First things first! I got the pictures!! Showed them to my
comp, we both laughed. :D I wrote you a birthday letter, so I'm hoping you get
it soon. I also requested a few other things as well in that letter for you to
send me so you can send my leather man with those. I'm glad you had a mostly
good birthday. :) I was thinking about praying about you all day! I was sending
the best vibes I could your way. :) I miss you very much, the whole family too.
I would love to get letters by the way, I don't have ANY time to email it feels
like, and I have time to write EVERY night so I do that then. So I'd love some
letters. I don't have enough time to email everyone, not to the extent I'd like
to email them, ya know? I have gotten a letter from Ben, which made me
smile. :) And a letter from my friend Daniel in Alabama. I was very happy to
hear from them both. Other than that I've been getting NO mail! :( ;) It's
fine! Lol! Elder White in my district has gotten NO mail at all yet, and he's
down about it, so we're going to write him letters and tell him how jmuch we
love him and all that good stuff, support him ya know? It's amazing how close
we've grown together already. It's C RAZY! We're all best friends, not doubt
about that, and we love each other so much, we tell each other that all day.
The sisters as well are in on this, we're one big family and it's the greatest
thing. I'm going to miss them SO MUCH! Hopefully we'll be serving in the same
areas occaisonally in our missions so I can at least see them at conferences
and what not. :D That'd be EPIC! Maybe even comps with them! :D ;) probably
not, but that'd be sweet!! I miss Keoni too by the way, I was getting ready to
come beat him up for not writing me, so I'm glad to hear that he did. ;) And my
roomies are all the best, no immature ones here. We're the best freakin
district in the MTC!! Hoorah! I couldn't have been put with a better group of
guys.
I know I say this a lot, but Japanese is
basically the best thing on this Earth. I LOVE IT!! I wish so badly I could
show you guys mah mad skillz!! I can call you from the airport though when I'm
flying out, so I guess I can show ya then a little bit. :) By the way! About my
visa! My first week here I filled out a visa application, so everything should
be in order. I'm really not homesick at all. I mean I miss you guys, but it's
nothing I can't handle. You know what I do really miss? Google. Google is
amazing, and I can't use it. >.<
Our first day here a sister missionary told us
that the first half a week DRAGS on and on and on and on and on, but when you
get to that Sunday, it's amazing, and then the time FLIES by. And that is so
true! The first half a week was crazy, but Sunday came, our collective mind was
blown, and now we're 2.5 weeks in. It's nuts.
I've seen Xavier
every day since Thursday. When I saw him first in the cafeteria he was like,
"Elder Dialogue!" I was like, "I know that voice!" I turn
around and there he is running to me, and then I'm running to him! Like the
skipping through the field of flowers movie scene into an embrace? That's
basically how it went, it was glorious. He's loving spanish, Japanese is better
though. ;) It's really funny because everytime someone who is giving devotional
mentions a hard language, they also use Japanese as the example, and we're
like, yup...RESPECT!! ;) It's great. We even have the same pday! Xavier and I.
We were hanging out doing laundry together, great times. :D
I'm going to try and send all my pictures, I
don't have time to explain them all, so you can zoom in on the pictures and
pick out names. ;) Muahaha! I'll write later who is who if you guys need me to!
I love you so much Mother! Have a marvelous time! I'll see you soon. :)
Ai shite imasu!
Mike
By the way, I have more to tell you! I'm officially in the
choir for this Sunday, so I'll be singing at the live broadcast for the First
Presidency and all the general authorities that will be there. :D :D :D Isn't
that so stinking awesome!! We're singing rearranged versions of Called to Serve
and Hark All Ye Nations. I'm singing bass with the other guys even though I
could do tenor. It's a ton of fun, and I"m so glad we get to do it. :)
That's going to be such a sweet experience. We also go to the temple every
pday, and so we were going to go do an endownment session, but we were waiting
for our しまいたち (sisters) and we decided to go down and
observe some baptisms. We for whatever reason aren't allowed to baptize in the
temple, I've no idea why, I'm going to check why tomorrow with Johnson かいちょ (president), my branch president, and find out why. So we
were just observing them and a temple worker came up and asked us if we'd like
to be witnesses. So naturally Brandolino and I jump up and volunteer. He takes
us back and we change into some white suits and we start witnessing. And it was
PHENOMINAL!! It was just so cool. :) I dunno, Spirit was strong. But what was
amazing, and what blew our minds, was that we were able to confirm for the dead
also. :D :D That was AMAZING! I felt so good and it was so powerful to do that.
I was just stunned, today has been better than words can describe. It's what
we'd use すぶらし (suburashi) in Japanese to describe this. It
just means fantastical amazing mind blowing eeking of pure awesomeness, super
strong word to describe things that were just amazing. So that was fantastic.
I was also talking to a しまい(sister)
and she noticed my name was Dialogue, and she said wouldn't it be funny if
instead of writing my name in Katakana on my in field name tag, they just used
the kanji for conversation! I was like, that'd be hilarious!!! Let me explain,
Katakana is used to write foreign words that have translated into Japanese, for
instance, Jesus Christ is: イエスキリストThat's in Katakana,
original japanese words are in Hirigana, so Jesus Christ would look like: いえすきりすと But Jesus Christ is a foreign name, so Katakana is used.
Since the non native japanese missionaries are foreign their names are written
in Katakana, so my name will look something like: ダイアログ
But since my name is Dialogue, it'd be funny if they used the kanji for
conversation instead. I can't type that here, but Kanji are the super complex
characters. So I thought that was funny. :) Katakana and Hiragana are
simplified forms of Kanji, and a knowledge of all three is required to be a
fluent Japanese reader and writer. It's pretty intense. :) I can read my Book
of Mormon in Japanese though. :D It's written in all three forms, but the kanji
is broken down into hiragana, so we can read it!! I read it every night before
bed to practice. I can't understand much of what I read, just because I need
more vocab, but I can still read it! So hah!! :) As I'm sure you know, and I
know I've said this lots too, but Japanese is the coolest language. Writing in
characters is SO fun, and reading it is awesome. It looks so cryptic to those
who can't read it, and it's awesome being like, oh yeah, 私わのイエスキリストおすくいぬしです
means Jesus Christ is my Savior. It's just fantastic. :) I'm not sure if I
mentioned it or not, but I'm the district leader now for the next few weeks. :)
I was called last night. Anywhos, I love you Momma!!
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