MTC 3/29/11

My dear family
So this week has had a lot of ups and downs but the highest high we've had is knowing that we only have 4 more weeks left!!!!! I'm soo excited to be able to get out of here and go to korea!!! It's gonna be awesome!! Even though I can't really speak the language, I'm still overly excited to go!! I need to brush up on my chopstick skills before i go... My companion Elder Dorrough is sick again and he's been throwing up the past few days but the doctors aren't really sure why he's throwing up because he doesn't have a fever or any signs of the flu or anything. They said it might be a stomach ulcer and they made him go to a therapist yesterday and he had to fill out a survey and talk to a lady for a while. He's definitely not stressed and so the survey was just really funny because it asked about how many times he's had thoughts of killing himself in the past week and stuff like that. It's sad that they actually have to give a survey like that in the MTC. I think he's going back to the therapist on wednesday.
So the weather here has been really weird, some days it seems like it is going to warm up but then it snows!!! I like the snow but i'm definitely ready for some warmth so we can finally go outside and play soccer on the fields!!! I can't wait any longer!!
On saturday we had our second 'korean only' TRC teaching appointment. It didn't go very well. First of all, we walk into the room and there are two korean girls and two white guys and we were supposed to be walking into a store to buy some clothes. Well every time we said anything, the people would just laugh at us and talk to each other in korean. We didn't really know what to say and we didn't know what they were saying. The same thing pretty much happened during the lesson, they didn't really listen to us and so every time we asked a question they wouldn't really answer. I guess some people just dont get it. Hopefully this week when we teach the plan of salvation we will have better investigators. I know that when we're in the field we wont always have the perfect investigator but hopefully they would at least listen to what we have to say.
So i've been studying vocab with one of the elders in our district and we've been able to study over 20 words each day and we have actually memorized them!! Many times when I study vocab I will memorize them but I forget the words quickly. I haven't been forgetting these words because we have been coming up with different prases to memorize the words!!!
Well that's pretty much all that has gone down this week, know that I love you all and I know that even though serving a mission can be hard, it can also be fun and because of my trials I am being blessed and I will continue to be blessed as long as I endure them well. I have a testimony of this gospel and it makes me soo happy to know that I can live with my family forever.
Love ya
Elder Oaks

MTC week 6

Hey Family!

 Oh so mom, yes I did get my camera thank you very much!! I've taken all sorts of wonderful pictures!

 And I also got the package Grandma and Grandpa Oaks sent to me, I think they're trying to get me fat!!

 So this week i'm pretty sure i've like doubled my Korean again! We've learned soo much and we can now form some complex-ish sentences. We can say things such as "through Joseph Smith, the Gospel was restored to the earth because he prayed to God" It's not bad. I've also gotten pretty good at memorizing things. I was able to memorize a big part of the first vision yesterday, I pretty much read it over and over, then I just read it from my mind (kinda like a photographic memory, but not quite that cool) (if that made any sense). Well last saturday was our last time teaching in English in the TRC, now we're only allowed to speak korean!!!! I'm not sure If I can speak that much korean but I know the Lord can. During the last TRC, we actually did pretty well. During the Korean portion I taught our 'investigator' how to pray and told her about my family. It took me a while to say what I wanted, but I think I said it correctly! While we were teaching our lesson in english, I spoke for a long time! It was awesome! It was hard because our investigator had one dad die from cancer then her next dad die from a plane crash, but it was a good way for us to bring the plan of salvation into her life. So yesterday all of the older districts left for korea! Im excited for them and I know they're going to be awesome missionaries but it was sad to see them go. I had gotten really close to some of them and we're going to hang out when we're all back home. Now there are only 13 korean missionaries in the MTC! but next wednesday we're going to be getting a bunch more, hopefully they'll be awesome. Our district has decided that when the new missionaries come, we're going to only speak korean to them, that way they can progress faster. We wish the missionaries had done that to us. Today we decided to wake up really early so that we could do our laundry before anyone else got up, it was a great idea. Usually when we do our laundry at our assigned time, there are a ton of other missionaries and we have to wait a long time to get a machine but not today! By doing this, I will have more time to relax and write letters/ take naps. So guess what! the missionary field is probably going to be open this next week! That means that we can go out and play soccer or frisbee or something! I'm super excited! Don't get me wrong, playing basketball is fun but it's not enough cardio for me. I've been trying to run on the track in the gym but it's SOOOO hot that it's just torture. Usually I get a mile done and that's all I can handle, so going outside in the fresh air will be super awesome! So i'm going to get some pictures developed today and was wondering if you wanted any prints or if you just wanted for me to wait until I get in the field where I can upload pictures to the computer and email them to you? I can do whichever you want. Well It sounds like you have all been having a fun time at home! Tell Chandler that it's awesome that he pole vaulted that, even if it wasn't what he wanted, he has plenty of time to progress. Just keep working at it! Tell Morgan that I'm going to probably play some soccer tomorrow! I'm really excited to play! She's probably way better than I am though! So I heard about BYU losing to SDSU, that's too bad but hopefully they'll make it to the final four this year. Oh guess what! so when my whole district studies in the classroom, nothing ever happens because we just talk and are distracted the whole time but the other day we went looking for a place to study where it was quiet and we found a place downstairs. It's in the offices where the teachers get ready and do whatever they do dowwn there, but we found three nice couches and we just sit there and study without any distractions, it's the best! Usually we're the only people in the whole bottom floor of the building and so it's super quiet! I've been able to get a ton more done! We're going to be going down there a lot since we've got a lot of korean to learn before saturday!

Well I'm so happy that you are doing well and I'm grateful for this opportunity that I have to serve my Lord. I know that he will help me as long as I'm doing what i'm supposed to and I've realized that it doesn't matter if I can speak korean well because that's not really what this mission is about, the spirit will still witness to the people even if i use simple phrases. I can't wait to get to Korea so that I can serve the people, find my friends and remind them that God lives and has a plan for them. That's what we're really doing, we're finding the people who we promised we would bring back into the light of Christ.

Well I Love you all and I'm doing just great here.

Love, Elder Oaks

Week 4

Hey so guess what! This week we have like doubled our korean, we can now use past tense, say 'if you do this... then this will happen..." and "I can do something..." (I hope that made sense). I also have learned how to teach someone to pray, it's super hard to remember all of the vocab that we have memorized, but i'm working on it! I think the thing that I have the hardest time with is creating sentences, I cant ever seem to be able to create a simple sentence using the vocab that we have! I always want to try and use words that i haven't learned. Okay so guess what, this week my companion's tonsils have been hurting him super bad and so he went to the doctors about it. they told him that his tonsils were swollen and they gave him some medicine that was supposed to help the swelling go down and make it less painful. Well the medicine they gave him was Codine syrup and it made him go crazy! He started acting super weird while he was on the meds and he doesn't remember most of the things he did. For example, yesterday he bought a bright purple scripture case and then today he saw the case and didn't know where it had come from! It was really funny but I feel bad for the elder. We went back to the doctors today and they gave him another drug that shouldn't make him so lupey.

 Well we had our third TRC teaching appointment on Saturday and it went okay. The korean portion of it went terrible actually. Since elder dorrough was on drugs, it was just elder doman and I and the lady that we were talking to was using all sorts of vocabulary that we weren't familiar with. When we would ask her a question she acted like she didn't know what we were saying (I know that our korean isn't that bad!! she could have figured it out!) but at least our actual teaching appointment went well. We had a byu student who was really easy to get along with but he asked a lot of hard questions such as "why should I get baptized? I was already baptized in my own church" and "are you saying that my priest doesn't have the proper authority?" so he made it really hard (just like a real investigator) but we were able to answer his questions. So ever morning we have personal study time for about 45 minutes and usually I will read my scriptures during that time. Well I have seen a tremendous difference in my own life as I have been reading from the Book of Mormon each morning. I have been able to focus on missionary work, study harder, and obey all the rules. I've also been able to read and understand so much more in the Book of Mormon than I ever had! It truly is an inspired book and through my daily reading I have been able to strengthen my testimony of its truth. So this next week the 'older' members of the zone are heading out to Korea! (they're not actually older than us, but they have been here longer) This means that we will be getting more korean missionaries and we will have to be the more experienced elders! It's a scary thought!

Okay so one more thought. The other night one of the native korean elders told his conversion story and it was truly inspiring. Basically his story went like this: when he was in elementary school his family was really rich but then the economy dropped and all the sudden they were really poor. When they became poor all of the teachers and students at school hated the elder (elder Choi) and they beat him (it's okay to beat students in korea). Well when the economy went back up Elder Choi's family was rich again and people started to like him because he was rich. One day Elder Choi's father disappeared and he found out that his dad was taken to prison because he had been selling fake merchandise and had been scamming people. With his dad gone to prison, Elder Choi began to bully other kids at school and eventually got sent to another school that was for the "outcasts" At this school he became the leader of a gang and he drank and smoked all the time. Well when his dad finally came home from prison, he was mentally unstable. His dad became addicted to gambling and alcohol. Every night when his dad came home, he would beat Elder Choi. One night he kicked elder choi in the face and it messed up his jaw and all of his teeth. Well one day after coming home from work, elder choi heard english voices in the kitchen and it was the missionaries. they asked him if they could meet with him and he agreed even though he didn't think that he actually would because he had work all the time. Well one day his boss decided to give him a day off from work and elder choi decided to call up the missionaries because he remembered how happy they were and he wanted to feel that same joy. He started taking the discussions and he and his whole family was baptized. I'm sure that I don't do this story any justice but it was amazing to hear the story of how the missionary's example of happiness completely changed this family! Okay well I've got to go, but I will talk to you later. Know that I love you all and I love the work that I am doing here!

Love,

Elder Oaks

1 Mar 11

Hey Family!!

Okay so this week has been pretty hard, as a companionship we had some struggles but I think we were able to work them out for the most part. We had our second TRC teaching appointment, we did really wel at the korean part (we introduced ourselves and asked the investigator a little bit about themselves) but then for the actual lesson we didn't really teach to our investigator's needs as much as we should have. This next appointment, we're going to be teaching the second lesson which is about the plan of salvation, i'm really excited for this lesson but at the same time it's going to be really hard because there's so much to cover during it!! Well my Korean is really starting to improve, yesterday we had an "english fast" where we were only supposed to talk korean the whole day, it was super hard and i didn't really talk much during the day but it was a neat experience. Well our district is getting along really well and we like to joke around and have fun, this is great for unity within the district but since we get along so well it's hard to study sometimes, it's definitely something that i need to work on. I just wish we had somewhere like the library where we could go to study without too many distractions!! If I can learn to study now, it's going to be much easier to study when I get to BYU!! Well I'm super glad that BYU beat SDSU, my companions and I went into the mailroom where they had the game playing and so we were able to get score updates from the workers there!! I heard that BYU is now ranked #3 is that true? So Today i'm thinking about going to choir, i'm not a good singer but my companion wants to go and i've heard that it's a really neat experience! I just wish i could have been here in the fall so I could go with the choir to General Conference! how cool would that have been?!?! So besides the ward/stake being split, what else is happening at home? I'm glad to hear that callie gets to go back to horseback riding lessons, i'm sure that is making her ver happy!! How's dad's training for that triathalon going? I can't wait until they open the MTC field so that we can go play soccer outside, basketball is fun but i'm not getting enough cardio! Well i'm about out of time, so i'll talk to you later! Love ya!

oh and mom, if you want to send me some more apples/oranges, i really liked those! oh and my companion's mom sends him about 2 packages a week, i expect for you to keep up with that!! haha jus kidding!

Well I love you all

Elder Oaks