Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Birthdays and almost lost my life

Sept 10 2018


Anyeonghasaeyo!

So I guess to start off, we had a devotional earlier this week with Elder Kyle McKay (my former Stake President) and his wife, and that was a really good devotional! We aren't allowed to stay after and talk to the speaker though, so that was kind of a let down, but it was still a good message, haha. 

Elder Piper is off to Seoul 
         

Yesterday there was a lot of reorganization because the older districts are leaving, so usually they reassign all new district and zone leaders. But we are still the zone leaders! they reassigned some district leaders, but they left us as the zone leaders! So that's pretty exciting. But all of the older districts left this morning, so that was sad. We lost like 12 missionaries, and Elder Piper was part of that group, so that was pretty sad since we have been really good friends for a long time, but they are all going to be amazing missionaries!


Our Korean Zone !
               



Elder Gonzales' birthday! So my companion's birthday was this past Friday, and I thought it went pretty good! we can't do that much special because we still have a regular MTC schedule, but the sister in our district decorated his desk in our classroom, and we sang to him. So that was really fun. Then on the way back to our residence, I was supposed to stall us for a while before we went back, so we just went and bore our testimonies in Korean to a bunch of random missionaries, haha. then when we got to our room, there were a bunch of elders inside and they surprised him and even had confetti (which they thankfully cleaned up) and we just gave him some gifts. So I think it was a successful birthday celebration!


Story time: So when you are about to leave here, most missionaries do what they call a "bye-bye book" which is a book you give to other missionaries you want them to write their email in and like a note to them. So one of the sisters in the zone gave hers to me while we were at the MTC store and asked me to get it to all the elders in the zone. So of course I said I would, but she gave me a warning to not let anyone lose some of the pictures and inserts that were put in there, and she even said she would hunt them down if they lost them! haha, she didn't mean it literally, but I could tell she was very serious about it. So they left and we just finished doing the stuff we needed to do and went to class. We got to class and the sister was there with the sister in our zone, but I realized I didn't have the book... I literally had no idea where is was, and I freaked out cause I remembered what she said. So me and my companion walked out of the class and started sprinting all the way accross the MTC campus to get this book, which we only thought was still at the MTC store (which had closed 15 before we got to class)! So we sprinted there, and saw there was still an employee inside, so we told her it was really important and we weren't trying to buy anything, she let us in and we found the book just sitting on the counter. So very long story short, I lost a book, feared for my life, but all is well now.

Spiritual thought: we had one of our missionaries tell us he was having a hard time with his companion and was just frustrated with how he was acting, but then he said he had gotten past this because Christ only had imperfect people do deal with, but did He get frustrated with us? Then he just said he's just got to deal with it. So that was really cool, and a good lesson for me to learn!
 
See how happy missionaries are for ANY package! 



Cleaning Silly String off the ceiling, there must of been someone else that could have fit up here.....






Much Love,
Elder Hanks

MTC half way point!

Sept 3 2018


Another week down!


We hit our halfway point in the MTC this past week, which is weird how fast it went by but also weird that we have to do all of it again. but it's going well! There were new missionaries that came in, not into our zone, but just into the MTC and I was able to see a lot of my friends from High School like Elder Messerly, Elder Feigleson, and Elder Hedquist.

My korean is slowly improving, I can definitely speak more comfortably now, but understanding them is still really hard. But we did have a lesson this week where I introduced us and said that "we were prophets from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"... so my companion looked confused, and our person we were teaching seemed very shocked and a little honored, haha. but I haven't made that mistake since.

Story Time: well there weren't really any exciting stories that happened this week, I was asked yet again what my ancestry was though, haha. I'm pretty sure I get asked at least once a week by someone. But I'll entertain you all with a fun fact. In the newer part of the MTC campus, right in front of the new teaching buildings, there is a small grassy hill... So I'll try to get a picture with the hill in it, but here's the interesting thing, hold on to your seats ;) So obviously the hill is man made, however, it's made of styrofoam! because the parking garage is right underneath the hill, using dirt was going to make it too heavy, so they decided to use styrofoam! You can tell that there wasn't really anything exciting or funny that week, cause the biggest part of my email was about a styrofoam hill, haha. but yeah that's about it. :)

The stryofoam hll 

Special Request!! 
So I have a special request from anyone who is willing to help. My companion and the sister in my district are from the Philippines, and his birthday is this Friday, and her birthday is the next Friday
 so the 7th and the 15th. I don't really know if their family is able to send them stuff, because i guess it literally takes at least 3 months to send a package to and from the Philippines. So, we're trying to do something for them. Now that you have the context, just my simple, but will be very meaningful, request. If any of you could just send like a tie you don't wear for the Elder, but i don't know what you could send for the sister, sorry, but if none of those, even just sending a bunch of random food and snacks would make them feel so good! Anything helps! I just want to try and make sure they have a good first birthday in the mission! 
Thanks again!

     
                                 You see how my companion gets treated like royalty! 

Much Love,
Elder Hanks