Tons of foreigners!!!

Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:00:24 +0000
Subject: tons of foreigners!!!
first of all, if you havent heard about the weird foreigners in korea, let me tell you about them. tons of people for whatever reason come to korea to teach english and get away from their own countries. they are usually pretty wierd and the social outcasts at home so they come here where they dont have to communicate with people. they stick out in any crowd of koreans (obviously). as missionaries we try to talk to them but its usually awkward and really funny. they are just awkward to begin with and since we havent talked to other people in english for forever the conversations are rough.
this weekend there was a big ultimate frisbee contest and foreign english teachers came from all over asia to unite and play frisbee. korea, china, japan, and guam actually. we heard about it from a foreigner and came to volunteer. it was cool to meet people from all over the world and it reminded me of how different the world is. their lives are so much different than mine. they live alone and spend their lives working, smoking, and partying. i really could recognize what they dont have and it made me feel grateful for what i do have. i have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. like one of the speakers in General Conference said, i too can say that i can't remember a time when i didnt know i was a child of God.
I love spreading this knowledge to other people. Not everyone accepts it but i know in my heart that it is true.

Love,
Elder Wells

i also dont think i have told you a lot about the island im on and ive been here for 5 months now so ive learned alot. all my information is my interpretation of what koreans have said to me in korean so its probably not all factual but maybe. i guess jeju was taken over by mongolians a long time ago and they used it to raise horses so there are a ton of horses here and stuff. there are restaraunts that cook horse meat and one of my goals is to eat it before i leave. anyway so the mongolians kind of stayed here and mixed with the koreans so people on jeju look a little different than normal koreans (according to other koreans, i cant tell the dif). also the language here is different. not everyone uses it but its a completely different dialect that is hard to understand. i heard the other day that during the korean war there was an army squad from jeju that spoke in 'jeju mar' during the war to capture a north korean camp or something. the north koreans couldnt understand what they were saying so it was easy for them to take it over. i thought it was a funny story because other koreans can't even understand this language.