Elder Nathan Stagg: Final MTC Entry

안녕하세요 모든 사람들! Well i leave to Korea in 3 days!! I leave here at 3 in the morning and i leave SLC at 8:46 then I go to Seattle and from there to tokyo for 5 hours and then finally I arrive in Busan Tuesday night at 9:45!! So I am way excited and nervous for that! Also this is probably my last long post because i have so much more time to write in the MTC then i do in the field! So sorry if they start getting kind of short! Everyone keeps telling me that the korean i learn here is Seoul Korean and Busanites speak completley different!! So yay!!! I already know nothing but its good to know that i am going to get there and have to restart my learning!! haha keep me in your prayers i can definitly use them! but other than the language part i am so ready to go to korea and teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ!! Korea has the #1 highest suicidal rates in the world and they, from what i have heard, are very depressed! In the last general conference the general theme was joy. and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the best way to experience true joy on this earth!! Elder Bednar came to the MTC Tuesday night for our devotional and he talked a lot about how to study General confrence! Apparently he was here exactly 45 years ago and he talked about how different conference was since he was in the MTC! I was able to relate so much! Something that he said that i found very cool was that, they don't plan the talks with each other but what he said was "The apostles don't coordinate talks, heaven does, Heaven orchestrates the theme." Then he talked about how he takes notes during conference. He says he makes 4 columns: 1) The speaker 2) The Doctrine or Principle 3) Invitation 4) Promised Blessings. I found it very cool to think that even ELDER BEDNAR takes notes during conference, it made me feel kind of bad that I never take notes! So i was glad i started taking them since i got here!

Thursday!

Today we got our Korean name tags!! We were all so excited!! My companions name tag translates exactly over to Elder Service (Bongsayo)! Today we taught simon again, we taught him about families and god. When we started asking him about his family and reading scriptures we noticed that he started getting teary eyed! His family lives in Seoul and from what i could make out he doesn't talk to them very often but after our lesson he felt very strongly that he needed to call them up that night! The spirit was so strong in the room me and elder vongsayo walked out of there feeling so awesome! It got me excited for teaching in the field!

Sunday!

Today was my second fast Sunday in the MTC, it is crazy to see how my fasts have changed from since I left!! For the Past 2 weeks i have been looking forward to leaving so much that i never realized how nice this place is! The spirit is always in abundance here and its just nice! I am going to miss it! I can see how much better i have gotten at the language but at this point i would trade it all for being able to understand them! Because when they speak i have no idea what they are saying! haha they sound like I did when i spoke english but on steroids and speaking nonsence!! haha so that should be fun! I am way excited to see where i get assigned to serve, it is almost like waiting for my call again! haha There are some spots that are very very poor in busan and very cold, there are spots that are very rich and huge cities, there are warm coastal cities and then there are islands! So I could literally go anywhere! Lol I see my friends that are on missions and i read there stories and look at there pictures and my heart yearns for that and now its finally here!! I can't wait!

Those were the two days that I wrote in my journal for this week! I got to get better at that!

I challenge you all to go back and study the conference talks like the way Elder Bendar counseled us to do!

"Make conference your'e walk and talk for the next 6 months" -Elder Bednar

My next post will be in Korea!!

Anyonghegasyo!!

Elder Stagg