6-28-13

What an exciting week this was! So much to tell about so I hope I can remember everything.

Let’s see.....last Friday started the new mission presidents training on campus so they shut down the cafeteria and upped security around the main building where the mission presidents and general authorities would be. We ate meals in the gym from Friday night through Wednesday night. Since we ate in the gym that means we weren’t allowed to use the gym, so most people went to the field. I sometimes went to the field and sometimes went to the upper track in the gym to run because we could still use that. Saturday was a pretty much normal day.

Sunday was super crazy! Everything was different because of the broadcast that night. First we had a combined priesthood meeting in the gym, I fell asleep for 2 of the 3 talks. For sacrament meeting, there were two sessions of sacrament meeting. If we were in choir, which I was, we went to the 11:15 sacrament meeting. It was half the MTC! Both the bread and water took like 12 minutes each!!! There was probably like 32ish people passing the sacrament, surprisingly they got it to everyone the first try because no one raised their hands when the person conducting asked if everyone got it. After that we had a sack lunch outside. We then left for the Marriott center at 12:45 ish. Everyone was bunched around the gate so when they opened it they could get out. I went with another set of missionaries in my zone that sang tenors so I would have to someone to stick with since none of the people in my district sang tenor. we were pretty close to the front of the gate when they opened it.......but by the time we got to the Marriott, after waiting 30 minutes to get in....I was put to the sides because the middles were already filled up.........even though we were close to the front of the gate almost everyone ran/jogged over just so they could get a good seat....it was kind of rude and not missionary like of them to do. We started practicing around 1:45ish. Although dad you couldn’t find me, I was on the screen! It was about for 3 seconds on a somewhat zoomed out shot, but you can see me. It is at around 3:05 to 3:08, top right corner of the screen standing to the left of a tall elder. I’m in my glasses and light blue tie. I really liked the whole broadcast, overall I felt a very strong spirit the whole time. So you need to try to do more member missionary work!

Monday went by super quick, on Tuesday I woke up thinking it was Monday....Tuesday on the other hand was better.

In class now we are being taught a bunch of stuff that is very useful and I enjoy learning. Brother Sung, my teacher, says that we will be finishing up the whole "MTC curriculum" tomorrow, so we will be learning extra stuff that he thinks will be helpful. Teaching investigators is getting better because we can say non scripted stuff, and understand questions they ask and we can somewhat answer them.

Tuesday night devotional was awesome. First I will talk about choir......compared to the like 1400 people we had sing Sunday, only 500ish of those are devoted choir singers;) it was so little compared to Sundays. The speaker at the devotional was Janice Kapp Perry, she shared lots of awesome things and lots of awesome music. We sang a medley of primary missionary songs and she sang some stuff she wrote. It was so fun and awesome.

The past few days have been blazing hot, we would walk outside and it would just be like walking into an oven compared to the nice air conditioning we have in the buildings. Elder Pickard and another elder from our district went and did hosting for new missionaries so I went on an "exchange" with Elder Luke for a few hours. He is the district leader currently so I got to go pick up the mail with him. 

During the night session of class, our teacher’s Brother Sung and Brother Campbell team taught for an hour. It was the best thing ever because they are both such pro teachers, probably two of the best teachers out of all the districts in our zone. Brother Campbell has been off his mission for 6 months now. Brother Sung says his Korean is very very good.

Thursday was eventful because it was the first day we were back in the gym and the cafeteria.

That’s it for now

Love,

Elder Frampton

6-21-13

Hello from the MTC, home of the sick

I say home of the sick because we have preventative measures thing going on because there is a virus going around. (Our branch presidency said it was an intestinal virus but the MTC news stuff just says it’s a virus). No hand shaking or anything until further notice.  Hopefully I will not get it. This past week I just got over a really bad cough, so I’m finally feeling good again!

So over the next few days they are doing New Mission President training here at the MTC, so they pretty much closed off the main building, which includes the cafeteria, to all missionaries. For the next few days we will be eating sack lunches or something outside or in the gym. They haven’t explained it very well. Also they have all this electrical stuff in the one hall way so I think they are maybe closing it off to get ready for the broadcast. 

Well I’m excited for this Sunday regardless because I get to sing to all the apostles and first presidency during the broadcast. Much better than just being a normal missionary that is there;)

  

So for our lessons, we probably teach 2 times a week, 2 different investigators (our teachers act as the investigators). It is amazing how they act like totally different people and how believable they are. Well I’ve slowly been learning to listen to the spirit for things to say. Although we have a script that we follow, we know enough of the language to be able to just talk things that we want to say (only kind of, I can say that I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God, or if we pray with a sincere heart, we will receive answers) it’s a good thing the spirit helps us because without out it we sound like 3 year olds teaching the gospel. The hardest thing we have learned so far was the counting....they use both Chinese numbers and Korean numbers based on what the use of the numbers is, like Chinese is references like scriptures and minutes....while if you are counting or saying the hours as part of the time it is Korean.

Last Sunday’s devotional was very different but awesome. It was by Stephen B. Allen. He was the Tempe mission president at some point. He used to be a media person for the church, doing commercials and stuff so he taught in his devotional by using old church commercials and then would apply them to us.

The new missionaries going to Korea came Wednesday; there are 5 Sisters and 5 Elders all going to Seoul South Mission. Also in my hall there are 6 Elders out of a total of like 26 missionaries that are leaving Tuesday for...............PHILADELPHIA! Just thought I'd let you know.

  

Guess that’s it for this week. Until next week..

Love Elder Frampton

My District

6-14-13

So this week was pretty good. Walking up to the temple every Friday for a session and then on Sunday for just a walk is always super hot because we are in our suits.

The days feel so long but the weeks go by so quick. So I’ll be out of here in no time;) except for the language I feel ready to leave. There are 2 districts I think that are heading out Monday, that is so exciting! I can’t wait till that is our gigantic group! Korean is simple but hard, it is a little like math with formulas and all. It’s a lot easier that Spanish conjugation wise (for verbs) because all verbs pretty much use same conjugation. But you conjugate the verb or noun for everything, like to say because and for and in order to, etc. so much to memorize. I’m good with remembering grammar forms but terrible with learning vocabulary. I’ve lost count of how many lessons we have taught up to this point, it’s probably around 8. We are to the point where we teach 2 or 3 a week, but they turn out to be like 30 minute lessons each. I and Elder Pickard started at the end of last week writing our script in English and then putting the Korean together on the spot during the lesson. It really helps with learning and practicing. We usually put the vocab we don’t know but need to the side of the paper so we can refer to it when needed.

So every week we have a devotional on Tuesday nights, and up until this past Tuesday it has been in one of the buildings on campus and then played on screen in other buildings since they can’t fit everyone. On Tuesday for the first time ever and from now on I think, they are holding it in the Marriott center, so we get to leave campus and horde over to the Marriott center. People have related it to the marching of the stripling warriors because it’s just a long mob of people walking across the street to it. 

What’s cool is that I am in the choir!  I went the first two times to choir when I was here and there were about 600 people there. Then they announced that we would be singing at worldwide training broadcast on the 23rd!! they said they need about 1200 people, so people who showed up to the first practice on campus are allowed to sing in it. On Tuesday when we practiced and sang for devotional in the Marriott center, there were 1800 people that showed up!!!! The director said the first presidency only wanted like 1200 people so the new people aren’t supposed to do it. He said he would try to get permission for more but he doesn’t think we will because we are going to be singing with another choir of 1100 members. So make sure you are watching on the 23rd for me. Hopefully I’ll get in because its only people in choir that are allowed to go I think.

My favorite part of the week is Tuesday devotional and then afterwards we discuss with our district what we learned and felt in the devotional. They always invite realllllly good speakers that always bring a super strong spirit with their message. Hearing others thoughts and testimonies brings the spirit so strongly. I love it.

Every week for sacrament meeting we have to have prepared a talk in Korean, and then they pick two people randomly to give them. Luckily I didn’t get picked this past Sunday.

A cool story our teacher brother Sung told us. He said there were people in his mission that passed by a drunk homeless guy that was asleep and left a book of Mormon on him for when he woke up. They had written their number in it (they didn’t expect him to actually call). He ended up calling and eventually getting baptized and is now married with a family and job and is the bishop of his ward. It is amazing how the gospel blesses lives!

The Lord loves us, always remember that, he is just a prayer away.

Love,

Elder Frampton

6-7-13

So much to tell about the past week but I don’t remember anything except for stuff I learn in class. The days feel so long but the week flew by. We are in the classroom for a very long time. We have to study in there and we have like 4 hours of studying a day along with the other 6 hours of classroom time. We are allowed to study outside during study time but I and Elder Pickard like to stay inside because pretty much everyone else leaves. Saturday exercise time we decided to make district sport time. So last Saturday we played 4 square, all 8 Elders and 4 sisters played along with 2 sisters that weren’t in our district. It’s a lot of fun. We exercise 5 times a week, 4 times in the gym or on the field then one like by ourselves in our room or just outside. I usually do running inside or stationary biking as well as some weights. We get 50 minutes for our exercise time. I am learning to use all that time to exercise because I will need it.

So I don’t think we will be moving anywhere, we will be sticking to 6 guys in our room, but I am getting used to it. All the Elders except one, Elder Killpack, sleep fine. Apparently I snore so my snoring plus his lack of ability to fall asleep makes it hard for him to fall asleep. I sleep okay - I still will wake up once or twice during the night. The past few days my throat has been hurting but it is getting better. Last night my eyes were killing me to the point that it was almost impossible to focus for the last 1.5 hours of class.

Up to this point in class we have taught 5 lessons in Korean. It still consists of us reading a script and trying our best to understand what the investigator says, but the reading is a little faster and we are becoming more familiar with words and sentences that we can sometimes make our own sentences and say them. It’s still really hard to understand what our investigator says. We catch maybe 7 or 8 words and that’s about it. The learning of the language is going better, like I said we are learning grammar forms and vocab. we have one of the best teachers really. I don’t know if I said before but his name is brother Sung. He is Korean but lived most his life in the US, he spent summers in Korea and went on his mission to the Seoul west mission, which technically doesn’t exist anymore but the Seoul south mission is pretty much the same thing.

Oh last Friday the temple was very good. It’s like the extra boost we need to get us through the week. We have lots of devotionals and meetings and they are all suppppppper good. We had mission conference on Sunday rather than Sunday school and priesthood and one of the MTC counselors gave an awesome talk about preach my gospel and how it came to be. It was a super awesome talk that probably was a once in a life time talk. Then we had a devotional that night by a guy named Ted Gibbons. His devotional was pretty much him acting out the life of Willard Richards. He was a guy in the time of Joseph Smith. His story in the gospel and all. It was super good. Then Tuesday devotional was Elder Callister from the 70. He talked about how the bible has the "blueprint" for the church. It was very interesting and physical proof of the church being true. On Wednesday the record amount of missionaries entered the MTC, 200 more than came in with me, so 950 new missionaries. I’m not sure if they are all here or at wyview/raintree. But that’s a lot of missionaries.

The Korean natives came on Tuesday and they are all super nice.  Brother Sung with every class instruction will give us a cultural tidbit. Like Korean fan death, Koreans won’t sleep with a fan on at night when the windows and doors are closed. That it is very busy there and people dress formally when going out. They have good cheap tailored suits there too, it would cost the same amount to get a decently good tailored suit as it did to get my suit here. And he said that usually Elders will lose weight while there because the food is so healthy, so I hope it’s true for me. He said sisters usually gain a little weight, so stinks for them;) around the time that we get to Korea, it will be monsoon season, so it will rain a lot.

My name badge name part is in English and the church part is in Korean. We will get name badges that will have our name in Korean closer to the time that we leave, like one week before.

That’s it this week

Love,

Elder Frampton

First Letter - 5-31-2013

Hola familia!

I am pleased to tell you that my P-day is on Friday! and make sure you use dearElder.com rather than email to communicate since I can get the dearElder letter every day. So where to start.......................

Day one of the MTC looked like this, got out of the car, was taken to the main building - I think where I got my nametag and little packet of important information.... Also it seems just from observing my different things in the packet that my report home date may be June 2, 2015, even though that is a while in the future. So after I got my package of information I went out and followed the Elder that was my host to my residence hall. I live on the top floor of pretty much the farthest residence hall in the back, that is a lot of walking, but not really. In my room are 5 other Elders in a room meant for 4 people so it is a little stuffy. the Elders names are Elder Pickard (Tucson, Arizona), Elder Killpack (Draper, Utah I think), Elder Harris (Yuma, Arizona.....the place in Mike’s mission that was really close to the border), Elder Diede (somewhere in Utah), and Elder Reed (somewhere in like Washington maybe). They were all at BYU this past year. Elder Pickard is my companion.  He has a pretty positive attitude. Over the past 2 days we have gotten along pretty well and I think over the next 9 weeks we will get along very well.

The rest of the first day we were in class and had little orientation type things here and there. Our teacher, Brother Sung, only spoke Korean the first day and pretty much all other days. It was crazy. No one understands anything really yet. But we are already moving fast, we learned the alphabet and are working on sentences and such already. We have to teach our first investigator today only in Korean so me and Elder Pickard have been working on a plan and need to work on memorizing stuff that we need to say. We have a phrase book and that is super helpful for this since we don’t know vocab and can’t really form our own sentences yet. There are so many missionaries here, the MTC president said over 700 came in yesterday.....and 67 of them are in our Korean branch making our branch a total size of about 105 or something like that. (The other 40 were already here.) New missionaries for Korean missions come in every 3 weeks they said, so it’ll be 3 weeks till I really won’t feel new anymore because I’ll know more than the new missionaries.

The food is just like the Cannon Center.....which is both a good and bad thing. I really don’t eat as much as at BYU but I still feel soooo full after every meal so I need to eat a little bit less. On Thursday we were still in an orientation type phase but not really. We had workshops and stuff here and there throughout the day and personal study time here and there throughout the day. Class was for like 4 hours and then we had individual language study and other such study times adding up to 6 or so hours just for that. We are always busy here. Really no time to relax except when we sleep at night.  I like getting up at 5:50 the past two days so I don’t have to wait for a shower. Since there’s 6 missionaries and only 4 closets we drew qtips rather than straws to see which companionship got their own lockers and which 2 had to share. I had much luck that first day because I got the short one for me and my companion, therefore getting us our own closets!!!  Compared to others it seems like I have the least stuff of everything. I haven’t been good with pictures but I have taken 2 so far. Sorry. it’s just inconvenient to carry your camera everywhere because you leave your book bag in the classroom at the beginning of the day then take it home at the end and only carry what you need to workshops and such because they don’t allow book bags.

We have exercise time 5 days a week for 50 minutes, luckily my companion likes to run so we probably will run a lot on the indoor track and use the weight machines up there. Who knows we might go do other stuff too, I’ll just have to wait and see.

It’s so weird the missionaries here, either everyone looks really old or everyone looks really young, both for Elders and Sisters. It’s amazing to see how strong and sincere the sisters can be when answering questions and bearing testimony. Talking about sisters I guess I’ll tell you about my district. My district is the people in my class; my district includes all the Elders from my room plus 2 others. Their names are Elder Luke and Elder Stapley. We have 4 sisters in our district and they are Sister Bussio, Sister Segovia, Sister pope, and Sister Jackson. They are all super nice. About half of my district is going to Seoul and the other half to Busan. It’s surprising to find out that Busan is one of the "rarer" missions to be called to. Maybe 1/5 of the missionaries that entered Wednesday are going to Busan. I feel extra special going to Busan.

It is so amazing being here in the MTC, I am constantly surrounded by an overwhelming spirit as well so many happy people. It has been an awesome experience so far and it’s only been 47 hours.

Every P-day we will have the opportunity to go to the temple so I get to go to the temple later! That will be such a great experience. I love serving the lord and can’t wait to serve his children in Korea.

Until next week,

Love and miss you guys,

Elder Frampton