My most wonderfully amazing, perfect, beautiful, いちばん は-は,
(number one mom)
This week has been mucho bueno! It has really flown by. I am so tired every day, but the days blend together.
To start off...on Thursday, we did exchanges with the other district in our zone. I was with Elder Corréa from Brazil for the day, and Nathan Chōrō was with Passos Chōrō, also from Brazil. In the morning, the 4 Chōrō-tachi from my district auditioned our "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" to be in a devotional or other large group meeting. We are on the "yes" list which means they will schedule us when or if they need us, so hopefully we will get that opportunity!
Corréa Chōrō and I taught 2 lessons. The first one was decent, I didn't understand a lot of it but I shared a scripture and testified, so those were good. But the second lesson was so fire!!!! Corréa Chōrō still did most of the talking but I helped a lot more. I didn't read from my notebook at all, and we taught a full lesson on prophets. At the end we shared a video of President Monson's testimony, and we bore our testimonies of Joseph Smith and modern-day prophets. I promised that if he (the kyūdosha) (investigator) read and followed the teachings of the prophets, he would feel the spirit and receive blessings. Corréa Chōrō loved it when I said "sore wa yakusoku desu." In his Brazilian accent, he said "that was just like so solid man!" (Bet you can guess where he picked up the word "solid" from!) He was also surprised that we teach foreign languages in public school. I guess in Brazil they have actual language schools for that. I told him my year of Nihongo covered about 4 days' worth in the MTC and he just said, "man schools in America are slow huh?" Haha but yeah our lesson was kanpeki. The Seirei was mucho tsuyoi. I was talking to our "kyūdosha" after he transformed back into a Sensei, and he said that Corréa Chōrō and I worked very well together and he loved how we let our personalities shine through our lesson, even despite the language barrier. So that gives me a lot of hope! I am so excited to get to the point where to prepare a lesson, I don't have to prepare specific sentences and then translate them one by one. "I want to be a person, not a pamphlet!" -Elder Landon Paskett
On Friday I was back with my original companion (side note: Elder Corréa Chōrō and I always "fight" about our "breakup"--that guy is so funny!! And he has a weird thing about Americans and brown shoes, so whenever I wear brown shoes he says, "that's why you left me for Nathan Chōrō huh? Because I don't have any brown shoes. I like your shoes though, they look really good. You broke my heart. You're the worst. You look really nice. I hope you feel good about what you did.")
But anyways, we had kind of a slow day. Our teacher was pretty tired. But we found a little bit about our next investigator, Asuka-san and started preparing our first lesson for her. We also got our iPads! That means I can read emails throughout the week and look up words in Japanese super easily. We read a pamphlet about using technology safely and how it can be a great tool to us, but can also be a source of evil if we aren't careful. I'm excited to have it though, It's been super helpful for studying and teaching.
We have used the iPads mostly for language learning but it is also nice to be able to look up Scriptures and conference talks. We can also use them to show videos to our "investigators" so that is nice during lessons. It is also nice to have the camera on it, it is very convenient to be able to take pictures of things. I am also using the voice to text feature to type out most of the emails, so if they are riddled with typos, that is why. I catch most of the mistakes but probably not all of them. But yeah it is way nice because I can say/type a lot more in less time.
On Friday I also got the package from Aunt Trish! It had some candy and snacks and a card from Grandma. Bloomfield Chōrō in the room next to us saw the card and was like, "Landon, who's Ann Vehar???" with suggestive eyebrows. I told him that was my grandma and he left without another word. But the package was very thoughtful! Shout out to Aunt Trish! I actually saw Jessie all the time in the cafeteria, it's pretty fun. But now she's headed to the field, you'll have to keep your eyes out for our "goodbye handshake" picture.
I also got a package from Jenn! I was really feeling the love this week with all the packages--it just makes everyone's day better if you send missionaries packages (hint hint
). I got some Elsa fruit snacks and some Oreos and some of the worst Frozen puns I have ever heard in my life. Haha really though, it was super nice.
This will probably come as a shock but I have been playing basketball during exercise time. I was getting a little bored of volleyball because usually people would usually just pass it straight over the net, so I decided to see what the basketball scene was like. And it was fun, but I am so bad. Like really bad. But, I'm getting better. I kept playing this last week and I have been getting better every day, so that is good. By the time I leave the MTC, I want to be decent enough to beat the other white guys at basketball. I will probably never be able to beat Nathan Chōrō though.
On Sunday, Nathan Chōrō and I found out that we will be the new zone leaders. The current ones are leaving to Japan a week from yesterday and we will have a zone of just one district until the new recruits arrive. It will be weird to be the "more experienced" ones here. A few weeks actually does make a difference in how "old" you feel though. So as Zone Leaders, we have a cell phone--it reminded me of Deacon's quorum, when our leaders told us that we couldn't bring iPod touches or cell phones to quorum, because on our missions, we wouldn't have any electronic devices. But here we are with both iPads and cell phone, so that's pretty funny.
I also sang a duet in sacrament meeting, Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd, with the old zone leader, Bates Chōrō. Brother Turpin from our branch presidency accompanied us on the piano, he actually arranged the song, too. So that was good! Brother Turpin was very proud of us. He really really really loves to talk, and he went on and on about his arrangement and the Japanese verse. Bates Chōrō and I endured it well.
Also in our branch presidency is brother Collinsworth, who is actually the dad of Kyle Collinsworth, who is one of the best players on the BYU basketball team. Bro. Collinsworth is like 6'5", he's a super cool guy.
On Monday, we played kickball in the rain with our district. That was way fun, but very cold. It was nice to get outside though, sitting in a classroom all day gets boring. And exercising in the gym is good, but it's just nicer out in the sun. Or the rain.
We also had some one-on-one Nihongo coaching with one of our senseis, and she was our first "investigator". I thought that we weren't super good teachers, but she actually had a lot of good things to say about our teaching. She also said that I "exude happiness" so I guess that is a good thing, haha she said Japanese people will love that. But it's hard to exude happiness because I am so tired all the time. Just like that guy in the district, it's fun to be a missionary but you're tired literally every day.
I was reading my scriptures the other day, in the Isaiah chapters, and I actually got something out of it! That was surprising but cool. In one of the verses it says "how can the axe boast itself against the bearer" (or something like that) but it was way cool because I think it really applies to missionary work. As missionaries we are the "axe", and God is the "bearer." We are tools in his hands, and through us, he can accomplish so much good, but we still need to remember that we, like the axe, can accomplish nothing without him. But even though he is the strength behind the axe, he can only use us if we are "sharpened" and kept in good shape--which is why we need to be obedient. So in conclusion--be a sharp/obedient axe, but remember that axes without the help of God just sit there and don't accomplish much.
At the devotional last night, we sang "Praise to the Man", the arrangement that was originally for the Mormon Tabernacle choir. So cool. Elder Soares from the Seventy Presidency gave an awesome message that I missed a good chunk of because I fell asleep. But the main idea was that we are ordained representatives of Jesus Christ, and as such, we need to represent him well. He told the story of a man who saw missionaries dingdong ditching other houses, so when he and his comp knocked on that guy's door, he got really mad and and said that he didn't want to hear anything about their church. So people really are watching us, and we need to make sure our actions are reflecting well on the church and on Christ.
To answer your question, Williamson Shimai is in the district across the hall--she's actually not even in my zone. But her classroom is right by ours, so I see her pretty often. And her companion was friends with Nathan Chōrō back in Cali!! Small world we live in. I also see Jenn's friend Frank Shimai pretty often, so I'll say hi to her too. And I see people from my BYU ward all the time too, it's actually pretty funny how many people I recognize literally everywhere we go.
So yeah I'm doing well, the time is flying by. Hope you guys are doing well! I am getting closer and closer to the point where I can read your DearElder letters in Nihongo. Especially with the iPads, translating them is super quick. Except when you use weird conjugations of words and I can't find the plain form haha. But anyways, can't wait to hear about girls camp and whatever other fun things you have planned this week!
あいしていあます！
(I love you!)
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