Mission Conference

Hey there! 

Wow this week has gone by super fast again which is awesome! Time sometimes can be the biggest enemies to missionaries psych's, but it hasn't gotten to me yet.

We made a fun jump rope the kids at family night. They absolutely loved it and we got to have fun as well. It was a major flashback to my childhood singing all of those songs that go with jump roping. I think I will definitely used that taped together jump rope again  for sure.

We had mission conference this week. President Choi came and spoke to us  What  an amazing man. My testimony of living leaders who are directed by God was really strengthened. He really understood us as missionaries because he is Korean and he served in Korea. He gets how the culture is truly one of the biggest  barriers to missionaries here. People just dont want to listen to lame foreigners. Because of this, some branches and areas really struggle with missionary work. It was really cool because he said that we as missionaries need to encourage and bring forth Gods Culture in Korea, and not Korea's culture. Really struck deep with all the missionaries there. It inspired the missionaries to be more bold and to not let the culture walk all over them and prevent the Lords work from progressing. I love the Korean culture and it is amazing. There are just a few things that could change for the better for sure.

I got my first flu shot ever. I don't want to offend anyone, but it was a very bad decision. I felt a lot of pressure from everyone to get it, even the mission president, so I did it and got immediately sick. So that wasn't very fun. We still went out and did stuff which is okay. I hope I got no one else sick! My behind was sore for 2 days after mission co ference because  we sat so much. One of my favorite quotes from the conference  was actually sister Hinckley. it goes "obey now, understand later". Definitely  was good for me to hear.

We met a guy at English class and he seems like a really nice young guy looking for some change. We hope we will be able to meet with him sometime.

I can officially use chopsticks for the first half of the meal. Then my hand gets to tired and I just fail at it. Slowly getting there!

It's been a good week all in all. I have learned a lot and I hope to keep on learning. There are many churches in Korea and I have found that missionary work is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I know that this is a divine work so the Lord will provide a way!

Love you all and I hope you have a great week!

The Power of a Good Breakfast

Pictures
1 and 2. Pizza last monday night
3. Katalk profile pic
4. Nice lady got me baby helper chopsticks because I am special.
5. Found a chair in the middle of the Street.
6. Hogae church building
7. Nice not from the elder who went on exchanges with my comp last week.
8. Ping Pong
9. Ping pong gif of a really cool slam I had.
10. Weird selfie
11. My nose whistle I got. I CANT stop play it!
12. A mythical meal
13. pt 2
14. Teaching all the old people how to sing you are my sunshine! Highlight of my week!
15. My companion looking fresh.
16. My uncle travis who was in korea visiting his sister stopped by and took me and my comp out for lunch!
17. Who knew you could actually eat chestnuts! not me!
18. Editing a video we made for english class.

Hello!!!(from the other side of the worrlllddd) 

It has been one awesome week! This week has definitely been my most favorite week. It has gone by so fast because we just have been doing so many things! 

My comp and I have really good companionship studies. I really look forward to them because we have good discussions and they are really uplifting and wholesome. I can see why we do them. If you only have your perspective of the things you are learning, how will you be able to see out of your little sphere?

I got an amazing package from the ladies in my ward that made my week 10 times better! Really grateful for the love from them. 

We had a realy funky experience this week. We got a call at like 7:30pm from a random guy saying that he was at the church and he had a book of Mormon. As two energetic missionaries, we were really excited and had the idea and vision of one of those miracle stories we hear about in conference. We get to the church and start talking to the man. After a little bit, we find out he wants to give it back. He gives it back and then proceeds to lay down some major spooky doctrine....untrue doctrine of course...He informed us that Jesus Christ was in Korea right now and was visiting all of the places. He told us that everyone knows about this and was so surprised that we didn't. With the smell of beer that was kindly coming from his mouth into our noses, we listened for almost 20 minutes. He finally said goodbye after that and left. We barely got one sentence in. The funniest thing about this story is that I literally understood nothing he was saying so I wasn't sure if he was actually talking about something cool and spiritual, or something completely wack. Turns out it was the latter. Maybe the most wasted 20 minutes of my mission. 

On a better note, we had another lesson with Alex. Teaching in English may be the best thing in the world. We really had a good discussion about the 10 commandments and how repentance is so important. He basically lives all of the commandments already and repents everyday through prayer so it wasn't a big deal for him. He is a prepared soul.

Saturday's English class was very awesome! I got to sit at the advanced table so all the Koreans there were basically fluent. We discussed about why Koreans marry later in life and they were very interested to hear about when Utah people get married. They pried me good about me high school love life which was kinda weird. We ended up talking about whether marrying for money or marrying because you actually love your spouse is more important. Sad to say, we disagreed. They really believe money is more important. Super sad, but I think I got a seed of curiosity planted in their brains about my culture. 

One of the reasons this week was so great was because we had good breakfast! I really don't like having cereal for breakfast every morning, so I cooked hot breakfast every morning for me and my comp and things just seemed to be better! The Power of  Good Breakfast.

One thing that I My older brother Andrew has taught me about missionary work is that your faith  and obedience will never affect the agency of others. I have already seen missionaries getting distressed because they are showing great faith in the work and no one is getting baptized in their area. I have a testimony that the Lord prepares people on his timeline. If we are faithful and worthy, those people will be put in our path not sooner of later than the Lord wills it to happen. It is up to us as missionaries to be able to rise to the occasion with the Spirit of God radiating from every word and deed to bring those prepared children of God to the knowledge of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love you all and have a great week!

Chopsticks and Korean

Hello family and friends!

I am on my second week in the mission field  and it feels like it has been 2 days! Time goes by so fast!

In regards to my title, i don't think there has ever been a person worse at using chopsticks then I have! ahhhhh they are so hard! I feel like I'm starving some meals because i just got use the utensils right. My hand gets super sore super quick and it is a rough time. So my debate is whether chopsticks or Korean  is harder for me to learn right now. I will keep you updated on both:)

Just wanted to make a shout out to one of my best friends who got her mission call to Denver Colorado South Mission. Congrats Aubree!

Wow what a fun week it has been! We played soccer with some if our english class members on Tuesday! they were super fun and they  really enjoyed it. 

Wednesday we got to teach old people english! They were a hoot!! They really have no clue ehat is going in and they do not learn very fast. it reminds me of my first day at the mtc. We introduced bingo to them and they loved it! A LOT! I had to stop this little lady from cheating! she tried to fines me but I was having nothing of it haha. At the end we sang "you are my sunshine" which surprisingly most if them actually knew!

I went on splits this week to a new area! really fun to spend time with another elder in another area! We taught a lesson to some newly converted young men and then we planned for their Halloween party. Our branch is also having a Halloween party and we are making the coolest haunted house ever!!! I will send pictures if it when we make.

General Conference was truly inspiring. What an opportunity we have to listen to Gods prophets here on earth! Alex watched it with us on Saturday. Something amazing happened!He actually watched it in Russian on his phone with headphones as we watched it in english. I noticed that it was really lagging on his phone making it hard for him to understand it and actually get something from it. I decided to say a prayer asking heavenly father to help his phone not lag so he could really understand the words being spoken. After my prayer and for the rest of the session, i noticed zero lag on his phone! What a small simple blessing from our Lord! I know that he lives and loves each one of us very much.

After the Saturday session of conference my comp mentioned that i played ping pong. Our second counsellor really REALLY wanted to play me. So I decided to go for it believing i was gonna get sat down bad. After one if the most  intense games of ping pong in my life, i won 22-20! I felt a sense of patriotism run into my body after I won that game. USA takes the W!

The work is good and I love  the korean people so much already! I hope play more ping pong and preach more principles of truth!

Love you all and I hope you have an absolutely amazing week!

Elder Meeks

Elder, This isn't the language they taught us in the MTC.

1. Cringy musical number at the introduction meeting
2. Mission president, his wife, my come, and me
3. Me catching flies on the bus...really fun game...you should all try it sometime!
4.Rockin selfie
5.Dinner at the apartment!
6. English class advertisement photo shoot!
7. Yummy food
8. even yummier food!
9. Soft and chewey I couldn't eat because it wasn't mine...sad day

Hello my beloved friends and family! I am emailing from the church in bang oh jin which is my very first area! The title of my email is very very accurate because I literally can understand nothing here! People talk so fast and slur like all of their words and do a lot of other things that make it impossible to understand! My strategy is to just smile and bow, smile bow.

Anyways, all of my travels were absolutely great! Had good flights all around. Super blessed to talk to my family in the airport and to see how they were doing. I have never flown for so long before and I definitely had some trama sitting down for that much time, but I enjoyed it. Like every missionary does, I talked to the people sitting next to me on the plane. Met some really cool people and had some great conversations! People are just so nice and friendly. They are also super suprised when they find out how long you are serving for and why you are going to be away from your family and friends for so long! I had the opportunity to talk to a man on the plane from Japan to Korea in korean and english. He spoke both so we could talk decently well. I gave him a book of mormon which he readily excepted after my my broken explanation of it in korean. Very nice man! Korean people are just so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a very warm welcome from our mission president and the aps. They made us feel right and home and super safe and also super scared because they talked so much in korean so fast we were all like "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT???". The first night in the mission home was pretty rough because of Jet lag and all that jazz, but I survived. Suprisinlgy these past days I have had really no jet lag. The rest of the nights I can just sleep super well and I am not falling asleep anywhere that I shouldn't which is great! (See the video of my zonked out on the bus...) 

The next day we had all of our introductions and it was all great! I met my super cool companion Elder Giles. He is a really really patient and chill guy. All of the missionaries said that I was lucky because I got the most chill companion in the mission. He makes things just so normal and missionary work is fun and just a great thing to do. He really has taught me a lot about everything here and its been very very helpful. He has made me many yummy dinners since we have got here. (My prayers were answered about having a companion who cooks!) My frist day we actually went out and started talking to people on the street! CRAZYYYYYYY!!! I was super nervous, but I made it through. My comp called me the handshake guy because I would just ask old doods if I could shake their hand and then my comp would take over from there. Super fun experience. 

The rest of the week is history! My first night we taught english class to really sweet family. I got to hang out with the 10 year old kid and I taught him how to play hangman and some other games. He really sat me down in rock paper scissors which was definite a funny thing to watch. Including that class, we taught three classes all together this week! Really fun stuff.

I actually got to teach my first lesson on friday! Brand new person looking into the church and he actually speaks english really well and korean not very well so we taught him in english! His name is Alex and he is literally my age. He is from a country around russia so he speaks fluent russian, but his full blood korean. I really have a love for this kid. Such a hero! Really smart and really wants to know the truth about God and his church. He absolutely loves the book of mormon and is reading it a ton. He came to church on sunday and we got to teach him more there as well. He is gonna come watch general conference with us on saturday and sunday(in korea we watch it a week later because of translation). I am excited to see where that is going!

At church I tried to shake a womans hand which is like major major MAJOR taboo. I think I have never been so red in my entire life! I will definetly never make that mistake again! But I redeemed myself when I gave a rousing sermon from the pulpit in sacrement meeting...aka...a few sentences about myself and a very short testimony haha. 

Today is Pday and we have a lot of stuff to do! So sorry for the lack of details about my very first week. I am really grateful to be here in korea and to do all these amazing things for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know that I am his disciple and that he has called me to teach others about a gospel that brings families closer together, provides eternal salvation, and helps people know who their Savior is!

Love you all!

Elder Meeks

Pictures will come in another email!