Week #6: Crandell Kyodai

Lost of great experiences this week in the MTC, some sweet and some bitter sweet . . .

We had the opportunity to go to the temple to do endowments and it was awesome, it is cool that we get to go every week but I hear in Japan the Tokyo temple might be closed sometime around when we get there. Hopefully we get to go to it idk if its true.    I guess some missionaries never get to go to the temple while on their missions, so I will consider it a blessing if we get to go.

We taught some TRC lessons to some members and was definitely awesome as I felt like when I wanted to say something, I could.  I was able to express everything I thought of and is really cool to be able to use the language, so something must be sinking in and some progress is being made.  I still have much to learn and love it, so excited to learn more.  I received my katakana name tag meaning my name-tag with my name in the katakana characters . . .
ウイルコツクス (wi-ru-ko-tsu-ku-su)or (wilcox tsu )  is wilcox pronounced in the Japaneese fashion... anyways cool we got them and next week we will likely get flight plans I hear.. our di sen pi (6-9 weekers) are packing up and leaving weighing their stuff and what not.  They will be leaving later this week.

Sadly,  Crandell kyodai is leaving.  He is an awesome teacher,  he is going to Boston for an internship for 4 months working with Mitt Romney's son or something, he studies finance at BYU.  He is a very great teacher sad he is leaving, demo a few more days with him.

One thing that I notice in the MTC and it doesn’t seem to be getting better is that I (and others) are sleepy and don’t know what to do because I literally just want to fall completely asleep.  I don’t know if that will every change, definitely tired now I was thinking maybe I should try to go to bed sooner but kinda cant’ do that with 5 other roommates, maybe this is one of the things that prepared us for life, like college roommates, a house full of kids that won’t go to bed.   I hope sooner or later my body will adjust but honestly probably not...

Our sensei game us some advice this week, here are some quick notes:

Notes
• nihongo.
• The capacity to love is a gift given to us by god.
• If ever you feel like god forgot about me and dendo sucks, you lose all motivation and don’t won’t to continue and it happens to everyone, every senseitachi went through it here.
• Jesus didn’t take the easy way he took the long way to places and healed people on the way, even when he was at sea he went through storms he didn’t do it the easy way...
• God doesn’t do easy things, senkyoshi don’t take it easy they take the longer way because they are striving to be like jesus
• Eye single to the glory of god qualify him for the work.
• God sees people with a filter of love.
• Being able to love people qualifies us.


Notes from today our final lesson with Crandell kyodai
*****************************************************

• You don’t feel like a successful missionary everyday... sometimes nobody talks to you... it can kinda suck....

• Everyone has the same problem, its really hard to keep people active, its hard anywhere you go...


• A bad district was having problems, they hated each other... they were like 6 year olds without nap time krandel said.

Matthew 7:4

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

• Society can be backwards in nihon, young people are super motivated and hard working, old people stay up late and dye their hair different colors and pee on sidewalks, but the kids are motivated studying working and and striving.

• It is so easy to hate japan, it is really easy specially as a missionary to be miserable if you allow yourself to, it is much harder to choose to love the people over there but when you do they return the love and love you 10 fold.

• In the mission hardest part was having to say goodbye, but I hope you get your heart ripped out over and over again, because that means you put your whole heart into it.

Crandell  kyodai  was an amazing teacher that was definitely life changing, I  learned  so much more then before and cant believe I never knew or had learned what we were taught. There are some amazing teachers at the MTC they are always return missionaries from a mission by yours and always really are amazing.  It is  sad he left, so many people cried.
I am excited to leave and head to Japan.  The MTC is great and all but I want to  get out and see what the real  mission stuff it all about.

The Nashville Tribute Band came and played again this week.  They do an amazing job.   If i were to describe it, its like a story telling music thing and its super spiritual and emotional. There is one song they played this time and last time that are awesome for sure some really good music and I am not just saying that because I haven’t heard music in forever. They are really amazing and would watch them again and again.  There is one song they sing at the end every time that is pretty dang cool I wish i remembered the lyrics going something like . . . “19 years of dreams left in my room . . .”  I  would google it but can’t [Dad can and the song is linked here]

I loved this week!   My conversion is growing stronger and stronger, and my faith in Jesus Christ and understanding of him and his love through this gospel is remarkable and I feel more ready everyday to leave to Japan and start teaching and serving.

Week #3: Nihongo studies

Well another week down, I am a bit tired as I continue to adjust to missionary life.  We taught two kyokaiin (church members) today and we are making it through the language little by little.  I feel like I need to practice japaneese all the time to be prepared, and this leads to my mind being tired so not sure what to write.  Today we went through the temple I enjoyed it.  It is so nice for it to be so close and be able to go there each week.  Not to mention it has nice A/C and it has been hot here.  Also today, P-day we mostly just did laundry and replied to family and friends it's ard being away but will feel great when I can see them again. I honestly just really want to learn this language so just got a lot of work to do, It's kinda amazing I guess if I look, how much we've already learned.

Today we had a good lesson and learned why teaching in  nihongo (japaneese) is actually better than teaching in (english) eigo. Basically and most simply when we speak in eigo we have a deep knowledge and vocabulary and will tend not to keep it simple. Though the Nihanji people need the simple truths of the gospel they do not know that God loves us. They don't understand that God is there for us, to answer us and these simple truths are all we really need to testify of even in eigo. We need to testify that just as James directs we can ask of god if we lack wisdom. That we can learn truth through the spirit and know it s the spirit as we receive a kimochi a feeling that delighteth us to do good. Today also was williams shimai ,our teacher's, birthday and we sang happy birthday in nihongo and gave her some a popcorn box signed by us. It's her birthday and she worked all day here.  What dedicaiton. Anyways she's an awesome teacher she's a tenshi such a kind soul, and so is our other teacher krandel kyodai(brother) they really are good and its sad krandel kyodai is leaving in a month. And we still have 7 weeks so it will suck to see him leave b4 we do. I love how much we are learning and can say already. Now each day we are teaching two investigators and there's no stress about it because if we need to we can read straight from notes but we attempt to keep eye contact and have a conversation but vocabulary and knowledge of sentence structure is still limited and needs to be studied again and again, today was just more of the same stuff and a bunch of fun. But anyways just the same old same old would write more but out of time good day.

My companion and district are great, it is taking some adjustments in attitude, but it is all good.

On Friday, we had pizza,  which well was cool I guess,  pizza is always nice, not sure why I am telling you this.  The words are just flowing.  The day flew by, we had our normal teacher williams shimai who was amazing as usual, an awesome teacher!  Then after her class and lunch we had our other class but no teacher showed up, but luckily our pre-mtc tutor Brother Cook that wee all skyped with beforehand to learn nihongo was just visiting and was like you don't have a teacher? Well I will teach you... and well he's pretty awesome.  He broke his femur, I don't remember how and didn't want to ask because I'm sure he has been asked a million times.

I will share one of the  super short stories he told us.

He was in his first area with a trainer and he stops this guy and his mind goes blank can't think in english or nihongo(-japaneese), he thinks, I will fake a cough and buy some time, but the man thought he was trying to headbuttt him and ran away. When he went back to his trainer he was like what did you do? ...pretty funny.

Oh and Randell kyodai he did a simple but cool excercise, where we taught the message of the restoration in 10 minutes. Then taught it in 5 mins then in 2 mins then in 1 mins. The lesson we learned is that to keep it simple specially since our nihongo forces us to sometimes our english teaching would expound too mucn, when honestly the nihanjin need the simple truths they don't  need to instantly get our profound knowledge they need to actually understand. What they need is the simple truths that they lack a knowledge of. The knowledge that god is there, the knowledge that we are his children, those very basic things we can say is what is important .

Day saturday: well today zoomed by we studied a bunch more japaneese of course went over plain form yada yada. Today i made flashcards for about 100 words and memorized maybe 70 of them super well the other kinda, so it was just a flashcard day inbetween classes, I cant think of what else to write about today.

Wel during one study period we have some of the missiomaries for 2 hours straight talked about spongebob yes spongebob, Im like ok.?. Anyways ya then they moved on to avatar the last airbender as i was sitting there on the side studying very productive so you can tell here you have the choice to be the one of the two guys in the highschool weight room, anyways maybe good for them to take a break so they dont go crazy because well 7 more weeks left still, but still suprised.I remember when my father banned us from watching the show because of well how well lame it was, anyways ya just an interesting bunch there. Oh and ya been trying all that weird japaneese candy theres definitely some crazy weird things like giant cheetos that are pretty much a bar to some spicy roman and grape cotton candy, some cola hi chew, ya some fun and cool stuff roomates have for sure liked it.

Today we didnt feel like playing volleyball for excercise time so instead we went to the fitness center, ran/lifted weights and stuff, really nothing different today. Dont know what to say two 3 hour classes and a one 3 hour study period is the basic day with of course meals and excercise but ya time for bed tomorrow is sunday which means devotional and church and wear a suit.

Well today was cool we had our usual meetings and temple walk, this weeks topic was enduring to the end. And we got back late so like practically no time to write in my journal, though today our devotional was by Steven B Allen he talked about well us as missionaries, in companionships definitely a funny guy made us all stand up for various reasons, funny because he's like ok everyone who is writing someome special stand up and he says next everyone that is here thats already been dear johned stand up , about 10 guys stood up, he tells us its ok the mail comes tomorrow there will be more joining you guys. He was definitely a funny dude he worked with the people that created the old weird mormon commercials and showed like 10 of those during the devotional, ill give some names of them...

Play ball,potraits, conference call, braces and glasses , splash and a few more we watched...

Today we studied a lot more and I cant think what to write, I have to shave pretty often and I am thinking it might be good to get an electric razor for me because it seems to grow fast because they are fast and easy.  My teachers are great I really am enjoying them and I honestly think I got the two best, one is the fun but super spirtual one and the other is the super kind helpful teacher. I got called as district leader. Today we had subway, cheeseburgers, and i forget its hard to remember things when you are studying these words that are so weird all day. Hmmm fun word to say though is wachiatai  (wa-key-chi-eye-tye) meaning I would like to share.  Tomorrow is tuesday which means no excercise time sad face (sundays and tuesdays dont have exercise time) but then we have Wednesdays which is our day of rest if we want we can sleep. Wednesday I think we have more japaneese missionaries coming in, more newbies, so we won't be the newbies.  I don't know if that is good or not but I guess I will find out.

Today was full of a lot more studying I kinda lose a sense of what to study sometimes i think im gonna buy this one book they have for Japanese it's like 12 bucks called 501 Japanese verbs, has a bunch of verbs and sentences to us. I feel like I have a sense of how to say stuff but nowhere in a confident zone because half the time Japanese flips itself backward and then backward again. But I definitely have made progress to where i can understand and talk with some good ability. Today was well a devotional day we heard from bishop W. Christoper Walden who talked to us about looking outwards and seeing the people we teach their needs with spiritual eyes. Trying to find where their hardship is and how Jesus Christ can help them and change them and ultimately lead them towards the temple, our ultimate goal. He talked about numbers and how we don't baptize numbers but what our goals is conversion to the gospel to christ to the Book ofMormonn ensuring they develop that testimony. Our branch president, President Stevens, told us about a missionary this missionary went to Finland I believe a really hard language to learn the missionary when he got to the field could only say one sentence. But when he got there his senior companion was teaching a lesson taking charge he'd gesture to his companion and he would say I know this church is true. And in the end when this man they were teaching was interviewed for baptism he was asked what made you decide to be baptism and he said the words of the companion, telling him he knew the church was true. The spirit conveyed this truth to the  man's heart in all its simplicity. This speaks to the power of the spirit to testify of the truth and how it touches lives and bears truth to the hearts of god's children.

My favorite time of the day though is for sure is lights out 10:30-11:00 bedtime stories, the bedtime stories are the best for sure. Anyways off to bed till tomorrow....

I can say without a doubt my current companion is my best companion yet so far no doubt.  Anazlyze as you will...

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