Yooooo, Family. Since you didn't write me and because I have very little time, I have a whole bunch of pictures to send you! I hope you like it!!
So this week has been pretty much the same and the one new thing I can really think of is that we got our Japanese Name tags! I will send it in a picture. And also, a lot of the photos will be of me, Bates choro, and Lobocarro choro because we had a little photo shoot with some free time that we had. So yeah thats basically it. I leave in 11 DAYS!!!!!
Byeee

- Carlini ちょうろう

こんにちわ父！

First off, its funny that you say that time is flying by for you because for me, the last 3-4 days have been soooo slowww! I really hope that is speeds up because I am now only 2 and a half weeks away from going to Japan!! Also, we are just doing so much that I want it to at least feel like its going quickly, haha.

It's great that you have been looking at that Japanese learning card more often! And when I'm back I can be a better teacher then that dang thing, haha. However, its a good place to start for now. And good job with the Hello and Goodbye. I actually used Konnichiwa as the intro to this letter! It says, Konnichiwa ChiChi (another word for Father, but meaning your own/mine). Also, just for fun, Sayonara looks like this I believe さよなら. Unless there is an "i" symbol that I'm missing. And as for the what is your name thing. It should be "Namae wa nan desuka? - なまえわなんですか".

Thats awesome that you are still watching a bunch of tennis. I didn't know that the Australian open was going on already. And I bet you're loving it since Federer is doing well. That's gonna be a tough match against Nadal. And of course Wawrinka is in the finals..."He's got one of the best one handers in the game", haha! I'm glad that you are still pro'ing it up in tennis as well. That racquet looks sweet! And thats crazy if that guy was really a Navy SEAL. Did he say he was, or was he maybe a Combat Diver? Either way, they are both insane. I'm surprised you met one cause they are very few and far between. Its crazy to think of how much training he went through and I'm whining about having some bad days here, haha. That helps to put things into perspective though. This is easy. Or at least just a different kind of difficult, haha.

But yooo, there was one pretty cool thing that happened this week so far. We got 2 new districts in our zone and so we get to feel really cool and "old" now! We're all trying to step up our game too and attempt to speak mostly Japanese around them. And the cool thing we did yesterday was talk to one of their teachers and in Japanese of course! I felt pretty awesome because we could actually communicate with her a bit and I understood almost all the things she said! So yeah, we have definitely improved a ton. However, we did our first Skype TRC session yesterday too (Thats where we talk and kind of teach a lesson to someone that is in Japan, and in our case couldn't speak any English, on a computer through Skype. It already humbled me a bit because I only got about 15% of what she was saying to us, haha. But it was good practice to talk to a legit Nihonjin in Japan! Sooooo, yup, thats it for now. BYE BY

Oh yeah, and another quick thing that I forgot to add. Our Dai Senpai left us this week!! It was so crazy to see because we actually got to know these guys pretty well. The main guy that we all miss is Takashima Choro. I'm pretty sure I sent a picture of us but yeah, his singing and ghostliness will be missed. He would always just rap and sing whenever he felt like it and he was the funniest guy. I got a couple pictures of him, me, and Bates choro but I'll send em next week.

あいしています！

- Carlini ちょうろう

Yooo, Kazoku!!

I am now over the half way mark. I have been here for 5 full weeks and I only have about 3 and a half weeks left!! Its very exciting! So yeah first things first. The Japanese actually feels like it’s coming along a bit more nicely. We really have learned a lot over these weeks and I can form more sentences then I would have expected by now. We've learned a lot of grammar principles, so we can mix up our sentences at least a little bit. I can say basic things like "I know the Book of Mormon is true" (Morumon Sho o shinjitsu to shite imasu) and "Prayer is very important" (Inori wa totemo taisetsu desu). And then we can add a bit more with other grammar things like "When you sincerely read the Book or Mormon, you can receive answers from god" (Morumon Sho o kokoro kara yomu toki ni, Kamisama kara kongae o ukeru koto ga dekimasu). But yeah, mostly just a lot of gospel stuff for now. We can still say basic sentence things, but we just haven't really focused on it (and probably won't until we go to Japan). But yeah, it feels way cool to say things in Japanese. I just need to get the sentence structure down so I can say it quickly and add on to make more complicated sentences.

And DANG, I really wanna see Zeus! He looks like such a cool dog and I would love to play around with him. Haha, and I could definitely see Cosmo being grumpy and growling when he comes near him. Cosmo just wants to be top dog all the time, hahah.

Anyways, its been a really good week this week. And Surprisingly enough, Elder Bednar came and gave a talk on Tuesday and nobody expected it, haha. They didn't tell us anything, so we assumed it would be another normal Tuesday devotional. But we were very wrong because it was awesome! He gave a really great talk and answered some questions that helped me out a lot this week. I feel like I have been progressing much more lately and that gets me even more excited to go to JAPAN!! YAAAA, I can't wait!! Oh and the guy in the pictures I sent is Takashima Choro. Like I said, he leaves for Japan on Monday, and then we will be the new Dai Senpai! But I'm going to miss him for sure. He is way funny and he usually comes into our room at night and raps. However, since our room has his favorite new guys (Me, Stokes, Bates and Young) he is giving us their mini fridge!! Its kind of a tradition since only a few rooms have one. So whenever Dai Senpai leave, they give it to whoever they like most, or they just leave it there. There are always great hand downs from them when they leave haha. And soon that will be us!! But until then, at least we can keep our drinks cold.

Oh yeah, and just a quick thing about this week. We got to Host the new missionaries coming in (like the guy that took me around to get my stuff and take me to my room) and we get to do it each week from here on out since we've been here this long. And also, we're going to get our final District Leader this Sunday and it could possibly be me. Theres only 4 people it could be because of other positions they have but yeah, its a pretty cool position. I'll let you know who gets it this next week. Most people don't want it but I wouldn't mind having the leadership position of our class. Anyways, thats it for now.

Aishite Imasu! (I love you)
- Carlini ちょうろう

Eyyyy, こんにちわかぞく！

Thank you again for the awesome Christmas gift! I still have most of it but I try to take a little more out of the drawer I put it in each night. Its good stuff. Although I still miss some fresh Papa J pizza and cinna pie's haha! And as I said to you just a minute ago, I wanna play with Zeus!! He looks like the coolest pup ever! I was showing some of my district the pictures you sent and they thought he was super cute, haha!

On to Japanese. I'm still getting pretty owned by the language. It is really tough for me and I cant seem to form a lot of sentences on the spot. Except for real basic ones. But I know I'll get there. And I know what you mean when you say that it looks foreign to you. Its definitely not a language that clicks early on haha. Although its a little bit better for me since I know the alphabets and stuff. Except Im just kind of starting to learn some Kanjis and those are pretty crazy. However, I actually like learning the Kanji because you feel really cool writing them. Ive learned about 22 so far but thats counting the numbers 1 through 10 which are really basic. Its also something to get my mind off of the grammar rules and all of the particles...I'll have to tell you about those when I'm home. It's a very different concept from English since their sentence structure is all weird. For example, if I wanted to say "wheres my sushi?" I would say Watashi no sushi wa doko deska? Which literally is translating to - Watashi (I) no (linking particle) sushi wa (subject indicator) doko (where) deska (polite form is/are with ka which means its a question). Sorry that probably didn't make much sense. Its hard to explain without actually talking about it. Oh and I know what you mean when you say that there are hundreds of things to memorize! Everytime I memorize a bunch of stuff and think that I know quite a bit more, I just flip through our Japanese book with all the definitions in the back and realize that there are thousands of words that I have never even looked at haha. Soooo I've still got a ways to go. But that being said, I am much better off then I was when I got here obviously. Its crazy how when we're teaching our investigator, I can actually tell what he is talking about/asking a lot of the time. Its pretty cool. Japanese is cool...haha.

Hey well about the MTC and all,it's a freaking roller coaster here. Its certainly not like EFY where you feel super spiritual all day and get to do fun activities. This is serious work that is forming us into teachers of the gospel and we have to learn a language, but that being said there are still a lot of good times. And hopefully after it all I can remember those times as being worth the crazy stuff. And you are correct! Since we've been here for 3 weeks now, we are Senpai! It feels pretty cool and it was really weird seeing all the Dai Senpai leave for Japan Monday morning. Well, we didn't actually see it since they left at 2 a.m. haha but we saw that they were all gone which was different. Oh and something weird happened this week because we were expecting more Kohi (the new guys) this week to join our branch but we didn't get any! We found that out on Sunday from our Branch Pres. and so we feel lonely as Senpai...haha, still the lowest out of the Japanese missionaries now. Haha, even our new Dai Senpai call us Kohi sometimes since there are no new ones!! But its all fun and games. We'll have new ones in a couple Wednesdays and we'll get to feel really cool again. And also, we haven't had the chance to "escort" new Elders yet. That will be when we are Dai senpai ourselves. Anyways, its time to send a whole bunch of pictures, haha. Talk to you later!

あいしています！(I love you)

-Carlini ちょうろう