Feb 9 2020
This was was pretty much just a regular week, sorry there
won't be too much fun stuff this time. So for all of you loyal ones, please
read! for the rest of you, enjoy your day :)
But regardless of that, the gospel is just so amazing! Did
you know that? It's just so amazing!
Sorry I just had to put that in there. But one day this week
we were just walking down a street and see an old guy pulling a tree in a cart
behind him, so of course we were like "hey we'll help you pull you're
tree!" haha, so we just pull it to this guys house, then he took us out
for some holy mackerel after, so it was a pretty good tender mercy.
Then we got an appointment with this kid we were wanting to
get closer with, so we decided to go get lunch together. So we go to this like
pizza buffet, but turns out he didn't bring any money, so he was paid for. And
we tried having a good conversation with him, but this kid sat on his phone THE
WHOLE TIME... He was so distracted by his phone, we'd ask him a question and
he'd like kind of motion like he was gonna answer, but then just keep looking
at his phone. So we just gave up and enjoyed the lunch we bought and self
committed to never let a phone take priority of a person.
Yesterday in Sunday School, a brother was talking about
Elder Bendar's talk about Cheetahs, remember that one? But he was telling us
that sometimes the cheetahs will go find a tall tree, and they'll climb up to
like 8-9 meters, which is like 25-30 feet I think, so they are like completely
hidden up in the tree. then those antelope things come hang out around there, right? and
they know to always be cautious, but it's like super hot outside, so sometimes
they just really want to get a little shade for a bit. But (as you'd expect)
right when they get under the tree, the cheetah jumps down on them.
So what's the lesson?? Sometimes the faith life is a little
hard, sometimes you may say "the standards are too high" or something
and want just a little rest in the shade. But we have to be careful, cause the
moment that we justify that a little rest, or just letting our guard down for a
bit, is the moment that Satan strikes.
But we aren't antelope, right? WE can all overcome the adversary, the fact that we all have bodies already gives us an advantage over him. Keep Calm and Carry On. :)
But we aren't antelope, right? WE can all overcome the adversary, the fact that we all have bodies already gives us an advantage over him. Keep Calm and Carry On. :)
Elder hanks
Pictures:
All the members had to wear masks yesterday during church, not a huge fan of masks haha
All the members had to wear masks yesterday during church, not a huge fan of masks haha
the island I’m on is just a big volcano, and it's super
pretty. Totally just has the lonely mountain in the middle of the island
I’m probably just not cultured enough in the beer buying business to know that 'spirits' just means alcohol, but i just thought it was funny they were selling spirits here
just some service we did for one of our people
another good picture
Feb 2 2020
So this past week I had to break up with a girl... actually
it was a woman. In fact a 38 year old woman who has a son!! SOOOOO for those of
you who read (and remember) my email from last week, you'll remember reading
something about a woman we met that could either become a miracle or not....
and well I’ll tell ya what happened. this will be the story of the week for
yall (sorry it's abridged for sake of time) ;)
So this woman that we met last week at a restaurant, I’ll
call her G......, would text us
pretty frequently, but for just about no reason. So we were kind of like
"hmm... I don't know about this one" so we hit her straight with
"so why do you like us missionaries so much?" and at first she just
says "well you are like my little brothers and are doing this hard work
out in Korea, and so I wanted to be kind to you guys." which was okay BUT
THEN she slides in this text saying something like "but is it bad if I
like maybe I like Hanks?" (in like that kind of way, you know?)
So like was like a "AHHH what the ramen am I supposed
to do???" So the rest of the day was spent basically just breaking up with
this woman, at least that's what it felt like. At one point she literally said
"I thought it was fate."!!! Like seriously met the woman last week!!!
Also said some stuff like "is it a crime for people to like people??"
and ah man, long story short it's over. We're hoping she got the message clear.
She brought her son to our english class later that week, and I just didn't say
a word, haha. Oh man it was a rough day that day, but just glad it's hopefully
over.
So that was like the climax of the week basically. We also moved
houses today, which was good because our old house has been here since the
ancients, so it's nice to get a better one.
Church of the Week: The Pillar Church. Not really sure what
it meant, it was also just like the 2nd floor of a building, and there were no
pillars, so not sure where the name came from
We also got one of our people we started teaching out to
church, but he's not super religious so when the sacrament came around and he
took the water he was like "oh one more please!" haha, so we're still
helping him to become more adjusted to religious stuff. Apparently the
virus thing, which I'm now calling the Kung Flu (credit to Elder Zach Brady),
is pretty bad, and being missionaries who talk to EVERYONE, it can be a little
nervous, but no big problem. Just living the missionary life, which is the best
life!
Anyway I’ll just leave it here, but I hope you are all
reading your Book of Mormons. OKAY?? Every day right??? if you're not... mmm 안
되는데
you can start today!! Okay? promise??
Love you All
Elder Hanks
pics:
instead of like graffiti on walls, they put all these sweet
paintings on walls
We went to a picture taking thing/ shop
Just some pictures :
Jan 26 2020
Holy Bible! K first off it's raining cats and kimchi over
here in Jeju, and I’m pretty sure someone released the 4 winds of the earth or
something, cause coming over to the church today was a wild ride! 😂 And
the umbrella I have has less coverage than AT&T in Korea, so of course I’m
now typing this with soaked slacks :)
So anyways, how was your week? Over here in Asia it was what
you all know as "Chinese New Year", so that's great if you are a
korean with extended family. But if you're a missionary it's not the best
because it means that basically NO ONE is outside for the whole weekend, so if
we didn't have any appointments... well, yeah we had to get creative with the
time that we had. But thankfully we had just a few appointments, and had some
good food.
ALSO there is a American sister in our branch, but she
hadn't come out to church or anything recently, so went to visit briefly and
apparently there is this scary virus thingy going around that came out of
china, so all the English teachers were asked to stay in their homes and
not go outside. So she was telling us about that, and said to kind of be cautious
of chinese tourists we meet. And so we go outside to open our mouths right? and
of course we meet like 3 chinese people in like an hour, so that's a good way
to get a little worried. But we're actually not too worried, it's not super
common and we're just slightly more protected than the average person ;)
Interesting experience: this could either turn into a cool
miracle story, or not... ( I couldn't think of another word sorry)
but we were eating with another team of elders at a
restaurant and were sitting next to this lady (and we are not allowed to first
proselyte to women due to foolish events in the past), but this lady started
talking to us, so we started talking. And she seemed pretty interested, we gave
her a Book of Mormon and my companion got her contact. But she then gave her
contact to just me too, and has called us a few times just to talk since then.
(but the thing is, she is like 39 and has a son, so we're not super worried
about her liking us, but still kind of interesting). She called us once while
we were studying at a Cafe, and just casually asked what cafe and stuff, and
then asked if she could come and just talk with us as we studied. But we just
told her probably not this time, we didn't have that much time anyway, and said
let's grab a time for next week. She said okay, but then like 30 minutes later
she walked into the Cafe with her son! So we were like "Uh..." but it
was okay, all worked out. Just trying to refer her off to the sister
missionaries now, haha.
Anyways!! Sorry that was pretty long, it's supposed to rain
like ALL WEEK this week, so send a few prayers that we can just
survive!!!
Love you all,
Elder hanks
pics.
We went on a cool little hike last week
this dog's name is Hanks (not a joke), and I like him :)
a pic with some elders
more food
This wedding store didn't take the time to spell check before they made this big sign for their store
Jan 19 2020
Hello my beloved people! The grass is green, the sea is
blue, and the church is true. Couldn't be a truer statement as far as I know.
We've had a pretty good week over here in korea, the work
just keeps going on! Also quick shoutout to the big Sis who brought one of
God's children into this blessed world, what a privilege that is!
We had our zone conference this past week, and we hiked up
this "mountain" which was really just like a little hill if even,
just took like 10 minutes to go up, but it had an awesome view of the ocean, so
no complaints. Also listened to the good word preached by president Jeong, love
that man. He talked about repentance, and I hope you all just remember how much
of a gift repentance is in our lives.
Funny experience: we had some elder stay at our houses one
night for an early meeting the next day. And this elder calls someone on the
phone, and they start talking in english. But this Korean guy says something
about Donald Trump, and this elder didn’t hear him right and says "What about
a donut shop?" haha, ah man it was so funny in the moment, I was like in
tears crying in the next room I thought it was so funny, but probably just one
of those you had to be there moments.
There was also a baptism in our zone yesterday, and it's a pretty
simple but cool story. This members family came down to JeJu for a month to
travel, and they had a son that is about 11 years old, but he didn’t go to
church really and was never baptized. But they came down here and felt that he
needed to be baptized down here. So while they are on vacation, he met with the
missionaries, took the lessons, and got baptized yesterday. Isn’t that
awesome??
I hope you all take the time each day to read your
scriptures! The scriptures are so fun to read, there is just so much to learn!
Come, follow me is so inspired, the church is just the best! Just take a few
seconds and give a prayers of thanks to God for all that He has done for you 😁
Love you all,
Elder Hanks
Pics
This was a fire at our apartment complex, we're now looking
for a new apartment 🙃
A sweet pic I took of our mission Mom, Sister Kim
All The elders in my zone 😁
Our JeJu Family picture
The man himself, president Jeong
Jan 12 2020 (part 2)
Hello again, I
love you all so much I thought I’d give you a little dessert and share a good
story with yall!
This happened
in our mission recently, and it's a cool story.
There was a
companionship of missionaries walking the street, met a student, and the
student started to talk to them. The student was busy or something and had to
go, but wanted to meet with the missionaries. But didn’t have a phone number or
anything, so said to the missionaries "let's meet here next week at (this)
time" (just like the old days right?) and the missionaries were like
"okay"!
So next week
comes and the student comes at the time they set, but no missionaries, waited a
bit, and still no missionaries. But the student remember that the missionaries
said they lived really close, and really wanted to meet them, So this student
goes to a nearby apartment and starts knocking on doors LOOKING FOR THE
MISSIONARIES!!! isn't that ironic?? Usually it's the missionaries knocking on
doors looking for people, but this time it was the person looking for the
missionaries! So by chance on like the 10th door, they find the
missionaries!!!
So the
student's like "hey I’m the person you met last week, we planned to meet
today at this time, do you remember?" and the missionaries were like
"oh! Oh yeah!" 😂
So this student
went knocking on doors looking for the missionaries, by chance found them, and
later got baptized. Pretty cool right?
So there's a
good story for ya all, hope you enjoy it ~~