Transfers!

Hi Family.Sorry I didn't Email last week. We went to the mission headquarters to "drop off some books". HaHa. Me and my companion went to a nearby printing shop and had about 80 PMGs (Preach My Gospel: A guide to missionary service) made. But we made them super small. like a fourth of a normal PMG. Talk about black market quality! Now these babies are portable. The only problem is they are not in color except the cover. But they are pretty sweet nonetheless!
Anyway, I say "drop off some books" because that was kind of the excuse to make the trip down to the mission office on transfer day. Transfer Day!!! What!? What!? Did you say, "Transfer Day"? Already! But you just started your mission young lad ( and fat lad, (and ugly lad))... Yes, I jolly well know, but the 6 weeks are up and it is time for your first transfer in the field.

The good news is, i am staying with my companion ( my "papa", if you will) That is kinda that nickname for trainer over here. Any way, no transfers for us, actually none for our whole district... But there were a couple of Elders "dying" that he wanted to see. (more mission lingo: "dying" means going home).
And i also found out that when I die, I will either die 3 weeks before or after the start of my mission (Late Jan, 2010 or Early April, 2010) Since I was in the MTC for 12 weeks instead of nine like Caleb, I have 3 weeks that can fly either way. We'll see when we get there.
Maybe you understand that last paragraph, maybe not. Either way, I am moving on. We can talk about that later.

also, I realized I will have my "Golden Birthday" 2 times. Since I am technically 21 right now in Korea, my next birthday will be "golden" and when I come home, I will be 21 again and the next birthday after that will also be "golden".

Anyway, I am super excited to Email today! We had that trip last week. The train ride was 2 hours each way and we spent some time with the Elders at the mission home. (HaHa i realized that I used 3 words to describe the mission home (home, office, headquarters)) I say some friends from the MTC. That was really cool! Because of transfers, the mission held all packages and letters. So I picked up the package (thank you!) at the mission home, but I got your letter just today. (looks like stamps went up 3 cents). Since we ran out of time, I've been anticipating Email ever since then. I spoke during church and while i was speaking, I realized I would be Emailing in 24 hours. it was exciting....
Any way... HaHa. Happy birthday Kendric! Looks like you were caught unprepared and underdressed! [Sidenote: We had Kendric's surprise 16th birthday party early in the morning on Monday the 9th. All his friends were hiding in the basement and he got tricked into walking down there. He had just woken up and he usually sleeps in his undies, so he was quite surprised!)
The Cats sound Awesome. And I really enjoyed the letters and all the info on the latest stuff that's happened with the family. Thank you!
Love you lots!
Elder Shumway

Woops!

Alright. Something really interesting happened this week... No, no
baptisms (but our new convert got the priestood)...
...Anyway, so I was at a member's store (where I made new namecards) and I wanted to make a CD with my camera card (i didn't want to lose them, you see)... So I was going through my camera and found where it said how much space I had taken up. I wanted to find out how many CDs It would need (I am now equipted with a 2 GB card). It turns out that I had used up about 1.7 GB! So I was like "wow! That's a lot of pictures! Those are lotes of memories that I would not want to lose! That's my last part in te MTC and my first 5 weeks in the feild." Those pictures are of a lot of firsts. First time on a plane, first baptism, first time landing in Korea, etc. Yeah... so it turns out that my camera can also format cards... and... yeah. Bad news. On the screen where
I can see how much memory is used, I can easily format the card. One little slip of the finger destroys everything. No warning or anything! And Thats what happened....


But wait, the member says, "Dont worry, I have a program that can restore formated things! Horray!" So he worked his magic... However, My camera is all-powerful. The "omipotent
camera". When it does something, it does it right! It gets the job done! So when I said, format!", It did it well. And my card was formatted well. In other words, the program couldn't fix it...


Long story short, I dont have any pictures. Sorry. I'm sad too. So I want you to cherish those pictures I did send. You have the only reminants of my 1.7GB of pictures. Especially cherish "Russia". HaHa. of all the pictures, I sent you one of Russia. HaHa.
Any way, that will be alright. I am working on filling up the memory card again and soon I will have another 1.7 GB that i can format! HaHa just kidding. (Here is the Photo of Russia LeGrand is talking about. Taken from the airplane window.)



Today we hiked a mountain! Well, it wasn't really hiking. More of "walking up a bunch of stairs" but it was fun! We had 3 investigators come with us so it turned out well! I will send those
pictures next week.


Anyway, I'm glad you liked the package. How much do you think it costed me to send that thing? .... nope... guess again.... right. 22 bucks! i dont know why it was so expensive! moral of the story, If you send things from Korea to the USA, Send it via envelope. That was a sad
day, those types of things, you have to use personal money for.


Thank you for sending the package so promtly! I have not recieved it yet, but i anticipate it soon!
Thank you for your prayers!
Love you all!
Elder Shumway

ABC's, Pop Rocks, Mail & Birthdays

Okay, (this is Cecile writing)...I have slacked off in my posting. I also lost a week or two due to LeGrand flying to Korea and establishing a regular email again. Maybe I will dig out his letters and transpose them onto this blog, but for now I have posted a few more letters as well as some cool photos from LeGrand. So check out the old letters, as I have added in the photos that were taken at the time of his writings.

Hello Family

I was wondering if I could get an update on the package. there is a member in our ward that teaches a pronounciation English class to 1st-4th graders. She is really anticipating that cassette tape. oh, and do you think you could put some "pop rocks" in there as well? The mail system in korea is really fast and really cheap! Sending that package to Arizona costed me about $2.50. And whereas it costs 41 cents to send a letter that will arrive 2-3 days later. It costs 25 cents to mail a letter that will get there the next day! So the Koreans do well with mail. I got that letter from Caleb about 2 days ago and it was postmarked on the 5th. Anyway, the point is, I can send stuff to you a lot faster than you can send to me...

Alright, not much happened this week. I've had some ups and downs with the language. But I know it will take time. Our teachig pool is starting to dry out so we need to do some more finding...I really dont know what else I can write. DearElder is terrible when it comes to attatching pictures. And since my camera setting is on "the best of the best" quality, it is also set on "the biggest of the biggest" in size. But I think i will just copy the whole thing and put it on a CD and send that to you. It is too slow this way. Congrats of the promotion Dallen! And Happy birthday to you, Anneliese!

Love you lots!

First Baptism!

Hello Family!

Well as you know, I wasn't able to Email after I called. There's a lot to talk about and from the letter you sent, there is a lot to respond to. I have about 20 minutes to write and attatch pictures. We have to catch a train at 4:15 and it is 3:40 right now..Yes. The baptism went through! It was really good. The other companionship in our district had a baptism two days after ours so it was exciting!

As for Email, I will email sometime after 9 oclock on Monday mornings (Korean Time). So expect them then. Today, was an exception. I am 6 hours late because I had to register as an alien. (One of those Green, black- eyed, big headed Aleins). Soon I will be one of those.

I really want that tape of the ABCs and their sounds. (" A says A or ah, B says b ....etc") That will really help over here.

OK... Gas is about 1.70 a liter. So its a little steap. Right now Arizona is cheap.

Flight Plans!!! Time is Almost Up!

This Last Thursday was one exciting day!We didn't expect flight plans until Friday, but they came a day early! This event marked the start of the end of our stay here at the MTC. It was a sign that Time was still in motion and that we would soon be out of the MTC and in Korea! Yes, it was an epic day!Yes... This also means that I will have a chance to call home at the airport. I tried to give Caleb my flight plans but the transaction never fell through. So now I have a copy of my plans right in front of me and any minute now, I will tell you when I can call....
My visit with Caleb was really awesome! I was anticipating some fat guy to come waddling in and claiming he was my brother. I think if that would have been the case, I would have spent the few minutes we had together taking fingerprints and asking really hard interigation questions. But to my surprise and delight, Caleb was not 45 lbs overweight as the letters claimed to be. But we had a nice chat.... We pulled out the punpkin juice and had a toast or too to the king of England... Shmashing reunion! Jus' Shmashing!....
So you wanted an update on the laguage, well here it is:We taught the first discussion for the last time on Saturday and it went really well, It was probably our best one so far! We teach the Second lesson this week, so we'll see how that goes... Since Saturday night, I am speaking only Korean. This was supposed to be a District goal, But my companion and roommates have resorted back to English. So that is kindof a letdown. But for the most part it is going good. I, for the most part, (if given time) can say what I need to say in Korean, but understanding is not up to par. My companion is kind of opposite. He can understand really well but has a tougher time saying what he wants to. So I guess that makes us a pretty good team!
Oh! Flight plans!....So I leave Salt Lake at 9:40 Utah time, but I will have some time before to call. ( I think we are at the airport for a couple hours) And then we get to LA at 10:38 LA time. we have another 2 hours at that airport. Ind then we fly to Korea at 12:30 LA time and get to Korea at 5:15 Korea Time. I will send my plans in the mail today. Just be ready at these times so I can call when I can.

Love you all,
Elder Shumway

Flight Plans (Almost)

So on Saturday, I, along with the other two Elders going to Pusan, got our "flight plans" from our mission president all the way from Korea! I say "flight plans" because it was not our actual flight assignment. but It was a letter telling us that we would flight from Seoul to Busan at 8 PM after we got to korea. We were pretty excited, Probably just because it was a confirmation that we were really going to Korea soon and that the mission president was makeing preparations for our arrival. The real flight plans, however, come this week! So hopefully, when Caleb comes, I will have a copy ready to send home with him. This will give the details on the layovers I will have, etc. Oh! Speaking of layovers, I need a phone card to use in the airport.
Alright... Caleb can visit Friday of Saturday, but if it doesn't matter to you, make it Saturday. My Korean teachers would be completely fine if it landed on Friday night. I also would probably want to sent a few things home since I leave in Two Weeks for Korea. So if he can take some things that would be really nice. (I need to send a couple jackets and some extra letters home.)
This week, a couple Japanese districts went home. We would always sing "called to serve" on saturday nights with them. Next time we sing, I will record it. If you can, send that other memory card back so I can send you another one.
:-)Love you all,
Elder Shumway

New Missionaries!

We finally have new blood in the Korean zone. After the older group took off a couple weeks ago, we were fealing a bit lonely and our floor was unpleasantly quieter. But this week, new Korean speakers came in. Koreans come in almost every 6 weeks and they always come in a group. Unfortunately, this group only had 4 Elders and one Sister. So their presence didn't make too much of a difference. But we are happy they could join us nonetheless! The next group comes in about a week after we leave and thet group is about 32 missionaries! Alright... Yesterday was the first gym that I didn't do any running. I got caught up in a great game of volleyball.
I think I have gained about 4 pounds in the MTC so it's not looking good. Most of my gym time is trying to stay fit. But the Missionary's schedule is not anywhere near as active as I would be if I wasn't a missionary. I am really excited for Caleb! And I am excited when You guys can come up so I can see him!
Well, I'm glad you liked my Korean "translation guide". But as I said before, dont rely on it for too much. for the most part it holds true. But there is almost always at least one sound change in almost everword. So dont think you are now "certified" or anything in Korean writings. I've been here for 7 weeks and am still learning new rules! I'm glad you got the memory card. Once you upload them to the computer, send that one back and I'll send you a new card. I envy the time you have to spend with G and G Creek! And I am excited for Joey!......
The talk given by W. Douglas Shumway was pretty good! It wasn't really based on one particular topic. It was mostly just a bunch of quotes and insight on a lot of stuff. It snowed again up here! I was pretty excited! It looked really amazing! I took some cool pictures (as always :-) !) Oh... As for packages, just send 'em when they are convenient. Any missionary would like to recieve as many packages as people would care to send him. But I realize that what will come will come. Thanks for your packages! Send them when you can! Fill them with anything you want. I really dont care. Maybe mints, They dont let us chew gum.
Love you all,
Elder Shumway