The Healing City (44 & 45)

안녕하세요!~

This week we had transfers and some big changes happed so I'll just go ahead and get straight into it.

Saying Goodbye.

Another transfer down and another time to change areas. We got transfer calls and after living in Gongju for about 5 months I have now been assigned to the Jaecheon area. It was sad to leave an area that I spent so long in and especially leaving an area with an awesome companion who I served 3 of those months with. But thats just part of missionary work. I guess The Lord needs me here in Jaecheon. 

Fun fact, Jaecheon has been widely regarded as the "Healing City." Don't ask me why its called that.

Okay so here's the rundown, Jaecheon is the most eastern area in our mission and it actually connects with both the Seoul mission boundaries and also the Busan mission boundaries. Gongju was right in the middle of Korea, But now I am pretty far north-east. Jaecheon is also really out in the country (for korea) and that means I won't be spending my time in a big city again. Most of the city feels a lot like my last area Gongju but just more wide with more wilderness. The great thing about serving in the country-side cities is the people are really nice and humble. So that makes talking to people really easy. The teaching pool in this area has a lot of people so thats really nice because Gongju had a solid 2 people that we were working with. Here its about 15 people that we are working with. Pretty stark difference.

This transfer I am serving with Elder Bingham. He is from Arizona and he started his mission at the same time as me! This transfer he is the District Leader so that makes me the "DL wife" for the 5th time! So far Elder Bingham and I have gotten along with each-other great! We have a lot of things in common and I have already felt a lot of joy when serving around him. I am excited for this transfer I think its going to be really good.

My Travel Plan

I thought I would dedicate a little section for how I even got to Jaecheon because I genuinely think I had the most annoying travel plan to get to this area. So basically my plan was this, Get on a intercity bus from Gongju to Chonan at 7:20 in the morning. Then from Chonan get on another intercity bus to ChungJu. Then get on the KTX bullet train to Jaecheon. I had to do all of this with 3 suitcases, no map, and for half of it completely alone.

For this first stretch to the city Chonan I almost missed the bus and one of my suitcase wheels had all the rubber completely rubbed off because of how fast we were hauling these suitcases. I made the bus and got to Chonan where I met some missionaries and sat in the Bus Terminal for about an hour waiting for my next bus.

The second stretch I was on that bus from Chonan to Choongju for like 2 hours. That bus had multipule stops and I had no idea which one to get off of. Luckily I rode there with a sister missionary who used to serve in ChoongJu so she knew what the terminal looked like. If it weren't for her I would've had to keep awkwardly asking the bus driver if this was Choongju or not ha!

After making it to that terminal I then had to have the Elders who were serving there lug my suitcases to the KTX train which was leaving in like 15 minutes. luckily I made it to the train and then I finally made it to the Jaecheon station. When I got there my companion Elder Bingham wasn't even at the station. He was at the bus terminal because he forgot that he was supposed to meet me at the station not the bus terminal. So, I sat at that station for another hour waiting for him to come. When he finally did we then had to take another bus to the apartment with all my stuff. When we finally got there it was about 1pm

All in all, I rode 3 busses, 1 bullet train, lost around 6 bucks in travel expenses, and about 7 hours spent traveling. Absolutely crazy day. 0/10 would not recommend. 

Conclusion

I am super excited for this transfer. I'm not a massive fan of change but I think this change is going to be good. I've been a missionary for almost 11 months now and have been in Korea for about 7. Soon I'll be considered one of the "Older" missionaries and soon enough I'll be giving advice and teaching younger missionaries. 

Also, I have only had 4 areas in my mission and one of them was in Oregon. So I still haven't gotten used to transferring as I've been kept in places for large sums of time.

Again I am excited for what the future holds here in Jaecheon. Lets hope to see some miracles!

Love y'all

-크리스텐슨 장로

(Elder Christensen)

Elder Christensen after a hectic travel day and saying goodbye to GongJu!

Elder Christensen and Elder Bingham Tates new comp. I’m going to say Tate was standing on something because Elder Bingham is 6+ feet tall (sorry Tate cats out of the bag 😘)

Tate was surprised to see McDonalds in this small city!

Most Korean Missionary Apts just have mattresses on the ground.

Tate spent hours on Pday cleaning the bathroom! I taught him well, he even cleaned the drain with a wire hanger, best trick I taught him. Also, it’s not uncommon to see a bathroom as a full “wet room”.