Elder Christopher Hines: Finally!

September 18, 2014

Dear Family,

Thanks for the letters! Yeah, I am getting really excited, and yes, a little nervous too. Brother Memmott was telling us about his training at the mission home. He said they got put with a random trainer, and then went on a train and talked to people about the gospel. Then every hour or so they switched trainers. It sounds really fun, but really scary too.

So Korean is the only Asian language taught at the MTC where they don’t Romanize the words (write it out with English letters). So the hymn books are all Korean letters. It only took about a week to get familiar with the letters, but it’s an ongoing process. It’s just like learning to read again. I try to practice by reading out of the Korean Book of Mormon every day, and I can see the progression in my speed and comprehension each week. So yes, I have a Korean Book of Mormon and Bible that I got here. The bible isn’t printed by the church, so it’s kind of weird looking, but it’s really fancy. The cover is beautiful.

I just got the package, literally 30 seconds ago. Thank you so much!

Korean is actually really fun to write, it is just so different from English in how it flows because of how the letters cluster into syllables. Brother Memmott writes in Korean cursive. When I first got here, it just looked like a bunch of scribbles, but now it isn’t too hard to read. It’s pretty cool to be able to interpret squiggles on a chalkboard.

Here’s your Korean words for the week:

Christ – 그리스도 – Kurisudo (u as in ‘up’)

Church – 교회 – kyohwae – 교 is relating to education, and I think 회 is just relating to gospel, or something like that.

Saint – 성도 – sungdo

We had two amazing speakers this week. On Sunday we got to hear from Tad R. Callister. He talked about the Plan of Salvation, but went in depth on some things and gave some really interesting insights. Tuesday was Richard G. Scott. Finally! He talked about prayer. You can tell that he is such a humble man, it is really impressive. And the spirit that he brought was so strong. A quote from him for the record books is: “To reach a goal never before attained, one must do things never before done.”

Speaking of quotes, I heard a really good one this week by Gordon B. Hinckley: “Faith in something greater than ourselves enables us to do what we have said we’ll do, to press forward when we are tired or hurt or afraid, to keep going when the challenge seems overwhelming and the course is entirely uncertain.” Pretty amazing, huh?

For choir (we sang the day Elder Scott was here, so that was cool) we sang Be Still, My Soul, one of the best hymns of all time. And like always, the arrangement (by Larry Beebe) was amazing.

I was chosen to speak on Sunday, which was totally unexpected because the changes are so slim. The topic was on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and although it was very simple, I think I did a pretty good job. It was funny because as I was bearing my testimony at the end, I looked up, and Elder Warren was smiling and nodding. I sat back down and he whispered, “It’s always nice to have someone checking your grammar.” He’s a pretty funny guy.

Monday morning, our district was privileged to host the new senior missionaries. Elders rarely get to do that here, so this week was full of slim chances happening. It was really fun to talk to them and show them to their rooms and everything.

I’ll leave you with one of the most amazing scriptures I’ve come across. It was actually Elder Baugh who found it. It’s in 2 Corinthians 6:1-10. I like in verse one when it says “as workers together with Him”. But I especially like verses 4, 9, and 10. Pretty frabjous (word invented by Lewis Carroll; I’m still not sure of the meaning, but it sounds to me like a combination of freaking and fabulous). I also really like 2 Corinthians 4:5-6, 8-9, 17-18. Yeah, words can’t do it justice, someone needs to make a song out of these verses.

Thank you so much for the package, it was pretty joy-causing. I really like the things you wrote on the top, but you realize I’m learning Korean, not Spanish or French, right?

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines