Lots of Photos!!!

Spencer's Desk

Laundry

UGLY TIES

Messing with the air

Spencer's class

Ugly ties again



Halloween in the MTC

Mouse Catching Crew

Eating Kimchi (Spicy)

Singing to the leaving missionaries

Song they made (to make a man out of you)

Week 6

wow I don't think you guys realize that you are one of my biggest motivations out here. Thank you for all the support that you all constantly send my way, I love you!!! I love hearing about all the things going on at home and in your lives! Remember, you never can be too detailed! ;-) 

This week we had a group above us left which was really bitter sweet. We had grown close to them and were sad to see them go. Because of tradition, we as the middle district prepared a missionarized version of a song to sing them on their last night. We did "I'll make a man out of you" and it was fantastic! I'll find a copy and send it to you guys! We also sing them "God be with you till we meet again", in Korean which always gets the emotions rolling! That night also made us realize how close we are to leaving,(we're the oldest district now), and got us bother really scared and really excited, mostly really scared. 

 

That same night I think we had a nice little experience... A mouse came to reek havoc on our residence hall! Now there's an elder from California, and it shows, who was screaming, this was way past curfew by the way haha. So me, Wilson, Lunt, and Allen go corner it into a room and began a game of chicken with it! It actually made it into another room before I caught it! I jumped on it with this boxed and the battle was finally over! They wanted to kill it but I insisted we free it outside, so we named it Kim and released it into the world! 

 

Mom, you are now an Idol in this residence hall. That toaster oven was the best investment of $18 ever! I've decided to pass it down from generation to generation!

 

So I want to stay updated on Halloween and I want pictures. Dad asked me a load of questions so I'm just going to answer those real quick! :-) During gym we don't really do any chants for our scriptures or prophets or anything. Every morning I go run a mile and then do a nice core workout, then cooling of with some 4 square hahahaha. On P-days we do beach volleyball out by the fields with the whole district and it's a load of fun (mainly because no one is that good)! We also asked about the food, to be honest you start seeing repeats within your first week so not much variety. We all know what to avoid now, unfortunately even the decent stuff messes up your system hahah. And yes dad, the elders gas problems here are ridiculous... dad, this is a pretty supportive group, we had some issues spark up for a bit. I didn't realize how powerful complete honesty and truthfulness can be and how useful it is to fixing problems! 

 So I heard about Big Fish... And I am so jealous!!! I would of loved to see that! I know you guys enjoyed it for me though ;-) I have to ask, did they send a baby sliding down a hallway hahahaha? 

 In the last 40 days I have probably read just short of 400 pages of the book of Mormon. I am just about 40 pages left until I'm finished and I couldn't be more excited!!! I cannot explain my enthusiasm and love for the Book. It makes me wonder why I had never read it with such great intent and purpose before... I am so grateful for the effects it has had on me. I know if you all met me again right at this moment you would have to take a second to realize how much I've changed. I have grown closer to our Lord and Savior. I have seen small little everyday miracles performed by him, I have seen his gentle guiding hand in my life and it is something I pray I will be able to share with everyone. We are his children, and just like a mother loves her newborn child, God loves us with a mercy and love tough to comprehend. Even the ones who don't know him, the lost sheep of the world, even them the Lord, our shepherd, loves unconditionally to the ends of the world and forever on. "Many are kept from the truth, because they know not where to find it", I am a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to bring the light of Christ and the everlasting love of a father into their lives, and I couldn't be more grateful. I love you all with all my heart, My family is my world. And I serve the lord to bring the knowledge of eternal families to others. I love you all so much.

 All my love, 

Elder Fox :-)

36 days

Hey all of you :-) I love you guys :-) I'm so happy you guys had such a great time up camping! I'm so bummed that I was not able to be up there with you guys but I'm sure you had just as great of a time without me! I love knowing you guys were up in one of my favorite places on earth!. I hope that you told everyone up there hi for me! I hope you guys are feeling as blessed as I am. Of course there will be those days of homesickness and loneliness but I know that I'm doing the right thing here and that it is growing my testimony along with preparing me to be my own man for the future. 

So let me just tell you all a little more about life here at the MTC. I'll be honest it's kinda rough, I mean like training for ragnar rough. There is not a drop of caffeine here! I feel like I'm being forced to enjoy root beer more than I ever have before. That's what happens when you have such a low variety of choice... The food... That is a whole subject on it's own! Well every Sunday and Wednesday we have ice cream for lunch and dinner. Sunday because it's Sunday and Wednesday to kinda help out the new arrivals. But for me it's not just getting old hahaha. The food at most times is bearable, nothing to boast about though that's for sure. And the first few weeks it throws your body off unexplainable ways. (lets just say that the English elders are lucky their here only 2 weeks) Because week 3, most people end up sick hahaha! I didn't, of course ;-).

 

My Korean is moving along just fine, I feel as if I've learned more about this language in the last week than I have in the whole time here! At the end of the day you definitely feel it though, I only just collapse on my bed and wonder if I can Korean every again! When I get to call you guys on the way to the airport I will show you guys just a little of what I know :-) (BTW I need a couple burner phones soon!)

Every Tuesday and Sunday we have devotionals, most the time its someone we've never heard of but we've had a couple members of the seventy come so far! (no apostles yet though) But that's expected because we got general conference! But on Sundays we get to go see a church movie after the devotional and most the time they're really good but every once and a while we'll go to a movie in Korean and just laugh/cry as we realize that they talk way way way to fast! 

So this week in the Secret tie draft I unfortunately got one of the worst ties hahaha! It was a tie covered in roller skates and just said "skate" everywhere!!! I only wore it half the day because we had devotional later that day and I'd prefer to not get panned over during choir and everyone see that ugly tie! My companion however had a Christmas tie on and wore it proud!

I need more pictures of you guys!!!! and some more of those adorable puppies! they look like they're growing like crazy!!! I have no idea how you guys expect to get rid of them when they're that adorable :-) 

So I'm just going to real quick tell you the amazing story I had this week. Last Friday we were pulled aside for one on two coaching and what me and elder Wilson were told was that we had to be more unified in our lessons. We really took this to heart. I know that these lessons are just role-play but I'll tell you guys that the spirit is so extremely strong in them. Over the last week we had 2 of the strongest lessons we've ever had. The teacher never is really supposed to give you feedback about your lessons because no investigator is going to tell you how you did, but our teacher came back in and came up to us and told us how amazing our lesson was! This lesson that we taught (in Korean) was not the lesson we went in there planning to teach. It is amazing how strongly the spirit will guide a lesson if you are willing to take its guidance. The next day during our lesson about the same thing happened, we had had him watch a video about God's love for us (BTW if you guys are ever bored just go watch bible videos and Mormon messages they are amazing!) anyway he was asking questions and I asked him about his faith in Christ and God. He told us about his faith and I then asked him if he'd show that faith to God by being baptized. After a moment of silence... he said yes. My Companions head shot up and I was completely overwhelmed with emotion. I tried to tell him how happy we were for him making this choice and finally was able to through my tears. The Holy Ghost was as if a fire. I know it normally speaks in a still small voice, but this was a roar. A roar of overwhelming joy and happiness for my brother, who just took a step forward in his life. It made me think about how God must feel when we obey his commandments, the undeniable love he has for us is something that lesson truly testified to me.

I love you guys so much and I hope you're all doing alright! I love you guys so much!!!

Keep me updated! I love you guys with all my heart :-) Miss you guys!

Elder Fox

It's Been One MONTH!!!

hey all of you guys! I just wanted to say that I'm so grateful for the support you've all given me! Isn't it crazy how tomorrow it's going to be one month!?? You guys really are such an inspiration for me and while I've been out here I have thought about you guys endlessly. All of you are such a great motivation here that it excites me to go out into the world and share the true blessing of Eternal Families with everyone I meet.

 thank you so much for the photo album that you guys sent me! I was finally able to show you all to the people that I've been spending everyday with!:-) Again, I have absolutely adored the pictures sent to me so far! In that care package you also sent me a mini-fridge, I was semi-joking about that request but now you sent it I'm practically a celebrity in the dorms! There's multiple requests to use it and I may make a waiting list, haha thank you for that!

 I am so jealous of you guys out camping right now! I have pictured myself out there with you guys and it's just a sweet taste of home. Please tell me everything you guys do out there, please!

 So I'm going to tell you guys about what other things I have been up to here but first I want to start out telling you guys the crazy/irregular things! haha Well probably the worse thing about our classroom is the temperature. It is so warm! We call it napping temperature... We thought that it could be fixed if we, well... Steamed the Thermostat. Lets just say it got the AC cranking hard, then it wouldn't stop! We realized, after closer inspection, that we may have melted the wires so now it always thinks it's hot hahaha! whoops! Another thing we did was the secret tie draft where we auction off the ugliest ties to be worn the next day(so I'd love if you sent me a disgusting tie ;-)). I got a pretty bad one myself and I need to seek revenge!

 My P-days consist of laundry early in the morning while I email, lots of exercise time, and then the temple, which is that much more beautiful looking at it in this new found light of mine :-). Every night over the intercom we hear in a voice like Jim Gaffigan's impression of God say, "It is now 10:15, Quiet Time". It is seriously the weirdest thing getting to bed at this time!

 So yesterday In my lesson I had one of the strongest spiritual experiences yet! I was giving a lesson about baptism and i knew I was struggling slightly getting my point across in Korean, but then a thought, as if it wasn't my own, told me: "Just bear your testimony". It is amazing how much:

 저는 형제님을 사랑합니다. 하나님은 혀제님을 사랑합니다. 저는 이것을 알습니다. 구분은 우리의 아버지 입니다.  

 Or for English, I love you, god loves you. I know this, he is our father." can invite the spirit. Yes very simple, and I knew it wasn't much, but the room was flooded with the spirit. It was enough to let this investigator, someone so completely unfamiliar with the spirit, feel something never before felt by him, It was nice.

 I would love it if you guys would write to me more!!! Also seriously it would help me with my organization so much if you just wrote down a list of questions in one dear elder and just sent it to me so I could make sure I answered everything, I love you guys so much! I love hearing from you all and I miss you so much, please have a good time for me while up at camping. Trust me I am sooooooo jealous of all of you right now so please don't take it for granted. I love you guys so much, I know you guys pray for me as much as I pray for you, I hope that you have seen the blessings that have appeared in your life as much as I've seen them in mine. :-) Keep smiling and know I am always thinking of you guys :-)

3rd week

Hey guys! Time is definitely flying by here, I'll be honest, I swore just 2 days ago was P-day! So sorry if this isn't the best email because it definitely feels like I'll be only writing about 3 days here! I've been having some great experiences here, I have been able to concentrate completely on learning Korean and I feel like it's coming along pretty well! I have memorized hundreds of words (like seriously I have HUGE stacks of flashcards). I don't know how I'm going to do it, to be able to talk to people who I've never met and tell them in their language about the restored gospel, but I have complete and utter faith that through the holy ghost I'll be able to invite others unto Christ.

 So I guess it would be ridiculous if I didn't talk about general conference in my mission email right? haha I have to say that it was aaaamazing! Watching it in the MTC  is definitely a completely new experience that I wouldn't trade for anything! I learned so much from this general conference and was extremely sad when it was over. I did find one part of it unfair, Elder Holland's talk about mothers, not fair. In the MTC we're all missing our moms so much and that talk just was perfect, there was hardly a dry eye in the room, especially mine! Another talk that I hope you all listened to was, "Ponderizing" I hope you all have a scripture picked out! I can't express how important to me the scriptures are now. I mean, I knew they were important when I got here but I did not understand in the slightest the power and comfort that they hold. I have read the Book of Mormon for my personal time every day and I get disappointed when I have to stop! I'll be trying to send you guys some scriptures to look so you guys can share with me in this experience :-). I can testify of the truthfulness in these words from God. I have opened my heart to understanding and pondering scriptures, and it is true; if you will read them and pray about them to your Heavenly Father with a sincere heart, the spirit will manifest it's truthfulness to you. So after general conference we had a special devotional from Vocal Point which was pretty awesome. The power of music really does influence inspiration and peace, they were completely different than any other devotional we've had so it was a really nice mix up. That day we went and watched the restoration in Korean. It was really cool, but really really funny. Haha the voice overs were probably the cheesiest things I've ever heard! But on the other side it was a little overwhelming too because of the speed of their speech.

 I love you guys so much, I'm sorry if I didn't write that much but I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm thinking about you guys all the time. I hold dear to me the letters I get from all of you and wish I could give you big hugs for all the support you guys have given me!  I can't wait to hear your voices in 6 weeks, It is CRAZY to think that I am already a 3rd of the way down with the MTC. Like wow! Next week it'll be a month, It really is fascinating at how quickly time moves here.

 thanks for everything you guys!

2nd Week

Wow.. 2 weeks already!?!? The weeks are definitely fast here! Thank you guys so much for the letters throughout the week they are such a pick me up no matter what mood I'm in :-) So as you all know my dad has been nagging me with a million different questions so hopefully I'll be able to provide ;-)

Well everyday starts the same, too early. I wake up at 6:30 every morning and go straight to gym, us Koreans are lucky because of that. I feel myself getting healthier and stronger (I run every morning). We then get back, get ready and go to breakfast. Then the real work begins, we go back to our rooms and plan our lesson for the day (we teach a lesson in Korean 5 out of every 7 days) After that we go tour lovely classroom at the 5th floor and do personal study, companion study, and Korean study, each for an hour. We then have a little additional study for ourselves then we have lunch. After lunch we go to class taught by a returned missionary for 3 hours, more add. study, then dinner. Back to class for another 3 hours, go to the dorms and relax for about 10 minutes, then write in our journals and go to bed. Hope you're happy dad ;-)

As for my district we all speak Korean and we're all going to Korea, haha except one elder going to New Jersey! The three elders I've specifically mentioned are going to Busan! 

 This week we viewed Richard G. Scott's funeral and it made me regret not watching any other apostle's funerals. It also got me really excited for general conference, and it is going to be a BIG ONE!

 This week I also got the opportunity to participate in a blessing for the sick, I anointed the oil. I felt the spirit so strongly that moment I was truly overwhelmed.

 Speaking of the spirit, it is truly something above this world. I had a couple days where I felt like I was stuck in a rut and I couldn't keep a grasp on the Holy Ghost like I was normally able to. Then I prayed.. I didn't just talk to God, I poured my very soul to him in prayer. I begged for peace, for my heart to be freed from the troubles that had overcome them and mocked me. I awoke the next morning knowing my prayers had been answered. read (Mosiah 27:25), that is the only way I can describe it. I was reborn, I was reborn onto Christ. I know that my savior lives, there is no way in this world where I could speak in a language completely unknown to me 2 weeks ago and be now be able to read scriptures, fully pray, sing hymns, tell a man I am his brother for we are all God's children and so much more save it be a miracle. The Lord is with me and I pray every night he won't leave my side again. 

 I am like the sons of Mosiah (Alma 17-27) amazing chapters you guys should definitely read it. This book has changed me, in 10 days I've read 170 pages and everyone knows that I'm not the biggest fan of reading haha. I will go out to the front lines of the adversary and proclaim the truthfulness of the gospel, to be an instrument in the Lord's hands. I love you guys so much, I miss every single one of you. by the way mamas those cookies you and papas sent made me feel so at home (there was definitely a frenzy for them with the other elders haha). 

 I love you all so much!!! 

Until we meet again