Trio's, planking and moving to an island

April 28 2019 

So I'll just start off with that I'm being transferred out of this area. I loved this area so much and the Lord blessed me with so many miracles here, but it was my time to leave and I'm ready to work hard in my next area! So my next area is 거제도 (ko Jae island) and it's a little island that I heard is super beautiful and has a branch of like 15 people. So it's gonna be an adventure there!

I'm gonna have another Korean companion, which will be needed for my Korean after a transfer with Americans, haha. But the lord's work is moving forward everywhere!

We had a bunch of stuff this past week that was great. We taught English about 4 of the days, played soccer with maybe 15 potential people, gave a talk that will hopefully improve member missionary work even more, and just felt the spirit a lot!

During this past week I finished listening/reading all of President Monson's talks, and it was so great! What a learning experience it was. I know that he was most definitely a prophet of the Lord and I know President Nelson is His living prophet today. 

If any of you need help with just about anything this week, or you want to feel the spirit extra strong, I'll pass along the advice of president Nelson when he said, "Ask the missionaries! They can help!" please try to find out how you can help the missionaries where you live. 

Love you all! 

Elder Hanks

Pictures:

Elder Campbell and 지훈, the guy we are teaching

Another one with some more people :) 

We all put on these face masks last night 

And our district which was somehow only foreigners! 

April 21 2019

So just another week in Korea! We had a few appointments this past week, so it's nice to feel busy and have something everyday besides just tracting. So it'll be a little shorter email this week!

Highlights: 

• Played Ultimate frisbee last week, so that was fun to get to do that again
• I feel like my chinese is starting to come back thanks for my recent convert
• A member gave us some BBQ Pork Ribs a few days ago, so ate very well!
• Cooked some fish that turned out pretty good
• and baked a cake the other night!

One exciting thing that happened this past week was that we met a guy on the street who looked at the Book of Mormon and was like "what is that? can you tell me more about it?" Which like NEVER happens in Korea, it was a first for me. But we met with him the next day... and found out he was quite a Bible Basher, haha. He told us he had studied the bible for 5 months and wanted to "learn together from it". I just felt so bad for him! He told us many things that were very false doctrine, and asked us to find a scripture from the Bible that proved there was a God... He literally thought the Bible made no reference to God, and totally denied the scriptures we showed him. He also wouldn't let us talk longer than 10 seconds before he would interrupt and say something, haha. So we just felt bad for him, left him a Book of Mormon and recommend he read it, then we left and got shakes. :) So that was a fun experience!

Also at church the other day, one of the guys we're teaching challenged us to a plank competition, haha. So me, him, and Elder Campbell had a plank competition, and I won! But a bunch of church members were watching, and then they wanted to have like arm wrestle and push up competitions after, haha. So I made a mistake doing that 

We are really trying hard to teach one person, who has learned so much, he just has so many questions and has a lot of critical thinking. So we are working with him slower than we wanted, but he's still progressing bit by bit and I’m really praying hard that he will accept it all and get onto the covenant pathway soon! Please send prayers! We have seen so many miracles here because of the faithful prayers of members.

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

Pictures (not a lot, sorry)

Our Plank competition

When we had some delicious BBQ Pork ribs

picture from a few weeks ago I’d thought I include :)

April 14 2019

What a week!! So much crazy stuff happened but I'll keep it short for all ya 😉

So first off we had interviews, so we were leaving to go to where we thought the interviews were but found out last minute that interviews were being done at our houses, so we ran home and our house wasn't that bad really, but I mean we spent an hour cleaning up! Then we decided we would surprise them and we popped in some cookies for our mission president and his wife. But..... we forgot about them... and then Sister Kim was like "something smells burnt"... It was at that moment that I realized I am just not meant to be a baker! Haha, so we pulled them off and sure enough it was a bunch of black cookies! So that was a great way to start off our interviews, haha

Emergency Transfers!! So this was really out of the blue, we just got a call last Saturday Morning saying that there were emergency transfers with another companionship in the mission, and we were going to be getting one of the missionaries! So we are now a Trio!!!  So his name is Elder Campbell and we picked him up Saturday night and now we are a trio for the next 2 weeks of the transfer! So that's gonna be exciting!

We finally got to watch General Conference! Just freaking awesome! So many things that answered so many questions and all those people are just so amazing and I love those apostles and the prophet so much! And we all thought there were gonna be missionary changes, but I don't know how those rumors started, haha. So anyway that was good too!

Sad news second: 

Our person being taught said he wants to push his date back a bit to prepare a bit more (so kind of sad, kind of good)

I ripped some more pants and had to sew them up again, haha

We had to take off a pull up bar from our house that has probably been there since medieval times, it had like melted and become one with the door. So we literally had to get a bread knife to cut the rubber off the ends! haha, so that was fun

It's been a great week! we're really hoping and praying for our people, specifically our main person to get baptized soon, so please send any and all prayers! We have seen major miracles of prayers this past week! Please send prayers!

I love you all so much!

Elder Hanks

pictures

our pull up bar we had to cut down   

New comp elder Campbell

Our chinese class we do with our person being taught and recent convert (Korean to Chinese is not fun & kinda hard, haha)

We went to a picture taking place last week and it was quite fun

4 week blog catch up- baptisms and a new companion that makes me feel short..er.......

April 8 2019

Another great week in good old Korea! Another week of miracles, blessings, and unforgettable memories! I hope you all enjoyed conference, we haven't been able to watch it yet, so looking forward to that this week!

Some highlights:

• We rented some 2 person couple bikes and had races with some other elders. So that was fun, we had a bunch of old korean people cheering us on from the side, haha
• Met a group of drunk people while doing some group street contacting and one of them almost stole our marker
• Climbed up to the top of a mountain with our mission president
• Got a baptismal date! (i'll mention a little more later)
• Me and my companion bought some really fun mirror glasses and tried to have a nerf war with them
• I bought a shirt with a Doggie on it :)

Something interesting: we got a referral from some other Elders, and apparently the referral said he would be willing to be baptized! But the other elders said he was a little awkward, haha, but we just set up and met yesterday! He's a high school kid who's super into Stocks, Alan Walker, and War History. We couldn't get a good conversation going without him asking if we had heard such and such song by Alan Walker or him pulling up a WW2 flag or something and talking about it. So it was an interesting meeting, so we're just praying it turns out well!

A Date! So we met with our main guy a few times this past week and realized that we needed to talk about and extend the invitation for baptism. So we had a really good discussion and after we talked all about what he was he asked "So if I want to be baptized, do I have to say something first or do the missionaries?" haha, so we just asked him the question and he said yes! (haha, sounds like a proposal) so we're planning to prepare him for the 21st of April.

So it's been a great week! I just love love this work! I wish every single person in the world could experience the joy I am here! This gospel is true! the Savior is living and knows each of us personally! 

Much Love,

Elder Hanks

Pictures - there's some of us on our bikes

some on the mountain when we went on a hike                                                                                                                          

the glasses me and my companion bought 

the shirt I bought and really enjoy, haha

                            

March 31 2019

MISSIONARY WORK IS JUST SO AMAZING!! I just love being a missionary for the Lord. I mean everyone tells you how great it is, but words really can't describe how great it is. I have already been changed so much and it's only been 8 months! I can't even imagine what the rest of my mission is gonna be like! But i'm excited!

But anyway yeah it was a good week! Our weeks usually start pretty slow, and then pick up and we get really busy on the weekends cause nobody has work and school and stuff. So the week started with just a day of 9 hours of proselyting! Those are always memorable and make you never want to do it again. But it still turned out pretty useful. My companion also told me a story, that he made up along the way, for 3 hours!!! A 3 hour story! I don't even know how you talk for that long, and it was one of those stories that like ends on a cliffhanger or with no punchline, you know? so I was just like mentally and physically exhausted after that day, haha

Church of the Week: "A Good Neighbor Church". I don't know much about this one, but I’m pretty sure State Farm found them and asked to be a sponsor or something

Sad news second: I finally torn one of my pants, I knew it was bound to happen sometime, and it finally did. We were playing ping pong with people we're teaching, and it just happened! haha, but I just went home and whipped out my trusty $5 missionary sewing kit and sewed that baby back up!

The weekend! Weekends are just always so great! But especially Sunday! I think that because Sunday is the Lord's day, He just loves to have fun and bless us with miracles. We had a few people at church who we're meeting. And because it was 5th sunday, there was a group meeting during the 2nd hour of church. And the golden guy we're teaching asks if he can make a comment again! So this time he goes up in front of the whole branch and makes a comment for like 5 minutes about the discussion! Then another person we are wanting to teach went up and did the same thing! Then there were tons more miracles after that, but I’ll spare you all from a novel ;)

Just know that this work is active and it's moving forward! It won't do you much to try and move against it or just sit on the side and watch it go by, make sure you are all actively involved in this church and this work! There is a happiness that comes along with it that can only be described by the Holy Ghost!

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

pictures!

Our golden person who I seriously love so much!

This beautiful country of Korea

It's the famous Cherry Blossom season!

                                   

Our person we're teaching took us all out to lunch!

A pic we just took with a Dino :)

March 24 2019

First we had transfer day last Monday, which my companion had 7 boxes and 2 suitcases which we had to mail to his next area, then he took more suitcases with him! Haha, so that was an adventure! Then I got my new companion... So I always new I was pretty short, but I really realized how short I was now that I have my new companion. His name is Elder Adams and he's 6'6"! So I’ll attach a picture someone took of us so you can see the difference, haha. But it's been a humbling experience for me :)

Also call me a handyman! We got a new oven last week, like a full sized oven! which is weird cause most missionaries here just have toaster ovens, but one of the Mission presidency members visited our apartment and was like, so do you need a new oven? So we got one and just had to install it ourselves, and it works just perfectly now! :)

"there can be miracles when you believe!" (sang by Miriah Carrey, however you spell her name) So we didn't have a lot of people we are teaching when this transfer started because our 2 main people were just baptized (one got the Holy Ghost yesterday!) So we just prayed at the beginning of the week for a miracle and for someone to be sent to us... and he was!! This guy randomly texts us and asks if he can come to our english class, and long story short (if you want to hear how cool the whole story is you can ask me) he came to our English class, and walked out with Gospel Library on his phone and a Book of Mormon in his hand. Then he came to our Chinese class, had lunch with him, attended our other English class, and went to like a Stake activity with him! We spent almost 10 hours with him that day! Then he came to church the next day and even made comments in Elders' Quorum! So frankly if this wonderful son of God doesn't get baptized, i will honestly be blown away! But please just send prayers for him! He could be such a great member!

Church of the Week: The church of the week this week is "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" Because it is just so awesome! We did an activity with our district of trying to teach a lesson without using the truths restored in this dispensation, and it was quite hard. So just so thankful to be apart of the Lord's restored church in this day! What a blessing it is to be able to teach that to other people! 

This Gospel is amazing! Just take 1 minute out of your day and think about how the church has blessed your life! This Church is just amazing! And if you aren't already, make sure to be reading the Book of Mormon everyday along with the New Testament Come, Follow Me program :) I promise it will bless you life!

Much Love,

Elder Hanks

Pictures (in I don't know what order)

My companion and I on the street (for size comparison, haha)                                                                                                   

Our "stake" activity that had a lot of food

We had some Chicken for Elder Adams' birthday this week                                                                                    

my last companion's stuff he had to send!

blurry picture of our new, self-installed oven (yes i am very proud of it :) )

                                   

March 17 2019

Death of my last watch that I brought from home......

What a week!! I just know that I have seen many little miracles this past week! What a wonderful gospel we are a part of, Heavenly Father just blesses us in so many ways we can’t fully understand.

First off we had a baptism! This kid was actually supposed to be baptized last month, but he can only meet on weekends, and even then, it's hard to meet him. But he had the desire for baptism, so we just worked really hard for him! But he wasn't even supposed to be able to meet this last week, so we thought we were gonna have to reschedule his baptism again, but we gave him one more call and he could meet that day so we set his interview and it went great and he was baptized the next day!! So what a miracle!! Funny thing was that my companion didn't memorize the Baptismal prayer, so we had to do the baptism like 4 or 5 times, haha. But it was a success in the end!

                  

It's also transfers today, I'm staying in this area, and my new companion is an Elder Adams. I haven't met him yet, but I just know that he's 6'7" 😂 so it'll be fun! We are transferring today

Church of the week: The Neptune Church! So yeah like the planet Neptune. So I don't really know what that is supposed to mean, but it just makes me more curious about Neptune now

If you want to listen or read a good talk this week, go find "Mercy- The Divine Gift" by president Monson, I think it was the April 1995 session.

This gospel is so amazing!! I hope you all realize the huge blessing it is and all the blessings it brings!

Love you all so much,

Elder Hanks