5th Pday letter (MTC Week 6) - I like to call the theme of this week's letter "Mom was right."

Well hello there ya´ll!

This week has been full of some crazy stuff that has been goin down so let´s get right down to it shall we?

So to start off: Things with Miller 장로님 [Elder] have been so much better! We have had some really boss lessons and we are really getting close as a companionship so it is quite awesome. We actually were sitting one day right before a teaching appointment and we decided that about 20 mins before our lesson we were going to change it to a lesson about the 몰몬경 [Book of Mormon]:). SOOOO we did. In those 20 mins we prepared a lesson and it ended up being probably the best lesson that we have taught yet! The spirit was there and testified of the 몰몬경의 중요성! [importance of the Book of Mormon] It was SOOOOO cool! We taught for about an hour and it was all Korean with no preplanned lines or anything. It was seriously so cool! It has been nuts teaching with Miller 장로님 we both are getting so much better at the language and it is just so cool.

So the next cool story is actually a TRC story so it is kind of cool. For those who don't know what the TRC is we go into a building where volunteers come and play as investigators! So the last two times that we have done TRC the lessons have been okay, if that, and really I wasn't very proud of our work. But this week was totally different. We went in to see our first investigator (we teach 2) and after we got done we went back to the prep room. As we were chilling in the prep room our instructor came in and told us that one of the investigators in one of the rooms was a real investigator. We all got excited and everything to the realization hit us that one of us 5 companionships would have to go and teach this 자매님. So when it came down to decision time Miller 장로님 and I decided that we were going to take the task and we would "Boldly go where no man/Korean Missionary had gone before." So we got our stuff went into the room and got to work. It was SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO cool!!!! AHHHHHHH 재미있습니다!!!! So ya we taught and it was actually easy to speak the language (more of less) and we taught a really good lesson. We commited her to prayer and asked the other volunteer who was with us (a friend of hers) if he would be willing to help us get a 몰몬경 into her possession. He agreed and Miller 장로님 and I both bore testimony and we closed. It was probably the coolest thing that I have done at the MTC yet ahhh. It was pretty freaking sweet if I do say so myself.

Ya so let's see other fun stories..... Hum..... Ah! Ok I got one.

So there have been two sisters in my district who, frankly, have not been getting along. One of the sisters is always injured and so she has to go to physical therapy 3 times a week which (almost always) is scheduled during our class time. Her companion who speaks the language better than anyone in the classroom is frustrated with her constantly because she is always missing class because of physical therapy, therefore, she isn't learning the language. WELL that has been going on for a couple weeks now and recently it has become a big time problem to where they cannot teach as a companionship; they cannot really do much together without getting into arguments. This has been extremely frustrating to me because I was the district leader (I'll explain that in a sec). SO, I talked with the two sisters and tried to get them to sort their differences out (with the help of a zone leader I must add) and ya, nothing good came of that. So yes, we are going to take a slight detour but we'll be right back. So last week they reorganized our branch so that I was the District leader for one more week (got released on Sunday, Miller 장로님 is the new District Leader), Saegers 자매님 [Sister] is the coordinating sister, and Gomez 와 [with] McCausland 장로님 are our Zone leaders so yes. Back to the story, so me and Saegers 자매님 sat down on Sunday and we came up with some big time fixes to the problems. Since we have it seems like they don't fight as much and both the sisters seem to be a little happier (or at least they were yesterday). So yes that has been interesting, but yes.

The language is starting to come, I've found that I am becoming increasingly more and more thankful to Mme. Bohn for teaching me French and my Mother for forcing me to actually try. I am having tons of opportunities to speak French here at the MTC and because of that, I am learning what things I need to learn how to say in Korean to become a better speaker. It has been nuts, I actually DREAMED in Korean.... Ok well.... I was speaking Korean in my dream, it was mostly English though BUT STILL that is progress. To be perfectly honest, in the last 3 days I've spoken about 60% English 20% Korean and 20% French. It has been so cool, although I am frustrated because I sometimes catch myself speaking French during teaching appointments because my mind will go into what I'm going to call "Different Language Mode." Any word that if it doesn't come to my mind in about .5 seconds automatically gets replaced by a French one and if I get one French word I will usually have to finish the statement in French. This can get confusing sometimes in my head as I sometimes have to translate from French to Korean which is definitely not something that I was expecting, but hey, life goes on. I shall report more on the language in coming weeks as we are having a huge SYL push this week (SYL = Speak Your Language). Hopefully, I will be able to get into a Korean mode one of these days and then life will be cool. But yes humm....

So I didn't have a question email to work from this week so I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say. Since that is the case I shall ramble some more. Bear with me!

OH, so our older district left yesterday (well, all except one, but he's going to Canada Korean Speaking.... different I know, he leaves tomorrow at 5AM at which point my district becomes the "older" district). It was so sad to see off the natives. They are SO cool, I asked them all to write in my journal and I've got Facebook addresses from all of them and I will look them all up after the Mission because they are just that cool! One of their names was 정장로님 a.k.a 형. He was so cool! 형 is a term in Korean which is like older brother. So ya, pretty much he was my older brother that I've never had. He was SO tight and he wants to go to BYU after his mission. So with a little persuasion he'll be at BYU-I with me in no time :). It has been fun seeing as how we are now halfway through our MTC stay.

I have to give a shout out to my Mom and then I have to be humble and say "You were right, Mom." I play the piano EVERY WEEK in priesthood. I play 2 songs... Care to guess?? First up: Hymn 319 in the English hymn book or Hymn 200 in the 잔송아 - Ye Elder of Israel. Then to close it out I learned hymn Number 80 in the 잔송아. I forget in the English hymn book but it is Sweet Hour of Prayer. It is sad and I think people are getting sick of the songs, but HEY, if they want to take the time to learn a song then by ALL MEANS please do it. I would love to actually be able to sing the hymns and not just play it on the piano :) So yes, Mom you were right. I should have learned more songs. I also should have taken piano longer and I also shouldn't have argued with you so..... 미안하고 사랑합니다 [I'm sorry and I love you] !!! Ahhhh ya

So yes.... Oh yes, a report on the new camera. IT is working like a freaking BOSS I love it. It works so well and I have taken 250+ pictures with it since I got it. I will make sure to get some ordered and printed off today, maybe even a CD to send home if I'm lucky :). But yes, thank you so much. I take good care of it and I couldn't be happier. Thank you soooooo much 감사합니다 [thank you]! It is the best 훌룡합니다! It is awesome.

Well yes it has been an awesome week. Time is so weird here, each day takes forever, but every week disappears. I don't know what time is anymore haha!

Just leave you with my testimony that I know the church is true. I am so grateful to our Father in Heaven and for everything that He gave to us and continues to give. I love the Book of Mormon and I love this gospel. 이복음이 잠되다는 건을 알 고 있습니다! 예수 그리스도의 이름으로 간증드림니다. 아맨.

4th Pday letter (MTC Week 5)

Heyo!!!

Well I have to say that things are going MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH better this week. It was pretty freaking awesome to say the least!

But yes it is a good week to be alive and I have a bunch of fun experiences to tell you all about :) SO let's get right down to it!

First off, things with Miller 장로님 are so much better! We were able to talk on Wednesday and do our "Companionship Inventory." Probably one of the most useful things that I have received in the MTC is the charge to do that. It really does make my life infinitely easier. The two of us sat down and basically just "blew up" at each other. We talked through everything that was going on between us and now we are pretty much best buds I would say. We get along much better than we did and it shows! It shows in our teaching, it shows in how we study, it shows in class, it is just awesome to think that a little one hour venting session cleared both of our heads and helped us reset where we were in our relationship. It is so cool to have my companion/best bud back.

제가 한국아를 ???발리??? 배우고있습니다. 하지마 이것은 어렵습니다!! So ya pretty much I am learning quickly, but it's hard. I'm not sure if I spelled quickly right (hence the ???????) but ya it is coming along. I am finding that I can say more and more with each passing day. We are trying really hard to have a huge push on the language speaking so HOPEFULLY things will start to come a little bit faster than they were before! I have had a ton of opportunities to practice talking with the 한국살암. They are so COOL! SO much fun to talk to and talk with :). I was talking to Park 장로님 and he told me about what dictionary I should get when I get to Korea. He said it was the iRiver, according to him there are a ton of missionaries who have it and they are all totally pleased with it. So ya that is something that I am gonna need when I get there but for now I have my handy dandy Handi Dictionary. It is pretty nice if I do say so myself. Although we are recently discovering that the dictionary we have is racist. We were looking for some words that we needed for lessons and such and came across some totally sketchy stuff. It is no good, but life goes on haha!

My glasses are working just fine now. I got the chance to get out on Friday/Saturday (unfortunately I can't remember which. Is that sad??) and get my glasses. They are working like new. It is so nice to have some good glasses once again. Especially since I don't have to try and pop the lenses out every morning so I can readjust the frame to make it not retarded on my face. THAT is always nice ^_^. So ya glasses are sick, I can see once again. Contacts are nice cause I can now play 배구 and 논구 in my contacts so they aren't falling off all the time. That is always fun :)

Ya, so to the letters that I have gotten, I have some responses:

First to Mom;

That is so exciting about Jeremiah and Boyd coming in tomorrow. I remembered Jeremiah was coming but I COMPLETELY forgot about Boyd!!! AHHHH I feel horrible, but It is nuts that it came so quickly WOW. Sounds like they are both ready to be here. I am sure that it is going to be a bit of a shock for both of them (especially Boyd) but that they will love it. It is so cool here, like Dad has said a couple times, there is an awesome spirit in this place. I hope the girls are super excited for school and frankly it sounds like they are. They will have SO much fun especially Kellie-- a stinking Freshman in HIGH SCHOOL. Gah, that is scary. Only thing that is more scary than that is that Jenna graduates next year and is driving. Quite honestly I am glad that I am off the roads, I will make sure to pray for everyone in Jenna's path ^_^ Love ya sis!

Next off to Grandpa Gresko:

I was so excited to get your letter yesterday, it was so good to hear from you! You are definitely right I have had to work DANG hard on my Korean, honestly it still is really bad haha! I have the words in my head someplace but I just have to go find all of them and then there is the problem of putting it all together. That in and of itself is another miracle. Korean grammar is RETARDED. Here, let me give you a little example. Basic sentence structure is as follows:

Time/Subject/Secondary Subject/Place/(Adjective +) Indirect Object/(Adjective +) Direct Object/Adverbs/Helping Verbs/Verb

So ya it is wonderful trying to make sentences that work. Hopefully one of these days I'll actually get it but I really don't know. Glad to hear things are going well for you down in the good old AZ, I hope you continue to have fun down there and remember your grandson is praying for you :) In Korean of course!

Nater:

Dude it was awesome to hear from you, glad to hear y'all are hanging on. Life is rough sometimes; I am sure if you're faithful that things will be good. Glad to hear ASU is lookin alright :) BYU is where I'm at but frankly I am not a football guy. I just want the dang NBA lockout to be done ;) I WANT SOME NBA NEWS!!!! haha. Well, ya man stay strong! And ya, your guitar is at my house, just ask my Mom, she'll know :)

Shannon:

I will write you a letter considering my companion is done. No worries :)

So ya I will send another email in a couple of hours telling about my experiences here. I have some more time so when I do laundry I will hop on a computer and tell about my experiences. Love you all and I hope to hear from you soon!

P.S. Thanks for all of the letters that I've been getting, some days they are the thing that gets me through the day so thank you :). Love you all!

(an hour later)

So ya um, dear everyone.... Again :)

So I actually got more time right now so I figured I would tell about a couple experiences that I have had since last week :)

First off, Miller 장로 and I committed one of our investigators to baptism! It was so SICK!!!! AHHHHHH I can't even tell you how awesome that was :) We have had an awesome time teaching and everything and it just felt right so we did it. :)

Secondly, an experience that I had yesterday! I was in class and our teacher decided that we were going to go outside and just go off "by ourselves" (within about 15 feet of my 동반자) and just sit down and talk to God. So I did, I just sat down and started praying. I asked my Heavenly Father about my mission, about how I was doing, about what I could do better, and how I could better prepare myself for 한국아. As I was praying, I literally just asked my Father in Heaven: "How am I doing?" And I paused and waited, the warmth and the peace and the happiness that I felt was indescribable. I just was in a state of awe as I had a prayer of mine answered in such a powerful way that I started crying and laughing! I just was so stinking happy to be where I was and to be doing what I am doing. It was literally one of the most amazing things that has happened to me since I've been out here.

I have started to read that book that Dad gave me: "Drawing down the powers of heaven" (or something of that nature) and I am trying to follow the principles that are in there and I am trying to talk to my district about how we can better use Heaven's help in our district. It has been amazing to see the blessings that have come as I have simply tried to pray more focused and sincerely. As I learn how to ask for blessings and how to get answers, I have seen the answers come and I know they are from God! It is so cool GAH I can't even describe it. I am so happy to be here on my mission and I am loving every single minute of it :).

Lastly, I wanted to bear my testimony again I will try and spell it all right this time but no guarantees. Translating it on Google Translate doesn't help if I don't do it right haha :)

저는 이복음이 잠되다는 것을 알고있습니다. 저는 예수 그리스도가 우리의 죄를 위해 속죄해습니다. 몰몬경 잠됩니다. 제가 제의 구주 사랑합니다. 제가 제의 한을에 계신 아버지을 사랑합니다! 예수 그리스도의 이름으로 간증드립니다 임멘.

Note from Kris: this is what Google Translate said for what Josh wrote above:

I know that half-tone jamdoedaneun. I am Jesus Christ, the atonement for our sins hasbeen. Jamdoepnida Book of Mormon. I love offer nine weeks. I love the Father willhaneule offer! Immen testify in the name of Jesus Christ.

Looks like he still has a few things to learn, but it's coming!

3rd Pday Letter (MTC Week 4)

Yayayayay! It has been an awesome week ;) I have had so much fun and it seems like just yesterday that I was writing you last!

To answer your questions let me get started!

Unfortunately no, I won't be able to do a temple session in Korean. They specifically ask us not to. Maybe when I get back I will consider it but as for now. Not so much.

So your next question who has been writing me is actually pretty dang funny :). The only person that has written me more than my family is Miss Shannon Whale. :) She's probably gonna be super excited that I mentioned her in an email but ya she has been consistently keeping up with the family which is pretty impressive if I do say so myself. I have also gotten letters from Grandpa Gresko, Nathan and Marne, Heather and then of course, the familia! It is pretty fun!

District leader responsibilities are actually pretty easy. I go and once a week give a lesson to the district (always with a member of the branch presidency present). I check the mail twice a day (and then make the elders do pushups for letters from their women hahaaha [that's an evil laugh] ), and I also have to report on how all the companionships are doing and stuff like that. So not too bad at this point. I do attend a lot of meetings on Sundays

but they aren't too bad, mostly for the zone leaders quite honestly. But ya!

SOOO, I figure I will give you a quick rundown of the week so here we go.

I have been teaching 구도자들 (investigators) almost every day. It has been really cool to be able to actually teach and understand in Korean. I have been trying to do it all without notes so it is hard sometimes but it is getting easier and I think I just need to study a little more and then I'll be good to go. Unfortunately though I still can't understand conversational Korean (which is hard considering the natives are here and they speak so RIDICULOUSLY fast that it is impossible to understand them especially when they pray, holy cow). But everyone tells me that I will pick that up in the field but I am still going to put out a solid effort to understand it.

But ya, teaching is going well for me, understanding is going well, the food is sketchy at best but still I have some good stuff now and again too so all is well. Lot's of powerade but Mom/Family/ANYONE WHO READS THIS. Dr. Pepper would be a life saver right now and I'm not even joking. No good sodas is getting boring. But yes anywho.

I did want to tell you all about an experience I had yesterday during TALL. As I was sitting there I remembered that we are allowed to listen to some music during TALL (Mom if you would explain what TALL is in the interest of time - TALL is a time to work in the computer lab on your language). So I hopped onto LDS.org, went to the music section and turned on a song. Of all the things that I have a testimony of let me tell you this. Music can bring the spirit to some people in a way that NOTHING else can. I sat there and listened to an arrangement of "Nearer My God To Thee" and almost cried the whole time. It was so beautiful, really a tender mercy to my heart to hear someone pouring out their heart in song. Considering it was the first song that I had heard in almost a month now like I said I couldn't do anything but just sit there and listen, it was so stinking beautiful. I really miss it and am excited to get to the field so Ican listen to my little MP3 player :).

So I did want to tell you about another thing that I talked about in district meeting. So I had to teach about charity and love. As we began to talk one of the members of my district talked about her sister who left the church. The sister in our district told us all how she hopes that through her love for her sister that maybe one day she would come back to the church. My mind was immediately taken to Aaron and AJ and Steve and Natalie. I just remembered little Willard sitting with us in our sacrament meeting at the lake, he felt the spirit there. I know he did, I could see it on his face and in the way he was acting. It was there, he recognized something different. All we did was love him. I just think about Grandma and her example to us of how as we try to love Aaron, AJ, Steve, and Natalie we may be able to make a difference. Maybe not something we see. But in something they feel. All we can do is show our love for them. And I love them so much. They are family, and whatever goes down that doesn't change and as we love them, maybe they will have a change of heart. I dunno just a thought.

I just wanted to leave you all with my testimony BUT i'm going to leave it in Korean. So here it is:

저는 하나님이 우리를 사랑하다는 솟을 알고있습니다. 저를 그리스도가 우리를 속죄해다는 것을 알고있습니다. 저는 몰몬경이 잠되다는 것을 아고있습니다. 예수 그리스도의 이롬우로 간정드림니다 아멘.

:) Love y'all! I am not sure I spelled the ending right but bear with me. Love

you!!!!

P.S. MOM you should put the story of my contacts on the blog! :) *see below

Josh and his good friend, Evan Anderson. They have been friends since age 2 in Spanish Fork and when Josh got to the MTC, Evan lived in the room right under his. They had a couple of weeks together before even went to Panama for his mission.

*Josh has been having trouble with his glasses, and asked for his contact lenses so that I could take his glasses in for repair. He said the contacts were in his contact case in the bathroom he and Alissa shared. I walked into that bathroom and knelt down to go through the cabinet. Checked all the drawers and there was no contact case. I stood up and turned around to go back the way i had come and there in the middle of the floor was a contact case. NOT THERE WHEN I CAME IN 1 MINUTE PRIOR! I thought, "No way!" and picked it up and looked inside & sure enough, it was Josh's contacts. I had to chuckle - my bet is that my mom put them there because she knew I wouldn't find them any other way. :)

2nd Pday letter (MTC Week 3)

Hey Family!!!!

So ya I am officially in the MTC for the 2 weeks at this point. It is pretty stinking awesome, I am loving being here. It is technically my 3rd week and it still feels like yesterday that I came in. It is ridiculous that I am actually out here. First of all I have to say that I am having a lot less time to write letters than I had previously anticipated. It is nuts how busy they keep us. But still it is good.

So now onto your questions:

Yes, I did get Katie's cookies, and also the nutter butters yesterday and I was pretty stinking happy, I can't even tell you.

Gym time is pretty varied. My zone has been playing a lot of sand volleyball mainly because we want to take off our shoes. It feels so nice. But ya I have had a chance to play some basketball and the ball here in the asian zones is pretty intense. I love it.

Korean is coming along pretty well. It is so different in that I have to learn a billion different conjugations of all the verbs to make everything work and i have to know when and how to honorify stuff and that type of thing. It is pretty annoying sometimes but It will come in time. I however can not do anything that is not Gospel related It is depressing but I figure that I will pick that up when I am actually in Korea (although I am going to try and learn some while I am in the MTC for 9 more weeks). Long story short it is difficult but good.

I am not sure about Elder Miller's plaque, maybe their ward is just not as diligent about it as ours is? I dunno you will have to check with the other stake haha :).

I know there are a ton of other questions that I have been asked and I am just going to have to say that you will need to be patient with me. It is hard to find time to write letters. Most of my time is devoted to language and scripture study. But I am trying hard, trust me.

So, I just wanted to let everyone know that as of Saturday, the 2 districts that me and one of the other new guys were over combined and I am officially the District Leader over both. Talk about no pressure, I am just trying to not die from all the Korean much less having to deal with District Leader stuff, but I am trying my best and hopefully things will go well.

So I wanted to tell you all about Sunday, it was our first Fast Sunday in the mission and I got to teach a lesson on hope in District meeting. It was pretty scary considering my branch president (신회장김) was there but afterwards he said I did a good job so I am content. I was then asked by one of the sisters in our district if I could give her a blessing. She has been struggling with the language and is quite nervous from what I can see. I was able to give her a blessing though and it was cool, the spirit actually led me to tell her that she would be able to "command the language." That was awesome, she said afterwards that she was feeling better already :). (Tender mercies :)) So later that day one of the other sisters in my district got really sick (Fast Sunday is brutal apparently) and asked for a blessing. Elder McCausland annointed her and I sealed the annointing and gave her a blessing. Again I was led to say that "she would be healed." It was miraculous, she recovered enough to where she was able to get up and walk to the Devotional and sit through the devo. (However the next day they did have her go to the Health Clinic just to make sure she wasn't dying of some malicious MTC contracted disease). It has been crazy.

Miller 장로님 and I are now teaching 2 investigators! It is nuts having to do it in Korean (kinda scary to be honest) but I have been trying to do it without notes and I am finding that each time I teach I gain the ability to say more and more. So I think that is good, I'm not quite sure.

So ya, I just wanted to say I've been thinking a lot about my family and friends these last couple days, it's been hard to not be able to hear your voices. I really REALLY miss being able to give people (girls in particular) hugs. But I find as I try to study and work hard I am able to have a good time and study and not be homesick at all :).

I have made a discovery that I think everyone should know about. It is called dearelder.com, it is a wonderful website where you can send me mail that I get the next day. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to get mail (something apparently you don't learn till the mission). But if you could let everyone know that that exists that would be awesome. I would love to hear from you and frankly it's free. (YAY!!!) I may not neccessarily get a chance to respond but If you wanted to just send me a long email just saying what's up with you if I get a chance I will more than happily write you back. And please write as often as you like (every day twice a day if you want I don't mind ;)) But ya, that is my plea haha!

Oh and last thing, I have recently discovered that a nice Dr. Pepper in the MTC is a gift from Heaven. So if you wouldn't mind sending like I dunno like 10-20 24 packs of Dr. Pepper there will not be any complaints from me :).

Loving the gospel and loving the language, loving this experience and I hope to hear from everyone!

Love,

Elder Crowther

First Week In the MTC

Hey Mom/Family/Everyone!!!!

Well let's see we've been at the MTC like 6 days now and it is AWESOME! I will answer all of your questions before I give my summary and all but ya, so let's see....

My companion is Elder James Miller, he is actually from Provo and is in the other ward that uses our awesome church building up on the hill. We are getting along just awesome! Just working hard; we actually had a chance to do a companionship inventory last night with our whole district. It was pretty intense - there was such a good spirit there and we really got closer as a district, I'll talk a bit more about that later. We have 2 sisters in our district Sister Graham and Sister Terry. They are really cool (although like 5'1) and ya, it's a lot of fun.

Schedule keeps us pretty busy but it usually goes a bit like this:

Wake-up

Breakfast

Class

Lunch

Class(usually progressing investigator teaching as well)

Gym

TALL (Technology assisted language learning)

Personal Study

Bed

It is pretty busy but a lot of fun. I live in building 14M way at the back of the MTC Campus which is cool. I am indifferent on the food, I mean it's not the best cafeteria food I've ever eaten but it is still pretty awesome being able to eat as much of it as I can stomach.

Unfortunately we have not seen any general authorities yet (don't worry if I see one I will let you know!)

So I've been assigned as the acting district leader (until our president gets around to actually making a formal call), so that has been really interesting - haven't had to do a whole lot but it is still pretty awesome. OH and I'm also the senior companion, so that makes for no pressure at all :).

So it is really cool, I've seen a bunch of people here: Randy (my first roommate, he's really a cool guy to me nowadays. I'm loving it), Andrew (other roommate he's looking like he has been working hard) and believe it or not Evan Anderson [Elder Anderson] (Saw him on my first day, he lives in the dorm right below me! It is so cool, I am going to try and get some pics with him before he leaves for Panama in a couple weeks). There is such a brotherhood here it is really awesome!

So a little bit about the experience that I had yesterday: the other two of our district elders are Korean (from Salt Lake area though) so they are really helpful (MOM spellcheck this whole thing haha, it'll be pretty bad I think). Elder Seo has been feeling sick over the last couple of days and yesterday he went and was just completely out of it. He wasn't able to go to class or anything. It got so bad during the day that he was at the point where he was calling his parents to have them come get him. The love that I felt for this elder who I met 6 days ago was astonishing, I was mortified (Grandpa and Mom I'm using big words just for you) at the thought that he would even consider leaving because I loved him so much. Come to find out him and his companion (Elder Moon) apparently had been having some troubles, although they looked like they were doing just fine! Apparently it was so bad that it was starting to take a physical toll on him. The two of them took some time yesterday to really talk and come to understand each other. Suddenly Elder Seo was back to his good old self. We talked as a district about how much the gospel focuses on loving one another, and how if we don't have that love for one another it is really hard for us to keep the spirit with us. As the scriptures say: If ye have not the spirit ye SHALL NOT teach. The spirit that was in the room as we all went around and talked about the topic of love was amazing. I for one was crying like a child (but then again i'm starting to get used to that, it happens a lot. Thanks Dad..... :) haha) but it was something that I will never forget.

The other story I want to tell you is about my second day here. I woke up the second morning and I cannot explain to you how much I just did not know what I was doing. I was scared about the language, I was like: "What am I doing?" I went to a workshop called People and your Purpose. As we got to the end of the workshop, they asked for testimonies and I decided, ya know I'm going to get up and give mine. As I stood up and bore that testimony I felt all those doubts just wash away and I was able to say with confidence "I know why I am here, and that is to take this gospel to those people that need it the most" (which was me at the time, go figure, I did missionary work on myself). I haven't had a doubt or fear in my mind since.

I am loving the language, it is hard, it is complicated, it is retarded sometimes, but I am learning. If Mme Bohn gets this email tell her that learning Korean is nothing like learning French. It is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Like DIFFERENT PLANETS different!

I am loving the experience though and loving the opportunity to study the gospel and the Korean language. I love all of you guys at home and hope you'll still be cheering for me.

BY THE WAY: I am LOVING the letters, I've been in the MTC 6 days, I've gotten mail on 5 of the 6. The other elders (even the zone leaders I think) are jealous so keep up the good work! I am loving it!

I am so grateful for the gospel and the happiness it blesses me with!

Love,

Elder Crowther

저는 복음을 사랑합니다!!!!

P.S.

Hey, i forgot to send pics, i only have 25 seconds left though.

Next week for sure

Love Josh