Week #2: MTC and Donuts

Day ichi
Well today is the start of the 2nd week in the mtc for us this pday i emailed home of course, got the pleasure of waking up at 5 to do laundry to beat the crowd.  I had a nice bunch of fruit loops for breakfast and a donut. Then for lunch a nice turkey sub with chocolate milk for lunch. P day was pretty much a day full of study relaxing fun of just chilling in the residence and telling stories.

So we went to the St George temple today [parental commentary: I am sure he means the Provo temple and is just very tired...], for the first time really a beautiful place in the end i said a prayer and then had an impression to find my companion and pray together it was really Subarashi(-awesome) to go through with my district they are really some awesome guys and i love enjoying this experience with them and feeling of their spirit.  These days somehow get better each day and learn tons.

2nd day
Its Thursday and I am more tired then most days today we played spike ball for exercise time which was featured on shark tank and pretty fun to play its best in sand which luckily is available at the MTC along with sand volleyball  courts.  It's a regular spiritual resort!

Also this morning i forgot since it seems now like it was forever ago because we've done so much in between then me and a bunch of guys woke up and ran about 2.5 miles running around I haven't ran much at all in a long while so it was tough. But ya woke up early at 530 to run so we could shower and be ready by 630. Tomorrow the plan is to lift tomorrow at 530. But honestly the overload of food available is crazy I have to turn down so many cookies and goodies and candies and snacks because everyone here has loads of foodstuffs, because well packages and inheritances from sen pi to co pi. When the sen pi leave they leave there stuff for grabs and so much is available so foods for all.  I think you could feed a small country with the care packages that are tucked away.   Don't get me wrong, I am not saying don't send me anything!  It will all be much appreciated!

Today we also just were full of more studying and telling stories.

Observation: Every meal here comes with a donut like no matter what.  It must be in the MTC procedural handbook, and somewhere at sometime someone thought..."missionary having a hard time..give them a donut, it makes everything better.

Today we also had some nice cheese enchiladas to go with our donuts.


Anyways well not much going on besides flatulent missionaries in the residences, tomorrow is Sunday i think I am teaching a lesson in nihongo about baptism and the holy ghost. Ya so basically we have priesthood in English then sacrament meeting half English half nihongo.

4th day
Ok so today was sunday means we went for a temple walk again at the provo temple took some pictures and fun stuff. We did a bunch more studying of japaneese, and fun stuff. A band was here for the devotional and sang/ told a story couldnt really say much about it besides how he expressed just the joy of the mission and the sacrifice, that comes with it and to finally in the end be able to to return home after serving the lord and kiss your mom on the cheek the joy that there will be. I wish I remembered the lyrics but I cant too well, the Nashville tribute band [parental commentary: Guess he led a pretty sheltered life never hearing about the Nashville tribute band until now...] they are called and I'm sure their songs can be found, I liked it and I don't like musically things sometimes, well except for seminary teacher extraordinaire Sister Ranes,  but they made it enjoyable by telling a story and explaining why we are here and why this is important, how we can only just hope the spirit will testify to these peoples hearts that are words are true, by doing our best to follow the savior.  We also watched a recording of Elder Holland's open your mouth. Tells us most basically the adversary as Joseph Smith prayed had not the power to take his life but only to bind his tongue and as he was overcome by the power of some real being from an unseen world. The adversary would use the power he has to bind his tongue to frustrate our heavenly father's work but exerting all his power to call upon god in which he was the  delivered and just the same we must not allow the adversary to bind our tongue but be loosed and call upon the power of heaven exerting all our power so that we can move forward our father's work.
     Finally, we ended the day in service taking down the stage and and chairs and putting everything away, time is definitely flying by faster and faster. Though one grief I have is a collared shirt I don't like them when its hot I think about shark tank I want to invent a material or a ventilation there or a unique structure there so solve the problem of a sweaty yellow collar anyways I get used to it, tomorrow more study and almost P day the day of rest.

We had a devotional and it was by Connie an Emeritus 70 what i took out of it was Elder  Connie was talking with a guy with a PHD and he was teaching him about the first vision. The educated man told him that God can't possibly be constructed in a human state, we cant comprehend gos he is beyond our understanding. And the simple reply was to him singimg I am a child of God, he said when he finished the spirit in the room changed and he said I get it now god is your heavenly father. He learned by yhr the spirit in that momemt not by book or logic or arguement but by the spirit that can teach things that we can't and thats why we rely on it. The guy was funny he added a little humor in it to keep us awake

Today was the first day I fell asleep on my desk and was like shoot I didn't mean to do that, but ya a lot going on here and today just needed a little desk nap I guess. Still now 7 more weeks, the last 2 have flown by like nothing but felt so long at the same time. You get so much done in one day more then most people ever could being at home because honestly there is nothing here but books and papers, so only choice is to study or nothing literally.

Well Pday is tomorrow and I feel nice and settled in now gonna get up nice and early at 5 to beat the laundry crowd to get that laundry done quick. I got 2 more packages one with soap and facewash and another with aftershave, still have one more package that I haven't gotten yet cant get till tomorrow morning they give you a slip of notice when you get a package and then gotta grab it, letters our district leader goes and checks 3 times a day and will bring to us if we get um  mostly dear elders are given out to people.  Thanks for all the stuff and bars, and tapatio and aftershave.


#MTCtoolong
#needfebreeze
#flatulentmissionairies

Week #1: The MTC

My emails are basically snippets from my journal each day for now, as I adjust to this missionary life and especially the MTC.

I am beginning to learn Japanese and I feel like I'm back in Spanish 4 teacher while the teacher doesn't speak any English to us and I have no idea what she is saying. My first companion is best choro (elder).   I'm trying to talk more then I do right now but still struggling with homesickness and overwhelming work. I know I will get there once I feel more comfortable and get adjusted at the moment I am struggling but know somehow it will simply come and the struggles will pass.

Today I learned about how the Lord strengthens us in a scripture of the day:

9 Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

Favorite word so far is doryoku (Doree yo ku) because it reminds me of what dory said just keep swimming just keep swimming swimmimg....

We learned about how the Lord will strengthen us as we show  shinko (faith) inori (prayer) and doryoku (effort)

Each day is better then the last and tomorrow we finally get some gym time or exercise time to break the routine up.  I need a little of that each day to keep going. We didn't get that first few days and hoping tomorrow will help me relax more and help me get more done. I realize I definitely have a lot to get done in the nine weeks here.

I have cried and struggled, I knew it would not be easy and that has been confirmed.  I guess that's why it's not just anybody's work but the Lord's work.

I learned a lot about hard work this week.  But I feel I'm ready to be a senkyoshi (missionary)

Honestly there is a load of stuff to learn, the first days have been overwhelming,  but then I adopted a better perspective of making small goals.

Also another thing that came up is that well japan sendai missions have ipads and tokyo japan have android. And when you get advice at the MTC you get it 10 fold by each and every person so I have heard like 10 times you should get this app in the app catalog (ones we can choose from) but nope not on android apparently, its super helpful and crazy good for learning but I find I just do it the old fashion way study the paper.


The other day we got to go to the Provo temple, we just walk across the street and its there. One of the highlights of the day would definitely be when we watched a video that Elder Bednar from where he visited the MTC last Christmas and talked about the character of Christ to give one example of what was said. In Matthew 4 i believe , when Jesus is has just fasted the forty days and forty nights and satan tempts him to summon food, he looks outward and instead of looking on his struggle of temptation he brings himself outward he moves towards others, he seeks to touch the lives of others. The character of Christ was defined is why the atonement could take place and is  when the natural man would look inward Christ and his character would look outward. When you think you've worked hard all day and deserve a break the natural man would look inward and say poor me or look at all that I've done, I deserve this,  where as Christ would look outward to touch the lives of others. And again another point I summarize, is simply charity is the pure love of Christ and when as the lord suffered on the cross he looked outwards at those who betrayed him and those that hurt him and asked for their forgiveness from his father. Christ looks outward when we would look inward that's what we try to change about ourselves. Our frustration our competitive nature of being the best missionary our worry of not being good enough is not what we should be looking at but instead we should look outwards towards those that we could serve. No matter who they are or how they treated you.

And lucky enough the first week we were there our first Sunday devotional Elder Bednar came and just as awesome we left 5 mins early to get good seats for the devotional and then when we got there they said go put your bags away in the residence so me and my companion had to go all the way across campus to put our bags away and then we were late every seat was taken but as we were leaving to watch it on TV in another room because the devotional center was full, a man said wait and the 8 of us waited there and he got us front row seats so we sat probably as close as possible to Elder Bednar with his family right next to us. So was cool to see them so up close. The apostles you know just on T.V. but his message when he was there was basically to look for our spiritual needs by asking the crowd questions on what we needed and then he asked how can we relate this to our investigators. In short we can see that when we ask investigators questions we get a sense of the spiritual needs they may have in understanding their spiritual needs it not only shows a general concern.

So much happened that I cannot write it all down. But I am getting more and more glad I came.  The first night was hard being way from family and friends, shocked me and i didn't know it would hurt that much but with time the pain is still there but I can handle it.

District in class...

Reunited with dat boy Hyde!

My companion on our way to Provo temple