Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Ahhhhhh so many crazy things in my email this week! Alex Burt just got his call to the Brazil, something Portuguese mission and is leaving in November, and now Spencer got his call to Sendai! That's soooo crazy! I have a lot of friends going to Sendai that are here right now.  He will love it.  Could you Dear Elder me Spencer's address so that I can write him a letter? That would be much appreciated.  Soooooo, you know how I told you I was mailing a letter to you guys last week? Well, I haven't mailed it yet hahaha.  I wrote it, it was kinda short, so I kept adding and adding to it and I've been adding to it over the past few days and it is quite a big letter, so I will mail it today and you should get it by Friday-ish.  Thank you so much for the package! It was totally needed.  About last Wednesday, I developed a really bad cold and I have been sick all week.  So it was completely perfect that you guys sent me medicine haha. The scholurdoodles or whatever they are called were delicious! I shared them with the people in my district and they loved them.  

It sounds like you guys have been having a pretty crazy week, and this next week might be even crazier.  Well, I myself didn't have a pretty crazy week, however, this next week is looking like it will be.  We are getting 36 new missionaries to our zone tomorrow and that will more than double the size of our zone.  I remember my first week here, it seems like an eternity ago, but I'm excited to help out our new missionaries and help them transition to mission life.  My district has decided to SYL (speak your language) all day, as much as possible, for the next 6 weeks and the next 2 years basically.  We all know enough Japanese to communicate what we are thinking and if we don't know how to say it at all, then it probably is not worth saying ha.  This has already been a huge blessing to our language abilities, it really is incredible.  The Branch President praises our SYL goal and abilities and more and more districts are trying to adapt our goal. Everyone feels way more confident in the language and we are starting to stress less about it.  Nonetheless, Japanese is dang hard!  There are sometimes when I have absolutely no idea what someone just said to me or what I said to them.  But that happens less and less often so I take solace in that.

Funny story, my other Japanese teacher went away to New York for the weekend for his brothers graduation.  While in New York, he went to sacrament meeting in the basement of the temple in New York.  I don't know if you know this or not, but Nathan Hall is serving in the ward that meets in the basement of the temple.  My teacher was telling us about how he talked to the missionaries when he went to sacrament meeting, so of course I asked him if he remembered their names.  He said that one of them was named Elder Hall.  Mind blown! This was the same weekend tha tI found out that Clark Sensai knows the Barnes really well and was Mitchell's seminary teacher.  Small small world.  My MTC teachers know both sides of my family now! 

Anyway, things are going great in the MTC.  The days are starting to fly by and weeks are starting to feel like days.  Tell everyone in our family that I love them and miss them.  Tell Erihc I'm proud of him for graduating and I'm sad that I can't make it.  It is so great to see the Gospel continuing to spread through our family and I am proud of Amirah for making the decision to be baptized. It won't be a complete family party without me, but I'll be there in spirit :)

I am writing the Eugenio's a letter and I will be able to mail it tomorrow or Thursday. 

Best wishes to Kaitlyn and Tyler and Quinton as they graduate! Good luck! Party Hard!

Sugoi desu ne! Jamatane watashi no Kazoku! Ai Shitemasu!