Hey Family!
I hate to hear such bad news about Grandma passing away
but it sounded like it was only a matter of time.
I really do believe that she is incredibly happy right now
and because of the great life she lived she can be with God. Anyways,
I'm sorry to have not written to much to you guys lately. The videos
are just so easy to do haha. But I know that it's really nice to have
the letters so we can remember all of this. Soooo, this week has been
different for sure because we had transfers obviously. Although I
didn't do much except for switch desks and downgrade into the small
room, hah. Things have been kinda rough with the new comp because we
just don't see eye to eye at all on some things. But I think that if I
am able to focus my efforts on the investigators then this transfer
will go by quickly. The language. Let me just say that Japanese is
incredibly difficult and the more I learn, the more I realize how much
more there is to learn. And to be quite honest, having only 2 years to
fully study it and be surrounded doesn't seem like a lot of time now.
I was hoping and expecting to be relatively fluent by around 7 months
but I don't feel that too much anymore. I study my butt off and I'm
trying to learn all I can. It just takes learning and hearing another
language enough to realize how many freakin words and grammar
principles there are. And then you have to use those same things back
to a person without taking 5 minutes. Hahah, so yeah it's difficult,
but I am certainly learning. I really wanna connect with these people
better ya know? Obviously the spirit helps with that a bunch but I
hate when I feel super awkward seeing someone and not having much to
say to them.
Anyways, on to the other questions, haha. We have 4 in our
apartment still, but there is a slight change. Instead of having
Kuniyuki (my last companion), we have a Nihonjin! And he's brand new,
so Elder Staheli is training him. It's a nice little perk and I was
able to practice speaking more Japanese just today with him. He
doesn't really speak any English so it's a good opportunity. Hmmm, our
daily schedule changes a bit from day to day for sure but we mostly
wake up, work out, eat, do our 3-4hour block of studies (personal,
companion, and language), then we eat lunch and go out to do
missionary work. Unless we have something else planned. Then have
dinner later that night, and we almost always Kubarikai (hand out
English class fliers) until 9. But yeah, we actually have a decent
amount of lessons this week and some awesome people in our area with
baptismal dates. So that's great stuff right there.
So let's see, from this last week me and Kuniyuki 長老 had a pretty
cool experience together. In this mission we have a thing called the
power of ten. It's a goal for every companionship in the mission to
get at least 10 meaningful contacts a day. So that makes the minimal
requirement for a week 70. So, the night before we had to turn in
stats, me and Elder Kuniyuki realized that we only had 66 contacts for
the week, and proposed an idea. We both had food ready to eat and it
was the end of the day. But he suggested that we try and go get those
last 4 contacts with the 20 or so minutes we had before planning. So,
we had a quick prayer and went out the door for who knows who. And as
soon as we walked out of our complex, there were exactly 4 people
walking down the sidewalk towards us. So once they came by, Kuniyuki
just started throwing out all the main Japanese you use to start a
conversation and say that we are missionaries. They didn't seem very
interested and kind of just kept walking but he persisted and gave
them all English class fliers in case they wanted to come. It was a
pretty funny experience and we may have frightened them more then
enticed them to join the church but hey, we got those 4 contacts!
Hahah, so yeah, that's that.
Dad! You better make sure to study that Japanese card you bought
because Mother's Day is (kind of) coming up. I wanna hear that pure
accent, haha. I hope you guys have a great week and enjoy all the
pictures I was finally able to send. I'm sorry about Grandma. I know
she's happy.

I love you all!
愛していますよ！あなたたちはさいこのかぞくです！

Love, Carlini 長老