Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hello my Dearest Family!

Well I've been able to survive my second week at the MTC without too much trouble.  First of all, I have a letter on the way and I hope you guys will receive that soon.  Thank you for the cookies! it is a huge moral booster and they tasted good haha.  Sounds like life is pretty good back home.  Everyone is doing okay and having fun.  I'm excited that Kelsie is living in Provo now. 

My Doryo and I are getting along very well.  We have a good teaching balance and we are progressing our investigators very well.  Yesterday, we had to cold contact two new investigators and practice basic teaching skills, in Japanese of course.  It is really frustrating not being able to say what I want to say or what I am feeling about that person.  I am more intuative than my Doryo and I often recieve the spiritual impressions on what this guy needs to hear and how we can help him, but I cannot relay my feelings to him cause I dont know enough Nehon-go.  

Chorro is Elder in Nehon-go.  I am Kuranduru Chorro.  Elder Crandall.  My comp and I taught our district meeting on Sunday and my Branch President interviewed me aftewards and told me I have an amazing teaching ability and that he really admires that, well, that kinda worried me.  Our Zone Leaders are leaving in like two weeks and all of our leadeership will be rearranged, I dont know if he was hinting at something or not.  

We had 20 Nehon-ji (Japanese Missionaries) show up today and they are living with us from now on.  The MTC in Japan is closed for a few months so all Japanese senkyoshi will be coming here from now on, but they are only here for 3 weeks.  They kinda smell weird, but other than that, they are really nice and really friendly.  

I have taken a bunch of pictures and I will try to send some of them to you guys.  I'll try to do that this week sometime.  I've come to the conclusion that if I can survive 11 weeks in the MTC, then 21 months in the mission field will be like nothin.  This place definitely feels like a prison, a prison where you recieve spiritual impressions daily.  This is easily the hardest thing that I have ever done.  Japanese is the hardest thing I have ever tried to learn.  It is incredibly frustrating, it doesn't make any sense, and I am incredibly limited.   But, this has been the best two weeks of my life and I am learning the language at an incredible rate, it is absolutly amazing.  Japanese doesn't even sound like Japanese anymore, it just kinda sounds like jiberish, but I can understand like a third of the jiberish.  It's weird, but my brain is slowing being translated into Japanese.  

Packages are greatly appreciated and I will love you more than anything if you send me stuff! I feel like I have been here for two months, not two weeks, and I cannot wait till I am in the mission field.  Keep me posted on what goes on in your guys' lives, and I'll do my best to relay anything intersting  that happens to me here.
We had Elder Christofferson speak to us last Tuesday and we will probably have another Apostle speak to us tonight.  Tell Connor I am proud of him and to keep up the good work.  If you guys could send me one more pair of regular white socks and one more tee shirt, that would be awesome.  We have gym 5 times a weeks and I kinda run out of gym clothes fast ha.  Other than that, I am well prepared, the food is okay, its not that great, life is really good though, I am finding joy in the work, I love my companion and the guys in my district and zone. 

Ai Shitteimas!