Insights into the MTC-August 5, 2011

Hello Minasan (Everyone)

So I'll start off addressing the fact that appararently I said something that made you parentals think I was not ok based on the number of "You can do it" emails I got this week so I will just say I'm doing well. No need to worry, things are hard but that is to be expected but overall it its wonderful. I don't know if I mentioned this in my last email but basically I make a list of things to mention to you in my email so that is why I probably sound so all over the place. Thanks for answering my many questions last week, its helpful information.

So some random "nuts and bolts" things that I think are interesting but have no meaning basically. So I discovered this week finally why some people will put a country's flag under their nametag. It tells everyone that they are SYLing for the day, very interesting to me that they don't even break if people only speak english. Next so constantly there are announcements over intercoms throughout this compound kindof like a school telling people to go to the main office (another random thing about that is that they also have microphones like a school so you can be in the residence hall and hear, "Elder Carter are you in your room?" Then you just yell "Yes" and you can conversate like this (never have done this yet but I want to)). So everytime people hear "Excuse me Elders and Sisters" over the intercom people will throw their hands up with a number of finger up as there guess of how many people are getting called to the office. Its quite entertaining to watch during meals because there are so many people. Finally check out LDS News and look at the new in-field training that they are putting in place. Apparently I will be having 12 more weeks of training once I'm in the field. The church is definitely mixing things up. Also, the whole MTC is now the pilot program as I mentioned my first week as of August 1 everyone switched. The computers have not opened up so we still have counters on these but the other districts have had 1 investigator this week and next week I believe they switch to 2 like my district has now. Even the senpai have been switched so in classes they only speak Japanese (non-religious classes, if its about how to teach or something they speak English but if its related to Japanese its japanese only). Also speaking of Senpai they got their travel itineraries this week! They leave a week from Monday! I feel like I barely know them and they are already leaving us! I need to learn so much more from them! Crazy sauce. Moving on.

So yesterday Elder Clayton and Elder Beckstrand with a group of the Senpai tried out to sing an arrangement of a song for one of the bigger meetings in the MTC. Actually a little backstory. So they did this arrangement in sacrament for fun but who was visiting but none other than the MTC president, after they sang he pulled Beckstrand choro aside and told him to try out. They didn't this week so we get a knock on the door yesterday from the MTC music person saying she was requested by the MTC president to have them try out with her, He really wanted them. So they tried out and last night they opened the mailbox and they had this awesome stationary saying they would be singing at the mission conference we are having this Sunday so in front of the whole MTC. Crazy sauce with 2 days to prepare so this morning on our day of rest we woke up at 5:15 to do our laundry so that they could practice during the day. I won't lie, it sucked to wake up but after that it was nice to just be able to chill in the laundry room with not many people (ends up the Senpai do it all the time so they were there too) and then not have to worry about it all day.

Now for answering questions. My district has 8 elders and 0 sisters (there are two sisters in another district that entered at the same time as us). We have Beckstand Choro and Maxfied Choro who are also in our rooms. Elder Maxfield is from Arizona, also into fitness, is a pretty fun guy but kinda has been acting like a 2 years old today that I have been on splits with today so he has almost got slapped today. But beside the point we are buds. Then we have Henderson Choro and Nukya Choro. Elder Henderson went to BYU, was big into Japanese before he came here, has mad skills, break dances, and is possibly the most sincerly happy and nice person I have ever met. (His dream side kick was not a bear or lion like some of people, it was a walking Sunflower....that tells you the kinda man he is). Nukya Choro is a Japanese-American that doesn't know Japanese. His brother is in one of the other districts here with us. He is one of the hardest workers I have seen in our group yet he has had the hardest time with the language but he is my study inspiration. Then finally we have Perry Choro and Singleton Choro. Elder perry is from provo, went to byu, and likes to call me a girl.....not sure why to be honest. But he is a pretty chillax guy so thats nice. Elder Singleton is our Canadian! Yeah! So he has lots of stories and is another just really nice guy. Basically everyone is awesome in the district.

Moving on because I'm running out of time. As for the TRC, it didn't really stink that bad. Its super weird because you just see this camera on the wall of this living room moving around watching you but other than that it is super cool to teach someone "new" and its kinda weird because they are themselves. Like the first guy told us he was a member and served a mission so kinda weird to teach him, the next guy we did said he didn't believe God existed so that was different but it went well. Tomorrow we teach our investigators how to pray and recieve answers so wish me good luck on that. Next our two Investigators, Kudosan and Morimotosan. First of Morimotosan of Bishoff Sensei as he really is is not a good actor and is super chillaxed. He just sits back, doesn't ask questions and just kinda nods along and tells us to teach him everything. Last friday night we had a lesson with him and we invited him to baptism and he accepted. Tis awesome. He has been doing well this week and we are teaching him tonight again....I think. I have a sinking suspicion that he is hiding something so I'm worried for our next lesson but if we make it through that then we have succeeded so yay. Kudosan or previously Satosan or really Whetto Shimai is an awesome actress, she cries on demand seems super sincere when she is sincere and super bored when she is bored. Anyway we inviteed her to be baptised earlier this week but she said it was too fast and her husband wouldn't like it and all this stuff. Anyway we got in with her last night and our new companionship problem came into play, Clayton Choro talks nonstop in lessons so its kinda hard for me to get into so after 15 minutes of him talking straight in our lesson of 30 minutes she just looks at me and asks when I was baptized and how I felt. In very broken japanese I testified to her and all that jazz (running out of time for description) and the Spirit was aweomse, craziest experience of my life, tears came to her eyes and push come to shove she accepted baptism yay! She is actually German not japanese mom. She is the bomb. 10 seconds left.

bye