Fish are Friends, Not Food

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Here in Korea, Valentines Day is pretty big. But kind of different. I was told that on Valentines Day, the girl gets the boy a gift. But a month after Valentines Day is a Korean holiday called "White Day." This is pretty much follow-up Valentines. On White Day, the boy gets the girl something  that costs twice as much as what the girl got the boy for Valentines Day. I am not sure if that is exactly how it works, but that is what I heard! Every holiday is a couple holiday in Korea. Couples are every where, all the time.

Okay so yesterday, we went to stake conference. Since we live out in the boonies, it would take around 2 hours to get to stake conference at the stake center by normal bus or train. But our little branch decided to just rent out a tour bus. Because, well, why not? Haha I will post a picture.

Anyway, so sometimes you just gotta go to stake conference in a tour bus. I called it the party bus. As you can see, every one seems to be having quite the party.... in their dreams. Haha. Just laugh when I make ridiculous jokes, okay? Anyway, after stake conference, we went to a member's restaurant. I don't really know how okay that is on a Sunday, but our branch did it so we just followed. At first, I was told we would be eating 순대국 (pig intestines stuffed with coagulated blood and cooked in soup). My stomach was bracing itself, as was my mind. Last time I tasted it, it was a real struggle. But this time I was with members, which meant that I would have to keep a straight face and pretend that it was delicious, and eat all of it. Anyway, it was a relief when the food brought to us was not 순대국. I looked in the orange red liquid. A fish head bobbed to the surface. I've gotten over the scare of eating fish and fish heads. It's whatevs. But then something was brought out to us to add to the soup. I wasn't sure what it was, but it looked an awful lot like the substance we found growing on our rotten kimchi last week. Well, it wasn't that either. They plopped it in the soup and we waited for it to cook. The next thing we knew, the mystery substance was cooked and plopped into our dishes. I picked it up with chopsticks and made eye contact with the Korean elder in our district. I mouth "What is this?" in Korean. He looked at me with a "good luck" kind of a face, and then mouthed that he didn't like it either. They started saying the name out loud in Korean. 알. I had no clue what it was. So we grabbed our phone and looked it up. Well, I found out what it was, and I couldn't help but think of the beginning of Finding Nemo. I thought of all the little red eggs full of baby fish that got stolen from their parents. Only Nemo was left. Well, Nemo was lucky. No baby fish escaped this one. I was staring straight at a fish egg sac, and I was expected to eat it. "Fish are Friends, Not Food." That is the phrase that kept going through my mind. All the Koreans watched as I slowly stuck the egg sac into my mouth and chewed and swallowed. I put on my best "Ooh it's delicious!!!" face. But no, it wasn't delicious. The texture... oh the texture.... The taste... it probably tasted something like the ocean. But for me, yeah not exactly my cup of tea. But I survived.

​Yes, I ate that.

Anyway, this upcoming week there is lot of good things coming up! We have an potential investigator pool, of 6 people that we will be meeting with this week. Most of which we met on the streets at some point or another. We are so excited to see what happens! :) I think things are finally picking up in this area! :)

Love and miss you all so much!

Have a great week!

Love, Sister Maughan