"Falling To Samchonpo"

Greetings from Samchonpo!!!!! There's a saying in Korea: when you go off on a tangent in a conversation, or anytime you just get lost/off the beaten path and can't get back, you say "I fell to Samchonpo"....it's kind of known as the "end of the line" here in Korea. Yep, that's where I'm at. I love it!

Where to start? The branch is tiny! Sunday meeting consisted of the Branch President's family (President, wife, 3 young children), two missionaries (who are the counselors), two middle school students, a 21 year old (the branch mission leader) and an American family of three. That's it! Take out the American family and we all fit in one van (yep, that's how we got home yesterday.....all of us....). The Church meetings were very simple, short and spiritual. I had to get up and give my "introduction talk" of about 2 minutes stating who I am, where I'm from etc. Church here in Sachon is about 2 hours long instead of three. We don't really have a Church "building"....it's on the 2nd floor of a building. Very very small. We have a nice ping pong table though. I have a feeling that I will be very good at ping pong before I leave this area. Koreans are obsessed with the game.

The area is beautiful. We're on the coast and next to a deep inlet that runs up quite a ways. So many amazing views, at least compared to the gray landscape of the big cities. It's been fairly rainy recently, and I'm reminded of home as we drive along wet, two lane roads in a rural area. Yes, we are in the extreme south-west of our mission. We might go to a town that is on the western edge of our area in the next few weeks....I'm hoping to run into some Taejon missionaries.

We went down to the fish market by the dock the other day. It's covered with a collection of tents and tables where grandmothers come and sell fish. Rats are common...one ran over my companion's foot. It's interesting to see the women cut up live fish and watch as the fish continue to move even after skinned and sliced several times. Kind of gross, but that's life. I went to the end of the dock and looked out at the several islands that sit off of our coast.

My Italian companion and I have been eating a lot of pasta recently......we're loving it! Samchonpo/Sachon is amazing! I love it and I'm excited for the weeks ahead! Love,Elder Bocchino