Thanksgiving at the MTC [week 9]

Hello 안녕하세요! How is everyone doing on this fine day? Sorry this email is a couple days late. 

SO! let me tell you what happened on Tuesday. Michael A Dunn from the 70 came over and gave a super motivating devotional.  He is the guy that told the story about the Olympic bikers in conference. His sports analogy on Tuesday was about cross-country skiing. I forgot the athlete's name, but her cool quote was that her biggest fear "is crossing the finish line with energy to spare."  His devotional was super uplifting and motivating.

Then on Thanksgiving Day, Elder Gary E. Stevenson came and gave a devotional. It was so cool! The big take-away from his talk was to be grateful for four things: the missionary purpose, change of heart, the restoration, and the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. 

Then we watched a movie called Ephraim's Rescue. I think it would have been a really bad movie, (so very, terribly, really cringy and bad) but I haven't seen a movie in two months . . . so it was the greatest cinematic experience of my life! 

AND THEN, we did a service project with an organization called "fighting hunger" for two hours, led by Sister Sharon Eubank. The MTC bagged over 250,000 brown sugar oatmeal meals. It was a jolly good time. I was on "holding the bag under the funnel" duty. I talked to sister Anna Fenberg and Sister Peterson for two hours. They are the coolest sisters. We talked about spiritual stuff and movies and mission life and such. They said my Disney spirit character is "Dug" from the movie Up or "Crush" from Finding Nemo (that makes me happy😊).

AND THEN, we went to a musical number where the lead fellow from the Piano Guys (Jon Schmidt) came and played some Taylor Swift tunes. Some of the missionaries were absolutely losing their minds when they heard his songs. As for me I will give it a solid thumbs up. It was good. 

Blurry photo of Jon Schmidt himself

AND THEN!!! We were excused to go look at the Christmas lights. We got to stay out until 9:30 instead of 9:15, I am kidding you not. This was my favorite part. I just got to hang out and take pictures and laugh with my new besties from my district and the other Asian districts.  Best day EVER!

Elders Renfroe and Binks

Elders Renfroe and Harden

Elders Fisher, Belt, Dickey, Bailey, and Gallup, and ME

On Sunday, sisters Fenberg, Peterson, Hong, and Elders Binks and Fisher, all played a musical number. I think it was arranged by Elder Binks, but I am not sure. It was easily the best musical number I have seen in the MTC. I'll post it on Facebook. It brought two and a half tears to my eyes. I am going to miss those guys.😭

MORE PICTURES!

The Carpenters Gift is a painting done by my high school art teacher, Andy Berg. It represents God wanting to give us blessings, but we first have to let go of some of the things we hold onto that aren't Christlike.

The selfie is me and elder belt

Elder Renfroe and Elder Zac Belt, called to Nagoya Japan

The group picture is the Japanese district. Elder Asiasiga is the guy in the front doing the bow and arrow pose. He is super cool and chill and spiritual. AND he has a Naruto hoodie, so he is of the highest caliber. 

Elder Lucius Asiasiga in front, going to Japan Tokyo North

The selfie with lots of people is me and Elder Binks, and Campbell, and sisters Johnston, Hong, Peterson, and Rich. I love those guys!

Sisters Johnston, Hong, Peterson, and Rich.  Elders Campbell, Binks, and Renfroe

I Iove you guys! And I love my MTC buddies. I'm going to miss them just as much as I miss all of you! Don't forget to brush your teeth and read The Book of Mormon. 

Truly Truma- pfffff I mean

Elder Renfroe

Top: Me, Elder Fisher, Elder Pestana, Elder Prock, Elder Dickey, Elder Harden
Bottom: Elder Griswold, Elder Binks, Elder Del Priore, Elder Campbell, and Elder Livingston

Griswold, Fenberg, and Peterson

This is what I like to do for exercise--
the basketball gym is too competitive

DO NOT anger the haircut lady [Week Eight]

Hello, everybody! How are you all doing on this fine day? 

I am doing pretty alright. It's been a good week. Made some new friends whose names I cannot recall at this time. And I learned some Korean words, and I got a haircut.  For those of you about to come to the MTC (*cough cough* Caleb), DO NOT anger the haircut lady. She is a scary lady! She got to the salon and started angry-talking us where to sit. Some idiot elder told her that he "was supposed to get a haircut yesterday at 2:30 and you guys weren't there." And she was like, "Yes, we were. We got done early and waited for a half hour till 2:45, and you guys didn't show up!" She was talking smack about that elder (and her husband) when she wasn't yelling at us to rotate seats.

So yeah, don't mess with her or she'll talk some serious smack on you and give you a bad haircut. 

I showed Elder Prock how to play Janggi (Korean chess) this week, and he beat me the first game, (because I was going easy on him) and the second game (because he isn't terrible) and I'm about to beat him in an ongoing game. Fun times. 

I brought the Janngi pieces, but we had
to make a Janngi board out of cardboard

I'm leaving in a weekish. Either next Monday or Tuesday. I don't have my flight plans yet, but I do have my visa. (HUZZAH for visa!) We had an early departure meeting because this coming week is Thanksgiving. And what we learned at that meeting was that we should follow the instructions given on our itinerary.  Really useful info from that hour-long meeting. Just incredible what you can learn in one hour. Actually, it was uplifting and they psyched us up to get into the field, so that was good I guess. 

OH! Brother George Clooney (the choir director. I found out his real name but he will always be George Clooney, Jr. to me) told us if there was one week to show up to choir it would be this coming week, and he dropped some subtle hint-bombs that there would be an apostle or one of the presidency coming next week for Thanksgiving. Exciting!🤪 

PICTURES!

OK I'll tell you their names in the order their faces appear, but I'll tell you in the order as If their faces are Korean characters. So left to right in conglomerates of 2, 3, or 4. Going either 12 / 34 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 12 / 3 / 12...

Just kidding, I'll just tell you their names. The girl that's wearing a blue dress and a green coat in two pictures, and a blue vest in the others, is Sister Rich. She's cool. Southern accent. She's going to Canada ; Japanese speaking.

The fellow with glowing eyes and throwing up gang signs is Elder Belt. He is Native American and Japanese speaking. He has some cool rings. Super cool guy.

The guy standing next to Elder Belt and Sister Rich with the huge smile and yellow tie is Elder Binks. I love this guy! He is super cool and we are going to the same mission. I hope we are companions after we both know the language because he is a nice dude.

Elder Binks, Elder Belt, Sister Rich, Elder Prock in background

Elder Fisher is the guy with the super short tie, glasses, and a dark plaid jacket. He is so chill and funny. We are going to the same mission as well.

The three sisters on the left of the two dark blurry pictures are sister Johnston (top) fenberg (right) and Peterson (left) they are all super nice. They are all going to Korea Seoul. Sister Hong is not in any of these pictures, but she is in this group as well. 

Everyone else in these pictures are irrelevant swine whose names I don't know. (Except for Elder Prock my companion who is in all the pictures)

Sisters Johnston (top) Fenberg (right) and Peterson (left)
Elder Fisher in plaid jacket, 

The picture of the temple is the temple.

The picture of me is ME! 

Stay Completely Worthy of Revelation [Week Seven]

안녕하세요 여러분! (Hello everybody) how are you all doing on this fine Saturday!?! I'm doing pretty not bad so that is muy 좋아요 (muy means very in Espanola! 좋아요 means good or "I like" so together that makes VERY GOOD) Yeah, I'm trilingual. Deal with it!

Sooooo this week has been good. On Tuesday one of the quorum of the seventy came over and gave a devotional, and I forgot his name so we will call him 팕 장로님. He gave a great devotional about his conversion story. He made all the missionaries laugh several times while still keeping the spirit. The main take away of the talk was that this is a great work, and we don't need to be perfect, we just need to teach by the spirit and love the people. It was better when he gave the talk. He was so genuine and nice and sincere. I love the devotionals. I can't wait for the devotional tomorrow! There better be some good devotionals or sacrament meeting talks in Korea because I rely on those so much! 

That makes me think of the things I'll be teaching people who are looking into the church (we aren't supposed to call them investigators anymore, we are supposed to call them friends. But that is confusing because I am usually talking about my friends when I use the word friend.) ANYWAYS! What my relying on devotionals made me think of is what would happen if I messed up a message to one of my friends or investigators? It would probably be worse than what would happen to me if there was a really bad devotional. I have a testimony of the church and Christ's Gospel. I'll be fine, but the people I'm teaching might not have a testimony or might not know who Jesus is. I need to stay completely worthy of revelation so I can best serve those who need it most, and those who are relying on me to help them find their way in life.

I love you all! I am sorry if you emailed me and I haven't replied. I try to reply to everyone who replies to me, but alas I am imperfect. I'll do my best though! 

Again I love you guys and I hope these emails improve your day in some way. 

Here are some pictures!

1. The silverware in the blanket was found in the ceiling by an elder doing pullups who pulled up too hard and poked his head in the ceiling. Then he saw a blanket and was like "how queer?" And he pulled the blanket out and it was full of silverware from the cafeteria. Some Elders think they are soooo clever.

2. That's elder Dickey he always ties his ties in these crazy cool looking knots.

3. When I saw the picture of this chess board on my MTC phone I remembered that I BEAT ELDER HARDEN AT CHESS! I don't remember if I told you this already in a past email, but I beat him good.

Halfway Through Provo MTC! [Week Six]

Hello everybody! How are you all doing on this fine day? I sort of apologize for not sending an email last week. Only sort of because I am still in the MTC, so not too much has happened that is new.  I know however that reading my emails is the highlight of your weeks, so I don't want to disappoint you two weeks in a row.

The language learning is coming along nice and swiftish. Its hard but I'm learning more Korean in one month at the MTC than I learned in eight months of high-school Spanish. Gift of tongues 읍니까? Heh that's "question form" for all of you who don't know how to read Korean. So YEAH! the language learning is great, and the devotionals continue to be the highlight of my week. 

Oh! another great thing I discovered is going to choir practice every Sunday and Tuesday. The choir director is AWESOME! he reminds of George Clooney. I only discovered this recently because the first time I went to choir, there was a substitute and it was not that great. But yeah the  choir director (whose name I forgot so I'll just call him George Clooney) comes in and makes a bunch of first week missionaries who have never been a choir before sound awesome! Then George Clooney tells a cool scripture story throughout the practice. 

We will be singing one minute, then he starts tale telling for a little bit, then he tells us to start on measure 12 or wherever, and he repeats this process until we sound awesome and have heard a cool story. The last story that good old George Clooney told us was the meaning of nearer my God to thee. I would retell it but I don't remember enough details to do so with sufficient pizazz. So, just know that Nearer My God to Thee is about Jacob. 

I love it here and I'm happy to be learning about the gospel and my language and feeling the spirit all the time. 

I love you all! Shout out to my homies from the swimming pool. 

Here are the pictures I promised two weeks ago. My grandma sends these super pretty pictures that she draws herself! Then she writes really nice notes on them. I love my grandma!

I can't wait for the devotional tomorrow. It always brings the spirit and reminds me of the things I want to share, and that's the reason I'm out here.

Read your scriptures and remember Jesus Christ in everything you do.

Love you

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