Random thoughts of the MTC-July 29, 2011

Ok so I have this counter that  counts down thirty minutes so I have no time to write emails if I read your emails so don't email me just dear elder me if that is ok with you guys.
 
I am good
The food is crazy and there is so much of it but its actually really good.

Nice that you guys are having grandma over.  Hopefully she is ok with people cooking for her, she has always been a good little server of others fulfilling their needs. 

Father our devotionals are actually on Sunday and Tuesday nights so hope that clears that up (although I don't think it really matters).

  Update on the B2 bretheren. I have now seen Andrew and he always sit at the Japanese table so we see him a lot and I got word that Colton has recieved his call to Seattle which is wicked awesome!!!!!! 
 
Ok now for how I'm doing stuff and this is really just going to be a random assortment of thoughts that I have written down throughout the week.  So we have the pamphlets to give to investigators and it wasn't till this morning that we found out that the pictures are different in them between the english and Japanese ones.  The English one has americans and the Japanese has Japanese people its super funny but makes sense.   Another random cool thing about class this week.  We were kinda talking with our Senseis (teachers) and one of them was telling us how we have basically the authority to call upon heaven for the gift of tounges. Random and I probably should have known that but I thought that was super duper awesome so yeah. 

The district is doing pretty good we have had some fun moments.  The MTC is tough.  We have had one elder just break down crying in one of our "Coaching Studies" (basically the sensei comes around and helps you study more effectively) and we have had the district leaders companion basically tell our district leader to sit down and be quiet so oh the fun of the drama of the MTC.  Tomorrow we have a "District Inventory" which basically should be called a "district roast" so that should be.....different.  Something dad would love is how many Moleskin notebooks I have seen here it is crazy.  I thought they weren't very popular but I have seen quite a number and the funniest part is the people I have talked to about it were basically all gifted them by parents that love them.  :-) 

Lets see tomorrow we have a TRC (can't remember what that stands for to be honest) basically you go into a fake living room that looks right with a fake investigator and a camera so your senseis can watch you. All the senpai call them "TRC Beatdowns" because they say you just get so discouraged and beat down after going in there trying to teach for 35 minutes in a foreign language.  I'm quite terrified of them to be honest. I hope they go well.  Now for the new progressing investigators.  So last Saturday we say our video intro to them the first one was one of our teachers which was not a big surprise but his new name is Morimoto san.  And then the next new investigator....the screen turns on....who could it be......Satosan? Yes it was the same person as Satosan but now apparently her name is Kudosan and she is 40 years old and have kids (the "actress" is actually 22 so its a little awkward to talk to her about 40 year old woman stuff).  anyway So we started teaching them.  We taught Morimoto san and he was interested in Christ so we taught him a lesson about that and the Book of Mormon and all that jazz and tonight we have another lesson with him where we are teaching the Doctrine of Christ.  Kudosan has also been fun.  We had our first lesson with her and were able to really push families which she seemed to eat up and after the lesson we go into our district classroom and have our usual "postop" on each lesson when all of a sudden Kudosan walks in the room, not only were we talking about her but we had never seen her leave her "house" so I was terrified.  Then she turns around and points her her newly put on nametag which says "Sister Whetlauf  - Teacher" Yep, she is our new teacher.  Ha. Now we have Satosan, Kudosan, and Whetto Shimai (Sister Whetto (super hard to say Whetlauf in japanese)) all rolled into one person.  she's a good teacher though and she got off her mission from Sendai last year so extra awesomness. I will have to talk to her about what to expect.  Tonight we are also going to try to teach a lot more by memory than having our "cheat sheets" with up so I'm a little scared especially since I tried it yesterday and basically all I could think of is "Baptism is good" etc.  Anyway.  So much to say but we are getting in the swing of things which is good I guess although its already a tad monotmous and they kinda are getting mad at us for being too fun (what they would call, "not focusing").  Hopefully the language keeps coming and the lessons get a ton better but I'm glad that we get this opportunity to practice so much, it shall be invaliable when we get into the country.  Anyway, love you all, hope all is well at home or wherever you are reading this. Peace out.
 
Elder Carter