Does luggage exist?

Hello everyone! I hope all is well for you over in the real world. I believe tomorrow marks the exact halfway point of my stay at the MTC. The days and weeks are definitely starting to run together, especially when you do the exact same thing every day. Yesterday was probably the most different day I've had here at the MTC because we got to host new missionaries. It was definitely fun to see the first few minutes of a missionary's journey and to relive that moment of your own, but it was not a walk in the park by a long shot. Seriously every missionary i hosted lived on the top floor of their building, so I was basically a bellhop without an elevator.

One thing that hosting taught me was how quickly all of my Spanish is being replaced by Korean. So in Korean, they don't use the verb "to have" like we do at all. If you want to say "i have a question" in Korean you have to say "a question exists" (side note: Korean was created to be a simpler language than Chinese, so everything is condensed into as few words as possible, making it very difficult to learn. So the words " I, a, the, you" do not exist). Back to the story though. So a car pulls up to the missionary drop-off where I was standing. The sticker on their car indicated a sister missionary was inside. There were no sister missionaries available to host right then, so in that case an Elder can host the Sister until she gets to her dorm room. So I approached the car, but nobody got out of it for a solid 45 seconds. The woman driving eventually rolled down the window and said something in Spanish. I didn't understand her so she said it again and I understood she was saying something about a missionary. She then looked at my Korean nametag and asked if I spoke Spanish, because why wouldn't I if I had a Korean nametag? I told her I spoke a little bit, to which she said nothing for another 15 seconds. So, I tried to ask her if she had any luggage. So I started saying it, and then I realized I was in the process of saying "equipaje 있습니까?" which, when translated from both Spanish and Korean means "Does luggage exist?" I stopped myself in time, and ended up just saying "luggage?" And after all of it, there wasn't even a missionary in her car. There must of been some mix-up at the gate, but she was here to see her nephew off and ended up with a sister missionary sticker... The MTC is a whole different world.

As far as other news goes, I have memorized the First Vision in Korean and used it in a lesson yesterday, it was pretty sweet. I was also called as District Leader on Sunday, a calling that will last for 3 weeks. It entails leading an hour district meeting on Sunday and Tuesday, going to meetings on Sunday, and getting the mail. So you could say I wield a lot of power here at the MTC now, nobody gets their letters unless I say so. It was actually funny the timing of the calling though. I was the first to get sick in our district, and then I was called as District LEader once I was healthy. Our first district leader was the last one to get sick, and he got sick the minute he was released the District Leader. So I'm banking on the theory that this position will give me some kind of immunity for these next three weeks because that would be much appreciated.

Oh, I almost forgot about my temporary companion. Elder Macasieb got his call reassigned right after I finished emailing last Thursday, and left the following afternoon. He was reassigned to the Orem Utah mission, and I know he'll do great things there.

I'm glad I get to be here in the MTC for 9 weeks, not just for the language training but for instruction in the gospel. I've answered the questions "How can we apply our purpose to our investigators?" and "why is it important to have the Spirit when we teach?" at least 600 times, but I'm glad that they train us so well here. The spiritual growth that happens here is incredible, and I'm so glad they called me on a mission. Thank you everyone for your support and prayers, I'll make you proud!

P.S. There was a mouse in our bedroom this week and let me just say that I am so glad I'm not going to the Philippines.

Always missionary

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well in your respective places of residence. I've had a great week here in sunny Provo Utah. It has actually gotten a little chilly outside, so I am really appreciating my forethought to bring my winter clothes to Utah.

As far as updates go, the Japanese speakers are still everywhere. One group of Koreans left on Monday morning, and they were part of the summer surge, so the Korean numbers are really dwindling. The number of missionaries surge during the summer, so the group that left had about 30 people. The next oldest group has 31 people I think, and ours has 16. We did get some new Koreans yesterday in a group of 13 missionaries. When new missionaries get here, the Korean hall effectively becomes a zoo. The teachers have to ward off everyone trying to get a glance at the new missionaries. If that doesn't tell you how monotonous the MTC schedule is, I don't know what does.

In other news, I received a temporary new companion. Elder Macasieb is currently awaiting a reassignment of his mission and the rest of his district left on Monday. So since I was in a trio, we are companions until he leaves. It's been great because he's been helping me with my Korean and i get to experience just having one companion for a while. 

One of the first things you learn here is the Korean missionary catch phrases. They are as follows:

친짜요?(cheen-chjai-yo) Translation: Really?         Use: English equivalent of "come at me bro"

삼십삼 (sahm-ship-sahm) Translation: 33              Use: Refers to page 33 of the missionary handbook, which is the page that talks about flirting. Used when an elder and sister are getting a little too friendly

항성 선교사 (hong-soung soun-gyo-sah) Translation: Always missionary         Use: When somebody is acting immature or makes their hand into the shape of a gun, teachers often use this phrase

As far as health goes I am doing much better now! Last week did start of pretty rough though. If you have ever experienced one nostril that was runny while the other nostril was bleeding profusely, then you would have a similar experience to me last Friday. However, I'm feeling much better now, and all that remains is a little bit of a cough. And now I am truly experiencing the blessings of having faith through trials. This week has been so faith-promoting and unbelievable. It started off with my suggestion to my companions that we stop using notes altogether when we teach lessons. So, despite our extremely limited vocabulary, we walked into a lesson with only a Korean Book of Mormon in hand. And it was our best lesson up to that point. When we do all we can and then trust the Holy Ghost to help us with the rest, our requests will be granted. Our fake investigator hadn't been reading the book of Mormon, so we bore testimony of its importance and challenged him to read it. He was really impressed and promised us he would. We have taught two more lessons after that and I feel like my ability to teach in Korean is skyrocketing. I only have a working vocabulary of about 215 words at the moment, but the Spirit brings the words that I do know to my remembrance when I teach, the Gift of Tongues is my new favorite thing.

Rosemary Wixom, the Primary general president, spoke to us this week for Tuesday devotional. She talked about 1 Nephi 4, which details the efforts to get the plates from Laban. She talked about how All of the sons of Lehi were on a mission just like us. And they finished their mission, even Laman and Lemeul did. But she stressed the importance of being a Nephi-type missionary, and not being a Laman-type missionary. Nephi trusts the Spirit of the Lord, and follows its promptings even though he doesn't know what is coming next. #missionarygoals

For all of those who emailed me individually, I will email you in about an hour, but I've got to go get my clothes from the dryer. #productivemissionaryprobs. Love you all and thank you for your prayers!

I to learn Jesus Christ about want

안녕하세요 열으분!

Hello everyone! (my spelling might not be correct, but most of you won't know the difference)

 As of today, I am on day 15 of about 63 in the MTC, and day 15 of about 730 on the mission. As far as updates go, Korean is still very much a difficult language. Korean is actually considered the most logical language in the world, but it's tough for my American brain. If you want to say "I want to learn about Jesus Christ," the sentence structure in Korean would be "I to learn Jesus Christ about want." Our teacher promises that we'll be able to make sentences in our head without thinking eventually, but that day seems to be in the very distant future. On the bright side, my vocabulary is up to about 150 words and I have taught about 5 more lessons in Korean. We also have memorized the missionary purpose in Korean, and are now working on the First Vision.

The MTC serves about 50 different meals, so if you are here longer than two weeks you get to try them all several times.The two things that I'm currently missing about home are my mom's cooking and an iron that isn't 50 years old. Oh, and private bathrooms and showers.

The funniest thing to me about the MTC is the culture that develops among the language speakers, especially the ones that are here for 9 weeks. The English speakers are only here for two weeks, so they come and go pretty quickly, but you can almost tell somebody's language without looking at their tag. I feel like the Korean speakers are a lot closer than the other languages which sounds very biased but we all eat together and play kickball twice a week. The Cambodian speakers definitely believe that their language is by far the hardest in the world on account of their 100+ character alphabet, and they will not hesitate to let you know. The Mandarin and Cantonese speakers have the same mentality as the Cambodian speakers, but they're more quiet about it. And just like in the real world, the Koreans do not like the Japanese. We share everything with them (p-day, gym time, class building, bathroom) so we tend to blame them for all of our problems and the overpopulation (Japanese speakers come in by the boatloads). But the one thing that all the Asian languages agree on, is that nobody besides the Russian speakers likes the Russian speakers. These mini-cultures keep me entertained in MTC.

Remember how I mentioned the Korean sickness and how I thought I might be getting it? I got it in every sense of the word. I have been sick consecutively for the last 8 days, with some days being worse than others. I've had to stay in bed several times during this past week, but for the most part I've been able to make it to class. This week, I wondered a lot why Heavenly Father would allow me to get this sick for so long if I was at the MTC serving him. I got my answer a few days ago during a lesson from our teacher. He was using the story of Alma 14 to talk about the faith required to learn a language. But that day, it had a double meaning for me. As the story goes, Alma and Amulek are cast into prison for trying to teach the gospel. They are questioned and beaten by lots of people, then receive strength from God to break the prison walls. However, In verse 25, it says that they did not receive the strength from God until after the last person had beaten them. Every day, I kind of feel beat up by my sickness. But I know that if I keep up the faith, that God will help me recover. So instead of worrying about when this sickness will end, I now wait faithfullly for the last day of this sickness to "smite me" so that when it ends, I can receive strength from God to do his work.

사랑합니다 그리고 감사합니다

I love you all and thank you for all of your prayers!

Until next week,

Bigelow 정로

Don't tell my companions I said Elder

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!