Sunday, December 27, 2009

Happy New Year - Twice!


Merry Christmas!!! Happy New Year!!! You know, the Koreans celebrate two New Year holidays. They celebrate the "new sun" holiday that everybody in America celebrates: Jan. 1. They also celebrate the Solar New Year holiday in mid January. It should be fun, to do it over again.

This time last year I was in Pusan at the end of my second transfer in country. My trainer was boarding a flight to go home....strange...one year ago I was still in Korea.....

I talked to my family! Yay! It was great! Definitely gives a boost! Makes me trunkier than ever, but that's ok!

Last week on Monday we had a zone pday where we exchanged white elephant gifts and watched Prince of Egypt. On Wednesday we went to Pusan for a Mission Christmas Conference where we had a great meeting, ate Costco pizza, watched "Scrooge" and got a free Christmas tie from the Mission Office. We also saw our new Mission Office couple (Elder and Sister Bagley).

On Thursday (Christmas Eve) we went to two kindergartens run by church members and played Santa Clause for the kids. A lot of kids were scared and cried...kind of a traumatic experience for them I guess. lol Then I called my family! That night we had a Branch Christmas Party. We joined the sister missionaries in a skit that went well, and I got to play Santa again (!)...interesting experience. Fun times. On Christmas we went to downtown Ulsan and caroled with the other missionaries in front of Lotte and Hyundai Department stores. Pretty fun. Then one of Bangojin's Church Members showed up and took us all out for a Christmas Dinner. We had a type of rib soup. Very very tasty.

Sister Lee (who was baptized a few weeks ago) was confirmed a member of the Church in sacrament meeting on Sunday. Also, the sister missionaries' investigator (Sister Ooh) was baptized. Some other Ulsan missionaries also had a few baptisms last week. I've never seen this kind of activity in my mission so far...good times! Sister Ooh has two daughters and their families in the Bangojin Branch. Her husband passed away earlier this year. She spoke of wanting to be with him again after death as motivation for her baptism. Wonderful woman...she's made a lot of progress since earlier this year.

We taught Gospel Principles class since our Branch Mission leader is back in America for a month. We talked about prophets and read about President Thomas S. Monson, God's prophet on the earth today.

Well, it's hard to find things to say after talking so much to my family via telephone, so I'll just say Happy New Year! The Gospel is true!!! Love, Elder Bocchino

1 comment:

Helena said...

The Lunar New Year is Feb 14 this year.