Conference, a dream, and a leafblower

Hey all!

Life at the MTC is good. Here is a recap of my week.

Wednesday

As soon as I arrived the whirlwind began of recieving a name tag, getting 15 pounds of books, and finding my dorm room. Then I was brought to my classroom where Fowers Kyodai (brother) began teaching in Japanese learning hellos and introductions. Thank goodness he speaks some english here and there. We then went to a meeting were we learned the ins and outs of the MTC. We unpacked and then went to bed.

Thursday

We sat around all day enjoying "additional study time" to its fullest. Which generally involves language study and when we arent doing that there is.....you guessed it more language study. We learned how to pray which was pretty neat, I feel like Henry praying but know that Ten O Otosama (Heavenly Father) understands.

Friday

We taught our first lesson. It went terrible...I felt locked in my own thoughts unable to say anything. I was pretty dejected after the lesson. That night I prayed that I would be able to communicate. That night I had a dream in nehogo (Japanese). I was flipping through flash cards and when I woke up I had the impression that learning Japanese will be a lot like when I learned how to swim competitively. At least this time I didn't get sick....

Saturday

General conference was amazing we met in a giant gym to have conference, they had 2 huge projectors and 6 flat screen t.v.s for us to watch. There was so much great inspiration that was given and I look forward to applying their counsel in my like and on my mission. I got really excited when I had I saw that Elder Carlson gave the opening prayer, if he only knew how influential he has been on out lives.

Sunday

Round 2 of Conference was Great! my favorite talk was given in the last session of conference by Elder Bednar, I kept thinking, "man, if i had Facebook, I would totally share this talk." The story of the sons reminded me of the boys. That night we had the privileged of listening to Via Sikahama who was on the BYU football team and played professional football as well, he currently works for nbc in the sports department. He spoke of tremendous missionary opportunities that he has had. It was truly inspiring. At the end he gave us counsel to marry someone "smart and pretty" because you cant do "dumb and ugly". He said we needed to improve our gene pools. It was pretty hilarious.

Monday

I had my second lesson with an investigator. This time is was completely different! I was able to communicate in broken Japanese. It was in no means perfect but I felt that I could speak and not be afraid. I also received my package which was a great moral booster before my lesson.

Tuesday

We have been working out every morning it the weight room which has been fun. It is nice to be able to work out. I weighed myself and found out i had already lost 5 pounds since arriving O.o. We taught again (it is becoming a normal thing). It went well we challenged him to be baptized and he said he would pray about it. My doryo (companion) was nervous about me extending the invitation but I was confident. The dream I had was inspiring.  I can truly do anything. We also go to hear from elder neilson of the seventy his words were inspiring he said, "Out of the 2000 missionaries at the MTC right now and in correlation with statistics we will baptize 10,000 people" WOW!!. His wife spoke of rosebushes and how we must cut them down in the spring so they may blossom again,and compared that to our own lives.

Wednesday

We had service in the morning. We were assigned to sweep leaves off of a huge sidewalk. I knew there had to be a better way, so after 5 minutes of the hour long service, I went back inside and found a leaf blower in a closet. It took 20 minutes to complete our service. I have learned there is almost always a better way to do something, we must seek it out though. That night a lot of the chorotachi (elders) in my district were suffering from home sickness. But thank goodness my doryo and I were able to teach and get our minds off of things.

Thursday

Today we went to the temple this morning, and now we are doing laundry, then we will go to a session this afternoon.

I am so happy to be involved in this blessed work. It truly is amazing. I have learned so much in this short time. I truly am starting to feel like a man. They say the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. It is so true.

Love you all,

Dunn Choro