Hey everyone! In the MTC, my preparation day is on Thursdays so that is when i will be emailing. However, since I arrived on a Wednesday, they don't give you a P-day the day after you get to the MTC. Hence, today marks day 8 of about 65 in the MTC, which now seems like an eternity. First of all, thanks to those who sent letters and packages, they become at least 78x more exciting once you are a missionary. Second, I would like to apologize in advance for any future spelling errors, the letters on my keyboard are all worn off and I'm typing blind here. To all who have asked, the Korean is going well! The learning process is extremely slow and difficult, but we're making progress and everyone in my district is super motivated. I have a working vocabulary of about 30 words in Korean right now, and I'm trying to learn 12 each day. Despite my extremely limited vocabulary, the MTC makes sure i can apply every ounce of Korean i have. As of the morning of day 8 of the MTC, I have taught 5 20-minute lessons to an "investigator," all in Korean of course. And we will continue to teach a lesson pretty much every day in the MTC. I was also selected to give the prayer in Sacrament meeting, which was all in KOrean, go figure. I did give the prayer all in Korean though, which was terrifiying but I'm glad i got the experience. Also to no surprise, our teacher has spoken Korean from the second we walked in to the classroom, which is quite the treat but she's an awesome teacher.
I'm actually in a trio companionship, so the three of us stick together 24/7. One of them is Elder Young, who is from Vernal Utah and is a hockey and baseball player. My other companion is Elder Santana, from Vancouver Canada. We get along well, at least so far. As a district, we created a "strike box" in which you get a strike if you say a word in English that you know in Korean, so please do not tell my companions that i said Elder.
We study for an average about 10 hours a day, which is intense but it has been getting easier. Of the 16 new Korean missionaries last week, only four of us are going to Seoul South, including my companions. Most of the rest are going to the Seoul mission, with the exception of one going to Australia and new York. Korean missionaries arrive every three weeks, so we'll still be the youngest for two more weeks. But the Korean branch is actually the biggest in the MTC, with about 60-70 members. The bad thing about the Korean zone is that there's a perpetual sickness that has been in the Korean zone for years, so almost everyone gets sick, which i believe might be contracting at the moment Once you get to the MTC, the excitement of where you're going wears off quickly when you realize that every mission is tons of work, and all that really matters is that you focus on the gospel before your language, even though it's easy to spend all of your time trying to learn the language. For our Tuesday devotional, Dallin H. Oaks came to speak to all the missionaries(which was super exciting for my first week at the MTC and i was 50 feet away from him) and he gave us some golden teaching tips. He emphasized that no matter how well you learn the language, you cannot be an effective missionary if you don't have the Holy Ghost with you when you teach. It is great advice, and I've committed to do my full hour of gospel study before i even start practicing Korean, which I've noticed has been improving my Korean even more. The gift of tongues is more important than it ever was before, but it's only available if you are doing all that you can on your own. My email sent randomly, so please don't think i was being blunt. I love you all and can feel the strength of your prayers, and I'll catch you all in a week!
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