"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. " --- John 8:10

Friday, July 12, 2013

Yolaiyo.


...I have a myriad of different teachers, resources, and natives teaching me very different versions of Korean and decrying other teachers' advice as blasphemy. In the midst of this turmoil, I find myself on the verge of actually going to Korea, where I intend to find out which of all these languages is true, but am sure that they will all be wrong together.
But yolaiyo.


******************

In pure explanation of my title, I have to explain a bit about Korean. There are different forms of Korean that you use for different situations. Generally speaking, we are supposed to use the highest form besides King form almost all the time just cause we are missionaries, but we are finally starting to pick up/learn middle form as well. Middle Form is nice cause the ending for about everything is an "aiyo." So yolaiyo is like the Korean equivalent of yolo just like yolom is in Israel. That is, just in my head.

It turns out that a lot of stuff that I thought I knew about Korean needed to be corrected this week. Things like "sheen" which I taught to you as some version of spirit actually means "gods". Ergo, every joke I've made about the kudojah sheen that keeps knocking on the classroom door was a joke about the Investigator Gods. If they exist, may they be merciful.

Furthermore, I'm feeling more and more like Joseph Smith in here. Not as much in the vision-y or treasure huntish ways, but I relate alot with the chaotic religios confusion that he experienced. Where he had a church on every corner and ministers decrying all other faiths, I have a myriad of different teachers, resources, and natives teaching me very different versions of Korean and decrying other teachers' advice as blasphemy. In the midst of this turmoil, I find myself on the verge of actually going to Korea, where I intend to find out which of all these languages is true, but am sure that they will all be wrong together.

But yolaiyo.

To better internalize whatever I have actually learned, I've had two English fasts this week and I'm going for another tomorrow. I find that when I'm in that mode, it is a lot harder to learn new concepts, but it makes what I do have go a lot faster in my head. Like different grammer forms flow more easily, so that's good. Next week is four fasts, then the week after, if I'm in a situation where people should theoretically understand what I'm saying, I'm saying it in Korean. Because it is super wierd to be English fasting and have someone from your BYU ward recognize you.

New people I recognized this week that ya'll might know: Dallin Childs (an AF/Helaman's camp buddy), Travis "the Brick Floor" Clemons (sp? Wardy), and my ex-"wife" and the mother of ten trek babies, Sister Keijsa Angerhoffer (once again, sp?). It was fun to catch up with all of them, and even more fun to bring up "our children" in front of Sister Angerhoffer's companion.


Elder Whitlock with Elder Travis Clemons


Interesting random things that have happened in my life: We discovered that my teacher is, in her words, "racist against all people equally." After an ear drum spliting rendition of "We Are All Enlisted," I, in grammatically correct Korean, declared that we were a chorus from Hell, which reduced my teacher to tears laughing. For some reason, getting the teacher to laugh at one of my jokes feels like twice as much of an accomplishment as getting laughter from everyone else. I won a game of revenge, probably for the first time in my life. We realized that one of my roomates could be the unholy offspring of Harry Potter and Ron Weasly. I realized that the theme from Mass Effect 3 is one of my favorite songs of all time. We learned that there are only two kinds of tea that you can't drink via word of wisdom, ergo I'm going to be having a lot of tea in Korea. Not because I love tea, but because that's what they drink. The good news is that I found that out after 'Murica day. We figured out that one of my roomates looks just like Superman when one day his hair had the front swooshy thing, then proceeded to declare me Iron Man and the rest of my roomates Thor, Captain America, Spiderman/Professor X, and Aquaman. I also recieved... a female letter so huzzah for Israel.

  
Elder Whitlock's teacher                                     and can you see Superman?


This week I'm still working on the charity thing. From what I'm reading, it's mildly important. And from what I'm teaching, there is nothing more important.

One more thing, in the gym, they always have Mormon messages playing, and I totally saw Gretel Tam from high school in one of them, so yeah. Also I encourage everyone to watch the "Origin " mormon message. I just used it in a lesson with one of my progressing investigators and it is a powerful video. So watch it. And give Brother...shoot. That man that I love that is the Stake Young Men's president or something to that effect whose name I can't remember, but who was my second witness in recommending Korra to Dad. And send me his name, I feel super guilty now. No, wait, Madsen! Brother Madsen. Give Brother Madsen my regards. And a hug.

I'll jump back on to send a picture or two in a few hours. The quest to capture a good picture of me continues.


Saranghamnida, yariboon.

Whitlock out.