Week 5 Top 10 list

Top 10 Highlights of Elder Hanks' week:
1)  "accidentally" tore pages out of his scriptures so we had to send him a new set! He is super excited to
     start marking up a new set with all the scriptural and doctrinal insights he is gaining at the MTC !
2) Ran into Elder Clarke who was his District Leader at the Hill Cumorah Pageant! So fun to have the
    brotherhood of the work crew to keep blessing his life! Too bad Elder Hanks didn't have his camera to
    get a pix  !
3) Ran into his cousin, Sis. Ashley Hanks who is going to Argentina!
4) Had a new group of Elders move into the dorm room next to Elder Hanks. This group stays up late
   making noise &  makes it hard for Ammon's room to get to sleep some nights. It's great to have neighbors
   again & they are a pretty fun group of Elders learning Korean.
5) He & his companion were made Zone Leaders. Currently they have 12 sisters & 6 Elders in his Zone but
    will be at 13 Sisters & 10 Elders after Wednesday!
6) He will get to "Host" or greet the new missionaries at the curb as the come to the MTC this Wednesday
    for the first time & Elder Hanks is really excited to help escort the new missionaries & give them the tour
    of the MTC.
7) He & his companion skyped with a member in Taiwan this past week. (to practice their Chinese I
    assume). They were having a discussion on church attendance when the member spoke a really "long
    Chinese sentence" of which Ammon understood the member to say that he did not go to church. They
    proceeded to give the member a discussion about the importance of church attendance.  Later, the
    teacher that was observing their conversation, let them know that the rest of the "long sentence" was that
    the church building was too far away for the member to attend church. Haha.. these poor Elders... telling
    the member to go to church when it's probably not possible for him to get there. Hopefully the member
    was understanding of these 2 young white Americans, learning Chinese, telling him about the importance
    of going to church!
8) Elder Hanks was able to carry on a 30 minute conversation with his Chinese teacher all IN Chinese &
    understood everything! He was even able to share some scriptures in Chinese. He was so excited !
9) He is learning through the life experiences of other missionaries that he is a very blessed missionary!
10) On his way to the Provo temple, he saw a protester on the corner of the MTC & the Provo temple. The
    protester was yelling at the missionaries & anyone else driving by ! Ammon felt sorry for the guys
    misunderstandings & for missing the truth. Good thing he had some experience with protesters at the
    Pageant to prepare him for things like this. Even in Singapore he may experience "protesters" who may  
    yell & even spit at the Missionaries for what we believe.

There's leaves falling behind me you say...?

Weeks 3 & 4 - A Mad-lib letter & NerFridays

This is a summary of weeks 3 & 4 for Elder Hanks at the MTC -

I sent him a letter, (I wrote as if he were writing it, and then left blanks for him to fill in - such as "my favorite thing at the MTC has been ______" ) trying to get more details about what he does exactly at the MTC.

So.... here are some snippets from the letter:
"The food here is pretty good and my favorite meal has been tomato basil soup. My favorite thing at the MTC so far has been the gym!  I get up at 6:25am and do push ups. I have 2 hours of free (he wrote study)  time before lunch and 0 hours of free time before dinner.
On Sundays we have just sacrament meeting with a lot of time to study. We don't  have Sunday school and we do  have priesthood, the teachers are the branch presidency.
You asked how my Chinese is coming, it's coming pretty well. I can kind of teach a lesson on  Heavenly Father in Chinese.
I get 30 minutes of gym time everyday & I usually play volleyball or lift weights.
I get to go to the temple once a week.
Being district leader has been hard but also rewarding because of all the things it has taught me.
Right now I am studying the principles of Missionary Fundamentals and one of the goals we have as a district is  to be on time and to speak our language.
I am sleeping ok but feel like I never get enough sleep.  The best package you have sent me so far has been the nerf guns and halloween decorations. The bulletin board pins you sent me were freaking awesome!!  (I went to All A Dollar & found random toys & glued tack pins to them- the best one was a squishy sumo wrestler & a Superman ! ) 
One time I have really felt the Spirit here was when  I was listening to Elder Gifford Nelson when he said "This is our testimony that we give of Him.." That line is also used in the final scenes of the Hill Cumorah Pageant,  right before Christ appears. It was if I was right back at the true hill.
Well, this has been the  best  way to write a letter! Mom should write these for me more  often!

Week 4 update from a quick, short letter to his dad:
I feel good & strong in the language.
The MTC is great & so convenient.
The food is pretty dang good, actually!
I am restarting the BOM and I have already picked up on some great doctrine & principles I didn't see before.
The Spirit is always present.
I am working hard to be productive & the Lord is definitely helping me with that
I am exercising as much as I can (I don't want to gain a lot of weight)
My companion was made district leader yesterday!

One of these things is not like the others....! Hanging on a P-day

Nerf-ridays

NerFridays

His Chinese teacher went to Davis High & knows Elder Hanks' older sister.
Yes they have matching ties & it looks like Elder Hanks has been to the MTC barber!

Elder Hanks & Elder Atkinson (friend from Davis High)

Sept 30,2013 MTC week 2 - Life lessons!

Edited excerpts from Elder Hanks' 2nd week at the MTC:  

"Well, Sunday was probably the most stressful day so far. There is this Elder who is in our district who I think is very smart and very intuitive, but thinks way to much with his head rather than feeling with his heart when it comes to spiritual and social things. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. So on Sunday we had time set apart for a district discussion/lesson. 

I gave the lesson and taught how we, as missionaries, shouldn't just do good but be good.  I asked why a missionary was here on a mission and then I wrote on the board "Because God asked me to come here".  I felt the spirit prompting me to then ask, what could be better about this statement. Everyone was really great in responding.. I then erased the word "come" and wrote in "be" so the sentence then read " Because God asked me to be here". I could see every ones eyes open and I felt the spirit start to enter the room. 

Well this missionary was trying to correct my punctuation errors, such as not having a period at the end of my sentence.. and then began to express  how my lesson was demeaning the word "come" and my suggestion of the word "be" was the better way to go falsified the idea of "coming unto Christ". I immediately felt the spirit leave. I tried hard to recover the Spirit and moved on to other goals that our district needed to talk about.

Some of the other missionaries in my district tried to support and clarify the idea I was trying to get across, but this missionary would not have it. It was suggested that we pray to bring the Spirit back.  One of the sweet Sis. missionaries in the district started to sing "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" which has been a song associated with many spiritual experiences in my life. I was blessed to begin to feel the spirit again. 

I couldn't get out of my mind the way the Spirit had left our lesson and ruined my Sunday. I couldn't focus, couldn't eat (luckily it was fast Sunday anyway). Later that night I prayed for guidance about what to do with this awkward situation. I stayed up for a good 2 hours stuck in despair. 

Finally Monday morning the answer comes to me. I got the feeling that I need to apologize to my district... did I feel like I did something wrong? No.  Did I feel like I could have been better? Yes.  So later that morning I apologized to my district for not being able to help keep the Spirit in our lesson.  Many members of the district came up to me afterward and expressed thanks for doing what I did. Today is a good day." 

(Many great life lessons Elder Hanks is learning !)

Elder Hanks & Elder Merrill (From Hill Cumorah Work Crew) on their way to a devoational at the Marriott Center

Sept 27, 2013 - 1st Week & District Leader

The first, quick, short, email we got from Elder Hanks was the day after he arrived in the MTC. 
"I'm doing great! The first moment I walked into class my teachers started speaking chinese like none other! Because of my background (taking chinese in high school) I knew a fair amount of what he was telling and asking us to do. My companion is awesome!!!! He is cool and is easy to talk to. 
I have been able to meet up with plenty of people from school so I'm feeling pretty welcomed here. " 


The first true email arrived today (Monday) from Elder Hanks first week in the MTC! Here's a few exerpts from his email:

"So on with the good stuff. It is so hard! Hunter & Max you may want to learn a different language because I've realized how unromantic Mandarin Chinese really is! It just sounds like you  are sleep talking. Yeah, true story. 

My companion is from Syracuse, UT and we have a ton in common and we love what we do. But it is still hard. I've never done anything so hard. The language is hard. I have been having a really hard time learning the language lately. At the beginning I was excelling like crazy and then it just stopped....hopefully it will start to flow over the next few weeks.

We taught our first and second lesson this last week. It was a nightmare! We have to say it all in chinese and we don't know any chinese. So he will just sit there looking at us with those piercing, scary, blue eyes while we fumble through books trying to find the right word, phrase or tone. It's insane. But I could tell from our second lesson that we got better so I have a growing confidence that we will continue to get better. 

So on day two, I got called as District Leader! AHHHHH! I'm so stressed. I'm the leader of the only district who has been here for less than a week. All the other districts in our zone have been here for 6 weeks and they will all leave in 3 weeks and we'll then be the "veterans" for the new missionaries.

Last thing, I went through the Provo temple, I felt the Spirit so strong. It was incredible."

Elder Hanks' District

Sept 18th, 2013 - MTC drop off !

Elder Hanks & his dad overlooking the MTC before we drive across the street!

Here we go!

Elder Hanks' adventure begins!
Elder Hanks was up at 6:30am this morning! Added a few church songs to his ipod, had a few crepes for breakfast & off we headed to the MTC in Provo. Of course we had to do all the typical things you do before hitting the MTC....lunch somewhere (where you also see 50 other missionaries doing the same thing with their families1) a stop at the Provo temple for pictures & the final tearful hugs before you make that final approach to the MTC.

Sept 18, 2013 - How much does it weigh?

Sept 12, 2013 - Packing and a haircut...oh my!




Books so far! 12 more pounds of books coming from the MTC!



2 suits, 2 pair shoes, 12 pairs of socks,10 pairs of pants,
 9 white shirts, too many ties to count, 3 piece luggage set...am I ready yet?



Packing up my desk....:(




Oh man.... here it goes, I'm not looking!

I hope my mom knows what she is doing!



Not so bad- for a non-professional