17 Jun 20011 Update

THE JAPANESE ELDERS HAVE ARRIVED.  AND WE HAVE TWO NEW ROOMMATES.  One of them is Kwon 長老、he's from Korea, and he's actually only 18 years old.  He didn't study much Japanese or English, so it's a very interesting situation, but he gets language so well, it's kinda scary.  Our other new roommate is Tanaka 長老、 he's from Ibaraki, his English is good, but we haven't had much time to talk in either language.  The first couple of days at the MTC are packed, so the Japanese elders are still in the midst of the longest days of the MTC. 



Tuesday our devotional was by the General Primary President!  I heard some groans from the audience when her name popped up on the board, but I had to stop myself from shouting "YES!"  Her talk was quite simply, amazing.  Her opening remarks were entirely centered around the simple gospel truths contained in Primary songs, and to illustrate her point, she had us sing them.  I love Primary songs!  Her entire talk was expounding on the lyrics to "The Church of Jesus Christ." 



I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know who I am.
I know God’s plan.
I’ll follow him in faith.
I believe in the Savior, Jesus Christ.
I’ll honor his name.
I’ll do what is right;
I’ll follow his light.
His truth I will proclaim.


It's amazing how powerful a simple little song can be. 



So to be truthful, while writing this I got a little distracted by LDS.org.  Mainly because I found the Japanese site and spent the past hour going through it, watching Mormon Messages with Japanese subtitles, and printing off a copy of For the Strength of Youth.  I should not let myself wander so much online.....


Other cool news, My companion's parents sent us a booklet of Japanese Sign Language and I've been learning that in my free time as well.  I've got the alphabet down, and a few random words too.  Let's see if I can actually have time to learn/use it on my mission, I think I might be able to. 



Well this one is a little short, my bad... Anyways, good luck everyone and I am sincerely indebted to all of you that have sent me mail so far, I'm sorry that I have yet to return the kindness (I'm working on it).


エベレット　長老
Elder Everett

June 10, 2011

Ok, so I spent most of last Friday waiting in the sick bay to check out my thumb.  Absolutely nothing is wrong, but it took an hour in the waiting room followed by 30 minutes in the patient room by myself, followed by a 5 minute talk with the doctor, followed by an x-ray (I got to leave MTC Campus for that; super weird because the place was halfway between the MTC and my dorm at BYU) which was then followed by another doctors appointment with the same hour wait and a short conversation in which he told me nothing was broken or sprained, that I had just stressed my ligaments, and to wear a brace.  So all in all, roughly 4 and a half hours were taken to tell me that nothing was actually wrong with me and I should probably wear a brace (by the way, they gave me a lefty brace for my right hand; it ended up exacerbating the problem and I had to go back the next Monday for a replacement).  Super successful P-day, huh?  Yeah, after that we came back to do e-mails and the LDS website was down in Provo, so no luck there.

とにかく　(anyways), That same p-day one of the missionaries in my zone, Wycoff 長老、　got one of everything from the Temple cafeteria.  It ended up costing about $11, he almost ate the whole thing, but stopped roughly a quarter of a Belgium waffle, and a couple bites of a cinnamon roll short.  It was still impressive nonetheless. 

 

Sunday during the devotional we sang a version of "Called to Serve" kinda of on the fly.  The wife of one of the MTC presidency led on the Piano and a friend of her's conducted.  It started off with a short introduction with two fanfares after the which we all came in singing the first verse pianissimo, the first chorus followed the same route.  After that there was a short interlude with two more fanfares and then we all came in the second verse mezzo piano.  The second chorus was forte and we sang it normal until we got to "Called to serve our King" at that point everyone in the audience stood up on the word King and we began the chorus again this time fortissimo.  After the chorus we repeated "God our strength will be, press forward ever, Called -- to -- serve -- our -- king---------------------" holding out that last note in what they called "The 20 minute note".  It was quite possibly the most epic thing I've heard at the MTC save maybe one, and that could only be that Hungarian organist playing "Go Tell It on the Mountain"  If I ever run into anything that comes close to the sheer power of those two times again..... quite frankly, I'm already at a loss for words.

 

As far as the actual devotional, we learned of the history of the Nauvoo temple, which, if you haven't read the accounts, you need to.  Possibly one of my favorite devotionals thus far.  Tuesday's was equally as good.  Sonntag 長老 and I sang in the Choir again, we sang a John Ritter piece that I hadn't heard of before called "Look at the World"; it was a very pretty song, I highly encourage everyone to look it up. 

 

We had Elder Kikuchi of the Seventy come and give a powerful talk on the importance of finding our own sacred grove.  As we search and use our own personal sacred grove we will be endowed with power and peace, and we will learn to become masters of ourselves, forever progressing in all that we do.

 

OHHHHHHH Other super exciting news, we got our new 子灰　(Junior) missionaries last week.  My goal has been to speak to them only in Japanese, and so far only two of them have ever really heard me speak English.  One of them overheard me one time while I was translating and I saw him turn to his companion and ask "Whoa, did you know that he could speak English?"  That made me feel kinda good about myself.  I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I've had before the MTC to be a teacher because it has taught me patience with others, and I've seen how working with them has augmented their (and my own) learning.

There are also two new missionaries that grew up speaking Japanese often so I've been able to talk to them, a third that grew up speaking as well but not as often, and there are some other missionaries this time that have studied Japanese. One of them has studied just as much as I have.  This new group has such a good basis, it's kind of amazing.

 

I realized this week that Frisbee season if over for TYUL.  I really loved all of the time that I got to spend with everyone on that team, and I don't think there is a single person in all of my zone that hasn't heard at least one story about you guys.  As soon as you can, I would love to hear how the State tournament went. Hit me up sometime, I've got a little under a month left here in the States, so time is running out to send mail to me cheaply. 

 

Also to everyone that has sent me letters, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH.  They are quite literally the highlight of my day, and if I don't respond to you right away, just know that it's because I'm busy, but I am getting your letters.  I love each and every one of you and keep you in my thoughts daily.  Each new missionary Wednesday I see the missionaries come and say goodbye to their family for two years and it's such a bitter-sweet moment that I can't help but feel for them. 

 

All of you back home, do your best, exemplify each day, and don't let your life slip past you, take advantage of the time that you have, because if there's anything that I've learned here at the MTC, it's that time only accelerates as you get older, so don't you miss a minute of it. 

 

I love you all

 

Everett 長老