MTC week #5

Saturday, July 6, 2012

Hey Family!!!

      How's everyone doing? :) I'm glad to hear that you are all getting over sicknesses, that's rough. We have LOTS of that here at the MTC, but we're all doing better now at least in my district.

Glad to hear you got the photos alright. :) Those are some GREAT memories, and I've got more to send soon. Elder White is the bigger guy, he's from Pesan, Utah, his companion is Elder Strachan (pronounced Straughn), he's from Toronto, Canada. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, very white skin. ;) Elder Goddard is the half Japanese guy, he's from LA, his companion is Elder Shoell, who's the 6'7" guy with the creeper pictures. :P He's really a HILARIOUS guy, and SUPER sensitive to the spirit and has lots of insights and profound things to say. But that's his personality in regards to photos, he just puts on these weird, often creepy faces, and will NEVER take a serious picture, I love him to death. :) And my companion is the shortest guy in our district, black hair, bulging muscles, LOL! I love them all dearly. :) You'll have to tell me what your favorite pictures were. :) We have some great times and I was able to capture some pretty subarashi moments. :)

     I can't believe it's already been four and a half weeks since I reported... time is flying by. Yesterday, the 5th, was our one month anniversary, so we went and got some book marks for all our Shimaitachi and we told them all things we appreciated about them and how they strengthened our district, to celebrate our anniversary and how much we've learned and how much we've grown. It was great. :) I honestly cannot wait to get to Japan at this moment. The MTC is great and all, but I just want to go! I feel like I know enough Japanese to be able to survive, and be able to continue learning there, but we have to wait for almost 5 more weeks still!! We're here longer than any other missionaries, aside from the Chinese and Russian speakers, they're here just as long as we are. We're a very select few though that spend so much time here! It's good though, we get LOTS of time to learn and really master not just as much of the language we know, but also as much of the doctrine and the other missionary concepts we learn here. It's alright, by the time I get to go to Japan I'm going to be fluent! ;) Lol! I wish, but it'll be great! I've been talking to Jake and he comes home in FIVE WEEKS! HOLY COW! Those two years flew by it feels like now... Makes me really hope my mission doesn't fly by so fast, I want to enjoy it for as long as I possibly can! I'm loving being a missionary, and Japanese as I ALWAYS say, is so stinking cool. I can't wait till I can talk to you all and show you my mad skills. By the time I do get to call home on Christmas I'll practically be fluent! One can hope anyways. ;) Assuming I get to call home on Christmas. It isn't really a thing in Japan seeing as how they're historically not Christian. :P

    About the temple, we're all super bummed that it's closed for renovations, but we're not so bummed that we get almost 4 extra hours of p-day to spend how we like. ;) I get extra time to write and read, and maybe take a quick nap. ;) We'll see what happens. And I'll do my best to not get food poisoning, all though it's hard around these parts. Count your blessings that you all get Mom's cooking! I SORELY miss it! :)

    By the way Momma, if I don't get some pictures of those kittens, I'm going to be deeply upset! We all want like a Branch 68B Mascot, a dog or a cat or something, just so we could have an animal. ;) I miss my fluffly feline friends so much! OH! One thing I've noticed about the campus, is that we have NO squirrells, none, ever, ANYWHERE. It blows my mind. But you want to know what we do have? Birds. EVERYWHERE. And they act JUST like squirrells would! They're not afraid of people, they just walk around on the ground instead of flying, (more like hopping, and it's adorable :)) They're these little like 3-4 inch tall birds and they just hop around, and sing for us, and it's awesome. I love walking down a pathway and hearing all these birds singing and skittering about, it's awesome. I'll get a photo of one and send it to you so you can witness the adorableness, and I may or may not have fed them once or twice, or every meal outside. ;) Haha!

    So we had a very exciting day for the 4th. It wasn't anything special or different until around 7:30. We had a special program that started at eight o'clock and we listened to some brief talks, and then we got to watch 17 Miracles, WOOT! None of the guys in my district had seen it, but I had, so I was super excited, and they all thought it was really cool. After the film we got to go outside and watch the Stadium of Fire firework show from wherever we could find a good spot within the fenced part of the MTC. So there was really hardly any good spots to watch the fireworks, but we found a decent spot where we could see past the trees and the show was amazing. We were standing watching fireworks for almost an hour, and it was great. Lots of singing was to be had, and ice cream. ;) Although I didn't really have much. We were able to stay up till 11:30 because of the firework show, which was crazy. We thought it was really funny how we were SO excited to get to stay up till 11:30, lol! Only a missionary is so excited for the little things like that. Laundry is so much fun, and getting a sack breakfast and eating somewhere outside with the disctrict is something we all look forward to every week now, and getting to stay up a whole hour longer is so mind blowing to us, it's hilarious! But to sum up our 4th, it was QUITE fun. :)

   We have found a new place on campus that we absolutely love. It's BOILING LAVA HOT here on campus everyday, and we're always just dying. And of course we can't cool down our class room anymore because our poor Shimaitachi get cold, >.> Bless their hearts. ;) So we Chorotachi have found a bottom floor of a building on campus that we go to for all our study time now basically because it's a solid 60-64 degrees down there at ALL times, and no one knows it exists it feels like. So it's very quiet and peaceful, and we get to feel some real AC. :) Our room in the residence is just as bad, it's SO hot, and we don't have a window that can open. >.> And we have no control over the ac or anything, it's rough. But oh well, what do ya do. This basement floor that we've discovered though is great, some of our greatest times are had down there. The non spiritual highlight of this week took place down there.
There is a lab on this basement floor, and we've dubbed it the Super Secret Awesome Lab of Chill, because it's so cold down there and we love it. And in an anjoining room is the Lair. We go in there for some study time if we're not using computers and we pretend we're a crime family. ;) Nothing crazy, we mostly just talk in hilarious accents ranging from italian,to indian, to japanese. :P It's great. Elder Strachan is the Boss, I'm his right hand man, Elder Brandolino is the sociopathic hitman, and the Elder White is the "comedic relief". Mostly because we just tease him about his HORRENDOUS gas. ;) In the Lair a few days ago we were just talking in all our different accents, and I pretended to shoot the Boss, right? Well he says, "I feel no pain." in his hilarious italian accent. I then said, "Doesn't matter, you can still be killed." And then he says, "Well then, to quote the words of the Great Pat Benetar, hit me with your best shot." We all just started busting a gut, and I'm sure everyone on the second floor was like, what the heck? :D It was great. I love these guys, gotta love mah new bros. We are just getting SO unbelievably close, and I love it.

   Last night we had a huge lightning and thunder storm, and it was just a downpour. So naturally we go outside to hang out in the rain for a bit, which was great. After we got back to our residence for the night the rain had slowed down to a sprinkle, and we just went for a walk outside in our casual clothes barefoot and played in some puddles and what not. ;) We get so much done, and we all build each other up spiritually, but we also just have so much fun together, I love it.

    Also something fun that I think you guys would like to know, is that I'm the Mayor. I've mentioned it before, that my nickname in the district is, The Mayor. I'm still not sure why, but it's stuck and it's a ton of fun. :) But often times when we have some time to kill, they make me go up and give impromptu speeches about just random stuff, and they LOVE IT! It's great, and I make everyone laugh, and my "campaign slogan" now is, Sounds Good to Me. :P They all crack me up! My favorite speech I've given though is one where I related going to the gym, to going to class. I thought it was quite ingenious. Elder Strachan asked me to talk about going to the gym to workout, and so I talked about it, and pain, and what not. But then I turned it into a testimony of how we come to class and experience the same frustrations, and pain, and mental sweat, and that through that, our spiritual muscles can eventually go on and on. ;) It was great, they were like, "Only the Mayor can turn a speech about the gym into a testimony about how if we work hard we can accomplish much!" Made me laugh :) Plus I like the attention ;) I tease I tease!

   Anyways, I just want to say how much I love you guys, and how much I love my Savior. This is trully an amazing work and I feel so blessed to be here and a part of it at such an incredible time. The work is accelerating, and there now is a greater need for missionary work than there has been ever before. Japan doesn't know what's going to hit it :) And I cannot wait to go serve the Japanese people and help them come unto Christ. I love so much everyone that I'm working with, and I know that we can accomplish great things. And I know that if we have the faith to rely on the Spirit and the Lord's Helping Hand, we can accomplish all that he needs us to in Japan. I love this work, I love this language, and I love these people. Thank you all for being so supportive of my decision to come on a mission. I can't wait to get in the field and tell you all about my wonderful exploits! Can't wait to hear from you again!

       Watashi wa kokora kara ai shiteimasu.

             -Mike

P.S. Josh asked me to tell him some things he can say in Japanese, I'll write him some other phrases he can use, but would you tell him now that he can say Yoshi? It's pronounced, [yohsh] The I is silent, so to speak. It is used as like a simple phrase to mean that something is good, or that something cool just happened, or that something is cool. Like how we say epic or legendary about certain things, you would say yoshi in Japanese. :) It's like our favorite word now. Someone says a really complex sentence in Japanese, Yoshi!! Someone shares a really cool spiritual insight, Yoshi. Someone gets a package, Yoshi! It's a fun word. :) Thanks!

P.P.S. Also, I thought I mentioned it, but I guess I didn't. I LOVE the best two years photo you guys did for me. ;) It's hanging up in our room, and it's EPIC! Makes us all giggle. We flip it around to show to First Presidency when someone from our Branch Presidency comes to visit our room.