One request! Don't send the package please! I'm so close to being able to see you and I would feel really bad if you spent all of that money on sending the package. I haven't ceased feeling like you loved me since the last one, and I still love you and can't wait to get whatever you wanted to give me in person.
I really like N___ area. I'm glad to be here too. The jundo here is harder than Ch___, but at least there are (a lot) more people than D___. Lots of people and definitely a culture shock. Sometimes it feels like my Korean is back and at other times...well, less so. The Sistrict is fun, and the ward here is great—it’s huge. We had dinner with some members last night and have another dinner invitation for this Thursday. Lots of good restaurants in this area too.
My companion is great. His name is Elder M___.... We've been getting along really well so far. I'll try to get you a picture soon. We actually had trainers’ training and a mission conference (basically) this week, and somewhere in all of that I left my camera case at the office. I'll get it back soon, but...anyway. He's 19, played soccer in high school, loves Brandon Sanderson books, and looks a lot like Ricky Stevenson.
We went to the palace at Gwanghwamun today, which was pretty fun. They had a museum exhibit for jeans and another for sheep, so that was fun. We also got to see Meet The Mormons and another movie called a New Day for the Book of Mormon. I liked both quite a bit.
I'm feeling good about my first training this week as well. Focus will be Christlike Confidence again, but with a rather different twist than the time I taught about it in Ch___. Premise is that Satan works in oppositional counterfeits. So pride would be the opposite of humility and the counterfeit of confidence. Similarly, self hatred or low self esteem is an opposite of confidence and a counterfeit of humility. With pride being "the great vice", we need to overcome the pride in ourselves, but humility alone isn't enough to do the job. The reason these oppositional counterfeits that Satan feeds us stick, is that we have legitimate needs or holes that need to be filled, and these substitutes do a great job at compensating, but not necessarily correctly. So. As we increase our humility, we can dig the pride out of our hole. Humility is the cure, but in some ways it leaves the hole open. So we need something to fill said whole and that filler is Christlike Confidence. Then apply to missionary work. That was fast. Does that make any sense?
Honestly...not much happening with investigators. We haven't met anybody so far. It was a holiday week, but frankly the other missionaries didn't leave us much. We'll be able to work on all parts of missionary work from the ground up now.
Love you so much!
Elder Whitlock
