Friday, August 26, 2011

Kohai Everywhere!

The District


Kyle with his B2 roommates from Utah State

Pondering the Temple




Hello Family!

Another week has come and gone. I´m glad you had fun on your little city trip (I think that was last week, not sure, might have been two weeks ago). Also hope that Shakespeare was fun. I miss those plays! So off we go with random comments this week that make no sense but are things I felt I should tell you throughout the week.

Let's see, as for Kudosan she officially dropped us as an investigator this week. AKA: She is not teaching our class anymore and is now teaching a kohai district (A "kohai" I am not actually sure what it translates to but kohai is used for junior companions, senpai is senior companion). So that was sad. I really liked Whetto Shimai (Now Smith Shimai) (shimai = sister) We got a new teacher this week Ige Shimai and she is pretty good. Likes to have a little more fun than our other sensei so that is good. Also we have been doing pretty good at tricking out subs into telling us culture so even though we don't get it schedules we are finding ways of getting it. Also with Ige shimai we received a new investigator which I will be honest I can't remember her name. Our first lesson with her we walk in and she has two friends with her (two other senseis). That kind of threw us for a loop. That lesson didn't go well at all. But alas hopefully she takes our commitments and runs with them. Morimotosan we have only taught once this week because Bishoff Sensei (the sensei that is Morimotosan) has been gone. So we taught him yesterday and he is still having Word of Wisdom problems so baptism has been pushed back. Yay! :-( Oh well, after he gets baptized I don't know what would happen with the times we are suppose to teach him anyway. Being an investigator is a unique experience. Its kinda hard to figure out what kind of questions I would have or concern or vocabulary I wouldn't understand. Sometimes its a little strange but they always talk about we need to know what our investigators need to "know feel and do" in order to be converted so I guess this is one of the best ways to do it.

A random thing I learned this week. At least in Tokyo and I believe in other places throughout Japan there are a lot of people that speak spanish. We have had some of the Senseis talk to us and they said they came back from their mission knowing Spanish better than Japanese. Some mission presidents even told them to stop devoting time to learning Japanese in their language study and to start learning more Spanish. One of the senseis even said he had an English, Japanese, and Spanish stakes in his area and when they all got together it was crazy tri-lingualness! So......I may also be learning spanish.....fun. :-)

So for the kohai. They are EVERYWHERE! Holy cow, they outnumber us 2 to 1. I still don't even know who they all are. Thank goodness for nametags that are in Japanese. I have talked to a few of them and threw sneaky ways found out where all of them are going and .....(drum roll).....10 new Sendai missionaries! I even think 1 or 2 of them are sisters. So we went from having just me as the only Sendai missionary in the MTC to having 11! I think we have more than Sapporo now......possibly. It has been an adventure. Some of the kohai scare us. We had our coordinating sister go talk to the first new missionary we saw and guess what, she has a minor in Japanese. Wonderful. Then we meet an elder who is basically fluent. Are you kidding me!? Thank goodness they are the only two we have found. Although it does bug us little because if they know the language they shouldn't be here this long. We will try to pressure them into testing out of the MTC which I actually think they could do which would mean they would leave with us. Nevertheless, probably won't be the case.

Ha. Yeah I knew about Merrick, he was on the floor two floors down from me. I actually talked to him a few days before he got sent to his new area. That has to be frustrating.

I must say father. This grave site idea is pretty spiffy. I think you should look into NFC though because QR is a thing of the past. (Partly a joke but actually would also be cool).

Elder Clayton told me he had his Zions accounts allowed for international use so yes please do that, I had meant to tell you that after he told me he did it so I'm glad you thought of it.

I must comment on how many letters I am still getting. Must say I'm a little surprised that I still get this many, my district always jokes that you two don't have much of life cause you write me so letters. I don't mind though. :-) Its fun to get lots of letters. Also feel like I am still informed on how things are going at home.

When you send my camera card back you should put a video of Baby-A crawling on it! I need to see this little moving guy. At least Abby has someone to play with now. They will be the best of friends. :-)

カーター長厷