I'm all alone....

As far as Japanese goes, I memorized Joseph Smith's First Vision (or
"Josefu Sumisu no Keiken" in Japanese) just yesterday.  Phew!  What a
huge thing that was.  It takes me about a minute and a half to say it.
 We teach our first lesson in Japanese this Thursday.  I mean the
whole time at the pretend investigator place we will be speaking only
Japanese. ONLY JAPANESE.  I think I can do it, but if the investigator
starts asking questions I may just go hide somewhere.

The Senpai (older Japanese Group) and the Nihonjin (native Japanese)
left yesterday for Japan.  That means the Kohai (the younger group) is
now the Senpai.  I'm a Senpai!  But we're all that's left.  We used to
have 120 Japanese missionaries, but now we're down to 40.  That's why
the subject line of this email says "I'm all alone...."  When the
Sister Senpai left, they gave us their "pantry".  They had a lot of
food.  But it's all gross, like chocolate covered pomegrante seeds.
Who eats that anyway? I'm in the laundry room right now (which means I
didn't have to change clothes to write you an email) and there was
actually a washer open, not to mention the computer itself that was
open.  Wow.  But this computer sucks - the spacebar has to be pressed
super hard or nothing happens.  I'll have to report that.  The
computer in my classroom died Friday night.  At first we thought it
was the network cable, then we thought it was the jack in the wall,
but now they think it's the network card in the computer.  I had to
explain to my old co-workers that I didn't break it, I promise!  Maybe
I'll get a new computer.... but then again maybe not.

I heard that in Japan their toothpaste has sugar in it to make it
taste better.  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of toothpaste?  Oh, and
their deodorant doesn't have anti-persperent in it.  So when I get to
Japan, and you occassionally send me packages, ALWAYS send me
toothpaste and deodorant.  Always.  I don't know how these Japanese
people live.  But I have my supply of such things right now.

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Is it only week 4? / I can't believe it's already week 4)

You have asked if time flows fast or slow here.  Well, it's weird
because the days feel like a week and the weeks feel like a day.  I
get to the end of the day and think, "How could I possibly summarize
everything in my journal?"  But then P-day rolls around again and I
think, "wow, I can't believe it's P-day again".  It's super weird.
The Senpai (the older Japanese Group - the word literally means
"senior" - I'm a kohai or "junior") have warned us that before we know
it we'll be Senpai and there will be a new kohai group, and a new
Nihonjin (Japanese native) group, then we'll be in Japan.  I think
they're worried because they leave in a week and some of them still
can't hold their own in a conversation with a Nihonjin.  Japan will be
a nasty shock.

In other news, I had an Eigo (English) Danjiki (Fast) two days this
week - Saturday and Monday.  I know our family isn't very good at
fasting, so can you imagine NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH FOR A WHOLE DAY?
It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.  And I
thought food fasting was hard!  But I've learned so much Japanese.  I
realize now that I know enough to hold my own in a conversation with a
Nihonjin.  I talked to this one shimai (sister).  I explained to her
that I've only been studying Japanese for 4 weeks.  She misunderstood
and thought I only have 4 weeks left.  I pointed at myself and said,
"Watashiwa kohai desu" or in other words, "I'm a junior".  "Nani?"
(What?!)  I repeated what I said.  "Sugoi" (Awesome) and she continued
to say how awesome I was for about a minute.  But being a good
Japanese missionary, I refused the compliment.  No Japanese person
accepts a compliment, even though the compliment giver keeps saying
how awesome you are.  Haha, I'll be so weird when I come back.
Especially since my English is getting progressively worse everyday.
Everyone needs to learn Japanese by the time I get back.  Okay?
Thanks.  :)

Also, one other thing I don't think I've mentioned.  All of our
textbooks are named.  1st is the Ninja.  This is technically called
the "grammar supplement" book.  It's produced by the church, and it
has church phrases you can look up by the lesson.  It's called a
ninja, because if you don't know what to say in a lesson, or a sunday
talk, you just pull it out fast like a ninja and read from it.  The
church made one for each language at the MTC, so all the languages
have it.  And they don't like that we call it "ninja" but there's no
stopping it now.  I have one teacher (who's brand new) and refuses to
call it a ninja. He'll break sooner or later.  Next is a yellow
grammar book that is really intense.  It's got red lettering, so
naturally we call it Pikachu.  "Get out your Pikachu and look it up"
is one of our favorite phrases.  Next is a big book that helps us
learn all the kanji to read the Book of Mormon (or Morumon sho) in
Japanese.  Learning Kanji is all on our own.  We call this book Sumo.
Last are our handy dictionaries.  The awesome Japanese -> English
dictionary is called Panda.  It's white.  Then we have another
dictionary that's for English -> Japanese and it's called Squirtel.
It's blue.  The Nihonjin think it's funny we named our textbooks after
Pokemon.  :)  I don't think they realize how Pokemon is still kinda
big in America.  I think they still show the cartoon on Saturday
Mornings.

You can never send me too much mail or too often. I just can't
promise how quickly I'll respond. :)

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My companion, the natives, and the gospel

My parents sent me a joke book. Those jokes are terrible -
which is exactly what we want.  The best was "what do you get when you
cross a chicken with a cement mixer?"  .... "A brick layer." - then
there is a ridiculous picture of a chicken laying a brick.  Haha.

My companion is way chill and the reason you haven't heard much about
her is because there aren't problems.  If I was frusterated with her
then you would probably hear about it. We've had Mulan "I'll make a
man out of you" song stuck in our heads.  It's hilarious, because
it's a Chinese movie, not a Japanese movie.  She's also a tango
(tah-n-goh = vocabulary) master.  Seriously.  She has her flashcards
all the time.  But that works well because I'm a bunpo (buh-n-poh =
grammar) master.  So together we can speak to the Nihonjin.

Nihon (Japan) jin (people of) came last week.  There are 40 of them.
That means the Japanese zone at the MTC is at 120.  40 older
americans, 40 younger americans (me!), and 40 nihonjin.  120!  Most
zones are like 40.  We fill up the cafeteria corner where we sit.  We
pushed all the (12) Korean missionaries to "outer darkeness" or the
tables farther down the room.  The Koreans instead decided to call it
"Zion".  Haha.  But back to the Nihonjin.  There are 11 shimaitachi
(sisters).  That's so many!  They are really short.  I knew they were
going to be short, but I mean they are REALLY short.  I've also
learned the feminine way of speaking - you just have to pronounce all
your "u"s.  In Japanese, you tend to drop the "u"s, like how we drop
"e"s in english.  So instead of saying "ski des" (I like) you would
say "suki desu".  Weird!  But they are so nice.  They're always
letting people go first if you bump into them, or they give presents
ALL THE TIME.  They're the cutest little people I've ever seen!  I was
walking with my companion down to the bathroom one day and we passed
all the Japanese classrooms, since we're all together in the same part
of a building.  The American classrooms had missionaries loud, and
bouncing off walls.  Then you pass the nihonjin classrooms and you
realize that they are absolutely silent.  You could hear a pin drop.
It's so weird!  And at the same time it's so great because I can
hardly get anything done in my classroom with these poor elders that
try so hard but can't focus for longer than 2 minutes in a row.

I have two senseitachi (teachers).  One is Porter Sensei, and he's
been teaching at the MTC for about 3 years.  He's way good, and so
patient with the aforementioned elders that can't focus.  We probably
ask him to repeat a Japanese sentence a dozen times before we get it
and he doesn't become impatient.  Then there is Hogge Sensei.  He's
fresh off his mission in December and is still burning with missionary
fire, but he cannot handle a classroom of 19 year old boys.  Everytime
he bares his testimony he looks at his feet.  I feel like saying,
"look at us - we're the one's you're testifying to!".  Then my
companion and I decided he's afraid of the shimaitachi (sisters).
Anytime we ask him a question he runs away, but anytime one of the
elders ask him a question he will answer their questions for 20
minutes or more.  We mentioned that he's afraid of shimaitachi to our
other teacher in the weekly interview, and he said he was wondering
about that since that's typical for new teachers.

In other news, I'm way knowledgeable in the gospel.  I mean way
knowledgeable.  My companion and I were talking doctrine, and I
understand it, and can find scriptures to back up what I say.  Like
the other day she said... well, now I can't remember, but I know the
answers at the time.  It's way interesting.  Then the Elders in my
district were talking about the state Adam and Eve were in, in the
garden, before they fell, and I told them, with scriptures to back it
up.  "WABAM!  Eat it."  But even with all this knowledge I didn't know
I had, there are some questions I'll wonder about and have to ask in
the post-mortal spirit world.  Like, did Adam and Eve know that they
needed to partake of the fruit to multiple? Or was it really a transgression?
Did they know it was part of the plan?  Why did God give two conflicting
commandments in the garden?  Multiply, but don't partake of this fruit.
By the way, it's really hard to teach the fall of Adam and Eve.  It can get so
complicated so fast.

Thanks to all my friends out there who have written me. A letter or a
package really is the best thing in a missionary's life.

Starved for Entertainment

On P-day afternoons we go to the temple. So I went last week and this afternoon I'm going too. One of the Elders (Elder Draper) was sitting in the chapel, ready to go in, when he got a bloody nose from the dry air. It got all over the Book of Mormon he was reading and a drop got on the carpet before he made it to the bathroom. Haha, oops! When he and his companion came back he told one of the temple workers, and they cleaned it up. He handed one of the old temple ladies the Book of Mormon and told her that he got blood on it. "Oh don't worry, we'll clean it." The elder continued, "no no, I don't think you understand. Look at Helaman 1". She did, and it was really bad. "Oh, well, we'll throw it out and get a new one then." Haha, poor elder! I also had my sickenss this week. It's a known fact that everyone that comes to the MTC will get sick. I think it's because we live in such a tight little bubble that we develop our own strain of diseases. I got a nasty cold, but it's all gone now. I blame the Australian Elder in my classroom. He brought over some crazy Aussie disease. You know, like when the Europeans came to America and shared the small pox and such. Elder Lawry, the Aussie, thought it was very funny. So I had a fever for about an hour, took a nap, and was better. I went through about 2 tissue boxes. Gross! My nose looks like Rudolph. But I am better now. The reason I stress that I am better now is because my Branch President, President Bird, said that we need to not tell our family when we are sick. He said that if we do, pretty soon the whole ward will think we are dying of swine flu. Haha, so don't start that rumor! We, as missionaries, are starved for real entertainment. We have resorted to Laffy Taffy jokes. Suddenly the most retarted jokes in the whole wide world are the funniest things we have ever seen. Every Sunday night, we watch videos like "The Testament" and the Joseph Smith Memorial Video. I (and everyone else) thought these were the most boring church movies ever, but suddenly when Joseph kisses Emma for the first time the whole auditorium goes "OhhhhhhhHHH!" In The Testaments, there is a part where the bad guy (with the ridiculous head thing) says, "you are a spectre from the gods" and that is probably the most quoted line at the MTC now. You have to say "spectre" just right, with a crazy Australian accent if you are Elder Lawry, or a southern accent if you are Elder Saunders. So please send me Laffy Taffy jokes, or some other form of (missionary approved)entertainment. We are so deprived. Oh, and there is one elder, Elder Jensen, who is the new Chuck Norris. Have you heard of Chuck Norris jokes? If not, you should look them up. Well, "The boogeyman checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris checks his closet for Jensen Choro." Choro = Elder. "Jensen Choro eats kittens for breakfast". Etc, etc. When we play games in class, it is team Jensen and team Jensen Choro. Jensen Choro hasn't decided what he feels about this yet.

Week 1

Friends and Family, Here I am at the MTC now. I only have 3 minutes left in my email time, so this will have to be short. My companion is Sister Fluckiger, and she's great. My two teachers are also wonderful. I'm glad that I'm here, even if I am being to be a bit sleep deprived. Haha. What surprises me the most about the MTC is how efficient it is. The fact that they can get 2500 missionaries in and out of the cafeteria for 3 square meals a day is crazy. Who would have guessed?! Also, they get 2500 missionaries to do two loads of laundry apiece each week. Craziness! I need to go get my laundry now. Thanks for watching out for me.