Dear Family,
I must relate to you now an experience which caused me great embarrassment this week.
As I mentioned in my last email, I have been feeling a bit under the weather. Come to find out, I actually had a sinus infection. But no worries!!! I went to the doctor's and I am all healed. I don't tell you this to worry, but just as an explanation as to how I was feeling last week. Feeling as I did, I decided to solider on anyway. There's so much to learn at the MTC! I would hate to miss class for anything. So, last Friday morning. I went to class as normal. I didn't participate too much. And thankfully, I think my teacher could see how sick I was, because he didn't call on me. Now, I must explain a little bit about my one of my teachers. He is a dear dear soul. But I think a little unprepared for how to teach a classroom full of all sisters. I mean, who would be? Isn't the MTC supposed to be full of Elders? So, I think our dear teacher feels a bit awkward at times, teaching all sisters. But we love him for it. (In fact, I was going out of my way to make him feel uncomfortable at least once a shift during the first couple of weeks) But what happened last week was unintentional! It was awful! It was horrible! It was undescribibly horrifically detremental to my soul!!!!!
Our teacher's shift was over. He was packing up his things to journey to the outside world. The night before, our other teacher had taught us the phrase for "see you later". So naturally I wanted to "SYL" (speak your language. a philosphy we live by at the MTC). I said to my teacher, "How do you say 'see you later' again? Bo-bo-ju-say-o?" I had just said the first Korean phrase that popped into my head. It flowed off my tounge so easily, it had to be "see you later".
But my teacher turned and looked at me with the most horrified expression I have ever beheld upon any person's face. Shock. Pure shock. That was the only emotion visible in the poor man's eyes.
"Cha-mae-nim. That is inappropriate," he said.
Immediately my face turned red as my brain went searching through the annals of my memory trying to remember 1) what I had said, and 2) where I had learned it.
I thought of Heartstrings (my favorite Korean soap opera). Nope. I didn't learn it from there. I thought of my old Korean room mate. Wasn't that what she said when she would answer the phone...???!?!?!?! Nope... It wasn't from there either.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Christopher. Andrew. Hunt. (now forever to be known as the bane of my existence) Chris was a boy who lived in my ward during the past few semesters. I would consider us pretty good friends. After I recieved my call, Chris would always pop his head in our apartment enthusiastically saying the only Korean phrase he knows which he learned from a Korean girl he dated: bo-bo-ju-say-o..... English translation: give me a kiss....
If you thought my face had been red before, you can imagine how fire engine red it turned then! I covered my face with my grammer book as the other cha-mae-nim-dur asked what I had said.
"It's not important!!! Brother Wells, I'm sooo sorry. That was horrible. It totally was inappropriate. I didn't mean it. I didn't know what I was saying." The words came flooding out in a torrent as I tried to fix the situation.
"Westrup cha-mae-nim! What did you say??!?!" The other sisters quiered.
"It's not important... It is inappropriate.... Ok, I just told him to kiss me..." I briefly admitted. And then followed by saying, "I just had this friend who would say that to me all the time this summer! It was the first phrase that popped into my head! Don't worry. We never did it!"
The room erupted in raucous laughter!
My teacher then said, "Oh, you don't have to explain that to me...." He then procedded to pull his squeaky roll-y chair out of the room while the rest of the sisters died laughing at my mistake.
It wouldn't have been sooo bad. But it was that teacher. And he was just happening to be observed that day by his supervisors (we found out later that they had already left... but even so)
The next day, some other sisters in our district greeted Brother Wells with a friend "bo-bo-ju-say-o". And we were able to laugh about it. But until the day I die, I don't think anyone will have had as an embarrassing language mistake as I did in the MTC.
I have 2 minutes left.
So I'll just briefly say that I loved General Conference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think my favorite talk was Elder Packer's.
I'm still learning a lot, teaching a lot, but especially feeling the spirit a lot.
Love,
Westrup Cha-mae-nim
No comments:
Post a Comment