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. :)