Week Five - MTC

Thursday - We practiced chopsticks today by playing catch with a racquetball. And the word of the day was toubatsu(subjugation, suppression or secretly felling trees). Banks Choro got his eyes dilated today. We tricked our teacher into thinking that he was completely blind. That was funny.

Friday - Our lesson with Ida-San went really well. We taught with no notes and were able to bring the Spirit. We are playing a game called Tanaka-San where we have to use as much Nihongo as we can and whoever has the most people convinced wins.

Saturday - Greer Choro really hurt his foot in basketball. He was on crutches for a night and fast forward to Sunday, he is fine! I ate the last of the peanut butter cookies today. They were really good.

Sunday - Nashville Tribute Band sang and played for the devotional, which was weird at first, but it was really good. They are talented. I had my first transfer today. I'm Greer Choro's companion now. We moved rooms in ~50 minutes and were dead tired the next morning. We are getting along great. He reminds me of a lot of people that I knew at home.

Monday - Not much today except for a weird lesson with an investigator who was half of what I was originally at and half of what they were at with Greer.

Tuesday - Spencer J Condie spoke tonight. It was really good solid stuff, but he kept is awake with jokes. He talked about if we were Learning to speak a language, we should speak with clarity and firmness from my heart.

Today - We got to go the Temple, the ordinance request number didn't work, but it was really refreshing. Played volleyball this morning. We teach our last face to face TRC, next week we will be on Skype. Our kohai(new group of missionaries going to Japan) come in next week and we cannot wait.

Week Four - MTC

This week was not eventful. I am progressing in Japanese. I now know how to read all of the characters and about 15 kanji. Cordon bleu was really (not sure if it was good or bad, but it was certainly really😀). We went to the temple today. Elder Bednar came on Sunday and I was on the 3rd row. It was a surprise visit after watching The Character of Christ. He started a question and answer session and a Sister in my district got to ask him a question. I have to go, I will talk more next week.

Week Three - MTC

Thanks to Connor's cousin Tommy for
sending this pic. Tommy knows Sister
Fishburn(left) who is in Connor's district.

Thursday - lots of grammar today. Stressful learning all of this at once. We are given the strength to carry on though because we are on a mission.

Friday - So we teach almost every day. Our teachers are Sister Gappmeyer (Kimura-San) and Brother Hansen (Ilda-San). They each use people that they taught on their missions as examples. Ilda-San is easy to teach. He is an 'old guy' that is lonely and likes baseball and walks. Kimura-San is so frustrating to teach. She has yet to keep a commitment that we have given her. We keep praying for her and teaching her though, so life goes on.

Saturday - There was really good broccoli-cheese soup at dinner today, but not as good as when Gavin and Mom work together to make it. The latest count on missionaries is 2,350 (in the Provo MTC), and the gym floors are being worked on, so we will be split up all over the campus for our next 2 devotionals. Good lesson with Ilda-San today, we really got him to open up and he believes in God now.

Sunday - Had a nap today. Brother Turpin of the Branch Presidency gave a great talk on the process of faith. I will take a picture of that diagram and put it in the picture email later. The devotional was good. It was just our Nihongo branch in the basement next to R&D. The chairs were sooooo comfortable. The devotional was on the need for missionaries to have charity in order to have the Spirit while teaching. We really needed to hear this with Kimura-San. Charity, the pure love of Christ, is a gift and needs to be prayed for. We went and watched the Monson documentary. Before we went to those, I was feeling really depressed but afterwards I was ready for anything, especially the lesson we have 45 minutes to prepare for in the morning.

Monday - The lesson went well. We didn't completely fail. McColm choro picked up the morale a bit when he showed us this funny trick he can do with his mouth and a window. It looks like a catfish! Tomorrow will be better...

Tuesday - Today was better! We didn't teach today, so it went really slow. I finished memorizing the missionary purpose in Nihongo. Then I learned some new words. We had a great teacher from the other branch today. He had us do yoga and was just generally happy to see us. He is going to work for Disney, so he will do well. He taught us to teach prayer in Nihongo. The devotional tonight was great. The speaker was talking about knowing God. He shared a quote 'We came to know Him in our EXTREMITIES. And it was a pleasure to pay the price to know Him.' He also shared Cowboy up!, which is to say, get ready, here we go. On a mission, you go to the extremes, and if you can hold on, you will come to be closer to the Savior. The closing song was Come, Come Ye Saints. I cried again. The Spirit was present all evening yesterday.

Wednesday - P-day! We get to go to the Temple today! After playing a round of volleyball, we checked the mail and I found your package of Cheez-it's! Thank you soooo much for those. So the temple was great, there are always so many missionaries inside. I loved not having to rent temple clothing so thank you Mom and Sister Jones for the help with the pants. Met Austin Fife when we were going to laundry. Now we are getting ready for dinner so aishite masu!

Week Two - MTC

June 30 - July 6

Thursday -  So we finished with our 1st investigator. She turned out to be our teacher. We finished learning Hiragana and I got a wonderful package from the family. We were able to sing today in Japanese. It sounds weird but nice. I think I will get used to it really quickly.

Friday - I am used to singing in Japanese now. We sing in the morning during study time, in the afternoon for class, and after dinner for class. This was a really busy day. We learn about 2 grammar principles every day and the classroom is the size of William and Quinten's room. (about 11' x 12') That is for 11 people and their desks! We did an hour of SYL (study your language) today, which means no Eigo for an hour. It is really funny thing to listen to, but it drives us to learn words that we need.

Saturday - Today was the International Day of Freedom, which I did not know existed, It coincided with BYU's Ring of Fire fireworks, so they let us stay up late to watch those. They were all right. It was more of a celebration for our district because one of the other Choros thought that they would have to go home, but he didn't! We were all so happy because he is the entertainment for our district. The Day of Freedom devotional was really funny, mostly because there were a lot of references to America, even though it was the International Day.

Sunday - So today was Fast Sunday and the Cafeteria is closed until dinner. At first when we realized this, we were not having the best attitude about it, but then I decided to go and pray and start a real fast Saturday night. I am glad to bear my testimony that the power of a sincere fast is real. It is ok if you are a little hungry, just keep those whom you are fasting for in mind. The devotional was not really the best. We had just eaten a huge dinner, the lights were dim, and they didn't let us take off our suits, so it was really warm. I was asleep for half of it. The speakers didn't really know how to use the mics, so they were really quiet. It had to do with a tree being a metaphor for the Gospel. I asked the district and they couldn't really tell me anything else about it. We were all tired.

Monday - Tired today. We used the TALL language learning program in the lab today. My companion and I used it to learn nouns and verbs. We are beginning to be able to talk  like babies. We learned that we had ~6 lessons to teach for every week the next 6 weeks. This hard news was softened by a killer game of volleyball. Part of my  district played against a district of missionaries from out of States. They were really good, but we were just a bit better.

Tuesday - Devotional Day: Excellent lunch today. It was penne alfredo with a nice chicken breast thing. Excellent devotional by Elder Marlin K Jensen, Emeritus Seventy. He spoke on the different steps of faith and its importance as a missionary. We really liked this one. Also during the devotional, 2,000+ missionaries sand "Called to Serve". We are all ready for p-day by now, even with a good Devo under our belts.

Wednesday - Today we started off the day with sand volleyball.  We started off winning, but the other team pulled ahead. Then it was a quick shower and now I am doing laundry. We are going to get lunch after we are done here and then we are off until 5. This evening we have 2 lessons to teach to members called TRC. They have to be in Nihongo, so we will see how this goes.