Sept 22 2019

So yeah we gotta call during the week saying our zone conference got suddenly switched to friday! (last friday) So for those of you who sent stuff to help, sorry I wasn't able to use any of it, but thank you anyway, haha. 

But it was a pretty good zone conference! We did a pretty bomb training about Enduring to the End. One of the great counsels we received during it was to do all our studies outside the house! FOR ALL OTHER MISSIONARIES OUT THERE(who maybe actually read this, haha) I would highly suggest doing this! We've done it for just about 3 days now and we've already seen tons of miracles! It was one of the few times I’ve actually had someone else approach us and ask what we were doing! So thanks to our wonderful mission leadership, we've been able to see some great miracles.

Downside is that this whole past weekend we had a typhoon here, haha, so friday we got to do studies in a park, but then saturday and sunday we had to do it in like a library and stuff. But we were still able to see God's hand in our work.

One miracle: during the typhoon, we finished some work at the church and had about 2 hours left that we planned to just do some street contacting in the rain. But realizing that street contacting during a typhoon might not be the best, but also with the advice we received to spend as much time as we could out of our house, said a little prayer and decided to go to a little bakery and do some contacting there. So we changed our course, and on the way there were able to give a Book of Mormon to someone in the pouring rain! Got to the bakery and found there was no place to sit, so we decided to go to another nearby cafe thing and on the way there we were able to give another Book of Mormon in the pouring rain! We got to the cafe, sit down, and a friend that we are trying to meet with was there and came up and talked to us for a bit! So that was a pretty cool miracle.

Funny experience: There is a member in our ward who knows how to use "sweet mercy" pretty well, and I think it's pretty funny. But then my comp, Elder Han, was really curious what it meant. And I didn't know how to explain it, and the member didn't know how to explain it in korean either, so my comp is just really interested in the phrase "sweet mercy" now, haha.

Last little food for though: So here's something some of you may like, some of you may not like it cause it may hit you where it hurts (sorry) but recently I’ve been studying about Humility and Pride in the Book of Mormon. And there is SOO much that you can learn about this, but I want to share one simple thing I found interesting about pride that could be helpful to everyone. IN the Book of Mormon, one of the common things that comes with pride is "having their hearts set upon the things of the World". Often when someone becomes prideful, they begin to "wear costly apparel" and "their hearts [become] set upon... their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments..., and all their precious things".

So what's the take away? Please don't be too worried about what the world thinks of you. Don't be too worried about how you look. Yes of course we are supposed to have a "neat appearance" but that doesn't mean we need to put so much focus on the things of the world. If you by chance consider that you spend too much time worried about your clothes, all your possessions, how people think about you, please just take a moment to kneel, humble yourself and thank God for all the REALLY important stuff in your life.

Sorry that was long :)

Love you all,

Elder Hanks

Pics: (don't know what order)

we played some traditional korean games at zone conf

Grabbed a meal appointment with a recent convert!

the pic we took at zone conference

a pizza pic

Elder Han :)

blurry pic during the typhoon

Sept 15 2019

Yeah it was the Korean Thanksgiving this past week!! In the mission though, we have new guidelines for us to only have meals when we have interested people with us, but because all of our friends were also busy with their families during the week, we just had to spend our thanksgiving at our house, haha. Also because it was the holiday, there weren't that many people outside either. 

So what did we do?? Cookies. :) 

Yeah so we just made a bunch of cookies, and then we plan on visiting a bunch of people this week and giving them the cookies with an uplifting message! So hopefully it'll work out! Some of the cookies turned out like something you could find at a bakery, and others turned out flatter than the earth ;) so I don't know what happened there, haha

Some quick good stuff

• I maybe ate too many of the cookies we made
• we got to help some other missionaries finally move into a house in the area they have served in for over a transfer
• We called this guy, and ended up talking to him for over an hour and teaching like all the restoration and half the Plan of Salvation
• A guy called us and invited us to play soccer, so we got to play some soccer!
• we were able to get a meal appointment with member and friend for this week!

Need some help from whoever wants to give it! :)

    So I have a zone conference coming up soon, and we are supposed to provide a training about "Enduring to the End" which (in case you didn't know) is actually pretty difficult to find some good ways to teach about or use as a training. SO if any of you have ideas/ fun ways to teach enduring to the end/ cool stories about that/ any cool visual aid you've seen, please send them this way!

much love,

Elder hanks

not that many pics, sorry

got to play soccer

comp playing ping pong with our friend

what we look like proselyting in the rain, quite fun :)

Sept 8 2019

onion-hasaeyo

Well as you all know, I was planning to get a son this week, but it turned out to be an adoption! He's a Korean!! So it was pretty funny cause the last 2 weeks I was planning for what I would do when I get a new trainee who is new to Korea and can't speak the language, so imagine my surprise when my trainee turned out to be a korean! Like half my plan just went out the window, haha. But it's all good! We've been working hard together and should have a pretty good week!

But this past week was basically a week of traveling for me. because I was training, I had to leave to Busan (our mission headquarters) early Monday morning and we had our training meeting for the trainers, then we met our trainees on wednesday and came back to our area. But then because we had a mission leadership meeting on friday, I had to go back to Busan (which by the way is like almost a 5 hour trip) and go back on friday. So spent the majority of my week out in Busan, but it was good! We learned a lot and prepared more for how we can work and do better missionary work.

My comp. is Elder Han, just from up by Seoul. He's into like computer programming, mathematics and science and stuff. So that's pretty cool, he seems to be pretty smart. He's kind of quiet but he has a great testimony about the gospel, and that is what is really important. So we should be able to see some miracles during these next 2 transfers!

The mission is good, so rewarding! Heavenly Father is just so willing to bless us openly! We're trying hard to help the people we are meeting, and trying hard to get some more member missionary work going. So if you are looking for something to pray for, please pray for Elder Hanks out here in Korea! All prayers are welcome and needed!

Much Love,

Elder Hanks

Pics:

Just some pics with the comp.

the one of the bus is just because I spent like 15 or so hours in these kind of buses, haha

and just one of good old Korea :)