out at a restaurant for dinner with the Barrow's, the AP's, the office Elders and all the trainers.
Thursday July 16, 2015
We met our trainers at breakfast and got put with our trainers in a cool little ceremony. I got so lucky. I'm so thankful to Heavenly Father for giving me such a patient trainer. It's nice because since she is a native I can learn a lot from her. After some last bits of training we ate lunch and left. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone from my District. We had to call a taxi because there was no way we could lug my luggage to the subway station. When we got to the subway station a nice young man and an old grandpa helped us lug everything around. My bags are ridiculously heavy. We had the Elders that are here in my first area 중리 meet us at the subway station to help lug my bags to my apartment. I'm in the Daegu Zone and it is the hottest and coldest place in Korea. {We've heard how awful the humidity in Korea is. It was 100% humidity in Busan yesterday. Kyleigh has for warned me saying it will cause hair and make up issues. "As in don't freak out mom if my hair is pulled up and I have little make up on." haha} I'm here for the next three months, at least. Elder Hines is from Logan, Utah. He left July 23 last year the same day as a lot of our guy friends. Crazy! Elder Mitchel is from Minnesota and he left in November. My apartment is cute and decorated for girls!! I'll send pictures next week after I have unpacked everything and gotten settled. No time to do anything here in the field either... :) hahahaha! Right after we dropped the luggage off we went to MCM. I don't remember what it stands for. It was held at the Bishop's house. The Bishop's family was so nice. They fed us dinner and I tried my best to communicate with them.
Friday July 17, 2015
Woke up, exercised, got ready and then headed out to District Meeting. I introduced myself in Korean as best as I could. Everyone speaks mostly Korean at these meetings so my comp had to translate for me...she speaks really good English! Such a blessing! I was very stressed after the meeting because I cannot understand anything and I can't respond even if I do...My companion keeps telling me that is going to take a while before I begin to understand even half of what people say. I don't really like Districts Meetings right now because it's going to add more stress for a while. Every week someone is assigned to give a talk, someone is assigned to teach a grammar lesson, and someone is assigned to plan ways we can do role plays (remember this is all in Korean). My comfort zone is going to be kaboshed...My comp and I ate out for lunch. We ate a sort of sushi. Then we went back to our apartment to do training and prepare a message for our member dinner appointment. We make cute little message cards with commitments on them for members. Dinner was yummy and the daughter of the lady that fed us and I tried to communicate as best we could. She is 17 in Korean age and we bonded pretty well for not being able to speak to one another. It's strange being the foreigner now.
{If you are wondering what "in Korean age" means like we were... it is basically this....In Korea when you are born, you are already considered 1 years old. Also, in Korea, you increase your age count on January 1st of every year, not on your birthday. So you could be 1 to 2 years older in Korea than you are here. I'm only 42, but I'd already be 44 over there. The song "I'm Glad to be an American" by Lee Greenwood is running through my head right now.}
Wanna know your Korean age?
(This year - Your Birth year) + 1 = Your Korean age
Thank you to several online Korean101 sites that explained the Korean age system to one confused mama.
Saturday July 18, 2015
I woke up feeling extremely homesick. Then pulled out my Butterfly Box quote of the day and it said this... "Don't worry about being homesick. Don't worry about being new. Don't worry about the language. None of that matters. God loves you. This is the truth. You can do it. Start fast, run harder, you can rest later." (From Jeffrey R. Holland) The quote helped me get out of my homesickness funk :) Did morning studies then went to the church to prepare to teach English class. In Korea the Missionaries teach a program called 30/30. Technically it is supposed to be 30 minutes of English class then 30 minutes about the gospel, but most people here are only interested in English...so we have very few investigators. People tend to use the American Missionaries just to learn English. After English class we got to know the Bishop's family more and then we had to clean the church. Members here don't clean the church, it is the Missionaries job. So we cleaned and then ordered chicken with the Elders. I ordered for us over the phone to have the chicken delivered to the church. The Elders were pretty proud of me.
Sunday July 19, 2015
Finished my talk that I had to give. Walked to church. Met the Stake Presidency and the members. There are only about 40 members in the ward. I gave my talk and everyone said that I did a good job and they were impressed with my pronunciation. It was a short talk and not too scary, but I basically just read it off my paper. After the meetings we ate with everyone at the church. Then my comp and I did Weekly Planning and then she typed up a bunch of sentences for me to memorize so that I can start talking to people on the street. She is the bomb!
Miscellaneous Tid Bits
-I'll always be emailing in the afternoons.
{no more catching her on-line and emailing back n forth as it will be in the middle of the night here. Bummer!}
{no more catching her on-line and emailing back n forth as it will be in the middle of the night here. Bummer!}
-I only have an hour and a half to email.
-I'm two hours from the mission home so if you want to send anything to me the best address would be my apartment which I'll send next week.
-I can only email and write handwritten letters on p-day. I'm not allowed to work on letters on any other day.
{Does that mean no more voice recordings??? r u kidding me?}
{Does that mean no more voice recordings??? r u kidding me?}
Funny Things
-I've been told I look like a doll, Amanda Seyfried, and Cinderella.
-The buses here in Korea are exactly like the Night Bus from Harry Potter. The drivers are crazy here!
-The Zone leader, who is Korean, has nicknamed me Dancing Queen because I told him I like to dance, and he does to.
-One of the first things the Elders asked me was, "Do you like Lord of the Rings?" All I said was "yes". AUTOMATIC acceptance hahaha! They call themselves my Assistant Trainers.
I love you all so much!!! Thank you for all your prayers, love and support!!!
Love,
Sister Kyleigh Cooper
"Sister Barrow and I had the choice opportunity of greeting your daughter at the airport and welcoming her to Busan. Even after a lengthy flight, she is in good health and spirits and we look forward to serving with her. She is a fine young missionary and will be an asset to the mission. We have been anticipating her arrival and it was wonderful to finally meet her. We will care for her as we would for one of our own as she labors in the mission field. Your daughter has a good attitude and a desire to serve the Lord. We spent two days together and had an opportunity to visit privately together in the Mission Home. We are grateful for her worthiness and for her willingness to serve, and we pray that the Lord will bless and strengthen your family through her service. We know that as Sister Cooper works with all her heart, might, mind and strength she will have a most amazing missionary experience. We know you will experience the miracle that is missionary work through your daughter’s fine diligent efforts."
Kyleigh is somewhere in the red dot on this map in the city of Daegu. Population of almost 2.5 million people.
Kyleigh and her new companion Sister Park JinYoung, who is from Kyung Gi Do, South Korea.
In other family news.....
Hannah and Brie went with cousins and some neighbors of theirs to Lagoon and Lagoon A Beach. They had a great time!
New Food Find
We tried a new eating place called The Wild Zucchini Grill. It serves Italian Street food. It has the same type of ordering format like Cafe Rio. {which I hate btw, not the food of course, but how you order there. Drives me crazy. } In general, I can't stand loud restaurants. Nor can Emma. A minute in Zucchini Grill and Emma said, "I am so overstimulated right now." haha. We are so alike that way.
It was so fun to try, but we didn't love it.
I'll take our home made pizza the fam made recently over that any day.
Celebrat'in our Pioneer Heritage!
The girls and I walked in the Pioneer Children's Parade downtown with our Stake float! It's theme was Tablet to Tablet. It rotated. One side was the Ten Commandments and the other was a modern day i-pad. It was cute.
Each ward in the Stake dressed up in different time periods. One ward dressed in Moses-Bibical times, one ward as Nephites from the Book of Mormon, two wards were Pioneers, and another ward represented modern day missionaries.
Our float was the #47th entry out of #50. So we had to wait a long time before we even started walking the parade route.
Some old fashioned bubble fun while waiting.
Yarn bracelet mak'in....
Five out of my eight Primary kids in my class were there. Look how cute they are!
These two were troopers! They probably felt like the only teenagers there. 
We were so surprised to run into Miss Lisa, the head dance instructor at MC, and find out that she is also a clown. Who knew?
Family Hike
If we hadn't walked enough that morning in the parade we took a hike in Provo Canyon that night along the Stewart Falls trail.
The views up there were gorgeous!
Our destination was this beautiful waterfall. It took us about an hour to hike in and another to hike out.
One of my favorite things to do!
Overall a very family friendly hike. Not easy at times {just ask Kate}, but very doable.
Lazy Summer Days!
Lots of Lego making this week for Brie and Kate...
Emma's figured she's read like 20 books this summer already.
Just an example of how crazy she is about reading... She started this series last summer. She finished in a month and a half. That's like 2,800 pages!
What the heck girl?!
We got some new dice games!
Love them.
Flash reminds us of Tenzi and Nada is similar to the card game Spot It.
I feel like summer is slipping away. Too Quickly. Please STOP would ya?
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