Hey Fambily!!

Hey Everyone! I hope things are going well at home.  Here are a few highlights of the week!  :)

On Sunday, my district sang, "How Great Thou Art" in our Sacrament Meeting. It was really neat. We sang it in Korean, acapella.

My District is doing a "3D" sign, cause that is our district, haha!

Also last night a new Korean sister missionary showed up at the MTC! Today is when they are all coming! And she said that she knew Allie from Korea! She said that one time she was in a fast and testimony meeting and Allie bore her testimony, and it gave her the courage to share hers, too, because Allie was new to Korean! So way to go, sis! Also a few weeks ago she saw Allie, and said her Korean is great and Allie can understand everything she said to her. Awesome! It made me so happy to meet her. She is going to be a great missionary.

Yesterday was the weekly Tuesday devotional. Spencer (J?) Condie spoke and was awesome! He used a lot of humor in what he said, haha! He quoted President Hinckley at one point and imitated his voice--it was pretty good! He talked about the vision of the Tree of Life and the different parallels it has. One cool thing about it is that the water by the tree was pure and clean, but as it flowed downstream, it became more murky. And in Nephi it says that the filthiness of the water separated the great and spacious building from the Tree of Life--oftentimes Satan mixes up, twists, and modifies truth in order to prevent people from reaching to God. And sometimes things are quite different than they seem to be, and we just have to keep pressing forward through the mist until the Tree of Life comes back into view!

With Benton Tripp!!

We are still teaching about every day.  I am loving it. Teaching is probably my favorite thing that we do (but gym time is right up there...). It is cool because we kind of see the Korean fruits of our classroom labors, haha! I loved our second TRC, too. It was super neat, and we taught this sweet Korean sister who was so bubbly and fun.  I hear that a lot of Koreans are like that :).

My District!

There are definitely ups and downs here! I am learning that when I am physically tired I am super susceptible to Satan's fiery darts, which is tough, because I am exhausted a lot. So I am working on staying excited and active and turning outward rather than inward. I encourage you all to listen to Character of Christ by Elder Bednar! It mentions how Jesus Christ's defining characteristic is that he turns outward when we would selfishly turn inward. It is awesome.

Korean is going well! I really love the language and my teachers. And my district has a pretty good reputation of being one of the best districts in the Celestial branch :)

You have to do the famous back flip picture at the MTC!

This is a really nice elder, a convert from Haiti.

This is Elder Y--he is one of my best friends here.

One awesome thing was on the 24th, for the Devo, we sang with the Nashville Tribute band! It was so fun and awesome. I was skeptical about their type of music, but it was honestly just what I needed. It picked me up. They would tell a story about Joseph Smith or read a scripture, and then sing a song about it. I was in the choir and we sang 3 songs with them. Seriously, I thought they were cheesy as anything, but when we actually performed with them, it was powerful to hear the huge MTC choir, the biggest group they've had, singing together about missionary work. We sang, "When the Son of Man Comes Again," "John's Song," and "I was Born."  It was great! You could feel how much the band loved God, the Gospel, and us, and it translated to a powerful spiritual feeling.  When we love God, the Gospel, and our investigators (or home teaching, visiting teaching families, students, etc.) it results in a more powerful feeling of the spirit with us :)

Love

Elder Beckett

Week 2! (July 20, 2016)

Hey My dear Kajok!

Week 2 is almost complete. I have loved hearing about your fun adventures with Pokemon (Yes, I understood Mindy, haha; I have had experience in this area!) and climbing Deseret Peak and everything. It is awesome!  It is way fun to hear from you all!

With Elder Thurgood!

My Korean is coming along well, so that is cool! It is really hard, but as we are putting in the time, it is making more and more sense. We have taught a bunch of lessons. So cool story:  Your 3rd day here you teach a new investigator. That was two Fridays ago. We ended up teaching him (His name was K.E.S) about 5 times; and then we found out that we weren't teaching him anymore. We were sad about it, because he was a cool guy and super nice.  Anyway, we have 3 class sessions per day generally, and we found out during the afternoon one that we were done teaching him. That night after dinner, we came in and there in our classroom with a teacher nametag was K.E.S! He is now our second teacher! So we have Sister G who you kind of know about, and now Brother K! He is from Korea somewhere and served in the Busan mission! It is really cool to have a native Korean as a teacher. He is really patient. We are his first group of non-native Korean missionaries. So I thought Brother D was our teacher, but it turns out that he was just helping out. Anyway, we love our teachers. Now we teach them, and they take roles as investigators, so it is really neat. You can still feel the spirit when you teach them, because the Spirit will testify of truth! Different teachers have told us that they feel the spirit and often have their own prayers answered when they are taught by the missionaries. In addition to that, different BYU students volunteer for the TRC (Teaching Resource Center or something), and we teach them on Mondays, kind of like family home evening! It is awesome. Still teaching in Korean! Our first lesson was rough (we taught at the TRC for the first time on Monday, two lessons) but our second lesson went well. The people are very patient and loving! :)

Each Sunday night at the MTC, there is a devotional, and then after the devotional we go watch LDS movies. Most of them are talks by general authorities--for example, Elder Holland has a couple talks about Missionary Work that they play. In addition to this, the probably most well-loved and attended one is Character of Christ by David A. Bednar. It is incredible! It is motivating, encouraging, and inspiring in a humorous and blunt way. He is pretty straight forward in this talk. Anyway, so on Sunday we were all in this big building called 19M where they have the devotionals. We were wondering who was going to speak, but then one of the MTC presidency counselors stood up and said that, as a presidency, they had decided to watch Character of Christ as an entire MTC. So we watched that for the devotional, and it was amazing. Some people were bummed because it was their second time seeing it. It was my 2nd time, but it was great.

I love the temple!

Me and my companions!

As soon as it was over, the lights came up and everyone stood up. In walked Elder David A. Bednar with his sweet wife! We were all kind of in awe, and just felt so happy. The MTC counselor stood up again and said, "Elder and Sister Bednar know that we show Character of Christ each Sunday night, and they occasionally decide to surprise us and show up to answer any questions about the Character of Christ that missionaries may have. Tonight is one of those nights."

Elder & Sister Bednar proceeded to answer questions for about an hour. It was beautiful. I know that he is inspired of God. I had a question I wanted to ask him, but I never got called on. However, a different sister asked a different question, and while answering the question, Elder Bednar kind of switched subjects and answered my question:)  Then at the end, he said something to the effect of "How many of you, who did not ask your questions, had your questions answered tonight? Now you can't see what I can, but I see a congregation of many missionaries smiling in response to that question. Now I could not have done that. That is the Spirit of the Lord. I know, by feelings and senses more sure than sight, that God exists and that Jesus is our Savior." And he bore his testimony; it was really beautiful. I had been having a pretty rough day and was thinking about you all, and he really boosted my spirits!

My District with Sister G

Our district is still doing great. I am honored and blessed to be in this district. It is full of loving, honest, hardworking Elders. We have spiritual discussions like I haven't quite experienced before. And we are all friends and brothers; it is really neat!

I sure love you all! Thanks for your Dear Elders, they really do mean sososososo much. Yesterday I received a lot of them, so thank you all! I am working on writing you; it is pretty difficult to find time.

This elder is from Haiti and is a convert of 7 years. What a good, humble elder.

I quickly want to add a testimony of the scriptures, and the power we gain in studying them. Here at the MTC and on the mission, we have 1 hour for personal study each day, and 1 hour for companionship study. During these times, we read from the Book of Mormon, Preach my Gospel, and other standard works. I love the scriptures. I find power in them! Through the scriptures, I feel God's love and I know that the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, bring us nearer to our Father in Heaven. He loves us. He wants us to be close to Him. I encourage you all to set aside more time for the scriptures. It doesn't have to be perfect circumstances. Perhaps while eating breakfast like mom ;), or any other time you can find. When we put in time to learn of God, we show Him our desire to understand, grow closer to, and build our relationship with Him.

Love you so much! I have an amazing family and I am grateful for you all.

Love,

Elder Beckett

Beckett Chong No

Nate

Week 1! July 6-13th, 2016

Hey Family!

Week one has been pretty good. The first few days were pretty tough. Everything was so new and strange, and I was kind of sick in addition to that! I had a headache and sore throat and things. It has gone away now, but I am still so tired and fall asleep within like 10 minutes of sitting down if it is quiet.

Our trio!

My companions are awesome! I am part of a trio! It is me, CS and ZG together.  We are the only three in our residence room. We all get along really well. We are all 6'1" and like sports! They are both super patient and loving and agreeable. And very dedicated and good missionaries! Elder S is from Pleasant View, Utah, and went to Weber High. Elder G is from Layton, Utah, and went to Layton High.

The Best District! :)

My district is all male. We have 9 elders: Elder J from Holiday, Utah, Elder J from Boston, Massachusetts, Elder S from New York, Elder W from Hong Kong, Elder B from Pleasant Grove, Utah, Elder H from Chicago (He is District Leader); and then our trio! We all get along really really well. We have a ton of fun every day in class. Elder S and Elder H both learned general Korean growing up in their homes, but they are better at English than Korean. They help us all a ton with our Korean.

(Nate did not explain this picture... :)

We have taught 3 lessons so far to an "investigator," KES, and tonight is our fourth. It can be pretty difficult. We have hardly any idea what he is saying most of the time, and we just try and search up what he is saying in our Vocabulary/Phrases books and respond. Luckily he is pretty patient ;)  Korean is sooooo hard. Allie, I am starting to feel your pain. It is so different! That is the best way to describe it. We copied down Yorabun Mokchok, which is our missionary purpose, and it seriously translates so random. I am looking hard for patterns, but as soon as the sentence becomes anything more than very simple, I can't quite figure out why it is the way it is. But we are learning!

Cafeteria food!

The food here is way better than everyone says. Just saying. They have the best chocolate milk that I drink frequently. And also you can go get wraps almost everyday that are super good. And the main line has pretty good food, haha. 

The devotionals are pretty great, too! Last night we heard from Bruce C. Hafen. He talked about cowboying up and hanging on. Our testimonies are built as we are consistently true to them and from a lifetime of experience, he said. He talked about the pioneers, and how they were glad to pay the price they did to know God. So that was super neat. And at the end they played "Come, Come Ye Saints" by MoTab. It was really neat!

I haven't been able to be in the MTC choir yet; our branch wasn't invited because the main big building is under construction, so they don't have a whole lot of room. I have seen so many of my friends so far!  I see Brevin Elsholz almost every day; Christian Kelley's residence is on the same floor as mine; I have seen Trenton a few times, and I saw Colton Adams a couple of times before he left on Monday! I also have seen a few kids from Tooele. And today, Benton Tripp, Dillan Rowley, and Tytan Thurgood should be coming in!

Christian Kelley & Nate

Nate & Colton Adams

Today for p-day we went to the temple, we are doing lunch and laundry after this, then exercise, and then teaching a lesson tonight.

I have the BEST family! And thank you so much for writing to me on dearelder.com. They really mean SO MUCH to me.

I love you all! Until next week...I love you, and remember how important love is to the Gospel! It is the center of everything we should do and what God does.

Allie loved this picture at the MTC, and even named the lady in it! Nate found the picture, yay!

Nate and Trenton at the famous MTC map!

Nate & Brevin