New EMAIL ADDRESS and new policies ! oh my!

Feb 18 2019

Max's email address now ends in  .missionary.org  - the .myldsmail.net will be forwarded for just a short time, so if you are emailing him, take note of the change!

What news! I'm sure you all have heard of the new church policy of being able to call home every week and what an inspired revelation and blessing! It's just a wonderful opportunity to now be able to call home when needed and share experiences! The church is just amazing! Thank goodness for modern day revelation and prophets!

So this week started with a Korean funeral! Which was unique! I don't really know how to describe it in email, but it wasn’t bad, it was just a unique experience and I’m glad I could have experienced it!
(He told us in his FIRST video chat with us, that the family sets up a shrine to the deceased person in a room in the hospital to pay tribute to the person. Then the family travels to the burial place and the people hired to drive the casket will stop every so often and ask for more money to continue the drive to the cemetery. They drive and then stop again for money, which happened several times. He shared his testimony of how he could see the peace on family members faces who knew the plan of salvation compared to those who didn't. ) 

We had zone conference and listened to some very inspires words and played some traditional korean games! So that was a good point of the week!

Church of the week: so we were just walking on the street and came across a church that my companion looked at and laughs because its name in korean in "The Big Cancer Church" so that was interesting, but he thought about it and said that if you use the Chinese translation it may mean "the great stone church" which is close to "The Great Stone Dragon" from Mulan so I still like it

Last we had a baptismal interview for one of our people yesterday and she's prepared for baptism! So stayed tuned to next week's email to see how it becomes!

Love you all! This church is amazing and receives modern day revelation basically daily, so it is such a privilege to have this knowledge and be able to share it freely!

Elder Hanks

Pictures

-The place we went for the funeral

-A lesson/activity we're had with a person we are going will get baptized in 2 weeks

-Speicail Music academy! 

Oranges and Oysters!

Feb 11 2019

Hello from blessed Korea! It’s been a pretty great week over here! 

So first off we had Elder Yamashita of the Seventy come to the Ulsan District and speak to the members. He spoke about 2 years ago in general conference, so "maybe you've seen him on TV" -(nacho libre). But it was such a great meeting and there was such a great spirit and he was such a great example of Christ! And he spoke in english with a translator, so I was actually able to understand! 

So that leads me to Korean! Here's my 2 korean stories of the week.

First we were having a dinner appointment at a members' so they were asking me questions to get to know me, just as people do! And they asked me how long I had been in korea, and for some reason I said "30 minutes"... don't know why, but just came out

So apparently the word for "orange" and "oyster" are like identical, so we were at another member's home for dinner and she asked my companion if he wanted some "oranges"! And to my surprise he was like "no I’m okay, they make me a little sick", so I was like what the? You eat oranges all the time at home. So she asked me if I wanted some "oranges" and I was like "yeah, I love oranges!"... so she then poured a small bowl of oysters, which I don't like, into my soup and I was just like what on earth... so just practiced "no chew and swallow" and all was well! Maybe I will grow to like them while I'm here! 

Church of the week: Tyranno Church... it has no meaning or similar word that I’ve found besides like Tyrannosaurus Rex or tyrant.

Last news: we're teaching a Chinese girl and she teaches us Chinese and we teach her the good gospel and it's great! She has a baptism date for next Sunday so please send prayers for that to happen! 

The gospel is true! Love you all! 

Elder Hanks

Pictures - Took a trip to costco today

 Lesson with C........, our chinese person

Stole my comp's glasses

                 

Just made another painting for fun! 

6 months !!

Feb 4 2019 

So yeah it's now been 6 Months! And thankfully I still have 18 months to go!

It's been a good week, I’ve been able to meet with some of our people being taught,one doesn't say very much at all during our lessons unfortunately, and the other likes speaking English a lot, so our lessons are all in English! So they were all pretty good lessons and we talked to the English guy for like 2 hours, so we're hoping to get him pointed closer to the Savior over the next few weeks!

We spent a few days of this week just cleaning out the old sisters' apartment. So the reason so many sister's are closing (from what I heard) is that the first presidency is sending less people to places like Korea and sending just more missionaries to places like South America, where it is a little different work going on. So from what I heard, eventually most of the areas here will just have one set of missionaries, either Elders or Sisters. Hopefully not, because Sisters are really helpful when they are in our area, but we will see how it turns out!

Other news... I tried making some grilled cheese- burned it, BUT  I made some killer chocolate chocolate-chip protein pancakes from scratch. We joined the Ulsan district choir, and I guess koreans really like my voice, haha, so it makes it fun!

Church of the week: I found a church called "Sharon Church" so interested I looked up Sharon in gospel library to see what religious relation the name had. Coincidentally Sharon, Vermont happens to be the town that Joseph Smith Jr. was born in! So it's just funny to see all these little hints other churches are giving to prove The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as the Lord's restored church in these days! and they don't even know it :)

Final note: we have two people who have a baptismal date for the 17th of February, about 2 weeks from now. So any prayers for these two beloved children of Heavenly Father to make it onto the covenant pathway would be very much appreciated! This gospel is amazing! I'm so glad I get to serve here for another 18 months!

Much Love,

Elder Hanks

Pictures: 

took a train ride

our appointment with one of our people and we played a board game after :)

I tried making a painting in some spare time, thought it turned out somewhat okay! ( but I didn't have the right paper, so don't judge :) )

just a quick pic

perks of having a native companion with family in the country!