Christmas Package from Elder Dorius!!!

Thursday, December 23 was about the best day ever. We got a package from Brad! He sent a Korean children's songbook, a cd of Christmas songs in Korean, and PICTURES! We were so excited about the pictures since we haven't gotten any from him. It was such a treat.

Elder Dorius and Elder Stanley.

They were friends from high school and performed together all the time. It is crazy that now they get to serve together.

Elder Dorius and his companion Elder Palspher. They are both from St. George.

These are some native Korean missionaries that were in the MTC for 3 weeks and then they went back to Korea.

All the name tags from the district.

These 3 elders are from St. George and all together in the same district. Elder Stanley is the 4th elder from St. George...but he is in the other district.

The district

This is Elder Dooley...His Aunt and Uncle were in our ward in Soda Springs and we knew them very well. They are in the MTC heading on a mission to Fance and we told them to keep a look out for Brad. Yep you guessed it... they have a nephew going to Korea and they are in the same district. It's such a small world.

Christmas at the MTC

Christmas in the MTC

Hey everyone,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It sounds like you all had a good Christmas. I'm really glad you got those movies so I can watch them when I get back. And Kadin that wand thing sounds pretty cool too. Nothing sounds better than a new roof for Christmas. That's probably the best present you guys got haha. Ok probably not. That doesn't sound too fun. All of us St. George elders have been hearing about the rain down there. It sounds like there was a ton of water but everything was ok because they were prepared. If ye are prepared ye shall not fear. Oh before I forget, I need Jeff and Jen's address. They sent me a package and I need to write them back. They gave me a whole box of fresh mangoes. Not just the dried mangoes from Costco, but the real fruit. It's so good. Also have you heard anything about my license? I'm pretty sure it should be done by now. Maybe check up on that if you get a chance.

Well Christmas in the MTC is awesome! We had a little Christmas tree set up in our room and we put all of our packages and gifts underneath it. On Christmas Eve we set it up in the middle of our room and piled all of our stuff under it. It was awesome. We woke up Christmas morning and got ready like normal and then opened all of our gifts. Please tell the deacons quorum thank you for the package. They sent me a whole bag of dried mangoes, peanut M&M's, candy, a hacky sack, a tennis ball, and letters. It was really nice. I also got some Christmas cards from some of the ward members. Those helped make my Christmas special. On Christmas Eve, we got to watch Mr. Kruger's Christmas and eat popcorn. That was fun. Then on Christmas morning we had a missionary talent show. It was awesome. There were some hilarious performances. Jesse you'll appreciate this. Two elders sang "Tribute" by Jack Black but changed the words to missionary work. It was so sweet. After that we had our Christmas dinner for lunch. It wasn't too bad, but I was full from all the mangoes and M&M's and food I got. Anyway after that we had a devotional. Russel M. Nelson and his wife spoke. He is such a good speaker and he knows so much about the gospel. After that we had our sack lunch dinner in our rooms. Just a humble sandwhich and chips, but once again I was still full from the food I had been eating all day. Then we had a fireside. It wasn't a typical fireside. Two guys that volunteer here acted out "A Christmas Carol." They were really good. But we did have a special guest. Elder Nelson decided to stay and watch the fireside too. So we got to see him again that day. Then the next day we had a special Priesthood meeting. Elder Nelson came and spoke to us. Again. All he used was his scriptures. He talked about the gathering of Isreal and our role in that. He taught us a lot. It was definately one of the best Christmases I've ever had, if not the best. It was nice to kind of forget about the stress of missionary work and the classes and just enjoy the weekend. I now know what the Christmas spirit is and the true meaning of Christmas. To be honest, I didn't really miss you guys. Well I did. A little. But I'm with my other family here. Thanks for all the prayers and support. Give the Dorius family my love this weekend. Enjoy the holidays. Talk to you next year.

Love, Elder Dorius

Half Time

Hey Everyone,

Mom I'm sorry to hear about your toe. That's unfortunate, but not surprising. Hopefully that gets better. That's also too bad for the computer. Good thing you got it fixed though. Dad could you send me a list of some good opening, closing, and sacrament hymns? It's not as easy to pick hymns for church than one might think. Especially in the Korean hymnbook. They don't have quite as many songs. It sounds like grandma's eye surgery was a success. I bet she's pleased with that. Kylie thanks for telling me about your party. It sounds like fun. It also sounds like you're enjoying my phone. That's good to hear. How's Kadin's foot doing? Is he still wearing his boot? What are your guys' plans for Christmas? Are you going to SLC and partying with the fam?

Well I am now halfway done with the MTC. If you haven't kept track, this is my 6th week here. The time has gone by so fast! I've gotten some cards from a few people in the ward and I even got a package of gifts. I don't know who it's from exactly but it was really nice. Also thank you mom and Danielle and anyone else who contributed to my Christmas package. The cinnamon rolls were good by the mangoes were awesome! I've missed those. I haven't opened any of my presents yet. We have a mini Christmas Tree in our room so we put all our gifts under it and are waiting to open them on Christmas morning. The MTC is an awesome place to be for Christmas. Especially for us going to Korea because it's not really a big deal over there. I can't remember the schedule exactly but we have a couple firesides and fun stuff all day Saturday so I'm pretty excited. I'll have to tell you about it next week.

It's finally looking like winter up here. The past couple weeks we've had really nice weather. It felt like St. George until yesterday. It snowed ALL day long. When we walked out of our building this morning, there was at least 6 inches all over the place. Luckily we're inside most of the time so it's not too bad. And now we can get acclimated for the cold Korea weather.
I did see Bro. Monson the other day. It was so funny. I heard someone yelling "Elder Dorius!" and I couldn't tell where it was coming from, then I saw him driving a car and waving to me. It totally made my day. Whenever we see someone from the outside world they suddenly become a celebrity.

Well all of the elders in the older districts are now in Korea. The group that came in the same day as me will be by ourselves for a couple of weeks then the new elders will come in. It's nice to know that we don't stay here forever and people actually go to Korea. Evert tune we hear something about it we get more excited to go.

The TRC went well on Saturday. We ended up teaching our same "investigator" as the week before and we taught her the same lesson. So it wasn't very realistic. But it was still good. That was the last time we teach the lessons in English. After six weeks you start teaching the lessons in your mission language. It's pretty intense. I've learned quite a bit but everyday we learn something new that keeps me humble. Well I'm still doing great. I'm loving every minute of my mission. Thanks for all the support. Merry Christmas!

Elder Dorius

Christmas Package!

Our family (mostly mom and I) got up early on Saturday and made Elder Dorius some cinnamon rolls and filled his stocking. We sent some mangos, candy, peanut bars and other things. I should have taken a picture but I didn't think of it until the package had already been sent. :(

On the note of packages, the Post Mart down in the complex by Buy Low, Seagull Book, and the Dollar Theater just off University Parkway does same day MTC delivery. Weekdays you just need to get your package to them by 3:30pm and Saturdays you need it in by 10:30am. If you already have your box then it only costs $2 for up to 40 lbs to send your missionary a package. That was a good discovery! So if anyone wants to send Elder Dorius a package, that's a great way to do it.

Till We Meet Again.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the prayers and letters. Dad and Jesse sorry I missed your guys' birthdays. It wasn't very good timing with my p-day. So happy late birthday. Thanks for letting me know about Seth's call. (note: I talked to my parents and he's going to London England, just in case anyone was wondering like me, now you know!) That's so cool. I told Elder Stanley and he thought that was pretty sweet as well. You'll have to keep me up dated on all the mission calls.

Mom I think either one of those pictures would be fine. I was thinking of having one of the studio shots for the plaque and not one of the backdrop pictures but they both look nice. And as far as baked goods go, I'm pretty sure you can send anything as long as it doesn't go bad when it's in the mail. But that shouldn't be too hard, especially if Danielle can drop it off or whatever. So send me whatever you want. The TRC went well this last weekend. It was about the same as last week but we had a different investigator. During our contacting I figured out she was a hak-sang (student) so I felt pretty good about that. We've moved on to teaching lesson two in Preach My Gospel. It's the plan of salvation. It's really fun to teach because it applies to everyone, but at the same time it's hard to teach because you have to teach it very simply. Especially with a language barrier. We have one more week of teaching in English then we start teaching the lessons in Korean. I'm still learning a lot of the language. We learn a few new things everyday. We just learned how to share scriptures in Korean yesterday and we learned adjectives. It's a lot to take in but it's coming along.

So there's been some changes to the zone this week. One of the districts in the older group left yesterday and the other district leaves on Monday. That means we got new zone leaders and new district leaders. I got a calling but it's not one of those. I'm the branch music cordinator! It's the best "calling" ever. I'm in charge of choosing the hymns for sacrament and priesthood meeting and I set up musical numbers. I'm really excited. It's weird to have some of the older elders gone though. In Korean culture they build "jung" which is like your relationship with someone. In Korea they build jung by giving each other money but that doesn't work out very well here at the MTC so we just play games, eat food, and hang out every Monday night to build jung. So even though I didn't associate with them much it was kinda hard to say good bye because of that brotherly love and having the same goal and same purpose. On Sunday night, the zone sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." It was really cool. But now I'm in the "older district." We're getting about 30 new elders in a couple weeks. It's crazy. Time doesn't exist here. But I'm excited. It means we're one step closer to Korea. And all of the older elders said once they leave time just flies by even faster. Oh and just so you know, I will not be calling home for Christmas because there's too many missionaries here. But I think I can call you from the airport when I fly out. I'll let you know about that for sure. Hope to hear from you soon.

Love, Elder Dorius

Embrace the Overwhelmage

I apologize, I was really busy with school this week, so we're going to pretend like this was posted on Tuesday!

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the letters. For time's sake I'll just try to respond to all the letters in this email.

Aunt Jen, I loved your email. You're family is awesome! Ty and Logan are so funny. I had a good laugh about that Santa story. Tell Tori congrats on the swimming and tell Justin congrats on making the basketball team. I'm glad to hear they're taking piano lessons. It's not always fun but it gets better and it's good to know how to play. There's only one other elder in my zone that plays the piano so I've played a few times since I've been here. I wish I would have practiced the hymns more. Thanks for keeping me in the loop with your family.

Grandpa and Grandma, thanks for the email as well. Isn't technology great? The MTC has kind of made me forgotten about technology. It's weird to see my teachers pull out their phones. Way to be on learning Spanish. That's so cool. I wish I could be learning Spanish right now. Haha. We make fun of the Spanish elders when they're complaining about the language. Sounds like you guys are doing well.

Family, thanks for your emails as well. Mom, thanks for facebook stalking my friends and telling me about their lives. I really appreciate that. (sarcasm) Kadin and Kylie, those are some good words to know. Tell Bro. Monson I learned "glue" yesterday. You guys won't have any idea what it is but he'll appreciate it. Basically it's like one of the hardest grammar forms in Korean and there's a bunch of different rules. My companion and I learned it and felt pretty awesome. Dad, I don't really remember Bishop Dooley. The name sounds familiar though. But I do know his nephew. He's in my zone. We had a good chat about Soda and Lava Hot Springs. There's also another elder from Pocatello. So I found some kindred spirits. Elder Gough is actually living on my same floor so I've seen him quite a few times and I saw Elder Herrin yesterday at breakfast. I love seeing the new missionaries. I hope I didn't look as lost as they do.

So this week my teach, Bro. Ball, was talking to us and kind of getting us back on track because we were feeling frustrated with the language and he said "embrace the overwhelmage." That became our district's motto. And this week had some "overwhelmage." Every Saturday, we go to the TRC. If you don't know what that is, it's basically where we do mock lessons with people who pretend to be investigators. Each week we have a new task and they progessively get more difficult each week. The first time we went, our investigators were the older district so it wasn't too bad. But on Saturday we had real people so it was a little more real. Our task was to introduce ourselves and get to know the person and their family and then set up an appointment to meet again in Korean. The people are usually RMs that speak Korean, but there's one lady who moved here from Seoul 7 months ago and she doesn't speak English very well. Guess who got to teach her. Me and my companion. It was the epitone of "overwhelmage." The contacting went pretty well. We said our lines and then she would answer and we had no idea what she just said. But somehow we were able to communicate enough to find out a little bit about her family and set up an appointment. So we go back about 10 minutes later to our appointment with her. Luckily we get to teach the lessons in English. Well usually that's lucky. We had to use really simple English and as many Korean words as we knew when we taught. There were times where we had a hard time getting a point across clearly but it wasn't too bad. But when we bore our testimonies the Spirit was so strong. There was a time she was on the verge of tears. It was amazing to see how the Spirit is the universal language and can touch anyone's heart. It just made me more excited to get out to Korea and experience that everyday. So yeah that's my first cool missionary story. Hope you all are doing well. Oh by the way, the mail is closed December 22-26 just so you know. I almost forgot. Also what's going on over in Korea? Did things settle down? My only connection to the real world is the weather. And the only window I look out of faces a building so it's not much help. Talk to you guys soon.

Elder Dorius

Week 2 in the MTC

It's Missionary Tuesday! YAY! I'm not sure why the background is gray but oh well.


Hey everyone,

So this week has been pretty good. It sounds like you guys had a good time in Vegas and saw the Lion King. That's not a bad way to spend Thanksgiving. But I think I can top it. Elder Holland spoke to us Thursday morning. He brought his whole family with him and had his grandchildren sing for us. It was really cool. And since we were away from our families for Thanksgiving, he said we could be part of the Holland family for the day. So I have a new claim to fame. We did a big service project later that day as well. We put together backpack kits. We cut out the fabric for the bag and straps and all that. Between all the missionaries we made 33,400 backpacks. Not too bad.

I heard it snowed down there. That's awesome. It snowed up here on Sunday and all the snow is still on the ground. It was cool for about the first 10 minutes then it got cold. I think I'll need another sweater but don't send one yet because I think they sell them at the book store here and I get really good discounts. So I'll let you know on that. Gym is still awesome. I've moved on to playing volleyball. It's so fun. And I think my skills have gotten tons better since I played last.

Kadin. I'm sorry about your foot. That's rough. But those boot things look kinda fun. And I'm not surprised you missed the end of the Lion King. Hopefully you liked the parts you saw. I'm learning a lot of Korean words. Or at least I'm trying to. We're learning a lot of grammar rules in class. Korean is confusing. It's like a big math problem. But it's fun to speak some of it. I have heard of Unstoppable. It looked pretty intense. I'll have to see it when I get home. Keep a list of all the good movies that come out so I can see them when I get back. And don't hope for snow because that means ten times more snow up here and I don't want that. Haha.

Kylie. Way to go on the Geckathon! That's a good time. You'll have to keep track of your gloves next time. Just keep running and swimming and biking and you'll get better and better. Thanks for the delayed "Happy Thanksgiving" it was a good one. I'm trying to stay warm up here. Luckily I'm inside 98% of the day so it's not too bad. My big winter coat comes in handy for the other 2%.

Danielle. My day goes something like this. Wake up. Get ready. Go to class and read scriptures for about an hour. Go to breakfast. Go to class. Go to lunch. Go to class. Go to dinner. Go to class. Go to bed. Depending on the day we'll have a fireside or devotional. Oh and gym sometime between there. But that's basically it. For the next 10 weeks. It's...awesome. Haha. They give us 30 minutes to plan for the next day but it takes like 10 seconds becuase it's the same thing. But it's not bad. I at least know I'll have food to eat and have a place to sleep.

Mom. I have no idea what you're talking about with your elf guy. But that sounds tragic. Hopefully it all works out. We've learned a little bit of the culture but not much. If we go to someone's house to teach, we take off our shoes in a shoe pit by the door and then walk in and sit on the floor. I think that's pretty sweet. But I need to start working on my flexibility. We also learned that is it FREEZING cold. Everyone who has been there said they thought they were going to die. I guess the winds from Siberia blow down and make the humid air super cold. And everyone smells like kim chi. So basically I'll come back as a moldy block of ice that smells like kim chi. I won't have a social life for a couple weeks when I get back. But that's cool. It's all part of the experience. Oh we got some native Koreans yesterday! I haven't talked to them much but everyone loves them. They're only here for a few weeks then they head back to Korea for their missions. I'm excited to hear about your guy's Korean kids. That's going to be so fun. Well my time is about up. I'm still doing good. I'm working hard and learning a lot. Talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Dorius

First email in the MTC!!!

My mom just called and said: "I got an email! I got an email! I got an email!" We're all pretty excited, but especially her. Today is her birthday and what better way to celebrate than getting a letter from her missionary!



Hey mom and everyone else,

First of all Happy Birthday! I was so excited to find out I was able to email you on your birthday. Second of all use DearElder.com or whatever it is. It prints it off as a letter and I can read it during the week. Because right now I have 24 minutes to write this email. Everything is great! I love the MTC. The Spirit is so strong and you can feel it everywhere. There's about 30 new Korean elders that arrived the same day as me. Four are from St. George. Three of those are in my district and one of them is my companion, Elder Pulsipher aka "the kid from Bloomington Hills area." He's great. We get along really well. Elder Stanley is not in my dristrict unfortunately. But I still see him around a lot and he's doing good as well. The Korean Elders are seriously the best. They're all so friendly. After the first day I felt like they were all life long friends. We have the best teachers as well. Brother Ball and Sister Lloyd. They're so cool and they are so good at teaching the Gospel and Korean. I know how to pray and testify in Korean now. I feel so cool. But it's still a lot of work. My favorite part of the day is gym. I really enjoy the break from classes. Some of the cho-no-nim (elders) in my district have been doing some workout program things. Whatever they're called. I don't work out. Well I do now. And Dad, it is not true that I can fall asleep anywhere. It takes so long to fall asleep here. And Danielle, yeah you can babysit Launa for the time being. I trust you and Jesse. Just make she stays in tune and is in a comfortable place to sleep. That will make her happy. It snowed on like the second day here. I've gotten good use out of my winter coat and v-neck sweater. Those are pretty popular here. I took your advice dad and joined the choir. It's so fun. We're singing an arrangement of Come Thou Fount. It really helps invite the Spirit. Well I only have about 4 minutes left. I'm trying to think of more to say. Just because it's your birthday mom. However I don't know what else to say. Everything is good. I'm working hard and staying busy. Hopefully I answered all the questions. If not use dear elder next time. Love you all!

Elder Dorius

MTC Drop off

It could not have been a more perfect day to drop Elder Dorius off at the MTC. The sun was shining and it was even almost warm.

We somehow didn't shed a tear (today) but instead dropped him off with excitement for his next two years.

Brunch at Dennys

It was bright outside. We had a hard time getting a picture with all of our eyes open.

Hugs to last a couple of years.

Brad's Farewell

Brad's farewell was Sunday November 14th and he talked about how the Aaronic Priesthood has prepared him for a mission. He did such a great job and shared many examples in his life of how he has been prepared to go and serve the people of Korea. Our house was filled with family and friends afterward sharing their love and support. Brad couldn't have asked for a better support group.

Brad and his youngest cousin Easton who is 5 months old.

Brotherly love!

Brad and Jesse's relationship in pictures
We love you Brad!