Last Sunday was probably the best day in the MTC, and I've finally been able to read some scriptures while I'm here now haha. When you have sooo much language study, its really difficult to find any time for scriptures but now I've changed my attitude on that. Its quite funny though because at home, I basically dreaded going to firesides/devotionals, but here, it becomes the nicest thing ever because you finally get to relax your mind for a moment and actually feel the spirit strongly.

When you're learning a language, you start to forget how to focus on what we are really here for and it sucks because everyone else is mostly only putting their focus on Japanese right now. I would have thought that I would enjoy that more but I'm not much of a studying kind of guy as you know, and it gets really overwhelming when that's all you do. So ya, Sunday was great because we didnt have any language study that day (I think) and we got to focus almost entirely on the gospel. We got to hear the BYU mens chorus and afterward watch a talk that Elder Bednar did last Christmas which was incredible. I teared up when BYU was singing because the spirit was very strong and I was imagining how its going to feel coming home from a successful 2 year mission. It was a very spiritual night for me and all of my roommates agreed.

Anyways, I don't think I had taught an investigator since last Saturday but now we have taught him 4 times....and all in Nihongo (Japanese). Its really tough and I feel like I cant say what I would really like to but its crazy to think that we have legitimately "taught" (in broken Japanese) a lesson to someone, haha. But yeah, he was a really nice guy and he actually just works for the MTC but it is still very intimidating because he's a really good actor and acts completely like the character he is supposed to be. Like whenever we brought up certain words that someone may not know, he would ask about it kind of in depth and we had to explain it ourselves. Oh yeah and he wouldn't respond whatsoever to our English and obviously just spoke to us in Japanese.

But now we are done teaching him after our 4 lessons and we got him to commit to things throughout which was cool because some of the other companionships couldn't get him to pray for a while but after we did our lesson to him on prayer and invited him to pray, he did it! So yeah, now we are going to have 2 other investigators that we have to teach starting Monday and we have to switch off between them which means individual lessons for both. They definitely push us to get us ready for the field though. Haha, we barely know enough to teach a lesson but then we have to go in there and get them to feel the spirit along with explaining things well enough so that they understand them. But as we've learned, its really all about letting the spirit teach, which is very good in my case because I'm pretty bad at Japanese haha.

Oh yeah! And that will be cool to hear what Cristel has to say, since she's been here and all. I wonder if instead of language study, she would focus solely on how to teach the whole time and that's why their stay here is so short. Ask her that for me, unless she just reads this herself, cause it would be cool to know. I bet that would be really tough too because studying is just sooo boring and hard!! haha, but I knew thats what I was getting myself into and I know that it will be more then worth it as time goes on. I always think about how its going to be when I'm out in the field and feel confident with my surroundings, the gospel, and Japanese so I can truly be a great tool in the hands of the lord. I already know its going to be the greatest feeling ever! :D

And Christmas!! I almost forgot! Yes you should definitely send me some goods because it will make me happy haha! And as far as stuff they allow, I haven't heard of anyone getting in trouble for stuff and everyone has been getting a lot of packages since its almost Christmas. Haha, my roommate, Young ちょうろう, got a mini christmas tree and a bunch of treats/snacks in a package from his girlfriend. I've seen some big packages and I'm pretty sure you can send whatever you would send through UPS to them. Just as long as its not like a gameboy and tv or something, hahaha.

But yeah, I've been craving some Mike and Ikes and something gummy. Also, if you can send me my black scripture case, that would be helpful... hmmmm, And maybe something like wheat thins or some other snack I would like. Haha, its just always nice to have snacks here because we have dinner at 4:00 and then we dont get another meal until morning so we get hungry a lot at night. So yeah, those would be some cool things to get.

Anyways, its time to send you a bunch of pictures on separate emails and I'll just have a description of what they are on there. Goodbye for now!

Talk to you later mates