Bo-shin-tang

August 2, 2015

Normally each transfer has a theme to it, like Christ-like attributes, commitments, the Book of Mormon, etc. So then all the district and zone meetings are focused around the transfer theme. This transfer we are learning a ton about the Book of Mormon. I actually really like reading it fast like this, because the full story connects in your mind better. I'm in Alma right now, and it's felt like I'm reading a movie script or something lately, it's so entertaining :) I've never heard of 'My Plan' before.

We met with Z again last week, and asked him about the Book of Mormon. He just read the introduction, but he seemed to find it pretty interesting. Yesterday we got a pretty good discussion about religion going. I don't know if I told you this, but the Islam seems a lot closer to our religion than any other Christian religion does. It's just hard to get him to realize that he's basically living our religion already. He gets too hung up on the idea of Christ being the Son of God, since he believes that there is only one God.

We met with KH, and he took us out to eat Japanese food. He left last week on a vacation to Osaka, Japan, so he wanted us to try his favorite Japanese food. It's called Okonamiyaki (or something like that, I'm not sure how to spell it). It was super good, it's like a bunch of fried vegetables and seafood with a really good Japanese sauce on it.

We've been low on people to teach lately, but in the last couple days we found a few potentials, so hopefully they work out. We have an appointment to meet a new investigator tomorrow who wants to learn English. As far as T goes, we weren't able to meet him for the past two weeks. He said that he believes that you need a spiritual witness to know that it is true, but he just wants factual evidence as well. If he would just read it, I'm sure he would think it was true, but he's just too lazy to read it, so there's not much else we can do.

We haven't done much for P day lately. Last week we just played ping-pong and stuff with the Suseong elders. I don't know if I told you this, but Elder Porcaro transferred to Suseong, which is the other area in my district, and he is the district leader. It's pretty fun. This is the third time he has been in my district, not counting the MTC. Weird, huh? It's pretty rare to be in the same district as someone more than once. Today we went to Costco, and that took up a good chunk of the day since it's like an hour away. Then we're going to get haircuts and then p day will probably be over. The next two p days are planned to be a zone p day and a district p day, so that means we'll probably just hang out and play games or something. 

Want to hear the best part of this week? It had to do with food, bet you couldn't have guessed. Yesterday, Sister KY (Elder J's mom) invited us over for dinner to eat "bo-shin-tang," which is dog soup. It was pretty exciting, I've always wanted to eat dog. And it tasted pretty good, Elder Mitchell and I both thought that it tasted almost exactly like pot roast. So pretty decent, I would say it's above average for Korean food. And they used just about the whole dog--meat, skin, stomach, intestines, just about every part of the dog was in the soup. Koreans definitely don't discriminate when it comes to food. The sister missionaries were invited too, but they wussed out on us. One of them is even Korean, and she still won't eat it. It seems like Koreans are about half and half on thinking it's okay to eat dog meat. One of the daughters didn't want to eat it, but the other daughter loved it  Quote of the day: "'Mommy, can I have some more dog meat?' 'Of course, eat as much as you want.'"  Never thought I would hear someone say that, it was pretty hard not to laugh :) And also, during dinner they told Elder Mitchell and I all about the history of eating dog in Korean, it was pretty interesting. 

Biggest challenge of the week was probably eating the piece of dog stomach without showing any negative reaction. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad. The real challenge has been not dying in the heat. It's been upper 90s, and like 100% humidity. It's like I'm walking through a sauna when I walk outside. It only takes two minutes of being outside before I'm swimming in sweat. Pretty gross.  

My biggest concern is finding people to teach, pretty much everyone ignores us. But I think it's going to start getting better this week.  

I love the members of this area. There are a bunch of members within a year or two of my age, and they are super friendly. And all the other members are really nice too, they like the missionaries a lot. This ward just feels like a big family.

Koreans value family a lot, but it's just like anywhere else in the world. People are starting to care more about themselves and less about family, so younger generations don't value family as much as the older people do.

There isn't any one thing that is hard to teach people about, but the most common obstacle for Koreans is pride. One of the most common things that people say when asked about God is "I'm the God of myself." If they're not humble, there's no way that we can teach them anything.

That was a super long email, hope you enjoy :) Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Elders Hines & Mitchell with soon to be Elder Kim - Called to serve in New Jersey

Jungni Ward

Cicada Season

July 26, 2015

Learning a language is definitely harder than I thought it would be. It makes me never want to learn a language again, it takes way too much effort, and I wouldn't want to have to start over at the beginning again. I was expecting missionary work to be pretty hard, so it's probably pretty similar to what I was expecting.

We weren't able to meet with T this week, but we want to share the article from the Liahona about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. He isn't opposed to the idea of Christ visiting the Americas or the Book of Mormon being true. But the way he says he knows the Bible is true is through years of researching it and looking for factual evidence that supports it's truth, so that is exactly what he is trying to do with the Book of Mormon.

We met with Z and his friend, M, now that Ramadan is over. So we were finally able to give them a Book of Mormon in Urdu, hopefully they look it over. They also taught us numbers in Urdu, it was pretty interesting. The way they write their numbers is really complicated, but it's really cool. J is from the Philippines and so he speaks Tagalog, but he is basically fluent in English.

I don't know if I told you this, but President Barrow is having us read the entire Book of Mormon this transfer, and he gave everyone a new copy and is having us highlight names, quotes, and attributes of Jesus Christ. Right now I am in Mosiah, and it has been an amazing experience. It's hard to describe though, you'll just have to try it yourself :)

Last Sunday, we had the area seventy come visit our ward. His name is (roughly translated) Jung ChaeGeol. He gave a really good talk about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He had the spirit really strong with him, he was literally glowing.

Haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary recently. The best thing was probably chicken. That's always the answer to that question though :)

Typhoon season is finally over, and now it's cicada season here. They are like three times the size of cicadas in Utah, and probably ten times as noisy. It's really annoying.  And their shedded skin is clinging to tree trunks all over the place, it's pretty gross.

That's about it for the week, talk to you later!

Love,

Elder Hines

Happy About Email

July 19, 2015

The heading says "happy about email," is that what you were going for? :)

Being senior companion is great. It's a little harder, but I think it's more fun since I don't have someone else to rely on as far as Korean speaking goes. The challenge keeps things interesting :) The language is always getting better, I'm starting to feel a lot more comfortable with it. It's still super hard, but nowhere near as stressful as it was the first eight months of my mission.

So our service project is at this Buddhist-run free-lunch-for-senior-citizens place (I hope you can understand that). So we usually show up an hour or two before lunch, and then help them get things ready, thus the anchovy heads. Then we either take people's trays as they finish, replenish the rice as it runs out, wash dishes, or stuff like that while they are eating. And the best part is that we get free lunch after everyone leaves (jk, the food is barely tolerable, we usually just tell them we have another appointment and have to leave

KH is still doing well, last week we talked about the parable of the virgins waiting for the wedding, and how spiritual preparedness is something that you can't share with others. Hopefully that helped get the idea across that he needs know for himself if the Book of Mormon is true. Because he seems like he just doesn't care too much. He likes us and what we have to say, but just thinks that his religion is completely satisfactory.

Things are pretty similar with T. Yesterday we tried to show him the beatitudes in 3 Nephi, to show him how Christ came and established the same doctrine as in the old world. But he just picked out the slight differences between that version and the Bible version and went off about how Christ wouldn't have said it the way he did in the Book of Mormon. It was specifically 3 Nephi 12:18 or 19 I think, whichever verse is the most different from Matthew. He says that according to the teachings of the Bible, it doesn't make sense that Christ would teach the importance of salvation by your works. I feel like the biggest thing holding him back is that he believes that it is by faith you are saved, and your works are still important, but don't determine anything (or at least that's what he says, I think he just doesn't want to change his life around). It's super frustrating.

I don't know if I told you about J, but he is a member from the Philippines that recently started attending our ward, just every few weeks or so. Yesterday he showed up, and told us that he wants us to treat him like an investigator and just teach him all of the lessons. So we taught him the Restoration, and part-way through he opened up and told us a lot about himself. He said that he almost never went to church when he was in the Philippines. Then he came to Korea to find work, and one night he had a dream that his grandfather, who died a few years ago, appeared to him. J asked him how he was here talking to him if he was dead, and his grandfather just pointed upward to God, and then the dream ended. Apparently he has had multiple dreams similar to this one, and he came to the conclusion that he was supposed to come back to church. After he shared that with us, we continued to teach, and it was probably one of the most amazing teaching experiences I've ever had. The spirit in the room was so powerful, and at one point when I was testifying, I felt it was just the Spirit speaking, and I wasn't doing anything at all. It was like I had no control over what I was saying. It was almost like an out of body experience, it was really weird. Sorry, kind of hard to describe.  Anyway, J is really awesome, and the three of us are basically best buds :)

And I got your package last week, thank you! Good thinking on the popcorn. Luckily, my companion doesn't really care for it, so I get it all to myself :) And that plain blue tie is actually pretty sick. At first I thought it looked boring, but then I wore it and it grew on me a lot. But my favorite is the gray/blue one with the squares. Anyway, I think I have like over 20 ties by now, so it's okay if you don't send me any more :) I love ties, but it's just annoying to have a lot of stuff to worry about when I move to a new area. Everything that you wrote on the paper got to me, so I think you figured out the trick.

Have a great week, I love you!

Elder Hines

Missionary Work Isn't Easy

July 14, 2015

This week was pretty good, we didn't get a lot done though. The sisters always take up all our free time with asking us to help them with appointments. The sisters teach English, they are both really good, and Sister Park lived in Hawaii for three years and is completely fluent. But people learning English want foreigners to teach them, so they need our help.

KH is doing pretty well. We invited him to be baptized, and he just said that he will think about it. He understands what we have taught him about priesthood authority, but for some reason it doesn't really hit him. He knows about the Holy Ghost and everything. I think it's just that he is content with his religion right now, and just meets with us because he likes talking about religion.

I haven't heard from LH for a while, he doesn't ever respond to my texts. But LY calls me regularly just to say hi and tell me about feeling the Holy Ghost. He's still as awesome as ever.

I really have a copy of that on my MP3 player? Are you sure? I've never come across it. I'll have to take a look again tonight.

I don't think that Koreans have that problem like Americans do. They definitely have that "more mentality" like Americans, but they don't seem to collect things as badly. But they always have to have the new phone and car, maybe even worse than Americans. Most cars look like they have been bought within the last 5 years or so, and old cars are really rare. Almost everyone younger than 50 has a smartphone, and there are phone stores on every corner. But Koreans seem to be better about taking care of their stuff, cars usually seem well-kept, and phones rarely have the spiderweb app, so it's not quite as bad.

Well, we had transfers this week, and Elder Mitchell and I are both staying. Yes!!! That means another whole transfer of eating chicken and being nerdy! Sister Kim is leaving, and Sister Park is going to train a new missionary. But she doesn't come until this Thursday, hopefully she gets a fun trainee.

We met T, and this time it was kind of weird, I got the feeling that he has been reading anti-Mormon things online. He kept bringing up reasons why people think that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, but would say it in an indirect way, like "I don't think this, but I can see why lots of people do." But he seemed really hung up on it, so it seems like he really does think that way.  It was like in 3 Nephi 11 when Jesus says to avoid contention about doctrine. He said that you can almost see the hand of Joseph Smith in the writing, since during his time there was a lot of contention about doctrine.  And then because it is Jesus saying this, it's like Joseph Smith is putting himself in Jesus' place. I can totally understand why people would think that, because it makes sense, but at the same time, you can't just take out one little thing that seems funny and use it to condemn an entire book. Elder Mitchell and I were able to say some things that helped a little bit, and reminded him that the most important thing isn't knowing if it logically makes sense, but what the Spirit tells you when you read it.  It's a long process with T, he has a ton of potential, but might not be baptized for a long time. The way he sees it is "not if the Book of Mormon is true or not, but if it is a necessary addition to the Bible." He thinks that the Bible has everything he needs. He almost quotes the Book of Mormon word for word saying that he has a Bible and needs no more Bible. It's really hard, I'm not sure what to do.

Well that's the highlights of this week. Always feel free to ask lots of questions, I never know what you want to hear. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Navajo tacos at the Kelly's 'I forgot how good American food is'

District

'We found out where Kentucky is' ;)

Eating Samgyetang soup with the ward

Yangnyum Sauce

July 6, 2015

Dear Family,​

That is super crazy news. And I'm pretty sure that is unconstitutional, isn't marriage a states' rights issue, if it's a government issue at all?

That's really cool how Heavenly Father answered your prayers. KH is doing really well, he accepts everything we teach him. I would say the only problem (and it's a problem that a lot of Koreans tend to have) is that they take everything you tell them, but don't really see the significance of it. I get the feeling that after we teach him, he's just like, "oh, that's a cool story," and doesn't think too much about it. This week he took us to a really fancy restaurant on the side of the mountain, and we ate Korean barbeque and salad pizza (literally a salad on a pizza, pretty weird). We taught him part of the plan of salvation, and he really liked it. He thinks that family is really important, and so he is interested in building good family relationships. We gave him a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World, hopefully he likes that. Something cool that he told us this week is that the reason why he likes meeting with us so much is because of the influence we seem to have on him. He said that since he has been meeting with us, he has been happier. Now the trick is getting him to realize that it's not us, but the gospel that makes him feel that way. He has so much potential, it's so exciting! :)

The Shincheonji guy hasn't tried to call us yet, luckily. I'm actually pretty surprised at that, he seemed abnormally happy to receive our phone number.

Yep, it's that 'You Never Know' video. The point we were trying to make is that even though it doesn't seem like you have an influence on others, you really do, so share the gospel with those you know.

Not too much happened this week. Most of our time was taken up by the sister missionaries. They have a couple new investigators with English interest, so we've been helping them teach. And then the sisters moved into a different house, so we spent a lot of time helping them with that. Apparently the area around their old house, there are a lot of scary foreigners that stalk them, so they didn't feel safe there. I think they just wanted a bigger house.

The best thing that happened this week is that I got a recipe for yangnyum sauce, which is the delicious sauce they put on fried chicken. It's like sweet and spicy, and probably tied with bacon for one of the greatest gifts given to man. I don't remember the ratio, but the ingredients are ketchup, garlic, vinegar, water, soy sauce, and corn syrup. You just mix it together and call it good. That probably sounds pretty disgusting, but you are just going to have to trust me on this. If you happen to find a recipe online, you'll have to try making it and see what you think :)

I love you, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Hines

Rice field adventure

Revelation and Revelator

June 28, 2015

Things went really well with KH, we met, and it was really cool because we planned on teaching about baptism, but in the middle of the lesson, we both had the impression to teach the Restoration instead, and we were able to transition into that without saying anything to each other. It was so cool.

We haven't met Z or M for a couple weeks because it is like fasting month or something for them, so they're busy I guess. J actually lives on the other side of Daegu, almost a different city, so we are going to have to refer him to the missionaries in that area.

So a lot of pretty fun things happened this week, but I don't think I can remember them all. I'll try to give you some of the best ones.

So we were on the subway coming back from an appointment, and there was a guy, who when he saw us, immediately asked us if we were missionaries. He got super interested, and asked for our phone number right away. It was pretty exciting, especially when he asked us if he could meet with us later, maybe at our church. He asked us if we know the Bible very well, particularly Revelation. Then he started whispering, and looking over his shoulder every once in a while as the following conversation commenced:

"Do you know where heaven is?" 

"Not really." 

"I do. Do you you know when the second coming will be?" 

"No idea." 

"I do.  Most people think that they know Revelation, but they don't. Through Revelation, I can teach you the answers to these questions, and more."

I was like, okay, time to leave, this guy is creepy, but it didn't stop there. I asked him if, when we met later, it would be okay for us to share about our religion as well. He obviously didn't care at all about that, he just ignored the question and said: "Make sure you don't tell anyone else about what we talk about. Don't tell your pastor, don't tell other missionaries, don't tell anyone." I asked him why, and he said, "If you tell them about what I teach you, they will tell you not to meet with me anymore, since they don't understand Revelation."  But the thing is, this guy didn't seem crazy at all, he seemed like a completely normal person. It was super creepy. I have actually heard about this religion from Elder Payne, it's called "Shin-cheon-ji" which means "New World," and they are super obsessed with the book of Revelation, and try and prove tons of weird points with it. And they never listen to what you have to say, they are too brainwashed. Apparently they have to pass a test to prove their knowledge of Revelation before they can join the church. And they also sometimes try to infiltrate other religions and destroy them from the inside. Elder Payne heard about one guy who got baptized into our church, and then immediately started trying to convince all the other members that it wasn't true. So yeah, we won't be answering any of his phone calls any time soon :)

Yesterday in church, the missionaries did a presentation about member missionary work. It went really well, we shared the video, "You Never Know," and each of us talked a little bit about it. Then we gave each member a card thing to keep track of people they are trying to share the gospel with. It has a place to check off inviting them to do things like pray, read the scriptures, and meet the missionaries. It seemed like the members accepted it pretty well, so hopefully they get more involved in missionary work in the near future.

Love,

Elder Hines :)