사랑하는 친구와 가족!!

 

I can hardly believe that I am finally almost heading to Korea! This past Thursday evening, I got my travel plans. We meet at the travel office at 4 am (which means I be waking up around 3...) and head to the airport. Our flight leaves SLC around 8 am and we land in San Francisco at about 9 their time (which is about 10 our time). We have a two hour layover in SF, leave at 11 straight for Korea. We land in Korea at about 3 pm the next day, their time, but I think the flight is about 13-15 hours. So pretty much I get to time travel next week and skip a day. I can't wait to be going! It's pretty intimidating, but mostly exciting. I know that I have so so sooooo much to still learn, but rather than focusing on what I'm not prepared to do, I think it will be best if I just focus on what I know I am prepared to do - to give my very best in learning and serving the people. I can do that. I just won't be too good at it for a while.

 

All of the new Korean missionaries that came last Monday are native Korean who flew from South Korea, so it has been a ton of fun getting to know them, learning from them, asking lots of questions, and getting in some good Korean practice as we struggle to effectively communicate back and forth at times. The other Zone Leader, the Coordinating Sister, and I all got to do our intro/orientation spiel again for the native Koreans and it was so much fun. We went to their introduction testimony meeting with the Branch Presidency on Thursday night and it was pretty incredible. I could only pick out a few words and bits of grammar when they were bearing their testimonies, so I really couldn't understand much of what they were saying, but it was a really spiritual meeting. I think it is so incredible that even though I couldn't understand hardly anything, I could feel the spirit so strong during the meeting. It is comforting to me that even though I won't be very effective at communicating at first, the Spirit isn't hindered by those language barriers. All of the Koreans are a ton of fun to talk with and to be around. It has been so fun to have them here. Sunday night, I had a good (and quite broken) conversation with one of the Koreans about pride and loving the people, which was cool. That same night, I also taught one of the Koreans to tie a tie. I noticed that when we went to the temple all together last Tuesday (which was absolutely incredible!) he had one of the other Koreans tie his tie for him. So on Sunday, I asked him if he wanted to learn and we practiced it a few times. It was a lot of fun. They are incredible people. I love Koreans already and I can't wait to go be among them and serve them every day!!

 

On Sunday, our Branch President was released because he needs time to prepare to be my mission president this Summer. He is amazing, so it was sad to know he is leaving the MTC, but it wasn't too bad because I know I can just look forward to seeing him later this year in Korea! His wife is also so sweet. Her English is pretty broken and heavily accented, so I am excited for when I can actually communicate in Korean so that I will be able to talk to the Korean her. I thought I was going to be released as Zone Leader on Sunday because that's how they have always done it in the past, but instead, they are keeping us as Zone leaders for this week, but calling a third Zone-leader-in-training to shadow us and learn from us this week. I think they are hoping it will make the transition a little easier and smoother. I don't really mind. We also had another Korean film night on Sunday, which was fun. But this time, they didn't use the subtitles, so I just had to listen. I didn't catch many full phrases or ideas, but I caught a lot of words and grammar forms and could sometimes piece together the meaning. It's slow, but it's definitely coming!

 

I had a somewhat funny experience yesterday during one of our classes. For class, we talked about 전도-ing (jundo-ing, a.k.a. proselyting) and then we just went throughout the MTC and found random people to talk to and share a message with. The purpose was mostly just to be comfortable with it and to learn to have quality conversations and share a message without it being robotic or awkward. So as we were doing this, we ran into some German Elders who are leaving today who were actually doing a similar activity. So we let them share a message in German before we shared a quick message to them. The funny part was that when they were talking, I could understand probably 80-90% of what they were talking about! Obviously their German was really slow and simple, so that made a difference, but I couldn't help but be slightly jealous that I could understand more German than Korean. It just made me laugh. But it will come.

 

That's pretty much it for this week. We are just getting all ready to head out to Korea and to be as prepared as possible. President Shin said that they are considering putting another temple in Korea, but that they are currently thinking about putting it in the Pusan mission. So he said we should work really hard and have an unofficial competition with the Pusan mission to see who can get the next Korean temple. That would be incredible.

 

As for my spiritual thought for the week, during the devotional last Tuesday, we learned about becoming perfected and focusing on God's will. One of the biggest things I learned from that and that I think I continue to learn throughout my stay here so far is that we really cannot do this ourselves. We cannot perfect ourselves and we can't really expect to do all that is asked of us by ourselves. It's not possible!! That is why it is so important to remember every single day that we are children of God and that this is His work. It won't help me to get up each day asking "Am I good enough for this work?" or "Am I perfect yet?" because those questions are solely inward and are focused on my ability to do this work, and not God's. Rather I should remember that God is good enough for this work and God is perfect and as I look outward and focus on His will, He will direct this work and magnify my best efforts. He can do all things. I know that through God and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, all our imperfections and inabilities, all our trial and sorrow, will be made up and can be blessed and strengthened as we turn our lives over to Him. This is such and incredible work and this truly is God's gospel. The church is true!!!

 

I love you all! 감사합니다!!

 

Love, Elder Tolman