Elder Wardle's Mission Letter

This Is Where the Fun Begins!   This week has been quite freeing! No longer am I locked up in quarantine, desperately trying to find ways to meet people to teach online. I am outside in the vast world of South Korea, and it is truly amazing! That freedom is a bit overwhelming, both in a good way and bad. There are so many things to see and do, and it makes me excited! But it also feels like two and a half months of language study has been vastly insufficient, and I don't understand most of what goes on out here. That is about what I expected,  though, so if anything it just motivates me to work harder! Friday was the day we got out of quarantine, and we were busy! At noon we went to the mission president's house for lunch and in person introduction. I love them so much! They had some informative and encouraging things to share. Our time was short though; due to COVID, there are some pretty tight gathering rules, so not all the missionaries could meet with the Sar...

Quarantine hits different as a missionary. Sure, we may still be locked up, and sure, our sanity may slowly be diminishing, but not only has nobody died yet, but we're keeping busy! In just the last 8 days, I have had a mission devotional with an apostle, a stake conference with the same apostle, a zone conference, zoom sacrament meeting, and 1 to 2 zoom classes every day!  First of all, I don't know what kind of silly elder would fail to mention that they had had two meetings with an apostle of God, but it couldn't possibly be me. That being said, I thought I might remind you about it for a moment. Elder Anderson met with several of the Asian missions including Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. It was awesome! He gave some very powerful and specific tips and tricks I'm glad I get to put in my tool belt this early on. One thing he recommended we do is to find scriptures in the Book of Mormon and in the New Testament that we KNOW with all our hearts are true, and memorize them...

It's real! I am in Korea! It's a little surreal and a little scary, but I am also so excited! I have to type these updates out on a phone now and I am also pretty busy, so I will likely be keeping things shorter, but I also have a lot to update you on so I'll try not to keep it too short! At the start of the week I was in Park City with my family. It was a wonderful last hoo-ha. I love my family, and I am so glad I got to spend so much time with them during the MTC. Once we got back we went full swing into packing, and Thursday morning we got up bright and early (2am) to catch a flight! Mostly everyone was there, including a couple of my friends, my family, and even one of my MTC teachers! His brother was in our district though so he was there for family. And obviously, a majority of my district was there to catch the same flight! The flight was long and I got less sleep than I wanted to, but it went smoothly otherwise.  More exciting than the flight, of course, is the dest...

  여러분 안녕하세요! It's official! I am going to be in Korea next time you hear from me. I'm flying out of the SLC airport at 6 AM Thursday morning and will touch down 18 and a half hours later in Seoul! Admittedly that's including the flight to and layover in Dallas, but if you take into account the time difference of 15 hours in Korea, I won't be done travelling till 33 hours after I first take off the ground! I have so many different thoughts about this. It feels so much more real now than it did even a week ago! Sure, I have been a missionary for two months now, but I've also been living with my family, eating food I am familiar with, going to church at my home ward, and more. Next week, that's all over, and that is scary. On top of that, I will be in a country where I can't understand anything and nobody can understand me, with unfamiliar food and unfamiliar people. However, in spite of all that, I am so excited! I knew how hard it was going to be when I submi...