Lost luggage, new mission area, new companion! Ahhhh!

July 22 2019

Well what a week!

First off, it was raining pretty hard. There was a typhoon this past week that lasted about 4 days of just wind and rain. Can't be that bad right? Well it's bad enough that going outside to proselyte is just as effective as taking a nap. So we would have to stay inside and just contact people until we had an appointment. The wind was pretty crazy too, I distinctly recall a few times the rain wasn't coming down, but it was going completely horizontal! We literally had to hold our umbrella to the side of us. Also we lost 2 umbrellas because of it too 😂

Also got transfer calls! It's gonna be a crazy transfer this time. I'm going to a place called 첨단 광주 (CheomDan GuangJu) which used to be apart of the other mission. So it's unexplored territory, I get the opportunity to serve as a zone leader with an Elder Clayton for a bit, I haven't met him yet, but he goes home this transfer. So it's gonna be super fun! I have no idea what to expect, but I'm just excited to see what happens! Also lost my luggage, currently tracking it down right now 😂 pray for me

I've been reading about patience recently from the Book of Mormon and it was great. The one thought I wanted to share is just to be patient with other people. Nobody is perfect, and just imagine how patient the Savior is with YOU. 😉

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

On Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 10:19 AM LeAnn -

 wrote:

Is it on a train or bus or airplane ? 

Bus, we should be good. We just called some people and should be picking it up in 2 hours

- thank you for praying, I think that really helped cause the lady first told me she had no idea how to find it. but then she randomly called me back saying she had found it and told me where and when it would be., so that was most definitely because of some prayers! thank you! 

July 29 2019

Okay, so I haven't had a lot of time, like at all recently.

For all of you who were worried, I found my luggage! It took a few hours of tracking down, a few missed buses, a little frustration, lots of money spent, but we're all good now!! 

So my new area if from the old DaeJeon mission area, so it's on the far west side of Korea, so it very far from the rest of... everything. We came out to the headquarters in Busan for choir practice today, I got pulled into choir, and that takes FOREVER. It's like over a 4 hour travel from my area to the headquarters. So we don't have a lot of time.

So the new area! It's awesome! It's a big ward with about 130 members, so that's new, the building is pretty big too. My companion is an Elder Clayton from Bountiful (He was from my uncle Cory's stake, so kind of fun to make that connection). He's flippin amazing at Korean, but the sad thing is that he's going home in 2 weeks for school. So that means I'm gonna have another mid-transfer transfer!! So just living the exciting life right now. It's really hot, but just doing the work! Being a zone leader is a really just opportunity to serve people. 

I feel like there was a whole lot that happened this week, but there's not a lot of time, and don't really remember much of it all. So thanks for the update. Send prayers, have fun, live and love the gospel. I'm pretty excited to be serving here.

Elder Hanks

pics - we have a 4 man house right now, so this is us. 

we went and played soccer in POURING rain, like there was eventually a little layer of water across the whole field, but super fun.

Just a shirt we saw that we found to be a little funny  

The week of the merging of missions and my 4th of July hot dog!

July 7^th 2019

Yeah so happy Independence Day back in America, what did I do to celebrate over here? Glad you asked, I made some hot dogs at home... I’ll attach a picture of how pathetic it was, haha. But also we were blessed and a random Returning member called us and said he was taking us out to get McDonald's, so basically had the most american meal you can have, haha.

Other good news: We found a volleyball group!!! Yeah we were just walking around and saw some guys playing volleyball, so we asked if we could join and they were like "yeah come next time" So it was super fun, and we have some potential with a few of them hopefully!

Other great news: we went to a 목욕탕, or a bath house, this morning, which was great. If you don't really know what those are, simply it's where you go when you want to feel like you got baptized again. It feels so good! An awkward part was that me and some korean guy briefly grazed cheeks, if you know what i mean, and needless to say i didn't make any eye-contact and quickly got out of there, haha. 

Also quick news: we merged with the next door DaeJeon Mission this week, so i could be heading over there next transfer. So "Cool beans? Yeah, cool beans." - Rod

Some cool miracle: we were visiting a guy at his work, then his friend also came to visit him at his work. And we really hit it off with his friend. He was apart of another church, and told us that most people didn't really have the best view about our church, some people thinking it was a cult and what not. But we just told him the truth and befriended him, and by the end he was saying how he felt "oddly connected to us" like "we were close friends" and he called us "pure people" and that kind of really nice stuff. He called me and gentleman and my companion cute, haha, so that was kind of funny. But regardless, it was a really good opportunity to correct this man's view about our church. We shared a Tabernacle Choir video with him, and he said he got goosebumps from it! haha, so it was a good experience.

Again I just hope you are all reading your Scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon every day! Such an amazing book and so many blessings we get from it. Also read a conference talk every now and then, I’ve been going through President Hinckley's talks and there is so much wisdom in them!

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

Pics

This is what you do in korea if your dating, you match PERFECTLY

My pathetic hot dog... feat the plain white bread

Elder Campbell had a fun time at our service activity where we play legos with special needs kids, haha

          

This is where we study our scriptures

To get to the bath house today, we could either walk around a mountain in 30 minutes, or just hike over it in 15, so we took the latter option and just hiked over it

                              

June 30 2019

Hello everyone! 

I put that as the subject (awkward missionary moment) so you'll have to read the email to figure out why 😂😉 but another week in Korea! 

Some highlights:

We had zone conference and that's always great to receive teachings from our leaders. The whole mission used to have to read (at least) 2 chapters of the BOM, everyday, and now it got upped to 3 chapters 👍🤜🤛

We went on exchanges with our zone leaders, had a good time :) but the elder I was with got really sick and we had to go to the hospital and they IV'd some mysterious yellow liquid into his body... Korea has weird health care stuff

We also played soccer in the pouring rain with a bunch of Korean students! Which was fun because most Koreans would never go play in the rain, but because we are Americans and have what we call "foreigner power" they came and played with us. It was good BRT!

The awkward missionary moment: so when we went on exchanges, we had a dinner appointment with a member there. So we were all eating dinner when all of a sudden the sound of a drunk guy singing came on! So what happened was that a while back a really drunk guy had called the other missionaries and started singing a bunch of songs for them! But because he was really drunk, it was super funny and the Elders took a recording of it. But for some reason the recording was set as an alarm on their phone and it went off! So it was super funny cause we were just eating and then a drunk guy singing starts up and we were all so confused 😂 but we all laughed about it, so it was okay 👌

Elder Hanks's reminder: if you aren't reading the Book of Mormon everyday, resolve whatever is stopping you and start! It is so important and the power that you get from reading it cannot be replaced by any other thing!

Love you all, 

Elder Hanks