Kyle's Medical Update

Here is a little bit of an explanation on Kyle's medical status (before reading Kyle's latest letter). He will not be leaving for Japan as planned on Monday (tomorrow). He has lost 40% of the hearing in his left ear. It happened suddenly about 2 weeks ago. The diagnosis is Sudden Sensioneural Hearing Loss. I talked to the Dr. on Wednesday and he said that there is a 50/50 chance that the loss will be permanent. Right now Kyle is on a 7 day treatment of Prednisone. He will go back to the Dr. on Wednesday next week to be re-evaluated. If there is improvement, he will be cleared to leave for Japan as soon as they can arrange it. I have no clue how long that arrangement would take. If there is no improvement, the doctor will either decide to put him on another 7 days of prednisone, or assume the hearing is lost, and clear him for Japan. If at his 7 day evaluation things look worse, the doctor will schedule him for an MRI to see if there is some tumor or growth causing the problems. This would probably delay him a while. But the doctor assured me that this is only a 1% chance and didn't seem to think that would happen.

So things are up in the air right now. Kyle was very sad and disappointed on Wednesday, because he was on fire and ready to go with his district to Japan and get started! So that was hard for him to swallow. But as you can see from his letter, he has accepted it, and is doing fine. It will be hard to see his buddies leave tomorrow, but hopefully he won't be too far behind them.

We will be fasting for him on Tuesday if any of you would like to join us.

Thanks for you support and love,
Steph

No matter how long and hard the road

Hey Peeps.

Well this letter was suppose to be much more exciting but as you are fully aware not really. So hopefully that won't be what this whole email is about but we shall see.

Something kinda random and cool this week is guess who came to our Tuesday devotional to speak? Richard G. Scott! Apostle #3! These little Kohai are getting spoiled! Ohwell we get the benefit of their luckiness So that was kind of cool. He talked all about the special Book of Mormon issue of the Ensign. It was like just sitting at the feet of an apostle and having a scripture study with him! It was pretty intense and cool.

I think the BBC was last Saturday but if I have talked about this before oh well. It was pretty chillaxed. They came in with cameras for the 10 minutes. Interviewed our current district president (Henderson Choro) and previous district president (Beckstrand Choro). Then we had a sub for it so that was funny because (although this probably will take more explaining then I will give it to make sense) our other teacher wrote the "text book" (More like pamplet) that we learn a lot of language from and is really the only thing we learn in class from. Anyway he is super proud of it calling it "The best language resource ever" and on resumes he says he wrote the "Main textbook for the largest private language institution in the world" Kinda decietful. Anyway while the cameras are on her (our sub) she goes and rips into every problem that was on the page (ok rips into is wrong but she points them all out because of course they are mistakes and she doesn't want us to make them (oh and she did this in Japanese so probably no one will understand that that is what she is doing)) Anyway I thought it was funny, probably isn't.

Well I guess I can get to the "fun" stuff. So as you know my Wednesday was not the funnest thing in the world. Starting out going to the Audiologist at 8:30 and probably not until 2 or 3 finally finishing everything. The audiologist was interesting. It was alaso interesting just to be out in the world trying to avoid watching TV and listening to real music. Even saw one of my senseis working there because she is going to nursing school. Went through this crazy sound both test which I kind of failed but I won't lie apparently I understood 88% percent of what she said into my left ear and 98% in my right so I actually thought that was pretty good even though in real life it isn't that way. And then more machines stuck into my ears which actually one of them vindicated me because without having to ask me anthing it said there was something messed up. I won't lie I was starting to think it was all in my head but the machine doesn't lie (still don't know what that machine was testing though) Then the next machine I was praying would of failed (I didn't actually understand its purpose until after) but basically said behind my ears was dry therefore probably the SSNL (I think that is what it is called). Came back and went to get my next appointment. They scheduled it for Monday at which time I told her I was suppose to leave Monday so she got it for an hour or two later but then got this look in her eyes and pulled out this special pad of paper that said "Missionary Phone Pass" and handed it to me with the reassuring comment, "Your probably going to need this" Which I won't lie it is quite the coveted thing in this place. While I was waiting at the doctors office one of the outside doctors called and you could tell he wanted to talk to the missionary and got the wonderful response of, "He's a missionary, he isn't allowed to use this phone" Anyway, get to this doctor sit FOREVER!!!! Although he did have Ensign magazines so I could read something. Then he comes in, we talk missions for maybe 5 minutes seeing as he went to Sapporo then he looks in my ears (for about the 50th time by someone) and then just turns to me and says, "Well there isn't much we can do about this like draining it because there is no liquid. Normally I would put you on these drugs and have you come back in a week but you are suppose to leave so...........well actually I'm going to suggest you date gets pushed back and you come back in a week" I had entertained this thought because it was so close to the end but still I thought it was more of a nightmare. Anyway the next few hours were between getting drugs, talking to MTC doctors about the official stance of the church and them sending me (I didn't really like that doctor, he was kinda a jerk telling me to have patience because after 45 minutes of waiting in a room he still hadn't come to visit. And when he finally did come in and he ask me what the coctor said and I told him he said, "Well I doubt that" then after talking to the doctor told me to stop being a downer (I thought I was doing fine). Anyway, then to the MTC Distcit Presdent get get all my stuff handled (which is kinda nice because there are lot of people to contact). Then calling you guys which was super weird to hear your voice mom. Also you are probably sick of all these kids on missions. Also, I was doing perfecting fine until you had to go and say it was a bummer. ;-) I guess it was good to hear your voices still even under crappy circumstances. And then going back to my district and sharing the news. Most my zone doesn't even know and probably never will (well except the Kohai). Sidenote: Elder Clayton is the bomb for dealing with me all of that day, we missed so super cool things that both of us wanted to go to and he just had to be there because he was my companion. Anyway, that is the experience of Elder Carter's view.

So where does that put me. Well as you would suspect there has been a lot of thinking over the last few days about why I am here. Also I can testify that Satan really loves to attack God's missionaries. Its been hard but there are a few thoughts that have stuck with me. 1. The name of Dad's favorite talk: No matter how long and hard the road, not sure if the content actually applies but I haven't read it for quite some time but just seems fitting. The road is still leading to the same place that being a mission and really that is what matters. 2. Mom's little saying, "This too shall pass" easy to see how this fits. 3. Elder Clayton upon me finishing my call with you shard D&C 121:7 with me that this was just a "small moment" and the Lord was till there. 4. The thought, "No one owes me a mission" If I needed to be out there God would make me a way to be out there. He is aware of me and this is his work so I will do all I can to prepare my body and spirit even better in the coming week or so to do his work. Anyway, the story took more time then expected so I'm kinda out of time today. Maybe I will write you a letter also but I'm not sure what it would include. Today is a whole day of p-day for packing yesterday we had our second to last pep talk all day about missionary work.

Thanks for the doughnuts
Hope your trip went well
I will try to talk to my Branch President about a blessing.

Love you all. Please don't worry about me, I am fine.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Hello Family!

Sounds like things are doing pretty good at home which is good to here. Glad everything is going well in the elections so far, hope they continue to go that way. So lets see, seems like there is a lot to say so here we go.

So this Tuesday we go to the devotional and we got some pretty sweet seats. However, I needed to leave real quick and it was like 15 minutes before the start so I wasn't too worried about it. However when we try to get back in they are being meany heads and won't let us in. Finally we convince the guy that we should be allowed in and when we walk in everyone is standing and singing. Now this isn't totally uncommon so we sneak back to our seat and then when everyone sits down we look up at the stand and who happens to be sitting there? M. Russell Ballard! What the what?(As Sister Carter would put it). Total pleasent surprise. Two apostles in two weeks. Lucky are we! It was quite fun to contrast his talk to Elder Hollands. They have very different speaking techniques but the same spirit is there and as Sister Carter put it in her most recent letter these general authorities have a power to really give you a kick in the butt. So that was sweet and a half!

Ok next crazy thing. So Wednesday we are chilling in class and then the head of the Japanese Department comes in and tells we need to all come back to class (when we all study together not much gets done so we usually split up). Not unheard of so we come back. Then this guy comes in that we have never seen and his name tag says "Operations" (Sidenote: I kinda love being on a mission because i don't need to ask what anyone does or what their name is because of these nametags). Anyway he starts out real sullen with "I need all of your full attention, Saturday at 2..." At which point we all get worried because we are thinking something went seriously wrong LAST Saturday at 2 then he continues. "...BBC will be coming to the MTC." Starts talking more about it. Kinda cool but a lot of people come here to film and do different stuff so nothing too special and then he says something along the lines of,"So they will be interviewing a few of you and then filming you during your language instruction" Becomes pretty clear that they are coming just for our district! Ha. So apparently your son is going to be famous in England! Also they said they would let us and you know when BBC puts the story online. Pretty snazzy if I must say so myself. So that means I get to get my hair cut today (Which I'm not suppose to do until 5 days before I leave but when we brought this up he just told us to tell the people that "President Brown said I could break that rule" (President Brown is the MTC president)). Anyway, kinda cool. Will actually end up probably being not that cool and kinda boring but yeah.

So now the moment you have all been waiting for! Travel plans!!!! There was much jubilation yesterday when these were received. So here is the deal, pretty simple. On September 26 I will be taking Delta Flight 639 from Salt Last City, UT -> Tokyo Narita, Japan. Leave at Sept. 26 2:00pm, arrive at Sept 27 4:45pm. Pretty super exciting little piece of paper! Also a more stressful part of this. I'm the travel leader for all the Sendai missionaries to make sure they make there flights and don't do anything stupid from the time we leave the MTC until President Rasmussen picks us up at the Tokyo airport. This is all fine and dandy but then I thought to myself, "Wait who will be going to Japan with me?" Flipping a few pages to a list of the people and my fears were confirmed. Its me and 5 Nihonjin! Ha. So the person with probably the least airline experience is going to try and lead these people through the airport when he only kinda speaks their language. This shall be an adventure.

As for the phone call, I know nothing about it. They really never even address that you can do it although I'm sure you can. So I will try to find out more about that before next week.

As for our investigators things are going pretty good. Mayumisan accepted the invitation to be baptized this week but there is no way we get her to the level of actually being prepared before we leave and (drum roll please!) Monday Morimotosan is getting baptized!!!! Ha. Fake investigator but I was still super happen when Henderson Choro came in and all he said was, "Well go congratulate him" "......so he passed?" "Oh yeah, guess I should have started with that". Yay! I guess the benefit of this is that because he is fake he can't not show up to his baptism (well technically he can but that would just be mean). Anyway so that is cool. However, when we leave the Kohai don't actually get our investigators. They just keep the progressing investigators that they currently have.

Well out of time now. Love you all. Hopefully I answered questions. Talk to you hopefully soon!

The Gift of Tongues

Hello peeps!

Another week of me telling you random things about the MTC. Let's begin.

So this Monday we received 24 (I think) Japanese native missionaries (Nihonjin). It has been kinda interesting. We were in the middle of practicing teaching the other district and all of us sudden a ton of them walked into the room. It was like Christmas!!! I don't think I have gotten that exciting since I entered the MTC. So in our broken Japanese we talked to them and I found a buddy who is going to Sendai at the same time as me. We have talked a few more times since then and he is a pretty cool guy. Yoneda choro is his name. Also I think a lot of the sisters are going to Sendai so that should be fun because they are super nice too. It was super cool though because after like 10 or 15 minutes working through understanding each other I finally asked, "Do you speak English?" (in japanese of course) and he just shook his head. It really hit me at that moment, everyone one else I have ever spoken to in Japanese has also at least known English but I was actually communicating with a Japanese only speaker. Crazy sauce!!!! Definitely a long ways to still go but we are getting there. Also is fun when the Kohai try to talk to them and they just kinda look at us with the, "What in the world did they just say?" look and we translate. Puts those Kohai in their place. He he he.

So I was in line for lunch yesterday and I look over at the line next to me and all of a sudden I recognize someone from my previous life, he turns around to face me and who is it but none other than Brother/Elder Hill! Ha. I didn't even know he was going on a mission and I have no idea what he is actually doing because his name tag said "Military relations" and all else I know is he is going to Hawaii. That was a pleasant surprise, sometimes is nice to have reminders of your previous life in here especially when it is a person in the MTC with you.

Now for our investigators. Kinda hard to remember what I have told you about and what I haven't. Morimotosan is still having problems with the Word of Wisdom but he committed to try harder last time so we will see tonight how it has been. I don't know if I told you last time or even when his baptismal interview was but he didn't quite show he was prepared enough there. This Japanese culture is already annoying me, he just keeps saying, "Its good to be different in America, its not that way in Japan." Anyway we keep working on them. Mayumisan is doing pretty good not much to say about her or our Missionary investigators. They just keep slowly pushing forward.

Thank you both for the update on the sister in Utica. That is so sad! In our mission conference on Sunday President Brown (MTC President) talked about her and also two missionaries that were in the MTC one who while in the MTC had his mom and aunt die suddenly and another whose dad died on a Tuesday and the next day the elder entered the MTC. This work definitely isn't without its trials. Both of those elders were staying on their missions though, makes my trials seem a whole lot smaller.

Oh little Cecil got his mission call, how cute. That is kinda funny that it really is to Fukuoka. It is interesting to note that basically everyone he in my zone has some kind of connection to Japan. Whether it be learning japanese or having a family member that went to Japan so I guess that fits the mold here. I'm sure he is super excited. Who knows, maybe he will be able to work with Elder Clayton, Beckstrand, Maxfield, or Henderson.

Thank you for sending the mission president letter. Glad he hasn't forgotten about me. :-)

So I did find out that there will be no DearElders when they move the mailroom here so that is basically a bummer and a half! However the Japanese has a word for this, Shoganai (there is nothing we can do about it). I guess I will get a taste of what like Japan life will be not getting a letter everyday.

Its funny that you would mention figuring out Japan's holidays because we were talking about that in one of our classes the other day. As our sensei put it, "The Japanese people just like to celebrate" so basically it sounds like they have a ton of holidays even though they don't know why its a holiday such as Christmas, apparently not a lot of Japanese people understand what it means or where it came from.

Also a random thing about Hymns. It reminds me of Christmas Story at times because Japanese doesn't have an "l" sound as you may be aware so in hymns when its like "Halleluah" or similar its super funny sounding with our "Harereura" all the "borrowed"/stolen words they use from English sound like a 2 year old which I get a kick out of.

So this week Smith Shimai (Formerly know at Whetto Shimai (AKA the sensei that ditched us)), was a sub for our class so and I actually forgot most of the time to ask her about Sendai because I always forget that is where se went. Anyway so half my district is going to Fukuoka and so they always talk about a big dialect there called Kanzaiben. Its kinda weird and they speak it sometimes. Anyway, Smith Shimai instructed me I have my own dialect and told me one word in it so that was exciting! Ha. Random yes.

Travel plans come next Thursday and that shall be a joyous day!

Anyway family. Love you. Actually talk to you soonish (in a few weeks). Take care of abby and can't wait to hear from you.

The Downhill Slide

Hello family!!!!

So I feel like there is much less to talk about in these letters the longer I am here the less I have to say.

So Monday we moved classrooms so we aren't in the scary 1-way mirror room anymore and have a real window that has right smack dab in the middle the temple. Basically a Celestial window. Also we are closer to the all the rest of the Japanese Elders and Sisters so that is more fun although we really aren't part of their ingroup so we are still the outsiders a little but whatever.

Yeah I would say that is a little bit scary with Mandy especially when I read dad's letter first and it says stuff like "the stress of our daughter", "Mandy's situation" I quickly jumped over to mother's letter to see what it was all about. I'm glad she is starting to feel better now. That had to be terrifying and a half! Not really a surprise though with Mandy, that woman works until her bones hurt and her body rebels. They have actually talked a little bit about crazy things that happen if you stress yourself out too much during your mission here. On of our substitute Sisters got tonselitis (I think thats what it was) from working too hard and she is pretty sure she made it so that doctor would never join the church because it was filled with crazy people that volunteer to work so hard their bodies freak out. Now lets just hope she can learn from this and enjoy these last few months. I know God does take care of his missonaries.

Let's see as for our investigators. So we have Morimotosan who who knows if he is still having problems with the Word of Wisdom, I'm not even sure, he won't give us a straight answer. Yesterday was our last lesson with him before his baptisimal interview which the only other person that has had him have an interview he didn't pass because he didn't understand repentence so hopefully he has an understanding of that. If not we shall keep working with him. Then our other Sensei investigator is Mayumisan who I am not sure if I have talked about before. She is the new teacher's investigator. I don't know what it is about her but we just fail miserably everytime we teach her. Our lesson yesterday we talk the Plan of Salvation and it was kind of a disaster. If she was a real investigator I'm not sure if she would have invited us back. I think Ige Shimai her self was confused with this lesson and she has been a member her whole life. Nevertheless, I guess we learn from these experiences and become better......I hope. Then our two members of our district that we teach are doing ok, there lessons are a tad different. They just seem super lazy about the gospel.

So the strange thing is with addressing like Law of Chastity, and Word of Wisdom issues the sensei are no help at all. When we ask them questions they say stuff like, "Its different for every investigator", or "Look at that in PMG" which I'm sure it is very different for every investigator but also I have a feeling there is certain approaches that work better than others. Then PMG as awesome as it is is not as tuned towards our missions as the sensei knowledge is. Its a little frustrating at times.

On monday we get 20 nihonjin (japanese people) that are here for 3 weeks and that leave with us so that will be cool.

As for this protected picture on my camera card that would be the doing of Elder Clayton and I did not know he had done that so yeah don't worry about why I would have done that.

So the MTC is moving it's mailroom and as a result I have heard that from September 9th-15th there will be no mail delivered. This seems slightly odd and I haven't been able to confirm it but may want to look into that.

So story time. So we get to play "Name that Speaker" for the devotional we had on Tuesday:
Part of the missonary oversight department or something like that
Born or lived in St. George (Not sure which but he does has a connection there)
Is part of a kind of important quorum in this church
Has no problem sternly rebuking those that listen to him.
Last name starts with "H"
Dad loves this man quite dearly
So by now maybe you guessed. Elder Jeffery R. Holland!!!!!!!!!

It was intense. We were waiting to go into the devotional (an experience every week in of itself) and the security people were making a much bigger deal about backpacks and pictures during the devotional which was wierd but we try not to get our hopes up. But then the main usher guy comes up after we are all sitting waiting for it to start and starts talking about how we should stand if a member of the 12 was to walk in the room tonight. That sealed the deal. I was on the opposite side of the door he walked in on so everyone stands and then I finally see who it was. Exciting and a half. Its was the talk of all talks. Going from expressing tons of love and how awesome we all are to sternly rebuking us that if we ever walk away from this church now that we will be answering at the judgement bar for this. It was crazy. Also an interesting note that if you get any information on my district would be very interested. He was talking about missionaries of old and about how they gave all they could including their lives for this work and how that has happend throughout ages. Then he got all choked up and then with tears in his eyes looked out at us and said, "the most recent of which just 4 hours ago" so this was on Tuesday at 7:00 pm. Therefore whatever happend happend at like 3:00 on Tuesday but we can't find any info about it. But anyway. As you would expect it was the bomb! Our little district review after the devotional I don't think there was a dry eye in the place.

Love you all. Thank you for all your love and support and awesomness.

Elder Carter
カーター　長

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

Another Week of Groundhog Day

Hello peeps!!!!

First a little maintenance answering questions. Um we come early to do laundry and 5:30 so we have more time to write letters and such the rest of the day. Kind of annoying to wake up this early but it pays off after. Yay for Kreigh's school!!!!! I'm excited for him. I know he can do great! Yay for little Atreyu and being a moving little guy now! He seems to have grown up so much since I left just over a month ago! Crazy! Sounds like you guys had fun in Wyoming looking at windmills and such. Kind of shocked you two went rafting but I guess as you two get older you might get a little crazier! :-)

Anyway now for MTC stuff. Again organize in random order.

First investigators. So we still haven't taught Kudosan again because she is still on her trip to "Tokyo" but we get her back next week so that will be nice. We got Morimoto san through all the required lessons and he is doing so good.....except he won't give up his tea and "sake" (alcohol). Goodness. I knew that was going to happen so kind of why I didn't want to teach the Word of Wisdom first but whatever. His baptism has been scheduled for next wednesday but he is never going to make that. :-( Nevertheless we will get him there. We also had a bunch of subs this week so we also teach them sometimes. Depending on who they are they can be really nice or really annoying (and real). Nevertheless those didn't go so well. None of the teaching goes horribly well, I still just have a problem thinking of what to say let alone in Japanese. Can't even teach these lessons in English. I hope that ability comes fairly quickly cause this is getting annoying. Nevertheless. We teach a lot. Oh and we picked up two new investigators being two missionaries in my district who act as investigators and also I get to act like a progressing investigator now. Its quite an interesting experience. Although language barriers become "less" of an issue because we all know the same words and such (kinda).

Moving on to the random stuff. Sundays are good. There is just a lot of studying which normally turns into us watching movies on LDS.org. Its great fun, I swear we will have seen every movie on there by the end. We have already seen every Mormon profile. There is also priesthood and sacrament meeting where we have a musical number like every time which is cool. As for companion things are still going pretty good. We have our moments that he pushes my buttons or always needs to be in control but nevertheless we survive. District is also going pretty good. We are going to be getting a new room in two weeks which is sweet!!! Our one now is not next to any Japanese speakers on Spanish, we have no window only a one-way mirror, and its just small. New one is the bomb though! Ok so apparently I didn't make this clear before and Elder Clayton wanted me to make sure you knew. We have STACKS of food in our room now. Ha. I got three packages yesterday which I appreciate but I really doubt I could eat all this food in the next few weeks. We can't really munch on it throughout the day we have 30 minutes each night to get ready for bed, write in journals, prepare for the next day, eat snacks, and get to bed. So no more food. :-) Ok now for a shirt I was told about that I think would be legit. Apparently in Japan you can get these English shirts that say, "Send ai" as in "Sendai" but the funny thing is "ai" means "love". Therefore "send love" :-) I thought it was funny (jokes in here are weird).

The senpai are now gone off in Japan. Just a crazy thought to think. The day after they left we sat down at our "Japanese table" for lunch and I felt compelled to sing a little "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" in honor of them. They were super excited though. It was like a graduation the last Sunday. Lots of pictures and hugs and all that jazz. We get our kohai next Wednesday which is scary! I'm not old enough to be a senpai! (Age is measured weird here too). Adding to the stress there are 43 coming in!!!!!! Holy cow! There will only be 24 of us senpai. There will also be 8 new sisters to add to our 2 now. Finally in a few weeks when we get our nihonjin (Japanese missionaries) there will be 20 more of them too! So many!!!!! Ha. I'm excited though. So we have started to come up with analogies we could make about how the MTC works. Our first was that they are programming us to be Gospel Spouting Robots. This is a pretty good analogy and one of our sensei agreed with us. But our new one is that it is real life "Groundhog Day" Every day is exactly the same!!! Ha. It gets kinda annoying. Never the less its cool. Enjoyable most the time.

Random things I learned this week. Apparently every companionship in the Tokyo mission received a laptop to do all their business on with teaching records that ties into the ward and stake and all that jazz. Pretty awesome! This church is getting the picture of the future. Also random note for our "workshop" (more on these later letter) we got to go around the MTC and watch movies on iPod Touchs. Kinda interesting. One thing that is kinda sad that I was looking forward to from your (dad) stories was learning about culture. They don't do that anymore. Whenever we ask they just say, "We are going to teach that, just rely on your gaijin power" (Gaijin being "foreigner"). Apparently you get away with a lot as a foreigner. Although yesterday we did have sub that loved talking culture so that was fun. She told us fun ways to proselyte and what works and what doesn't. Apparently if you ask for people's names in Japanese they brush you off but if you ask in English they get all excited to speak English and want to talk to you. Fun stuff.

Answers to Questions:
Competitive 4-square is hard to explain. Its really fast. The squares are like 5 times as big as elementary school squares. People do tricks, there are alliances, backbiting, all that fun stuff.

The devotional speakers have been good. Not sure if I have had a favorite. Our last one was about Heavenly Father which was basically the best talk about Heavenly Father I had ever heard cleared some cool stuff up. We hear lots of cool mission stories. Really simple concepts like "Faith" are blown up so you can better explain it to investigators. We finally got up to a member of the first quorum of the 70 so we are moving up. Mostly we get missionary department people.

5 weeks into this experience it kinda still feels like the first week. There are many times I don't feel like I am getting anywhere and others I think I'm doing pretty good. Something that I think sums up the language at times is what Elder Clayton told me one day. We were just sitting there studying and he turns to me ans says, "Does it every just hit you that we just taught someone the gospel in another language?" Pretty awesome to be able to share the gospel first of all and second to do it in tongues. The food is a little getting old but its actually quite good but there is so much of it. Also Clayton choro doesn't allow me not to eat all my food because he says it is ruining mother earth. We have got into a few discussions about that but nevertheless.

Anyway. As always love you lots and lots, talk to you next week!