Kenzie+Korea: The One With "El Choobacheh"

Hello friends and family!!

I am so happy to be writing you today. I don't think I've even been more in need of a P-Day! Okay, so since last P-Day, a lot has happened. I have pretty much had it with the MTC and I am so ready to leave, but I'm trying to make the best of it. I honestly have no idea how anyone ever stayed here for twelve weeks! I've been here for six and I'm completely insane! But more about that later!

Last Friday was the best day I ever had at the MTC. Why? Well, a few weeks ago in TRC we taught a BYU student from Korea who is not a member of the church. She is a real deal investigator, so we were really nervous the first time we taught her. We asked her why she wanted to meet with us and she said that it is because her boyfriend is LDS. We asked her what she wanted to know and she said that she was really interested in 영셍. The only problem was that we had literally no idea what 영셍 meant! We tried desperately to understand and finally she told us that it meant eternal life. The other problem: We didn't know enough grammar forms to talk about eternal life. We left the lesson feeling so awful and defeated. Understanding native speakers is really hard...and talking to them is even harder. All week, I kept thinking about that lesson and about how we let our investigator down. When Friday came around, Sister Cooper and I were planning our lessons for TRC and I just kept thinking about the week before and secretly hoping that we would have a chance to teach our same investigator again. When we showed up for TRC, we had two spiritual thoughts planned: one about faith for a non-member and one about reading the Book of Mormon for a member. We walked into the room and our same investigator was sitting there! I was so nervous and excited. We prayed and Cooper 자매님 started talking about faith...according to plan. But we both knew it just wasn't right. One word kept going through my head "영셍, 영셍, 영셍." I had to do something, so somehow I hijacked the lesson and connected faith to eternal life and we were able to change the course of the lesson. We talked about how Heavenly Father loves us and we are His children. He loves us so much that He wants us to come home and live with Him forever. We shared our testimonies and emphasized the importance of prayer. Cooper 자매님 is so good with scriptures and she flipped to the perfect ones to share. The spirit was so strong in that room. When I was bearing my testimony, I felt God's love for this girl like I have never felt love before. I was trying so hard to tell her this in Korean, but I had to break into English (good thing she's secretly fluent). In half-Korean/half English, we told her how much she mattered to us and how we had been thinking about her since our last visit. We wanted her to feel our love for her and God's love for her. We shared our testimonies of prayer and shared James 1:5. Then she asked what she could ask God about. We excitedly answered that she could ask him about anything. We started listing off some things she could pray about that we knew how to say in Korean, but I felt like I needed to say that she could pray about her major. The only problem was that I had no idea how to say major in Korean, so I almost didn't say it. But the Holy Ghost was pounding on my heart like a sledgehammer. So I just said "major" in English. After our lesson we received our evaluation slip and she had written a very sweet note to us on the back expressing how she could feel the Holy Ghost, how our testimonies had almost brought her to tears, how she felt that we cared because we remembered and answered her question from the week before, and how she was so proud of how much our Korean had improved. But the most special part was at the end. She said that she was really stressed about changing her major and we had answered her question directly. What a special experience! If anyone is wondering why the heck I left everything behind to serve a mission, the reason why is because I want to share that love I felt last Friday night. There is nothing else in this world like it. I love this work so much and I can't wait to go do it for reals in Korea. God is real. He is aware of each of us personally. I know that. And there was another miracle connected to this miracle that testifies of this! We didn't have enough time to commit our investigator to pray, but Elder Hiatt and Elder Ulrich taught her right after us and they taught about prayer and committed her to pray! See, God really does care about us! He cared about this girl so much that He didn't let her leave TRC without receiving a full message about prayer. Just think of how eager He must have been for His daughter to talk to Him because He send her two sets of missionaries with the same message! I am so excited to do TRC again tomorrow. Cooper 자매님 and I wrote our testimonies in a Book of Mormon and we are going to give it to her tomorrow. We can't wait!

After TRC on Friday, Goodwin 자매님 and Gardener 자매님 let us go to weekly planning outside because the weather was beautiful. After we were done planning I was so happy about our lesson and so happy to be outside and to be so close to the real world that I climbed up on the fence and waved at cars for like ten minutes. Anyone who didn't know what the MTC was probably thought it was the Loony Bin.

Nothing very big has happened since last Friday. That's probably why I'm going so crazy. And my experience last Friday just made me realize how stinking badly I want to get out into the field and escape from the MTC. I am getting so stir crazy in here. The last three nights I have had dreams about walking out of the MTC and hiking Mount Timp. I am dying. Really, how could anyone survive twelve weeks of this?!?!?! But it'll be over soon enough. And we got to move to a newer residence hall today because they need to do renovations on 3M. It was nice to have a little change. And the showers are HUGE! And super echoey and perfect for singing in. ;)

Oh! I guess I could tell you about Cooper 자매님 and I almost set a trashcan on fire the other night! Sorry Mom! So we were making some popcorn on floor three of our building when we got talking to some of the Russian-speaking sisters. We're pretty tight with them because of my Russian obsession. We were talking about our mission call opening stories when smoke started to appear out of nowhere. We were all confused as to where this mysterious black fog was coming from when all of the sudden it started to smell like the stench of a thousand charred campfires. "сестра!!! your popcorn!!" one of the sisters yelled. Cooper 자매님 and I ripped open the microwave door and a tiny fire had ignited in the middle of the popcorn bag. Then we realized that we were located directly underneath the smoke alarm. How convenient. We raced down the stairs with the flaming popcorn bag and I started to rush outside to get rid of the fire. "Wait!" Cooper screamed. "You can't go outside in your PJ's! They'll expel you!!" Crap. Well, I ran outside in my pink-and-white granny jams anyway. Luckily the MTC fashion police didn't see me. I tossed the flaming bag in the trashcan and sprinted back inside leaving a giant cloud of stinky smoke rising from the trashcan. I really hope it didn't catch on fire...

Anyway...

I'm sure everyone is wondering what the heck "El Choobacheh" is...oh gosh. Where do I even begin with El Choobacheh ? Okay, so like I have pretty clearly emphasized, I am super over the MTC and kind of losing my marbles. Well, last night my marbles were officially lost. After spending the entire night trying to get my brain to absorb the concept of gerunds I was pretty brain dead (and by the way, I'm pretty sure Gerund was a bitter old man who woke up, drank a jar of pickle juice, and decided he was going to make everyone's life a whole lot harder by making up gerunds and naming them after himself). Cooper 자매님, Tanner 자매님 (my faves), and I just weren't having it. We were so out of it and mind-blown. Then Anderton 자매님 wouldn't stop talking about this form that literally no one except her knows and we were all just not having it. She just kept going on and on about "bache" (don't know how to spell in Korean), which means outside.

Then this happened:

Orndorff 정로님 :"What the heck! When did we learn about 'El Choobacheh'???"

Chandler 형제님:*makes Choobacah noise*

I have no idea why this was so dang funny, but Tanner 자매님 and I just lost it. I can't even remember the last time I laughed so hard. I almost peed my dress!! And Tanner 자매님 couldn't stop laughing, so I couldn't stop laughing then Chandler 형제님 started laughing, which made us laugh because we made our teacher laugh and it was just this endless circle of insanity when we were kneeling to pray. Tanner 자매님 and I still haven't stopped laughing about this. I'm currently laughing right now while I'm typing. I guess nobody outside of District 28 B and our teachers will understand the hilarity of "El Choobacheh."

Anyway, I think that's enough MTC insanity for one email. I love you all and can't wait to hear from everyone! Have a wonderful week!

사랑합니다!

"I you love"

Johns 자매