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!