Elder Nathan Stagg: MTC Week 4

Hey everyone how are you all doing!?! I am loving the MTC still! It gets harder and harder to wake up in the morning but we had a talk by Elder Ballard on Sunday and he told us that we need to wake up every morning at 6:30 excited to spend another day serving the lord! Ever since i've been following his advice the mornings are slowly getting better!!Sorry if my spelling is getting bad! I think everyday in korean, I speak every day in as much korean as i can! and there are even times when i am writing things down I will accidently spell an english word but using half korean alphabet and half english its weird! haha Umm Its crazy to see how fast time flies by! The days go by slow but the weeks fly by!! But today marks my One month mark!! Only 23 more to go!! I am already 1/24 the way into my mission! Some highlights of my week have been:

Thursday

I started reading Our Search for happiness and love it so much! The book is talking like I am an investigator and its cool to kind of see the way they see! It puts things in a really cool prospective! So today in class i was kind of goofing around with our district and we weren't focusing on studying and learning in our class times! The spirit wasn't really in the room anymore because we were kind of acting like highschoolers again! About an hour later we had to teach one of our investigators and we went in to the lesson prepared. During the lesson I had forgotten almost all the korean i know and struggled to say even simple sentences! we just got wrecked! after the lesson we evaluated ourselves and determined that because we weren't being obedient the spirit wasn't with us! It was a very humbling experience, i thought that i had learned so much korean and it turns out that I had learned almost no korean, but god had given me some of his knowledge of korean to help me out! It reminded me of the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon, they would be having hardships (trying to learn korean) then god would start blessing them and make them prosper (gift of tongues) and then they would get prideful and boastful and forget the role god played in there success (me not using my time wisely because i thought i could do it with out help) And then god shows them what they really are without him (me getting destroyed in my lesson! So that night i prayed about and the next day tried my hardest to have the spirit to be with me and when we taught our lesson it was a night and day difference! We were able to understand the general idea of the questions and answer them! it was soo cool! and it helped my testimony grow on the power of the holy ghost and the gift of tongues! Im glad i had that experience in the MTC instead of the temple! if i go into someone house to teach them without the spirit i won't be successful and i could of missed the one time in that persons life where they were ready to hear the gospel! So i can't let that happen again!

Friday

Today was elder Golden's Birthday! And it also was service morning! so i got assigned to vaccum the third floor which was where our class room was, i quickly did it and then went in and decorated our room for him! I figured it was better than doing more cleaning! haha it was pretty cool! ill post pictures below! Today we had to teach or lesson with out a script in korean, we could only bring what we wanted to say in English then needed to translate it in our heads! Since the spirit was with me i surprised my self and did a very good job! It was felt a lot more like a lesson rather than me trying to read korean to him and then he says random noises back to me where i just nod and say nay! (yes) This felt like an actual lesson it was so cool! Its fun talking to the new korean missionaries it makes me feel so smart and old! haha its very rewarding to see! Well today my district finally convinced me to buzz my head! So I used Elder Minsons hair buzzer thing and shaved 4 the top of my head down to a "3" then let Elder vongsayo do the rest! IT looks really weird, really bad, and really funny! But its so nice not having to do my hair!

Sunday

I love sundays!! Its very relaxing, we get to go to the temple and walk around! Its just so peaceful! For our devotional we had Elder Ballard talk to us a lot about being happy and smiling and letting our light shine forth to influence others! Turning over our life to god, he said " If we can forget ourselves, and replace that with the love of Christ. We can become a useful tool (or instrument) in heavens hands!" and i loved that! I feel like all i ever here from people here is to forget my self... so i think that might be kind of an important thing for me to do! He said "we needed to be aligned with christ! Its hard, its tiring, but when we know, and we are testifying of christ, it becomes a part of us!" I loved his talk so much and related to it a ton! We watched the new meet the mormons tonight and i loved it! I strongly advise all of you to watch it its amazing! The last one talked about this popular japanese band and was showing japan and stuff, it got us all hyped for korea cause japan and korea are basically the same thing! haha

Monday

Tonight we had our TRC's again, and we went in with no script! we talked about the book of mormon, spirit, and prayer. We invited them to continue to read the book of mormon and pray about it! The spirit was so strong in there! I love TRC's becuase it feels real, they aren't out teachers, they are REAL people!! It gets me hyped for korea! Elder Kowal left today, even though he got here a week after me! Im excited to share our expierinces when we get back!

Tuesday

Tonight Elder Cook came to teach us for our devotional! He talked about how we need to rejoice over this call that we got from the lord! That hit me deep! I have been excited to go on a mission i have look forward to it! But i don't think I've rejoiced at the OPPORTUNITY that i have to serve the lord!! He said we need to know 4 things on how to become a disciple of christ, 1 Love your companion, we need to always find something to learn from our companion! 2 We need to love the people! Its essential that we respect the people, respect the culture, and love them!! 3 Love your mission president!! He said something really cool that I have never heard before! He said that sometimes when they are picking missions that they don't get inspiration that this missionary needs to go to korea... but rather that this missionary needs to be with this mission president! I thought this was soo cool!! and 4 Love the lord!! If we love the lord and try to make him happy it will make us be good missionaries!

So In the past week we have had 3 apostles speak to us!! We were talking to the President of the Korean Branch and he said that they usually only get one apostle every 3 months, and that they have never had this many apostles come in a row! He said most missionaries will go there whole MTC stay and not see one apostle come to a devotional! So we are greatly blessed!!! Its been soo cool!! They all have such good talks and all of them have made me change things so i can get better!!

Quotes from this week:

"We are disciples of Jesus Christ, we've been called to preach his word, or to be his instruments" -Sister Cook

"As missionaries we are our first converts!" -Sister Cook

"Expect nothing, but appreciate everything" -Ron Stagg

"Failing is essential for growth" -Sister Goodwin

"Doubt your doubts, not your beliefs!" -President Uchtdorf

I love my mission so far! I love seeing how far I have grown in the Korean language. Can't wait for the adventure ahead of me!!

Love

Elder Stagg