Hello Family! Another P-day is already here!
I had a really good week this last week! I'm getting used to it here now. 11 hours in class is normal to me now. Ha. The Korean is getting better. I met with a teacher the other day to do an evaluation. I understood almost everything he said; I just couldn't always respond with clear sentences. He told me that I am right between my group and the group that's six weeks ahead of us. He said that it was up to me what I wanted--to either be behind or to be ahead. I decided that I wanted to stay and that way be more prepared to go out. So, I will be here till June 07 I guess. Oh, well. I feel like I still have a lot to learn before I get to Korea. A lot more to learn about the gospel too.
I hope you guys read some of my favorite talks that I posted last week. They are amazing talks and they made me really excited for conference last weekend. I honestly never really appreciated conference until I came here. Back home I would never watch conference on Saturday and mom would wake me up on Sunday and I would just relocate to the couch and continue to sleep. Haha. I bought a sick leather bound notebook thing to write all of my conference insights and thoughts throughout my mission in. I call it my Sangkok kyong. Thought book. Conference was seriously amazing! It was really hard to sit down for that long, though. You don't get to do much around here but sit and learn.
I'm gonna write some of my favorite quotes up here. I don't have time to put all of them up so I will get through as many as I can.
"Meet adversity with hope, even happiness." When we have adversity we are given a chance to grow. So we should be happy that we get to grow!
"God gave us families to help us become what we need to become." I wouldn't be a missionary right now without my amazing family.
"God doesn't ask for commitment. He asks for our lives."
"The gospel is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
I don't have time to put up all of the quotes that I wanted to, but I wanna say which talks were my favorite. I really loved the talk by Elder Neil L. Anderson. It talked a lot about missionary work and there were so many good quotes we can learn from. I also liked Elder Oaks' talk on desires. What we desire shows what our priorities are.
I also liked Elder Steven E. Snow's talk on hope. I liked Elder Paul V. Johnson's talk. We have to make the "climb" to see the "view." I liked Elder Lynn G. Robbins talk a lot too. And Elder Christofferson's. Elder Holland's talks are always amazing.
I loved Elder Scott's talk about marriage. While marriage is a few years a way there was so much good advice given that so many of the missionaries here just brushed off and ignored. We need to treat women with respect. I've gotten on the case of some of the elders here because they don't respect the sisters. The Korean zone has lots of rules that the other zones don't. We always stand when the sisters sit down in the cafeteria and we always take their trays when they are done. It bothers me soooo bad when missionaries don't respect the sisters.
Sorry. That's pretty much like all of conference right there but they were amazing talks. I can't wait to get the Ensign and read them.
I also wanna say thanks again for all of the support I have had this week. It seriously helps so much. I wish I would have been a better writer to friends and cousins that have gone on missions. It helps so much to hear from those you love. So, thanks!! Keep it up.
Every weekend we have a Task and a TRC. The task is something we have to do all in Korean, like meet someone and get to know them. Then the TRC you have to teach a lesson. Last weekend we had our first one. We just had to introduce ourselves and bear testimony in Korean. Then ask if we could meet again. Then we taught the first lesson in English. We were the companionship that had to teach the teacher instead of another companionship. I felt like I remembered all of my Korean really well. Then we taught our lesson and it went really well. The teacher said that he felt the spirit really strongly and I did too. It was like 45 minutes long. We're supposed to meet to the investigators needs as they present them to us throughout the lesson. It's so weird how when the spirit is there you just know what to say. I never got to a spot where I felt like I didn't know what to say. It's also amazing that you can feel the spirit so strong when you are teaching someone who is pretending to be an investigator. The Lord will help you know what to say no matter what the situation. That's what I've learned this week.
This weekend we have our Task with native Korean people. Then we teach our lesson again. This time we go in a room that has cameras so that our teachers can watch from another room and see how we do with our Korean and see how our lesson goes. Scary, huh? I'm really excited. I am gonna memorize lots of Korean phrases to use this week. After like week five in here we have to teach the whole lesson in Korean! Crazy. It will be so cool. I can't wait till I can just speak Korean. Whenever that day comes.
I have a few minutes left on here. The last thing I wanna say is thanks to my family. You guys truly are amazing. I don't think anyone in the world has a better family that's as supportive and loving as you guys are. I think about you every day and we always talk about our families. Hopefully I can bring families together in Korea and maybe they can be as happy of a family as we are (if that's possible). I miss you guys and love you so much! Thanks for the support. Thanks for your prayers. They really do help!
Love you all!
-Elder Rife
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