Week 5

Subject: Week 5

Another Week down at the MTC!

It's officially been a month. Hallelujah. The oldest group of Korean Speakers got their flight plans yesterday- in a week and a half I'll be in the oldest group! It's a bit intimidating, considering how little Korean I know.. haha. 

Last week at the temple I saw the most tender thing! After the session we were sitting down and I saw this little old couple in the corner. As we all know, old folks aren't exactly the most quiet, and I overheard what the grandpa was saying to his wife. He leaned over to her and said "I"m so very grateful for all the years we've had together. I'm so thankful we could come to the temple together today". It was so simple and sincere and really touched my heart. It reaffirmed for me how important families are and how lucky we are to have the blessing of knowing we can live together forever. Definitely boosted my day!

The devotionals here have been great. On Tuesday we had a real special treat and got to hear from Elder Neil L. Anderson! As you might suspect, it was really inspiring. He spoke on love and sacrifice. His one-liner for the devotional was this: "We sacrifice for the things we love, and we love the things we sacrifice for". In our district discussion following the devotional, we talked about the greatest example of love and sacrifice: moms and dads. It was really profound to think about how much my parents love me, and on an even greater scale how much our Heavenly Father loves us. As a missionary, it's my job to emulate that same kind of love... no pressure, right? But it really was a blessing to realize how much our parents sacrifice for us because they love us. Mom and Dad: thank you so much for everything :) I love you!!

During the devotional, a security personnel ran up onstage and whispered something to President Nally (President of the MTC) and then ran back off. There've been some protesters in front of the MTC lately and I was really hoping it would be something dramatic like a riot going on outside or other crazy thing (I suppose I could've even settled for a bomb threat or potential assassination). After the devotional, President Nally stood up and informed us that, instead of a riot or bomb, there was a severe thunderstorm outside and we were going to have to wait fifteen or twenty minutes until it passed. Leave it to the MTC to take anything potentially exciting and make it boring. Haha but as we sang songs waiting for the storm to pass, Elder Anderson came down and shook some hands. Unfortunately I was one row too far back to shake his hand, but as he walked by me and waved I had the Spirit testify to me that he really was an Apostle of God. Very cool. 

This week we got new Han-gook-saram-dur, meaning a group of missionaries on the accelerated course for Korean, aka native Koreans. They are all awesome and super good at English, one Sister was even so good she was correcting my bad grammar- haha! You'll all get a kick out of this: Three of the Sisters are named Sister Lee, there's a Sister Kim and an Elder Kim, and one Elder Cho. You basically have a 75% of being right if you call them "Lee"!! It's great. So apparently every Korean is a genius at piano, ps. Elder Wagner (the other ZL) and I were giving a tour to them on Wednesday night, when they saw a piano and flocked to it like flies on raw meat. They all started playing, and out of nowhere some old lady shows up and without explaining beckons us to some secret room... there's a big grand piano and the lady tells the Koreans to play on it. Well naturally they whip out these crazy incredible songs, and slowly more and more night workers filter in until suddenly they're giving a personal concert to all these MTC employees! Haha it was great, except 45 MINUTES LATER we realize it's past curfew.. anyways it was a really interesting experience. haha.

Other than that it's been a fairly average week. Elder Wilkinson and I are doing great, and the Korean is slowly but surely, surely slowly coming. The most difficult thing is that every word basically sounds the same, but I have faith I'll get it eventually!! My teachers continue to be awesome and my district's really putting forth an effort to learn faster. The days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like days, as they say.

Love you lots! Thanks again for all the letters and packages (especially Shelley's- THANK YOU SO MUCH! I loved it!!), I continue to appreciate them more than you'll ever know!

Talk to you soon,

Elder Easton