Week 8

Hello everyone!

 

This week was a great week! I feel like the MTC has gotten better as time went on, the language is coming along, I'm getting used to the schedule, and it gets closer and closer to Korea! I leave in a couple of days! Monday I'll fly out to San fransisco, then to Japan, then to Busan Korea! I can't wait. On Sunday, for the devotional, we watched an old MTC devotional from a couple of years ago by Elder Bednar title "the character of Christ". It was probably my favorite talk ever. He talked about the characteristics that Christ had, especially selflessness and charity towards other people. He explained that Christ was always turned outward to other people instead of turned in to himself. He did everything out of love for other people and never anything for himself. He gave really good examples of this throughout Christ's time on earth. He suffered for our sins in the garden, on the cross he asked God to forgive the people, Judah betrayed him but He still loved him, when Peter cut off the soldier's ear Christ healed him even though he just went through so much pain and mocking. All examples of Him looking outward and being concerned with other people instead of Himself. Elder Bednar then talked about the scriptures and talked about examples of when people in the scriptures "turned away from their sins and turned to God". He likened these examples to what he was talking about before and how Christ turned outward to other people. When these people were committing sin, they were turned in to themselves, but then they were able to repent and "turn outward" to God and be more like Christ. I don't know if this is making any sense but if you were there it was really cool. haha sorry if this is a little bit confusing! Elder Bednar continued to blow my mind with all the examples he gave and it really taught me how to be more Christlike and made me want to be more selfless and charitable towards others. Such a great talk, dang.

 

The rest of the week went as expected with the schedule being about the same as always. We finished teaching our investigator last saturday and then monday we got new investigators. This time, we were supposed to do a member referal so we knocked on the door of our investigator and told him that we were missionaries and that his friend Brother Psy referred us to him. haha Our teacher started to laugh when we told him that his friend brother Psy talked to us haha (if you don't know who Psy is, ever heard of Gagnam Style? ya that's him) Our lessons with our new investigators went well except we were only able to teach them 2 lessons before today so we might not be able to commit them to baptism, but we will see after tomorrow!

 

So last night during class we talked about Korea and there were so many similarities between Japan and Korea! Our teacher talked a lot about the different types of foods they have there. They have shaved ice with ice cream, my teacher actually said "its a summer treat!" just like mom would always say haha they have winter tangerines, barley water (mugicha?), small street vendors with grilled chicken on toothpicks (yakitori), sweet potatoes. They have shabu shabu and a ton of other things that are really similar to Japan! I can't wait to go! I'm not sure when my next letter will be, but I'll be in Korea preaching this great word! Thank you everyone for all you do! Love you all!

 

-Elder Carter

Week 7

Hey everyone,

 

This week was very up and down as it usually is here at the MTC. Elder hansen and I continue to teach everyday and get our investigators ready for baptism. We taught about the 3 kingdoms of glory and how to get there. Our lesson on Saturday went very well and the spirit was able to teach our investigators through us. Sunday night devotional was great as always. Richard I Heaton talked to us about our investigators and how the Lord prepares them far before we even get there to teach them. He talked a lot about faith and how we need to just have the faith that the Lord will lead us to those who are prepared. He said that God speaks to men in "normal ways" and we need to have the faith to do them. Normal ways are like names popping up in our minds, having multiple witnesses with the same thought, or a Providential "accident" happen that leads to someone coming to christ. He said, "Don't worry where thoughts come from, if it is a good thing, just do it!" It was a pretty cool devotional and I need to learn to trust in the Lord more and more each day. Tuesday night devotioal was also good! Richard G. Hinckley talked about our duties as missionaries. He started out his talk by listing all the new ways that missionaries can teach people through the internet or ipads and technology like that. He then said that even though we have all of these things, it doesn't even compare to the most important... us with Heavenly Father's spirit. We are the real tools in the Lord's hands. Be bold, work hard, be mature, learn doctrine, love the people, it'll all be worth it. I know that it will be worth it as well! This work is wonderful and almost 2 months have already gone by! shoot. Elder Hinckley said that the greatest pain a issionary can feel is guilt and regret after there mission because they will never be able to go back and change that. How true that is. Gotta make the most of evey single day. The rest of the week went as usual with our lessons, some good and some ok lessons. I can't wait to get to Korea in 10 days! Time has flown by. Love you all!

 

-Carter 장로

Some of our Zone

Week 6

Hi everyone,

 

Another great week in the MTC. This was week 7 of the MTC and I only have 2 more weeks! So exciting as I get closer to actually being in Korea! It was a really great week though. On Sunday it was fast sunday and we had missionary conference. Mission conference is always so amazing! It was 2 hours long and we had like 6 speakers who all talked about different things so it would take too long for me to explain all of them but one thing that was really amazing to me was the talk given by James L. Hacking, he talked about prayer. He said that with prayer, ALL things are POSSIBLE. He told a story about when he went to college and didn't know if he would be made fun of for kneeling down and praying every night and morning. It kinda reminded me of Bishop Andrews? I think he had somewhat of a similar experience. Let me know if this is wrong. Since then, he has prayed every single day and has learned for himself that we all must pray. "The Lord will not steer a parked Car". We also can't just ask for things, but we need to act, that is the only way the Lord will direct us. This was our first week where we weren't allowed to go into a lesson with a script of any kind, just some vocab or small notes. Our first lesson on monday went well for Elder Hansen. We were going to teach our investigator about our life on earth so I prepared a whole section about trials and how they are given to us to help teach us. The lesson started out well and then we just jumped from being sent to earth to everyone making mistakes and sinning so that's why we need the atonement. I didn't really know what to say since I mostly studied for trials and we skipped over that part... It still went ok haha Tuesday night Devotional was also great. L. Lionel Kendrick talked about the spirit and how its companionship can lead us to the will of the Lord. He said, "The Lord doesn't use a floodlight if a flashlight will do." concerning revelation of promptings of the spirit. I know for myself I haven't had a floodlight of revelation, its always been those small whispers of a flashlight that lead me. It was a very cool talk! The rest of the week went as usual with our lessons and classes. My Korean seems to be getting better but it's still a struggle everyday with the language. One cool thing during one of our lessons was that we were going to teach about the atonement and how we can become clean through it. After maybe one or two sentences, our investigator asked what would happen to people that haven't heard of Jesus Christ or that didn't believe in Him. It was a cool experience because I felt like we should talk about the afterlife and how people go to spirit prison to learn of Jesus Christ and they have their agency and free will to accept Him as their Savior. I looked up a few words but the spirit really helped me out and Me and Elder Hansen were able to answer his questions. Today (Friday) we will be teaching a 40 min lesson to volunteers from BYU. Wish us luck! haha Thank you everyone for the love and support. May the Lord bless all of you!

 

- Elder Carter

With Elder Im from Korea

Week 5

Hi everyone!

 

This week was another great one at the MTC. Friday, we had our last temple trip because it is being cleaned. I probably won't be able to go to the temple for the next two years, which is sad. Friday night we went and talked with missionaries that have served in korea or are from korea to help us with our language practice. We got to know them and then taught them a short lesson about the Book of Mormon 몰몬경 and how to recieve revelation. Elder Hansen and I did a good job of getting to know them and our lesson went well! Our korean is picking up and getting better but it is still a struggle at times. Saturday was a normal day of teaching and learning new grammar forms and vocab, nothing too out of the ordinary. Sunday was great as usual, church in korean, temple walk, and devotional. Sunday night's devotional was awesome as usual. The speaker talked about being exactly obedient and how it can bless our lives. I know that to be true. I've seen that time and time again here at the MTC especially with our lessons to our investigators. Amazing how the Lord blesses all of his children. Monday was pretty good, I didn't feel very well, a little dizzy and dehydrated so i missed one of my classes and went to the residence. I took a nap and felt better after drinking a bunch of water. Tuesday night devotional was inspiring as always. I think his name was Elder Swenson? I don't have my journal with me so I can't remember exactly but he is the 2nd counselor in the sunday school or something like that. He talked about his experiences as a missionary. One cool story he had was when he was in the MTC he was in the lobby and a 5 year old girl and her grandma walked in. He overheard the girl saying to her grandma, "grandma, are those REAL missionaries?" haha it was kinda funny picturing a  year old girl because that's something they would say. haha at the time, he said he looked at himself and realized that he wasn't being a "real" missionary. Him and his companion weren't doing anything bad but they weren't being exactly obedient. He looked at himself and from then on he decided he needed to be a "real" missionary. That was a really cool story and made me want to be a better missionary so I can be a "real" missionary as well. Just gotta get better everyday. Wednesday was a normal day as well except that I got to be a Host for the new missionaries coming in. Me and elder hansen got to show the newbies coming in where they needed to go and get them started on their MTC experience. It was REALLY hot that day! I felt like I was in Arizona for a second. But it was a good experience and we might do that again as a district next week. Thursday was really awesome! We taught Brother Kim about enduring to the end and he is keeping our commitments we give him! We only had one class and then got to watch a special 4th of July fireside. We watched the movie "17 Miracles" and then were able to see the fireworks outside. We also got to stay up a little later than usual! And now it is P-day, such a glorious day! Until next week everyone! Thank you for all the support and love!

 

-Elder Carter

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