Week Three

Dear people,

A new native Korean companionship came in today. Elders Myeong and Lee. They are super nice, Myeong lived in London for a year so he's better at English than Lee. They are 25 and 21 years old, and the age hierarchy culture became apparent immediately. They are staying in Elder Rose and Omori's room because they have extra beds. Elder Myeong immediately stripped Elder Rose's sheets from the bed he's been in for three weeks and laid out his own stuff. Elder Rose is now in the top bunk and is not amused. Everyone else thinks it's hilarious. Brother Driggs told us to become friends with them immediately and we'll learn so much faster.

I could talk exclusively about Brother Driggs in all of my emails for the rest of the MTC, but that's probably not what you want to hear about. It is common knowledge that he is the best teacher in the Korean Zone. All the other districts and teachers admit it. If the natives close their eyes they can't tell he's American. We are so blessed. We have the first vision memorized. Most districts usually don't do that until their last couple weeks. Because he teaches us so much so fast, we have to make sure that we don't use him as an excuse to not work as hard outside of class. Ahh, I love him. Oh well.

Brother Driggs challenged us to speak the language constantly, and when we don't know how to say words, to just use English words in the Korean sentence structure. I'm going to do it.

There was a devotional from Elder Robbins from the Seventy last night. He spoke about Christ-like attributes. My favorite part was the comparison between mission companionships and eternal companionship. When he was a mission president somewhere he had an Elder that come to him basically distressed that all four companionships he had in his mission so far were terrible, and he really needed at least one good companion. Brother Robbins then asked him "Who was the common denominator in all of your companionships?"

He talked about how the idea that you can "fall out of love" was created by the devil to attack families. Loving is a choice. As long as you serve your companion you will love them. When we learned how to pray in Korean, the first thing/person we learned how to bless was our first investigator Sister Gang, who we hadn't even met yet. Each of the eight Elders in the district were praying three times a day for someone they didn't even know. But because we were "serving" her, we all genuinely came to love her before even laying eyes on her. 

If you want to love someone. Act like you love them -- Serve them -- and you will.

Amen.

-Elder Brown