It Was So Cool

January 26, 2015

So for transfer day, everyone who is transferring goes to Busan, and then just anyone else who wants to go. But only the people who are transferring get refunded on travel expenses. Neither of us transferred, but there was this lady doing a test thing for her Doctorate's degree where she needed foreigners who spoke Korean. Elder Payne was one of the lucky chosen ones, so we got refunded. Transfer meeting is just 10am-12, and all the missionaries who are leaving bare their testimony, the office elders and the APs give announcements, and President and Sister Barrow give talks. And there are usually a few musical numbers. We had to get up at like 5 in the morning and catch a train at 6 so we could be there in time, since Gimcheon is so far away. We didn't get back until close to 6pm because of Elder Payne's test he had to do.  But it was good since I got some good nap time in :)

We spent most of this past week preparing for a play we did on Saturday as part of a fireside in Gumi, just showing the ward members what missionary work is like, and then talked about how they could help. It turned out really well; one lady told me afterward that, based on what I said in the play, she thought that I had been in Korea for at least a year.  It almost made me feel good about myself, except the play was completely scripted, so not really. :)

You like the wallpaper in my apartment?  That's Korea for you; almost all apartments are like that in Korea.  Elder Jung and I are standing in front of a less-active member's house.  It's not decorated for Valentine's Day; missionaries just heart attack members' houses to make them feel loved. :)

For Korean chicken, just imagine fried chicken that is way better than KFC, and then put indescribably delicious sauce all over it. And if you're smart, you get it without bones. It's basically the closest thing to heaven that I've ever come across. Yes, it's spicy, but that's a good thing. :)

So something pretty cool happened this week. We were on the train back from Gumi, and Elder Payne and I had separate seats. After I sat down, an older guy sat down next to me and said, "how are you?" in English. I was like, sweet, he knows English, this is going to be easy...but it turned out that he didn't know much more than that. But as I started speaking in Korean to him, I was somehow able to say what I wanted to, without really having to think about it. It just came.  And I was able to understand most of what he said, which is a miracle, since older people are really hard to understand.  I'm not joking, it's like they speak a language other than Korean or English. I talked to him for a while, and he said he was a Seventh Day Adventist. I tried to give him a Restoration pamphlet, but he totally rejected it. Apparently he has seen missionaries a lot before, and talked to them. He said he lives in Busan, so there's not much we can do as far as teaching him, but it was a really cool experience. When we got off the train, Elder Payne said when he saw the guy sit down next to me, he was like, "get him, Elder Hines" and then immediately started praying for me to have the gift of tongues. And it totally worked! It was so cool. :)

Have a great week, I love you!

Elder Hines

Elder Hines & his district

Bulgogi (beef in sweet marinade) & Garlic pizza, delicious Korean chicken

Pig Intestines

January 18, 2015

Elder Jung No Young actually trained Elder Suter in his second transfer, so yeah, pretty early. He goes home at the beginning of March.

The pig intestines weren't too bad, there was just way too much cartilage to be able to enjoy it. And they look really gross, so that interfered as well. The kind we had didn't have anything in them, but the kind I told you about before, Sunde, is stuffed with noodles cooked in blood. Yeah, I know, delicious.

We order chicken every once in a while, which is so good I'm surprised it's not against the rules. Seriously, if someone opened up a Korean chicken restaurant that delivers to people's houses like they do in Korea, they would be rich in a matter of weeks. For reals. The members feed us every once in a while. It's not like those spoiled Utah missionaries that pass around a sign-up sheet in Relief Society to have the missionaries over. We just take turns with the three families in our branch.

Dad should definitely grow out his beard until I get back. I don't know why he didn't think of that sooner, that's an amazing idea. 

President Barrow doesn't really memorize poems, but he seems to have a lot of scriptures and quotes memorized. What I meant by that is that he always seems to be able to give good advice, and he cares about other people a lot.

As far as members here being more engaged, I have a story about that. We got invited over by a lady in our branch for dinner. The branch president and his wife also came, which I would guess is because the lady didn't want to have to sit all dinner with two boys and actually have to talk to them. But anyway, they were talking, and all by themselves, without any prompting from us, started talking about missionary work, and what they can do to help find more people. This lady and the branch president's wife talked about coming to English class to try and fellowship the people who come. And then they were talking about who they knew that they could refer to us. It was amazing, we just sat back and just let it happen.

Members of the branch who actually come to church is 15-20, we have had 17 the past two weeks. There are just the three main families, and then a few other families who are sporadic in coming. I'm not sure about the total membership in Gimcheon.

We always teach English twice a week. Elder Payne is really good at Korean, as far as I can tell. He is super funny, we have a lot of fun together. Transfer day is next Monday, but I'm pretty sure we won't get transferred since we both just barely got here. But anything could happen.

We met the lady from Andong for the second time last week. I'm not sure what to think about here, because she is pretty good at English, and so always talks to us in English. But if we ask a question in Korean, she always responds in English. From my experience, when this happens it means they just want to practice English and don't have real gospel interest. But she seems pretty sincere, so we'll see how it goes. The sisters have come to Gimcheon both times we have met her, but we are going to try and get someone from the branch to come so they don't have to.

I love you, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Where is Your Wife?

January 11, 2015

My week has been pretty good. Lots of traveling. We had a zone meeting in Daegu, which was pretty fun, especially since I got to see Elder Trentman and talk to him. I went on an exchange with the district leader, Elder Jung No Young, who happens to be Elder Suter's trainer. So that was pretty cool. It was fun because it was a good test of my Korean abilities . . . pretty much a fail. That was the longest I have been with a Korean, he is decent at English, but is really shy about speaking it, so I tried to use Korean as much as possible. It was maybe half and half that we spoke--pretty fun. :)

District p day was pretty fun, we actually went bowling again, and had pig intestines for lunch. Other than that, not much else happened. What have I loved most so far? Good question, I haven't really thought about that. I could try and be spiritual, but I'm just going to be honest. Probably when I can understand what someone is saying to me, and I am able to respond. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I love it quite a bit :)

I haven't heard about the new missions, that's really cool. So there is going to be a Logan Utah mission now?

Zone Meeting was pretty good, we just listened to talks and stuff. What do you want to know about President Barrow? He is really unselfish and always doing things for our benefit, which is super cool. He reminds me a little bit of President Cook, maybe that will give you an idea of what he's like.

So when I was on exchange, this super old lady stopped us and started talking about how handsome I was (that's completely normal, they think all white people are really handsome, it has nothing to do with how I actually look) and it was really funny because she asked me where my wife was. I said that I don't have one, and she was like, "yes you do!" Elder Jung gave her a pamphlet about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then she started talking about how I look like Jesus. It was hilarious :)

Not a lot has been happening; we still don't have any investigators. We have one person who might become an investigator, she used to live in Andong, but moved here, and she was meeting with the missionaries before she moved. Since we can't meet her by ourselves, we met her with the Sisters from Andong, and we talked a little bit about Christ's ministry and baptism. It was really cool, because when we talked about how we can have our sins washed away through baptism, she got really excited and said she wants that a lot. That was the first time I have ever heard something like that from a Korean. So she has a lot of potential, hopefully everything works out well.

Have a great week, I love you!

Elder Hines

Elder Hines and Elder Jung No Young

Letters!

Yay for letters! We received this one on December 30:

November 10, 2014

Dear Mom & Dad,

You’re right, the MTC does feel like it was a dream. And then everything before the MTC feels like a dream within a dream. It’s so weird.

I don’t think it’s a liking for kimchee that I’ve developed, but maybe more of a tolerance. Actually kimchee in Korea is way better than the stuff I had in Utah. It doesn’t taste bad to me, but not exactly good either. I only eat it when I go to a sit down restaurant or to a member’s house for dinner, which is only once or twice a week usually. Koreans always eat it with every meal, so yes, they eat it quite often.

We have 12 in our district, it is one of the biggest districts, but also one of the most spread out. If you look on Google maps, the main cities in our district are Tongyeong, Geoje, Sacheon and Jinju, if that helps at all. We have district meeting once a week, so we see each other fairly often. I keep forgetting to tell you, but Elder Trentman got transferred and Elder Porcaro took his place. It was really sad, but that’s okay, it’s good to see Elder Porcaro more now.

We do a lot of walking, especially when we want to save money, but we also use buses pretty often, and taxis every once in a while.

The language is slowly getting easier, I’m starting to be able to pick out things here and there and understand parts of what people say. All I’ve heard is that Korean is one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn, harder than Chinese actually. Korean, Japanese, and Finnish are supposedly the three hardest. Missionaries almost never become fluent in Korean during two years they are here. The grammar is just so complicated, it’s crazy.

Did you ever find information about that famous Korean General? If not, try different spelling. I’ve also seen his name spelled ‘Yi Sunshin’ and ‘Yi Sunsin’, or maybe ‘Yi Sunsheen’. I thought the story was pretty interesting, and he is something Tongyeong is famous for, along with gulbang, which is like a honey roll filled with different things. Some fillings are pretty good, others are pretty gross.

Anyway, I hope everything is going well, we’ll see how long this letter takes to get to you. J

Love,

Elder Hines

From a letter to his dad received January 2:

December 1, 2014

I recently finished reading The Book of Mormon, and some parts I really liked are Moroni chapters 7 and 10. Both of these chapters have a ton of really good things you can learn from every single verse. Some advice I’ve recently received is to pray to gain a testimony of The Book of Mormon regularly . . . for two reasons. One, your testimony can always be stronger, but also, regularly praying for that spiritual confirmation will help you better understand people who are not part of the church. Then you can better testify to them in order to help them gain a testimony of their own.

And from a letter to the family:

December 1, 2014

Dear 가족,

Thank you for all your letters, I love hearing from you, especially in letters. I got spoiled in the MTC, I just expected letters. Now that I’m so much further away, whenever I get letters it feels like it’s my birthday or something. :)

I think I might have already said this, but Korea is starting to feel pretty normal, so I have no idea what you want to hear about. I’ll try to make it interesting though. :)

Yesterday, President Barrow and his family came to my ward in Tongyeong. It was him and his wife, his son Ben, who is in high school, and his daughter Nikki, who just got back from her mission in England. They all gave talks, and Elder Suter translated for them. President Barrow actually gave his in Korean. He wrote it in English and had a Korean translate it a couple days earlier, but it was still really impressive. After church they were talking about missionary work in Korea compared to England. I always assumed missionary work was hard in England . . . but they have more baptisms than we do in Korea. Their baptismal rate is one per month per companionship. In Korea, or at least the Busan mission, the rate is 0.9 per quarter per companionship. I think Elder Suter said he has had three baptisms his whole mission. And everyone knows missionary work is about the number of baptisms you can get, right? Just kidding, I think how hard missionary work is here is why it’s so satisfying. Everything satisfying in my life has been difficult, like learning to whistle. :)

I started reading the New Testament, and something I decided to do was mark all the Joseph Smith translations in the footnotes so that in the future they will be easier to recognize. It is amazing how different the bible is without Joseph Smith’s translations, no wonder there were so many groups that broke off from the Catholic Church. The changes make it really confusing, as well as seem contradictory. Something funny I noticed is when Christ is teaching the Beatitudes in Matthew, it says that someone who gets angry without cause is in danger of judgment. The footnote says both JST and the 3 Nephi version omit ‘without cause’. So [someone] was reading through, read that, and must have thought, “Anyone who gets angry is in danger of judgment? That’s a little harsh, it must mean if you get angry without cause. I’ll just slip that in there . . . ” I can’t believe someone would think that’s okay. Okay, I can believe it, it’s just dumb. Thank goodness we have modern revelation.

To close this epistle, I want to share my testimony with you. I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve the Lord, and for all my friends and family members who support me. I know that “the truth of God will go forth until it has . . . sounded in every ear”, and that God is overseeing this work. I know that if we can bring one soul unto Christ, even if it is only ourselves, our joy will be greater than we can imagine. I know that Joseph Smith restored the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth, and by the power of God translated The Book of Mormon. I know The Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that it contains the fullness of the gospel. Through studying and applying the principles taught in it, we can become perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. I am so grateful for the gospel, and for all the blessing of being a part of it.

Oh, here are some Korean words that go with this:

간증 – Ganjeung – testimony

증인 – Jeungin – witness

I might have already told you testimony, but I recently learned the word for witness, and I thought it was interesting how the two words are related.

Thanks again for your letters! I love you!

Love,

하인스 장로

P.S. See, my theory is if I slowly incorporate Korean words more and more into my letters, you will all be fluent by the time I get back. :)

January 4, 2015

I'm so glad you finally got those letters and they weren't lost in the mail!

Today I don't have very long to email, we are having a district p day in Gumi, and the train leaves at 10:15, so I have until about 10:00.  But we're going to go bowling again, so that will be fun.  It's pretty much the same as American bowling, I actually can't think of any ways that it is different. 

I guess it's convenient that I don't have very much time today, since I don't have too much to say about this past week.

I love you!

Elder Hines

Elder Laney, Elder Hines, Elder Jung and Elder Payne