Our third meeting took place the following week on Wednesday, October 12. We arranged to meet in the library and we sat in the café area. When she first arrived, she looked a little stressed with something on her mind. She began telling me a problem that some of her friends from back home are having with their children who are studying in the states. She explained that one of the kids had not focused on school like the student should have since coming to the states and the parents were unsure what to do. This story made me contemplate about the difficulties of studying abroad like this. First of all, I cannot imagine how a parent feels in a similar situation of being so helpless since the child is so far away.
After we talked about her friend for a while, we eventually made our way to the topic of religion. She explained that she is a practicing Protestant, which is the most common religion practiced in South Korea. She said that the services between her church back home and church over here are actually pretty similar for the most part, but she did mention how the organization of the religion in general is different. My understanding is that each church was part of a certain group, and the ministers were educated to preach in that group. So if a preacher started preaching in a certain church but moved, then he had to preach in a church of the same group. She was not a big fan of this system because she said it causes unnecessary complications.
She then asked me about my religious practices, and I explained that I am a practicing Catholic. Once I told her I was catholic, she was interested in the grace before meals that she heard one of her friends say. I was able to write it down for her, which made it easier for her to analyze since it was on paper. We then talked about the differences between the two faiths. I explained the differences between the views of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Mary, and the concept of the Saints. She was especially interested in Mary and the Saints. Trying to explain these concepts proved more difficult than I originally thought, but actually by putting the concept in words I was able to better understand what I thought of it also. I clarified how Catholics have patron Saints and praying for help from the Saints. I also explained what the rosary is and what it means to pray the rosary. I explained how to pray it along with the mysteries of the rosary; I even drew a simple picture for her, being the artist that I am.
This meeting was the first time that she had to pull out her translator in front of me. The translator seemed like a pretty handy tool seeing that it was able to translate so many languages. I was also surprised at its ability to translate the meaning of not only words but phrases, especially those pertaining to religion. It proved very helpful with some of our ideas we were trying to relay to each other.
It was time for us to leave, so we wished each other a safe fall break. I found our discussion on religion this meeting to be very interesting. I thought it was cool how two people from completely different areas of the world were able to have a good, meaningful conversation on religion. This conversation gave me clear insight to the universality of religion, especially since she had a very similar practice here as she did back home.
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