Week Seven (But Actually Eight)

Dear People,

Every Sunday we get to pick from a few old MTC devotional talks to watch. The most famous one that I've seen twice is "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar:

Character: Moral qualities that are strongly developed, strikingly displayed, and consistently lived. 

The Christ's character is the polar opposite of the natural man. When the natural man would have us turn inward, the Character of Christ turns out in love and service to others.

As we strive to acquire Christ's Character, we will slowly be converted to him. 

A testimony is a knowledge of that Jesus Christ's gospel is true. A testimony is easy. With only a little bit of effort and humility, anyone can have this knowledge.

Conversion is constantly doing the things that you know are true. We are never done being converted.

the word "repent" needs a different name because it is way too closely associated with sin. Repenting is turning away from anything and towards God. When my investigators learn they need to read the Book of Mormon so they start doing it, they are turning closer to God (repenting). When we put just a tiny bit more effort into our study or prayers, we are repenting. 

When you repent each night, don't just apologize for doing the things you shouldn't have done that day, tell him what you are going to do more.

What is our Character? Or what quality about us is strikingly displayed?

Yesterday Sister Oh wrote on the board in regard to our mission: What did you offer to Him? What are you offering to Him now? What are you willing to offer Him?

This hit me hard because I've always felt confident that I would give my life to him instantly if he commanded it, but if that is true, why am I not doing the simple simple things like talking to construction workers, working my hardest, or speaking Korean constantly like I should be.

Speaking of construction workers, I finally manned up enough to approach two of them with my companion. I said "Excuse me, may I bear my testimony to you?"  The smiled super uncomfortably and stared at us for five full seconds before saying "Engles... Espanol amigos...." 

Elder Leithead came to the rescue by pointing at his Korean nametag and saying "In Korean?" They showed about as much recognition, so I just bore my testimony in Korean and left. Mission accomplished.

It's been good, I have twelve days left before Korea. I am so close to my district, I will probably be more district-sick than home sick.

The Korean word for hair directly translates to "head-fingers"

Love,

​-Brown 장로

The model with the dreadlocks is pre-mission Elder Leithead. He's a champion.

Week Six

Dear People,

The Primary program has the plan of salvation all wrong. When you think of the Plan of Salvation, what is the first thing you think of? Not Jesus Christ probably. It should be called "The Jesus Plan" 

There was a plan given by God that allowed us to be like him if we had faith in Jesus Christ.

 The Plan of Salvation needs to be the center of our lives, and Jesus Christ is the center of the Plan of Salvation. Do you know what the first thing Jesus taught was when he visited the Nephites? Go look it up. Do you know what Nephi declared the purpose of his small plates to be? Search for it. Do you know who completed the small plates of Nephi and restated their purpose in his testimony? It wasn't Omni. The Book of Mormon tells the best story on earth. Learn it.

Life is about to get ridiculously hard for everyone. Our testimony in The Book of Mormon's truth must be sure. Our testimony of where the priesthood is must be solid. If any of ye lack wisdom about who holds Gods keys right now, Let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. 

2 Nephi 26:23 For behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness. 

24 He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him.Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.

He is ready to give his knowledge to the humble seeker, He is not a God of secrets. His gospel is for everyone.

I am obsessed with the parallel of a mission and earth life. My teacher puts so much emphasis on our purpose as a missionary. "Invite others to come onto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." Every move I make, every word I say should be focused on this purpose.

When I get home, I want to write a new purpose statement for myself and change it in each stage of my life. It will be different in college, it will be different when I have kids, it will be different when I am retired. It will be very different in each phase but it will always have the word "progress" in it, and it will always have the name "Jesus Christ."

Fun story for those that have read this far. One of the younger districts asked their teacher-investigator in Korean to read "Moroni 9:8" instead of "D&C 9:8"

D&C 9:8 - "But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you;therefore, you shall feel that it is right."

Moroni 9:8 - "And the husbands and fathers of those women and children they have slain; and they feed the women upon the flesh of their husbands, and the children upon the flesh of their fathers; and no water, save a little, do they give unto them."

Then they asked the them: "Will you do this tonight?"

Yesterday there was a devotional by Joy B. Jones General Primary President. Her husband said that there are 17,000 hours in a two year mission. I wrote in my notebook that I have straight thrown away at least 30 hours of my mission so far. When I am not focused on the work, I am mocking my time here. I am mocking the knowledge I have be given.

This applies to everyone on their earthly mission: We are mocking the purpose of this earth and our bodies when we are not fulfilling our purpose of progression and Joy.

I bear my testimony of the Book of Mormon, of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young's priesthood keys, of John Taylor, of Wilford Woodruff, of Lorenzo Snow, of Joseph F. Smith, of Heber J. Grant, of George Albert Smith, of David O. McKay, of Joseph Fielding Smith, of Harold B. Lee, of Spencer W. Kimball, of Ezra Taft Benson, of Howard W. Hunter, of Gordon B. Hinkley, and of Thomas S. Monson, As God's chosen Prophets. I know they hold the Keys. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

With great anxiety,

-Elder Brown

Week Five

Dear People,

Every p-day, two Elders have been spending the whole day preparing a shadow puppet show to give to the zone at the end of the day. I didn't go to their rendition of "Up" last week, but this week they performed the entirety of "Star Wars: A New Hope" They put a ridiculous amount of thought into it and had at least thirty very detailed shadow puppets of Star Wars characters. They even distributed little tickets to attend.

On Thursday, I had an intense fever, but I got over it pretty quickly. Being sick really helps you appreciate healthyness. We have to have regular trials and misery to remind us of our purpose. We need the bad to know the good, but that is not enough. We need constant reminders of what misery is. I can't wait for the "perfect knowledge of our enjoyment" we will have in the spirit world.

I was asked to be a Zone leader on Sunday, so now I'm a Zone leader which is really stressful because the last Zone leaders were really good and everyone loved them and I feel like I know nothing about the MTC. But I'll figure it out and grow a lot.

Sacrament meeting is awesome, everything is in Korean and after the Sacrament is administered one of the Branch presidency will randomly call two missionaries from the congregation to speak for 3-5 minutes, (In Korean of course). Everyone is supposed to have a talk prepared on the subject of the week, but most people take the risk to not prepare, and it's always those people who get chosen.

Gospel stuff:

The gospel is so simple. We are little babies. God is our father.

We are given simple instructions: Have faith, do what he says until we die.

My favorite scripture right now is the first sentence of 2 Nephi 2:5   "Men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil"

We know what we should be doing differently, so change.

Russel M. Nelson gave a devotional last night. 

It was soo good,​​ he talked about so much, it was like a general conference talk.

He mentioned how "God yearns for our honorable return home". I've been noticing a ton of similarities between this full time mission and our mission on Earth. I wonder if there was something similar to opening a mission call that happened pre-mortally. How exciting would it be to find out you would live on Earth! Christ's planet!  

I love the line in More Holiness Give Me Where it says "more longing for home" We are not home! We should not be comfy! Our time is short!  As a missionary, I should want to be here, but only because I have a specific purpose, and when it's done I should be excited to come home. I should not be happy just wandering around in Korea, eating cool food and learning Korean. If I'm not fulfilling my purpose, I may as well have stayed home. 

If we aren't fulfilling our purpose on Earth, we may as well have stayed home. Without bodies. Without knowledge of good and evil. Without Joy.

Study the Book of Mormon. I wish I had more time to study it now and I wish I had spent more time studying it before I left. Ten minutes a day seemed like a struggle, but now we get two hours and it feels like fifteen minutes. Ten minutes in the MTC is a joke. Time goes by so fast.

Peace

-Elder Brown

Here be some pictures: (Personal Study Time, Elder Myeong, Elder Lee, and Elder Partridge (who speaks five languages [six including the violin {He was home-schooled, but he's not awkward} ] and my cute little Korean scripture tabs.)​​​​ and the district singing a billion verses of Korean hymns. Don't sit through all of it. (I'm the one that can't hold still)

Week Four

Dear People,

The MTC is dedicated. I am set apart. I am surrounded by hundreds of other set apart, consecrated beings. I got used to the feeling within the first two weeks. You forget that the name tags that everyone is wearing aren't normal. You forget feeling the spirit is a very difficult task in the world. I would say in real life, but "real life" is as far from real life as you can get. Elder Holland said that being a full time missionary and being an apostle are the two closest experiences we can have to real life.

On Suday after watching an MTC talk by Elder Bednar, Elder Elliot said: "The mission field is the MTC for life!" So true. Elder Bednar is the greatest. He immitated Cookie Monster really well in a talk. According to Elder Bednar, all of the apostles are really funny, but you rarely see it in Conference because they have to be declaring the lords will. General conference talks by apostles are equilivant to the Doctrine and Covenants. They are ALL Prophets, SEERS! and Revelators.

Three Elders are super into sports and get almost daily college football updates which they freak out about. It's funny.

So in Korean, there are three main ways of speaking that signify different levels of respect. We, of course, are learning the most respectful, most difficult "High Form". No one speaks this form on the streets, so we have to learn to speak in High Form, but understand middle form, and try not to mimic it in lessons.

The word for Elder (Janglo) is used to describe only the very old, very wise men in the culture, so when people see Janglo on our name-tags, based on our behavior people will either think: Why do these immature teens have the title Janglo? This church is weird... Or they will think: That's interesting, even these very young people in this church are respectful and wise enough to be called Janglo.

So the pressure's on.

-Elder Brown

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

Week Two

So in the first email I didn't mention that on our third day in the MTC we taught our first Korean lesson to our first investigator, Sister Gang. It was the same day that we learned how to conjugate a three word sentence, so we said in essence: God loves you. God is your father. Pray to God. Gamsahamnida. 

We taught her everyday for the next few days. After the fourth lesson she revealed herself as our second teacher, Sister Oh, and that she was role-playing an investigator she had on her mission in Busan. She is speaks way less English than Brother Driggs does, and so we have to work harder to understand her. 

Brother Driggs told a story from his mission where he met a Chinese man who knew no English or Korean, who was in Korea doing some study or something for his master's thesis. Neither Brother Driggs nor his companion knew more than a few chinese words, but they convinced him to follow them to a nearby church where they had a Chinese Book of Mormon and some pamphlets. They taught him every day for over a week until he had to go back to China. He didn't get baptized because he wouldn't have had a church to go to in China, but he told them: "There are no missionaries in China, send missionaries because my family and I need to be baptized"

Brother Driggs has never heard from him since. He showed us how language is not anywhere near as important as sensitivity to the spirit. There is a reason the first sentence we learned is "God loves you" If that was the only sentence I could say my whole mission, I could still be more successful than a native speaker that knew everything about the church, as long as I am sensitive to the spirit, and can say that one sentence with power. Teaching us to understand this concept is the purpose of the MTC. Learning a language forces a missionary to learn this, because they don't have the option of letting other words get in the way.

Monday was our first "TRC Meeting", which is where we teach a lesson to actual volunteer Korean members living in the area. It's like a family home evening thing. Elder Leithead and I were super unprepared, we forgot how to ask where they were from or even what their names were. We were trying to talk about things we didn't have the vocab for. The spirit was absent and everyone was uncomfortable as we tried to read our Korean notes. It was really discouraging. Afterwards, Brother Driggs had the district come outside and asked someone to volunteer to jump as far as they could from a standing position. He marked the spot, and then said to jump farther. Then farther. He had a few more of us do it. We could all do it. "Reach your hand up as high as you can." "Ok, higher" "higher" We could all do it of course. "If I kept going you would have got on the benches, climbed trees, you could figure out a way to go higher." It was pretty obvious how we could apply this to Korean. 

Yesterday, towards the end of the lesson, Sister Oh announced that we would have ten minutes to prepare as a group a 30 minute lesson directed to her. It would not be a role-play. When she left, we brainstormed vague ideas of what to say and said a prayer to know what she needed to hear and to have the spirit. When she came back in there was an awkward minute when no one said anything, but Elder Omori started saying stuff, and others chimed in. We used about half Korean half English, mixed sentences. During that lesson I recognized the spirit in a way I never have before. I've had overwhelming spiritual experiences every-time I really wanted them, but this was a very unique clarity of thought, peace, wisdom, and a little buzz. I asked her to read Mosiah 4:27 (I think) "It is not requisite that a man run faster than he has strength" and I told her that God won't frequently ask her to give more than she can, but when he does ask it of us, he will also give her the strength she needs to do it.

She was crying by the end of the lesson and so were a couple Elders.

Yesterday, Elder Bednar spoke for the devotional. It was broadcasted to all of the MTC's and my district all sang in the choir. A super cool arrangement of "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer" He spoke about general conference and emphasized that general conference talks should be part of our daily study material for the next six months. The Book of Mormon is directed to our time period, but Seers direct their messages to today, exactly what we need right now.

A mission is in absolutely no way a sacrifice. Elder Omori and I were talking about this last night. Everything about the MTC gives to the missionary. If I went home right now, I would never be the same.

-Elder Brown

Week One

Dear people,

I am quite upset about the number of packages and emails that I have not received. I'm assuming that there were thousands of emails wrongly sent to jay.brown@myldsmail.net. I'm sure the other Elder Jay Brown is overwhelmed at the love he is receiving from strangers. 

From the minute you walk away from family they MTC tries their best to totally overwhelm you. I was led away from the car by a "Host" Elder who didn't even introduce himself to me. I was then passed through the hands of a bunch of old people that gave me my name tags, a lock, and a ton of Korean books. I got to go to my residence for thirty seconds to drop off my luggage, but then I was dropped right into my classroom where Brother Driggs was already teaching Korean characters to five flustered Elders. I was sat down next to my companion, Elder Bryson Leithead. A couple other Elders came in late too. There are four companionships in my class which make up my district. The first two days feel like a week each. They try to overwhelm you so much to drill in the concept that the MTC should not a comfortable place. There is not much growing in a comfort zone, and there is not much comfort in a growing zone. Brother Driggs described it as a hard place, but a happy place.

Time is broken here.

I suspect another reason they make the beginning so Hectic is so that we'll appreciate personal study time. I thought the MTC would be be like a half day of reading scriptures and a half day of learning the language, but we only get an hour of personal study each day, and it goes by in minutes. It is so hard to find time to even write in my journal. My ultimate advice to anyone wanting to be happy, is study the scriptures for at least an hour every day. Understand the basic storyline of the Book of Mormon, and Old and New Testaments. I feel like I know nothing about the bible.

 I love my district. I am the district leader. Every three weeks it will change, but whoever is next gets to learn from my mistakes. I get the mail twice a day and distribute it to the district. Elder Omari gets about five hundred packages a day from his girlfriend, so we're all depressed when mail comes. I love my district. I wish I could write about every one of them. It's like a EFY company only everyone really wants to be there, everyone wants to obey the rules, and they are all super humble. There are no sisters in our district, which is awesome because everyone can be themselves, but because everyone can be themselves, we get out of hand and laugh uncontrollably frequently. 

My companion Elder Leithead, is super laid-back. The first night before we went to bed he said he had been staying up untill four AM the week before he came, binge watching some TV show season that just came out on Netflix. After the first day of language class, he was super discouraged and homesick, so I immediately thought of all the miserable companion stories I've heard, and I was certain he was going to be a nightmare the whole nine weeks. But I was immediately humbled, because he is working so hard, and has such a good attitude. We get along really well.

On the third day we learned how to pray and brother Driggs told us that from then on all of our prayers should be in Korean. Say everything you can in Korean, and then say another prayer in English if you need to. We are learning pretty fast, I want to be speaking only Korean for the last three days before I enter the field. I am not super impressed with the older district's level of Korean use. I wish they would constantly be speaking it to each other because I know they can.

We didn't get to sing in general conference, but watching it in the MTC was amazing. The MTC is so perfect, my whole life has prepared me for this. I love Korean. It's is apparently the third hardest language for an american to learn. Knowing the characters beforehand was super super helpful, but we are all on the same page already, I am the best at pronunciation, but I am struggling remembering new words, they all sound so similar and all have way different meanings. Elder Taotaiolefue, a Polynesian Elder from Australia, studied Korean for three months when he found out where he was going, so he is way good. It'll be a long time before anyone catches up to him. 

I had a massive spiritual high the first four days, I was a baby. Then I hit a really rough spot Sunday morning, then another high Sunday night, but now I'm just content. There are talks from apostles that I think they only show in the MTC. They are life changing. We get to watch one each Sunday. We've only seen one, but it was life-changing, the best talk I've ever heard in my life.

We went through the temple this morning with all the missionaries and I recognized an usher at the veil as the actor for Christ in the endowment video we had just watched (my favorite one). He is also apparently a famous LDS singer, I shook his hand. There is probably a bunch more that I want to say but I've already gone way over my time. I am so so happy.

-Love,

Elder Brown