Oct 27 2019
Wow what a week! It was a pretty spiritual week! This past week
we able to have a mission tour conference with Elder Takashi Wada of the 70,
he's the 1st councilor in the Asia North Area, and it was such a great
conference! Elder Wada is so full of the spirit and truly speaks with authority
from God.
One great thing he talked about that we can all apply, is
connecting ourselves to God. Especially when we help other's to accept the
gospel, the purpose is not to help them get close to us or even the church, it
is to help them get closer to God.
After one part of the meeting, he had some interviews with
just a few missionaries, and I got to be one of them! So it was pretty cool to
have an interview with a general authority. The best part about it was just
that I could really feel a Christlike love in him, it just made me really
desirous to share that with others.
There was also a mission leadership meeting with Elder Wada
in Busan I had to go to, which requires a lot of traveling, but we were able to
have a great meeting to talk about the needs of the mission. We were able to
learn a lot from him about how we can help the missionaries.
The work goes forth! We are definitely doing a lot of
planting seeds, but we are trying to find those people ready for harvest! This
work truly is the most important work there is, we are gathering Israel! Please
send prayers (even just a simple one in your heart) for those who are prepared
to be able to find us!
Love you all,
Elder Hanks
our mission tour
just a pic
went to a halloween party with some people, so took a pic
at the party played ping pong soccer, which is where you
like play soccer on a ping pong table by blowing the ball across the table,
it's pretty fun for those who want to give it a try
Oct 21 2019 (Day 425 & 8 hours)
I actually have no idea what day I am at, but I had to come up with
something for the subject. So what's new? We had transfers last week, but I’m
training so I’m just in the same place doing the same stuff! So it'll be
another few weeks of this!
We met these American guys, Brad and Tom, and we met and had
some chicken and pizza. I haven't felt that American in a long time, haha. But
they are pretty cool people. They are English teachers here in Korea, so we
plan to meet them and their other english teacher friends and probably teach
them all Korean with a side of the good word.
The sisters serving here had a baptismal service, so we were
filling up the font of the baptismal font, but the water ended up overflowing
just a little bit so the carpet right in front of the font got all wet.
Not that exciting, I know, but that's just as exciting as it got, haha.
Church of the week: I’ll do you a favor and give you two
names this week.
One was "the Church of the Nations" which actually
sounds like a pretty regular name, but still pretty interesting. The next
church name was "the GwangJu Center Church" which is pretty regular,
but then right after that it says "Vision Center"... So the whole
name would be "the GwangJu Center Church; Vision Center" So I’m just
curious what kind of vision they are talking about!
Yesterday we got a dinner invitation with a part member
family and the bishopric. Which was really a big like bbq thing. in Korean
we call it a 고기 파티, and that just directly
translates to "meat party", so it's just exactly what you imagine!
I was reading a talk this past week called
"purification" by Gene R. Cook and he told a story about a missionary
who was teaching a lesson with a member, and the missionaries bore testimony
that joseph smith was a prophet, and they said it was good. Then it was the
member's turn to add a little testimony, the member sat for a bit, looked up
and said "I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet" and they
said that the spirit just filled the room, and the member and the person being
taught started crying. So even though us missionaries are sometimes known to be
like "spiritual powerhouses", this member really brought the spirit
because he was spiritually pure. The lesson I learned is hard to explain, but
basically always make sure you are always spiritually pure because you never
know when someone is going to need to feel the spirit you can share with them.
love you all,
Elder Hanks
pics: The meat party
This sister is the sister that I "taught" in the
MTC! She is a member of the ward I’m in, but she is living in Utah right now but here to visit, so it was
so fun to meet again!
We went early to church to clean out the baptismal font,
make sure it was all nice and pure :)
Oct 13 2019
Finally got to watch conference! I actually just listened to
the majority of the week in English so I didn't have to watch all of it in
Korean and understand a solid half of it, haha. But it was so great! Those men
are just all so inspired and guided by the Lord!
Also I don't think I’ve ever been more excited for the next
conference so far in advance! President Nelson really knows how to keep
us members on the edge of our seats! But it also makes me so excited to study
Joseph Smith and the restoration these next 6 months and I hope you all will do
the same! If you want a fun challenge, let me know and I’ll give you one to
prepare for the next conference ;)
The other thing was that we were able to have was a Ward
picnic! This past week was the Korean Holiday celebrating the creation of the
Korean Alphabet system! So it's a pretty big thing I guess, cause there's no
school or work! So we all went up into the mountains and ate raw fish and
played some games :) I thought some of the youth would have fun with a frisbee,
so I took my Davis High disc and they all had a lot of fun with it, but then it
disappeared, haha. So somewhere up in the mountains of Korea there's a little
Davis High School relic.
Church of the week: So I found out the area that I’m in
"CheumDan" means "high-tech" according to the chinese root,
and that makes it so much fun cause there are so many churches with
"cheumdan" in the name. So this week's church is "The First
High-Tech Church".
I hope you all enjoyed conference (last week for most of you)
and pray you all continue to study those talks! If you think you don't have
time, just listen to them! Listen as you are driving, as you are cooking, as
you get ready in the morning. You have time to listen to those uplifting
words!
Love you all,
Elder Hanks
Pics
Just pics from our ward picnic
Last one is that for one activity we remade a picture based
off a movie poster and had a competition, this was one of our pics, see if you
can guess the movie :)
Oct 6 2019 – 1 Year in Korea
yeah so it's now been a full year in Korea! So that's pretty
cool! So what happened??
We had a typhoon, and it was bad enough that our mission was
asked to stay inside unless they had a really important appointment. So that's
like the worst news for any missionary cause staying inside makes you insane
basically, haha. Luckily we had an appointment, so we got to go out.
This past week we were able to meet with this American who's
here as a English teacher, His name's Brad for those who were curious ;) and
he's pretty cool. He's major studied the life of Paul, so he new a bunch of
pretty cool stuff. He said he wants to keep meeting us, but maybe just cause
it's hard being in a foreign country not being able to talk to anyone, but we
can talk to him!
Something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while was try
this Milk tea they have here called "brown sugar milk tea" cause all
the pictures make it look super cool. Don't worry it's not against the Word of
Wisdom, I checked and then double checked, but it turned out it to be a pretty
big disappointment, haha. It was a little expensive, the taste was okay, but it
was loaded with brown sugar. So that turned out to be a mistake, cause that
didn't feel too good afterwards.
Church of the Week: It is either the "3 stars
church" or the "3rd star Church" but regardless, I’m very
curious about their doctrines.
We've been trying to work a lot with members to get some
referrals from members, but most of the members have said the same thing.
basically that they just feel bad for us, cause if we had served maybe 10 years
ago or before, it would have been a lot easier cause people actually had
interest. But nowadays people just don't have religion interest. So that was
super sad to hear, and
also just shows that people are getting more and more stiff necked and wicked.
So it's super sad, because we can totally see it in people, just how they don't
care anymore. But that is why we are working really hard to find those lost
children of God, and those who really need Him, but don't know how to find him.
We're really praying hard for a miracle, like REALLY praying
hard, so all prayers are welcome and needed!
Love you all,
Elder Hanks
pics: (sorry there aren't too many)
the brown sugar milk tea, looks pretty good right? but very
deceiving...
just a quick pic study time in the park
Sept 29 2019 - Koreas Got Talent
Yeah it's true Korea's got it too. And it took place right
in our church! Haha, but it wasn't too crazy. We were just in charge of putting
together a ward Talent Show this past week. So we have been putting it together
for the past little while and it finally happened. Except one, it was all just
musical numbers though, haha. But it was still really fun and we had some friends there.
Did I participate? yes I was the one who didn't play any music. What did I do? I
recited a poem... haha I know, not really talent. But a member was like, Elder
Hanks it'd be cool if you memorized this famous Korean Poem for the Talent
show, so I just sent it and it lasted like a solid 30 seconds. But be
proud I participated!
Other than that we were able to see a few miracles this past
week. While studying outside at a park there was a woman who came up to us and
was like "I saw you guys studying the bible and was debating if I should
come up and talk to you, but I just decided to." and we ended up talking
to her for like 45 minutes and taught many doctrines. So that was a pretty cool
miracle.
Church of the week: I know a lot of you were missing this
one and I remembered so here ya go!
First one: The Light and Salt Church. Now I’m just gonna go
looking for the Dark and Pepper church.
Second one: The Sheep Congregation Church. I can understand
where that one came from, but still kind of makes you wonder
last one: this isn't a church, but the Cafe that's part of a
church! (funny thing about a lot of other churches here is that they have a
cafe in the church (you know where they serve like coffee and tea...)) but
anyway, so this cafe name was called "Cafe I'm fine". Which I think
is pretty funny cause I imagine like a preacher coming down to the cafe, seeing
someone in the corner, going up and being like "how are you" and they
are like "I’m fine" (which we all know means they aren't actually
fine) and that's how they help people, haha. But they don't speak English, so
maybe someone back in America can make it.
Sorry went off on that one, but Love you all! This Church is
amazing! Isn't it just so cool that we can receive modern day revelation from a
living prophet!?
Elder hanks
Pics:
The "Cafe I'm fine"
A pic from our talent show
just snapped a silent pic of us
there are these big groups of old people who get together
and then they just go through parks and streets picking up trash and stuff.
Nothing escapes their sight.
