Hello Family and friends! Hope you're all having an awesome time doing
whatever you're doing. So even though this email is going to many
people, it'll be responding to the questions that Papa Carlini sent in
his email to me. Anyways, as you know, I got a new companion and moved
int a new area. My companion is Japanese and doesn't speak much
English. So that being said, questions.

Yeah so my first week has been slightly dull actually. Not too
much going on and just living the missionary life. This place is so
much different from my last area that I'm not sure what to think.
Anyways, having a Japanese companion is good but also really
difficult. I always thought it would be the best for my Japanese to be
with someone 24 7 that speaks fluently. And although I still believe
this to be the case, it's also very discouraging. There are many ups
and downs in a mission and one specifically is the language. Some days
you feel great and really love how much you can speak to someone. And
then the next second you can't put a solid sentence together to save
your life. So being with a Japanese person has just made those
intervals even shorter. Sometimes I can say a bunch of things in a row
that make sense to him and get my point across. But then many more
times, I realize that I can hardly say anything that I really want to,
and it makes me feel terrible that I can't even communicate with my
own companion. So the struggle is real, but it's basically 仕方がない
(can't be helped) at this point. I study whenever I have some time and
I wake up earlier then the normal 6:30 everyday to study some more. It
really gets me down when I can't speak.. It's terrible. But as time
goes on, I'm sure I'll improve.

Hmm, new area is just okay for now, but the Elders I live with
are cool guys. We are in another 4 man apartment and we have the
Privelege of living with a total of 2 Japanese Elders. So it's my
Companion, and then Elder Crandalls companion. Me and elder Crandall
are the Senpai and are both training right now. The last Elder is
Menzawa 長老. He is fresh off the train at Transfer 1 and he's a cool
guy. He's still wanting to go back home at this point though so we're
trying to push him through it. He'll be alright. Also, we as a
District are teaching a lot of people right now and have 3 baptisms
coming up soon! I'm not sure if that sounds crazy or not but in Japan,
it's pretty insane. Me and Elder Nishidome just opened up the new
Hibarigaoka C Elders slot so technically we have nothing yet. Just
trying to find and teach at this point. However, we like to teach the
other Investigators we have right now too because the District Leader
thinks it's a great opportunity to meet more People of the Church.

That's way sweet that Dimitrov is doing well. He always had such
a cool name and playstyle. I pass by these nice indoor tennis courts
now and then here and it makes me want to play tennis way bad! It'll
be a good thing to get back into when I return right? Also Raquetball,
because that is awesome. Speaking of sports with Raquet type things,
we played some ping pong with non members and soon to be members the
other night at the church. As expected, most people play ping pong
here and are pretty dang good. There's a guy called Nakamura-San here
that has like a $100 paddle. He's pretty good, but I've actually been
able to beat up on him a bit. My skills have not yet faded my friends.
I was basically beating every one I played so that was cool. Haha, the
Japan vibe just automatically enhances ping pong skills I guess.

Alright so I have hardly any time now but real quick, no, the
bike with the huge tires wasn't an Elders. We just found it outside
Costco and thought it was sweet. Then the Scanners! Yeah I'm gonna
send a quick video about that too just to slightly explain it. They
are way sweet. They have them in every single train station to scan
your Suica card. So yeah. Not much else to put. I'll send a couple
extra pics too so until next week. またね！

- Carlini 長老