23-19!

August 28, 2014

Dear Family,

So the Branch President just recently came out and said that we need to be more careful about not flirting with the sisters (we as in the Korean branch). He said flirting is talking to them when you don't have to. There is one elder here who has a major problem with this, he is always talking to sisters, and it's like he has no self-control. He sees a female and naturally gravitates toward her. It's really funny. So Elder Baugh started saying, "23-19" (from Monsters Inc) whenever he is talking to a sister. It is hilarious. 

The MTC has a violin, flute and cello you can check out to play for Sacrament meetings. During additional study time I got a chance to play the flute, since the violin was already being used. I just played around with it, but it was a really nice stress reliever, especially since I haven't had much of a chance to play piano since I've been here.

For choir, we sang Jesus, Once of Humble Birth [Click here to listen; hymn begins at 1:49:56]. It was an amazing piece, like always. It was arranged by James C. Kasen, see if you can find it. There is one part right before the last verse, the organ part has a bunch of secondary dominance and chord modulations. It is so cool because it is perfect for the mood of the hymn. When I hear it, I can imagine Christ stepping up to Calvary, and at the same time I see Him stepping up to His throne in Heaven. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. See if you can understand what I mean when you hear it.

I have some scriptures for you that I've come across this past week. Alma 31:26-38 - Alma offers this prayer out of sincere concern for the Zoramites. It is so powerful, and then in 36-38, it talks about the blessings they received because of his faith. The other one is D&C 98:3. It's pretty straightforward, this scripture helped me a lot.

I'll try and answer most of your questions, but if I don't get to all of them I'll finish next week.

You asked about my companion. He's pretty fun to talk to; he has a really strong testimony; and he is a great teacher. I'm almost always with him, occasionally I'll go on companion exchanges with some of the other elders. In my room, it is my companion and me, and Elder Baugh and Elder Trentman. Elder Baugh is from American Fork, and has an amazing sense of humor. Oh, and he's one of the zone leaders in the Korean Branch. Elder Trentman is the district leader, he's from Sacramento, and he's really funny too. He's so inspiring; he's such a good leader. Elder Tischner is like Brennan Baer only with red hair. He's from Mapleton. His sarcasm, musical talent, and just about everything else are just like Brennan.  I wouldn't be surprised if they are related. Elder Anderson is really smart and kind. He went to India before his mission to teach English. So that's really cool. Elder Hogan took Chinese in high school, so Korean comes pretty naturally to him. He is such a hard worker, and he is a great leader as well. Elder Warren has the most incredible testimony, he has gone through so much . . .  the way he has handled everything is very impressive. Elder Skouson has a talent for analogies. He is always comparing situations and basically making parables. It's really cool. And he is just a really friendly person overall.

So yeah, only four elders in my room. We all have our own closet and desk. We spend very little time in our room, almost all day is either in the cafeteria or the classroom. Before lunch we have companion, personal and language study, all on our own without a teacher. Then in the afternoon and evening we have a teacher there, and we basically either talk about gospel stuff (in Korean) or learn grammar forms, or teach "investigators", which are just the teachers playing the role of someone they taught on their missions. They've all been off their missions less than two years. Brother Memmott is amazing. He's really nice and just glows with the Spirit. He's really funny too. Brother Chandler has been a huge help in helping me feel confident in learning Korean. He's really encouraging, and has told me that he is impressed with all my progress, and that he recognizes the Spirit in me. Sister Wynn is really nice, she's kind of shy though so I don't know her as well. My teachers only speak Korean to us, so it's really weird how I can know so much that they say. 

My favorite thing this week was probably that choir piece we did. It was so much fun. [I got to sit by Zarek for choir.]

We can't listen to music in the dorms, so I haven't used my MP3 player at all yet. I've barely played piano at all, except once to show Elder Trentman (who also plays piano) that If You Could Hie to Kolob arrangement.

We always sing a hymn in Korean at the beginning of class, but the room is like 12'x14', and there's ten of us in there, so there's not exactly room for a piano. We sing a hymn at the beginning of both afternoon and evening classes. 

Stephen B. Allen spoke on Sunday, about repentance and missionary work. Repentance must be a major problem for missionaries, because they talk about it at least once a week.  It gets kind of old, it's always the same thing. On Tuesday, James B. Martino spoke; some of my favorite things he said were: We will be judged not by what we've done, but who we've become; and we are unprofitable servants if we only do our duty.

I've got some Korean words for y'all:

죄 - 'jwae' - sin

속죄 - 'sok-jwae' - Atonement

구속 주 - 'gu-sok-ju' - Redeemer

I think it's really interesting how they are interrelated. Because Korean has a smaller alphabet and less sounds than English, there are less possible words to make. So new words are made by combining multiple words.  It's pretty cool how the words are related to each other. If you have ideas of Korean words you want me to tell you, just let me know. 

The language is coming so much better. It's not much easier, but it's less frustrating because I can actually say things during the lessons without any notes or anything. 

We get flight plans two weeks from tomorrow, and we'll probably get our Korean nametags in a week and a half or so. This Monday the group above us leaves so we'll be the most experienced Korean elders in the MTC. It's so weird, this time has gone by so fast.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Elder Hines and Elder Leavitt

Tender Mercy

August 21, 2014

Dear Family,

Thanks for your letters! They were really fun to read. Ask Colton why he doesn't love me :)

For choir this week, we sang Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer, but it was to a completely different melody. And like always, it was amazing. The choir director is really good at choosing good songs. The music is by Brett Stewart, see if you can find it :)

So how fast did you hear about me getting to host Zarek? It was pretty amazing, I was so glad I got the opportunity to, and hopefully it made it easier for his parents. 

Jenny Oaks Baker spoke on Sunday [about lots of experiences she has had with prayer in her life], and she played a few musical numbers. It was pretty amazing. She had all of her kids as an ensemble with her, they are really good. 

Tuesday['s devotional speaker] was Bonnie L. Oscarson, YW General President. Boring.  I'm kidding, it was really good too :) She talked about ways to be more effective as a missionary. She said you cannot be successful as a missionary without the Holy Ghost, and that the Spirit is the teacher, we can't do things our way. She also said that the Lord will guide you to those he has prepared to hear the gospel.

We watched a video by Elder Holland, it was called the Gift of Teaching. One of my favorite things he said was that if someone you are trying to teach isn't receptive, just love them, and maybe you can teach them tomorrow. 

Korean is getting a lot better, I can understand a lot of what the teacher is saying now, and sometimes maybe respond :) Even though it's stressful, it is so interesting that it makes it worth it. Korean is so cool because it is all completely logical. If it wasn't a new alphabet and completely different sentence structure from English, it would probably be a really easy language to learn. It's funny, because you can take almost any verb and turn it into an adjective or an adverb. So it can't be translated literally into English, but it still makes sense in Korean.

Favorite hymn, probably tied between Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.

Favorite scripture, I have no idea, there are too many. One that I thought about recently was the one in 3 Nephi 22, I think, the one that that amazing song by Dallyn Vail Bayles is based on. [My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee: 3 Nephi 22: 8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer . . . For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.] Pretty amazing, huh? 

So with the song from last week, did you like the part close to the end when the tenors go up to the high f? I thought it sounded really cool. It's too bad because the Korean hymn book doesn't have Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise. It does have Praise to the Lord, the Almighty though. 

Love you!

Elder Hines

Elder Hines and Elder Leavitt - Such a tender mercy for both of them!

The Spirit Is So Amazing

August 14, 2014

Dear Family,

I got the opportunity to host new missionaries yesterday. If you don't know what that is, I was there when they were dropped off, and then I showed them where to go to find their residence, classroom, and get their stuff. Hosting was pretty amazing, I loved it. It was nice to help the new missionaries. I say new, but they're not much newer than me. :)

Every morning we have time to exercise, I usually play soccer because there's not much else to do, sometimes volleyball.

We watched a talk by Elder Bednar called The Character of Christ just recently. It was pretty amazing, if you can find it you should definitely watch it. The main point of his talk was that the character of Christ is to turn outward when the natural man would turn inward. It was fantastic :)

[Elder Bruce C. Hafen spoke at last week's devotional] . . . it was pretty good, the best thing he said was, "the easiest way to come close to Christ is to witness of him" and that's more than being a missionary, that means the way you live your life.

So I was talking to Elder Skouson, he is big into growing fruit trees/plants. He actually started a grapefruit tree fairly recently, he's growing a pineapple plant, and some banana plants. So he has a leg up on me with the bananas :)

For choir we sang Nearer, My God, To Thee. It was the most amazing arrangement of that hymn that I've ever heard. It had a beautiful deceptive cadence toward the end too. It is arranged by Gregory Lawrence Duffin, if you can find a performance of it online, it would be worth your time. [Listen here] The choir director is really cool, he always tells us stories about the piece we're working on. Apparently Nearer, My God, To Thee is based off the story of Jacob, as in Isaac's son. Read Genesis Chapters 27 and 28, and then look at the lyrics of the song. It's really cool to see the relation because it is so subtle.

So I heard from one of the elders here that about a month before I came in, the CIA came to the MTC to figure out how missionaries learn languages so fast. They took videos and everything, but couldn't figure it out. I thought that was pretty funny. One of the Elders was joking, saying we should give them a copy of the Book of Mormon and say, "this book can tell you how we do it."

We get to teach investigators completely in Korean almost every day. It is a really neat experience, especially when the investigator asks questions and my companion and I are able to answer them in Korean on the spot. The Spirit is so amazing :)

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Brother Chandler and Elder Hines

Elder Hines and Elder Baugh (the missing Elder from the district)

Hooray for Pictures!

August 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for the package! It was really exciting to get, thanks! Thanks for the letters, it's been great to hear from you.  

We have nine elders in our district. No sisters. It's nine since we have one group of three. All of the missionaries who came in the same day as me are either going to Busan or Daejong. My companion and I, along with one other companionship in my district, are going to Busan, and all the others in my district are going to Daejong. I think there are three districts total who came in the same day as me, and one of those districts has three sister missionaries. I sleep in the top bunk. The Provo Temple is very beautiful, I didn't notice any blue carpet, I'll look for it today.  

Sundays are nice, we can either go to choir practice or go on a "temple walk," where we just walk up to the temple and walk around the temple grounds. Since it was fast Sunday last week we didn't have choir, so I went on the temple walk. You can see some of the pictures from that on PhotoBucket. I actually got it to work! Anyway, most of Sundays are just spent relaxing. We have a lot of personal study time, and that is really nice. I have been reading Jesus the Christ a lot during my personal study, it is quite spectacular. We have priesthood meeting in the morning, Sacrament meeting in the afternoon, choir practice at 5:15, and a devotional in the evening that is combined with all the missionaries here. Sacrament meeting is only the missionaries in my branch, which is all those going to South Korea. We have about 85 missionaries in our branch. For speakers in sacrament, there is just a topic for each Sunday, and two missionaries are selected randomly at the beginning of the meeting to give a 3-5 minute talk about the topic. And it has to be completely in Korean. It's pretty scary, so everyone pretty much prepares a talk every week and hopes they don't get picked.
 

Choir practice is also on Tuesdays at the same time, and it's Tuesday devotionals that we perform. This last Tuesday we sang Sweet Hour of Prayer. It was the best arrangement I've ever hear of it, it actually made me think about the lyrics. It's actually a pretty amazing song that most people take for granted. And it helped that the music was full of cool minor chords and it had a really cool deceptive cadence towards the end :)

Have a great week, I love you all!

Elder Hines

​

Elder Porcaro and Elder Hines

Super cool name tag!

I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go!

Elder Hines' district

Elders Anderson, Warren, Tischer, Hogan, Porcaro, Trentman, Skouson and Hines (district minus Elder Baugh)

Elders Hines & Porcaro on their Sunday 'Temple Walk'

Elder Hines and Brother Memmott

God and Family

Aug 1, 2014

Dear Family,

I told you I would have a new Korean word for you each week, and since I didn’t have one for you last week, here’s two to make up for it:

하나님 pronounced ‘hah-nah-neem’, means God. This one is interesting because the first part, ‘hah-nah’ means one, and ‘neem’ is an honorific suffix. I thought that was really cool.

가족 pronounced ‘kah-joke’, means family.

Korean is really cool because of how the characters look. . . like some kind of code. It is also really cool to listen to people speak it. My teacher, Brother Memmott, is like the coolest guy ever, he has a really strong spirit about him. But anyway, it’s just really cool to listen to him speak Korean.

One of the members of the Korean branch presidency came to a district meeting and told us some interesting facts about Korea:

• The highest rated airport in the world is in Seoul
• There are 75 million Korean speakers in the world
• Since the Korean war, South Korea has grown to 15th in the world in GDP
• In South Korea, about 45% of the people are atheist, and 30% are Christian, but their culture has underlying Shamanistic beliefs
• Writing someone’s name in red ink means you wish they were dead because death rolls are written in red ink
• The number 4 is considered bad luck, equivalent to the number 13 in our culture
• Stabbing your chopsticks into your rice means death to your host
• Showing the bottom of your feet is disrespectful

I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

First P-Day

July 31, 2014

Dear Family,

The MTC is so crazy, I can't believe how stressful and overwhelming it is. This is definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I would rather go through another year of high school and take three more AP classes than this. But it is so spiritual, it is completely worth it. I have felt the Spirit constantly since I've been here.

The Tuesday night devotional was really good, Elder John H. Groberg spoke. He is the missionary whose story The Other Side of Heaven is based​ on. He told us a lot about his experiences, and it was really cool to hear. He told us about ways to bear your testimony, besides coming out and saying it. Some of the ways were through music, writing, actions, and prayer. I think bearing our testimonies through action is the most meaningful, because you can say things all you want, but when you actually act on what you believe it shows true conversion.

I have felt so stressed and homesick, especially the first few days. It gets better every day though. But Monday night, I felt so terrible I honestly just wanted to come home. My companion was a great help with that, he's felt the same way and we've helped each other through this. The thing that helped the most was Monday before I want to bed, I just prayed and poured my heart out to the Lord. It was one of the sincerest prayers I have ever given, and less than a minute after I got into bed, I felt like a weight was instantly taken off my chest, and I just felt peaceful. It was almost as if Heavenly Father was holding me and reassuring me that everything would be alright. It was the best thing ever, I'm crying right now just thinking about it.

I've already had a chance to sing in the MTC choir, and it was a really cool experience. There were more people there than are in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and it was amazing how powerful it was. We sang Hurrah for Israel, you should see if you can find it on YouTube or something. According to Elder Groberg, it was written by inmates he visited in prison, and is about the very first missionaries going to England. As they were riding away from their homes, knowing they wouldn't see their families for a long time, if ever again, they stood up in the back of the wagon and shouted, "Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah for Israel!"  It's a really cool story, if you can find it you would probably like to read it.

My Korean language class is getting better, I understand more and more every day. Korean grammar is completely different from English, the sentences are almost completely backwards. The good thing is that it is a very simple language, they leave out a lot of little words and get straight to the point. That is probably why Asians who learn English have a hard time with less significant words. I have already learned to pray completely in Korean, and I'm working on learning how to bear my testimony in Korean.

I love hearing from you, getting letters makes my day so much better, so don't be shy :)

Love,

Elder Hines

First Day at the MTC

July 23, 2014

Dear Family, 

Today has been probably the craziest day of my life. I had literally a minute to stash my stuff in my room and I went straight to a Korean class. The instructor, Brother Memmott, doesn't speak any English to us, which is probably a good thing but it's really frustrating. He tried to teach all kinds of things, but I can't remember any of it. It made me feel a lot better when we met our zone leaders. They all bore their testimony in Korean, and two of them have only been here three weeks. I guess it helps to have five to six hours of language instruction a day. 

My companion is Elder Porcaro, he is way cool and seems really familiar for some reason.  It's funny because he told me that I look familiar too. He is from Spanish Fork and has been there all his life, so neither of us can figure out how we know each other. I'll send you a picture and maybe you can figure it out. 

We had an activity where we had investigators come and we had to figure out what to say and how to deal with/relate to them. One of them was a man who was born in Italy and moved here when he was 17. He was really fun and had a great sense of humor, despite losing his wife and one of his children. He said something that was really cool. You might not think so since it's not in context, but it went along the lines of, "You know when you’re driving on a bumpy road? You finally get back on the smooth asphalt and you have to turn the radio down, because you didn't realize how bumpy it was until you get off of it." He was relating it to the trials he had experienced and I thought it was pretty profound.

So p-day is on Thursdays here, but we don't get a p-day this week, so I won't be able to email you until next week. I love you so much and I hope you are doing OK.

Love,

Elder Hines

Packed and ready to go!

Family picture at the Provo Temple

Ready or not. . .

A kind Elder who is going to Finland was there to meet us and get Chris where he needed to go.