Last week in the MTC

Because today is P-day I'll pack most of my stuff. We leave the MTC 4:00AM for the Salt Lake airport. My flight goes to Seattle then another one to Inchon then Busan. I'm so excited! We got our flight plans last Friday. We've been talking about leaving for the longest time. It's great knowing that this is actually going to happen.
Friday we got the flight plans. We had another lesson with Kim Chao mai niem then on to TRC. We skyped again for TRC. This time with a lady in Hawaii. We understood a lot more and taught better. I was pretty disappointed though because she was playing bubble shooter on her phone. I could see it in the reflection on her glasses and hear the cartoon pops through the computer. That really destroyed any sense of the spirit that was there. I would rather teach Park Tae Huan (My other skype TRC who was really hard to understand and a little impatient) because we were actually able to feel the spirit during the lesson.
The other days leading up to today have been mostly uneventful. We did have an elder that we thought ran away at about 11:00 Tuesday night. We all spent a good fifteen minutes running around our building searching for him. We knocked on bathroom stalls, "Umm, is this Elder So-and-so?" "Umm, nope." "Ok sorry to bother you" We did find him eventually in another one of the bedrooms hanging out with some of the native elders. We all wanted to strangle him.
Last night we had an amazing lesson. Our one teacher--Brother Campbell--had us give lessons without speaking, drawing or writing. We taught the other member of our district. Elder Tuinei and I taught Sister Morton. It started out with the two of them doing sign-language. So annoying. I didn't understand a thing. Finally after catching a little bit of what was going on I rushed to a scripture passage and threw it in between them. I flashed a look at Elder Tuinei. "I will participate!" At least I hope that's what he got. He must have gotten something because the rest of the time we spent pointing out things in PMG, the scriptures and the Jesus Christ pamphlet. It was really good. We all felt the Spirit. Then the teacher shared a story about how one of his investigators was an immigrant from Usbeckistan (I really goofed the spelling on that) and didn't speak Korean or English. Using Russian scriptures and a lot of gesturing they were able to teach this man. The message of the lesson was that we shouldn't let the language be a barrier between us and our investigators. The Spirit can move through any medium it needs to. This really boosted our confidence in going to Korea.

The district with flight plans. (Typical Tuinei)
What we did to Sister Morton's pomegranate
The room I am so ready to leave
Sister Kim, our teacher from Seoul

The Korean is getting better

anneyonghassayo! (that is the romanized spelling for hello in Korean)

This was a super good week! I'm learning so much and getting so excited to go into the field. I've almost been here two months. Every time I look at an english speaking elder it's like looking at the life span of a fly. They'll be gone before I even notice. When a younger elder says something like "today's wednesday! They'll have icecream in the cafeteria" it's like, "I know, infact I could probably predict the lunch menu for the next year. I know when the new missionaries come, I know everything. I've been here forever!"
Last friday we did a skype with a man from Busan. I learned what a true Busan accent sounds like. The Seoul dialect is fairly monotone. One of our teachers is from Seoul and so we've all picked up this nice Seoul accent. In busan the tones and inflections of speech are everywhere. Elder Tuinei and I could hardly understand this guy. The whole way he spoke was pretty whiny and annoying. I asked one of the other teachers who served in Busan about it. He said that they will make their voices more whiny as a way of sounding casual. I think it's awful, but he said I'd get use to it.
I'm getting better at Korean. It's a funny language. They follow a subject object verb pattern instead of subject verb object like english and a lot of the european languages. It would be 'I the ball kicked' translated word for word. Which is fine until you get into more complex sentences. "Nephi, Gentiles gospel will hear did say" that means Nephi said that the Gentiles will hear the gospel. It's coming though. I was talking to a native a couple nights ago and was able to carry a simple conversation in only Korean.
My spiritual thought comes from DC 18 I believe (It could be 17 or 19). God talks about his joy in having souls brought unto him. In moses he says that it is his work and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. We learn of God's love for all of his children. He wants them to come unto him. The scripture talks about how he extends the privilege of bringing the souls of men unto him. He wants us to feel his joy. He wants us to join in the work with him. It is our responsibilities as Church Members to bring others unto Christ. Not just the Missionaries, Everyone. By doing this we can take part in the joy that He feels.

I love you all
Elder Harkness

week 5 MTC

Hey everyone!

Well, nothing too fantastic this week. We are all getting better at the language. Everyone has been studying hard. Last week we got an email from one of the elders who just left saying that he couldn't understand a word the Koreans were saying. This has inspired a bit of a mad rush among those of us who are leaving in two and a half weeks. Frankly I plan on not knowing what the natives are saying but am still practicing hard.
So you saw the picture of the water bottles. That is what the elders who just left did to us. Every time you get a sack breakfast you get a water bottle. All of the leaving elders saved up their bottles then before they left uncapped them, filled them up to the brim then set them up in a grid in front of our rooms. We knocked some over and it was a big mess. I took the picture part way during the clean-up. There were a lot more waterbotles. One of the elders in my district emptied all of the water bottles and has been saving them up for when we leave.
Before I came to the MTC I would always see the lightsaber pictures on Facebook. Elder Foster (one of my roommates) and I decided to make our own. It is a six second exposure on a flashlight with a colored piece of paper over it. It only took about five minutes to make, just in case you think I'm wasting time.
In this last week I gave my best and worst lessons ever. The best lesson was the one that I never looked at our lesson plan. I just asked the investigator questions and was able to remember scriptures to turn. I was really intune with the Holy Ghost and because of that I was able to speak really well. In the worst lesson I wasn't feeling the spirit and because of that I couldn't speak. That is something I've learned about speaking Korean. If I am inline with God's will I can speak. The same principal applies in life. If you are inline with God's will you can do anything. You have to study and give it your all and believe that God will make up the difference. If you don't do these things God can't help you and you will probably fail.

I love you all,
Elder Harkness

Half way through the MTC

Well, I passed the half way mark here at the MTC. I'm speaking the language a lot better now. Two of the elders in my district feel so good about it that they want to try speaking only Korean for the last three weeks. I know I'm not that good but we all can still communicate pretty well.

This past week I got the worst cold I have ever had as far as I can remember. I was in bed for the better part of two days. I got tested for strep ($10) because my throat hurt so much, but they said it was just a cold. This was really bad because I had to sing in conference on Saturday. After laying in bed most of Thursday I got a blessing from my companion that I would be able to sing.  To sing in conference you had to attend all the practices. The next morning I got up and walked to the chapel with two other elders from my zone to the chapel where we were singing. I was so tired and so sick. We were standing up singing one song and I knew that once I sat down I could not physically get back up. My legs were shaking as the conductor finished the song. I plopped down on the bench and put my head in my hands. I wouldn't be able to sing in conference. The conductor pulled out the new sheet music and stood us up. Against my will I got up. As we were singing my legs stopped shaking. I knew that I was not standing on my own power. I remembered my dad telling me about people who we know who have passed away, or angels being able to help us. I also remembered the blessing my companion had given me and the prayers of all of you. As I was singing I had tears just running down my face. The power and truth of all these things came to me so strong. We finished the practice and I started my second day in bed.

Saturday I was feeling a lot better. I still felt like the snot monster but I could walk so it was fine. All of the choir members watched the morning session of conference then bussed up to SLC. We missed most of the afternoon session because we were practicing. About five they put us in the choir loft in the conference center. That place is so big! Singing was great and the talks were fantastic, even though we could only see the back of the speakers head. I could actually read the teleprompters while they spoke.

I'm feeling pretty good right now. My cold is mostly gone thanks to the medicine my mom sent. The group of Koreans that came right before us is getting ready to leave on Monday. They are going to the Seoul missions. I'm so excited for them. Every lesson we teach makes me want to go out even more. We've been told that the first day we are there they will put us with random missionaries and we'll go in Busan to a train station or something and place some Book of Mormons. The next day is when we will be assigned to our trainers and sent out to wherever we're serving.

Tuinei and me directing trafic for the missionary drop off.
laundry
The district
a review on our teaching from a TRC

mission update

Another week down on the mission. As of today I am just one day short of being one month in the MTC. I've learned so much. Everynight I crash on my bed exhausted. The language is still as hard as ever. I get discouraged sometimes but have learned to just keep moving on. Today and yesterday have been particularly hard because I think I have strep throat. I don't know. I'm going to have it checked later today.
As for my teaching fake investigators, all has been going well. Elder Tuinei and I have gotten so much better at teaching. There has been a progression to it. First we started out with a script. We learned how to teach by the spirit and tossed the script and the lessons got so much better. Then we learned how to plan for a lesson and our teaching got so much better. This week's lesson has been in focusing our efforts on the investigator instead of teaching. We have begun asking lots of questions and trying to assess the needs of our investigators. Last night we had a lesson where we were going to teach the commandments. Before we started we asked the investigator about her needs and she told us that she struggles with not having enough money. Instead of beating on with our lesson we talked only about tithing and all of its blessings. She received it well and said that she would continue to pray read the Book of Mormon and that she would begin to pay tithing.
I got released from being district leader. My companion was called to be the new DL. Our district is still struggling with getting along, but I always feel like the situation is improving.

I love you all, till next Pday,
Harkness Chang no niem