Friday, April 24, 2020

Last one... with lots of videos!

March 23 2020  - Last Email !

 (March 8th 2020)

March 8 2020







Well I'm sure you all saw this coming, so I'll just keep it short and sweet for ya'll ;)

After 20 Months of serving as the Lord's representative and servant, He released me from His service yesterday. It has been such a privilege and honor to serve in the Lord's work. Although I wish I could continue to serve as a missionary, I will continue to serve Him throughout my life in any other ways that I can. 
I loved my mission from beginning to end, truly changed my life.

Much Love for you all, thank you for all of your support and prayers for me throughout my mission. I know they were all needed and strengthened me.

The Lord lives, this is His church. The work will go on.

(now) Brother Hanks





March 22 2020 - Welcome Home Video  (VC- Ammon Hanks & Wes Henrie)

Sorry - you're going  to have to copy & paste...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WZKwsaFibwQ72Ihdwmn_MUIlpYJ4ihTl/view?usp=sharing



https://youtu.be/zypda7yNv_Y





April 2 2020  Ward Missionary Parade




PC Sean Thal


 vc Bishop & Sis Harker



   vc bishop & Sis Harker








April 23 2020 Max's Post - Mission Report/talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=refK8PcuG-o





April 24 2020  A few Q&A's about Max's mission 



Monday, March 16, 2020

Greetings from Kaysville Utah !


Probably one of the first emails you guys have gotten about a missionaries week at home, right?? 

So finished my 3rd week of quarantine here, and HOPEFULLY just one more to go! 

So the week was full of studying, yard work and whatever else could be found! My dad had a list of things he was planning to do this spring, so I think the Lord had some fun with the timing. Cause we've been able to get a lot of it done, and it was also pretty helpful for me to pass the time a little easier!

Also turned 20 this past week at home! Never thought I'd be spending my 2nd birthday as a missionary back at home, nowadays you can never expect anything. Sad thing though, is that because age is a little different in Korea, I had totally been 21 since my last birthday, but then I had to come home and lose a year, RIP. But it was nice to spend it back home.

Just last night my mom checked my temp (to make sure I don't have The Kung Flu you know?) and she was like "you feel a little hot..." And I was thinking 'oh shoot, I could totally have Corona!' and she was like "do you have a headache or sore throat?" because I wasn't coughing either,  and I didn't at the time, but then just a little bit later I thought I started to feel it. And so last night I was sitting there in bed like worrying I was gonna wake up with Corona. So my mind was racing with all the worst case scenarios of not finishing the mission, or the whole ward getting infected or something. So I was pretty convinced I could have had the Kung Flu. But then woke up and all is well, no worries everyone. I'm not infected (as far as I know) and I'll be headin out to OKC next Monday hopefully!

Prayers go out to all the other missionaries serving in the world who are each dealing with their own struggles because of this thing. Please keep all the missionaries in your prayers!

Much love,
Elder Hanks






                                  1500 piece puzzle... Mom 1,100 pieces,  Elder Hanks 400 pcs


              Reconnecting with a Conference call with anyone available from/ in the Busan mission

                                        More yard work ... just glad to be doing something!


Birthday celebrations ! 





Things to pass the time.... after all the personal, companionship, language and Preach My Gospel studies are done...... 






                              


Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Never thought I'd be writing this from home








So I'm sure many or all of you know now, but I'm now home now! Because of that Kung Flu guy, all the foreign missionaries have been sent home for a 2 week Quarantine. So here I am writing this email from my home computer, kind of crazy. 

But let's go through the week, right?? We actually got to go outside last week during the quarantine!! And it was just to throw away trash so our apartment didn't reek, haha. But somehow I have been able to make a friend with a 65 year old guy who calls himself "stone" and he doesn't even live on Jeju, he lives in Busan. But we would always call and talk for like 20-30 minutes about random stuff, haha. He was a fun guy. 

I continued to share Olan Rogers/Brian Regan stories with the other Elders in my zone, and they were very appreciative of that. Said that was one of the bets parts of the day.

AND then there was that one day! We were studying in the morning when we got a call saying to pack all our bags as soon as we could, and we would be going to Busan that day. Then we got a text just a few minutes later telling us that all Foreigner missionaries would be returning home within the next 3 days... So that was one of the weirdest moments of my life. But we just hard to start getting everything together, we had to get rid of all our food, and try to leave the area in a way that would make it easy for the next people to pick it up when they came.

So that was last friday, and we spent Saturday at the mission headquarters. There were just about 55 missionaries that left at this time. So we just watched as groups of missionaries got sent off to the airport, super sad. We still had to eat though, and an Elder and I got put in charge of cooking for what was first just 13 Elders, but ended up being about 30 or so missionaries, haha. So we spent 3 hours cooking a bunch of random food for all these missionaries. 

Then Sunday came around, my group was the last group to leave. so we got to watch everyone else leave, then we left sunday morning. Before we left, we got to have a little testimony meeting with President, the other returning missionaries, and all the Koreans (through a phone call). It was super sad, I may have cried, can't quite remember. But we had about 20 hours of traveling, and now i'm back home! 

I would have never thought something like this could happen, but God's hand is in this. He is guiding and taking care of all of us missionaries. 

Thankfully I don't have to be released, so will just be serving here until my 2 weeks is up and I go out to serve in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma mission.

I loved Korea so much. I can never forget that wonderful country. I learned countless wonderful life lessons there.


                              



Love you all,
Elder Hanks





















The last group out.....




                  The last group out....
                

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Isolation Nation over here...!


March 1 2020

It had a good rhyme to it, so that's the title, haha

First off, I have quite a lot of free time today, so don't be afraid to send an email or facebook message to me sometime 🤣

So!!! Yeah we are now going on the 11th day of quarantine, which is just about as exciting as it sounds!! The days consist of much studying, eating, exercising, and more studying. Basically, anything we can find to keep us busy and doing something while following missionary standards. If you have any fun ideas please send them this way!

So the virus in Korea has been spreading pretty quickly, I'll provide some stats for you guys of the day and how many people were infected from when we started the quarantine. 

Feb. 21st: 204 infected 1 death 
22nd: 434 infected, 2 deaths
23rd: 602 infected, 5 deaths
24th: 833 infected, 7 deaths
25th: 977 infected, 11 deaths
26th: 1,261infected 12 deaths 
27th: 1,766 infected, 13 deaths
28th: 2,337 infected, 16 deaths
29th: 3,150 infected, 17 deaths 
March 1st: 3,736 infected 20 deaths
Today: 4,212 infected, 22 deaths

So needless to say it's spread pretty fast, we fasted with all the members in Korea for the virus to go down and for those who are suffering. 

I watched the Best 2 years last week, that was pretty good, we call members over the phone and teach them. Called these 2 kids and did like an "english class" over the phone with them. So we stay busy with some stuff.

The most nerve racking part of the week was when we got a text from the assistants saying there would be a special mission-wide phone call and everyone was expected to attend. And so of course all thoughts go to "ah no, we're going home..." and president Jeong starts the call by saying "We got a call from Salt Lake City this morning..." and I just hit the floor devastated 😂 but turns out only those who had 3 months left on their mission and a few other missionaries went home. So we were good

But now at this point, I'm pretty ready to just go somewhere, ANYWHERE, just so I can do some actual missionary work. Being trapped inside all day is not my idea of being a missionary.

But on the bright side, if any of you know the man Olan Rogers, you might know I enjoy him and his stories a bit. And this past week I've been able to bless the lives of some other missionaries with some laughter through his stories. 

Lastly (sorry I don't know how this email got so long!) Even know we are trapped inside all day with little do to and going half crazy, God is with us in this apartment. As long as I am staying obedient, all will be okay. God is helping me through this, and I love Him for it!

Love you all,Elder Hanks


Thursday, February 27, 2020

KUNG FLU Virus quarantines the whole mission!


Feb 16 220
The more I serve out here, the more I am convinced that time changes in some way for missionaries. Cause somehow another transfer has come and gone and i'm just confused. I think that cause time doesn't really exist for God, He's just giving us a little taste of what that feels like

The weather's also whack too, it was like almost 70 degrees the other day, so we were just in white shirts and it was great. But then today it's a blizzard outside and it feels like 30 degrees. So there's just no standard here. 

But ANYWAY! It's transfers today! And last interviews president told me, my companion, and another missionary in our area that I would be training this transfer, so I was pretty sure that was gonna happen but that's not the case! SO it's kind of fun cause it just shows that God has another plan, and President Jeong received some updated revelation! SO now I’ll be serving here on the island with an Elder ..., yall can just call him Elder Lee. But he's from Seoul, cool guy, we'll have a fun time together. but this is also like my 6th Korean companion, and like my 15th or 16th companion, I’ve lost track now I gotta go back and count them up again. So the work is just crazy fun!

We meet a lot of Foreigners here too, one day we had an appointment with a member from Pakistan in the morning, then an Indian dude at night, and then these 2 people from Nepal. We probably meet just as many foreigners as we do Koreans here!

Last week we went to this lava tunnel thingy, and we found the largest known lava column in the world! And I knew ALL of you were super curious where the largest lava column was, so you're welcome now that you know! Now you can go tell ALL your other curious friends that are wondering about this.

But one cool miracle!! WE were just walking on the street (as we usually do) and just thought to get some inspiration for where to go. So stopped for a bit, crossed a street, then another street and ran into this guy who was going back to work. We found out he was a police officer and we was like "follow me to my work, I have something I want to ask you guys" and so I was like "ah sweet this guys wants to talk to us!" and I looked back at Elder Clark and his thought was that of (and he told me later) "well I got my foreigner card and certificate of ministering thing so we'll be okay" haha. He thought the officer was gonna like interrogate us kind of, haha. But turns out he was just curious about our church! SO we got his number and will try to get an appointment for this week. Heavenly Father is just so kind!

Last thing (then you guys can all go to whatever busy lives you have :) ) 
we were talking with a member about like seminary cause her daughter just graduated from Seminary. And she was saying how they would do it every morning before school and she was the only member in her school. AND then she asks me what seminary is like in Utah, haha. So I just explained that Utah is, well, a little different. Cause she was just blown away that there was a separate seminary building on school grounds for the over 2000 members at the high school. 

So just made me realize how special it is, and it's really so lucky to live in a place where the church is so strong and everyone helps others out. The gospel is so great. This same member was just talking about how members of the church just have a special appearance to them. They just have that happy glow, you know? SO just always remember who you are and that people are watching you! You are a witness of Christ! Remember to act like it :)

Love you all,
Elder hanks

                                                Sibling phone call 

Baptism phone call 











Feb 23 2020  - KUNG FLU VIRUS !! 

WOW! This was definitely one of the most interesting weeks I've seen in a while! So this will probably be worth reading for all ya 😁

I'll put the big stuff down at the bottom though so you have can go through everything else 😉

Pretty funny experience: So first off me and Elder Lee went Less-Active finding one day (we have this huge list of like 400 people who were members at some point of time, so we go find their house to see if they are still in existence). So we go to one house and an old lady answers and we asked if there was a Sister Kim there. She asks who we were, so we explained we were missionaries from Sister Kim's church. And the old lady says "ah, nope there is no one by that name here" BUT then right behind her was a little boy (clearly her grandson) and he says "but that's my mom's name..." 😂 and the grandma's like "Shhh! Sorry he doesn't know what he's talking about". 
So to confirm we were like "so you don't know anyone by this name?" And she was like "nope!" But the little boy was like "that's my mom's name, try going to our house!" 😂 so you just gotta love the innocence of little children, they always tell the truth 😂

Also if you guys remember from my last area, there was a father and his son who almost got baptized while I was there... well they got baptized yesterday!! So I was able to call in after the ordinance and congratulate them, it was so awesome! I called and he was just like "I got baptized today!!!" Ah it was so great!!


AND for the big news!!! 🥁🥁🥁 

So you all know that Kung Flu thing right? I believe the Learned are calling it Corona? So turns out some guy that had it walked into a church (not our church, some other worldly church) and like 40 other people got it. So now some like 150 people have gotten it in Korea, a few people have died I think. So it got pretty serious.
So we were having breakfast with a recent convert when we get the news that we were asked to go buy 2 weeks worth of food and then go stay inside at home!
So for the past 4 days all missionaries in Korea has been on house lock down! Which is just about as exciting as it sounds...
So that's exactly what we've been doing, we stay home all day, do extra studies, contact A LOT of people, and try not to go crazy 🙃 

Also all church meetings have been cancelled in Korea, so all the missionaries prepared bread and water in their homes, then we had like a conference call and 2 elders did the sacrament prayers and then there was a testimony meeting. 
I also called 2 foreign sisters here who needed the sacrament blessed and got to bless it over the phone with them.

We're not sure how long it will be like this, but to my knowledge, the church meetings are expected to be cancelled till about the middle of March! So I could see it being the same for us!

And so for all you reading this and thinking "ah I wish there was something I could do for them" I'll be glad to tell you that you can! 
First off you can always pray for us to stay safe ~ 
And if you feel so inclined, here's an address you can send a care package/letter too! 😁 

Elder Max Hanks
No. 201,   (Contact Max's Mom for the rest of the address! ) 

And we cant go outside today, so this preparation day I would love to talk to anyone who wants to have a conversation 😁

Anyways, love you all!
Elder Hanks

when you have to do church business but can stay in your pjs......



Just a sunday pic




Us buying our 2 weeks worth of food



appointment at the hair salon 
                                         

E Lee just trying to pass some time