(hello, my dear amazing lovely mom)
Yeah I guess it is the downhill slide! The downhill slide of the first tiny step of the mission. I'm feeling like a seasoned pro of the MTC, definitely not with the language though. I'm getting a little sick of the food...especially breakfast. dinners usually have more options, but breakfast is basically always the same. The scrambled eggs are so nasty. But they have really good tater tots sometimes. I always talk about how I miss potatoes--me and Frank Shimai tell everyone about how nice it is to pick a steaming, buttery potato right off the tree in the summertime. Elder Dahl and Elder Schow (the centennial alumni in our zone) jumped right on board too, it's pretty funny. But yeah the food actually isn't bad, it's just that it's the same cycle that repeats every week. I never thought I'd say this, but I was even a little tired of the ice cream sandwiches. So I had creamsicles
instead this week.
Language-wise, our lessons are going really well but it's still so hard to understand their questions. We just got a new kyūdosha, しまだ さん、(Shimada san) who is half にほんじん。(Japanese). Taylor Shimai (shimada) grew up learning Japanese and English, and served her mission in Arizona. So she has the experience of a US mission which is kind of a different perspective than our other teachers. She also has a much bigger vocabulary than our other teachers, and she doesn't have an American accent when she speaks Japanese. So it's definitely a step up, but I made her promise to not speak any slower or simpler to us than she would to any of her Japanese friends. Which has been good, but we have made good use of the phrase もいっかい、おねがいします。 (Moikkai, onegaishimasu--one more time, please.)
This week, I was feeling especially tired of the MTC so I started writing things I'm grateful for every night in my journal. It has been so good! Just a little thing but it really has helped me stay optimistic. I'm still super excited for when we head to Japan, but I'm also feeling good about having another month here.
Sounds like the 4th was way fun! I've never seen those big fireworks up close either, sounds awesome. Glad no houses caught on fire. Jenn said there was a huge fire at table rock though! That was probably Grayson huh? Tell him to be more careful.
For our 4th of July, we had an "international celebration of freedom." We had a cool fireside about how different historical events like the translation of the bible into English and the American Revolution made it possible for the Restoration of the gospel to occur. That was on Saturday, and the stadium of fire was shooting fireworks that night so they let us go outside and watch them from the MTC parking lot. They even let us stay up until 11:30, it was pretty exhilarating.
The next day was fast Sunday and we were all so tired. Except Nathan Chōrō ...I don't know how, but he never seems to be tired in he mornings. He usually even gets up 30 minutes early. Crazy stuff. We had a mission conference/devo in the morning, then normal church meetings and then double devotional that night (one live devo then we watch a video of an old devo). I definitely slept through a good portion of all 3 devotionals. Didn't even feel bad about it. Haha President Weaver let us take a nap during our study time after our temple walk so that was nice. Also, on Sunday I blessed the sacrament for the first time in Japanese! And I understood almost all of the words. Our fast and testimony meeting was super good; we got to hear from almost all of the new elders and sisters, they had such good testimonies.
Yeah I'm glad I have many chances to sing too! Speaking of...Nathan Chōrō and I were jamming in the shower today after exercise time, just running through our normal repertoire of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. He was slaying the beatboxing and I was nailing all those narrator-range E flats when suddenly this old dude starts chewing us out for being so loud! And we're in the corner showers inside the bathroom in the basement floor of a remote residence hall in the corner of the MTC, in the middle of the day! Like, if we can't sing there, where can we sing?! わからない。 (I don't know.) Then right after he chewed out some of the other elders for doing push-ups and pull-ups in the hallway! Weirdest thing. But yeah, he walked away then we started singing Away in a Manger very softly and gently.
Yes, I will need a hard-copy photo book...would you mind assembling the jiko shoukai? It's supposed to have good pictures of family and friends and fun events that show the culture, but without showing "expensive toys or activities." But yeah that would be so great if you could do that for me!
The sweet spot of ignorance huh? Hopefully it doesn't get too stressful. As long as you have good counselors and assistants, you shouldn't be too swamped right? I'm sure you'll be a stellar relief society president, I think it's good to not overthink it, especially at the beginning.
The ZL gig is going well! Nothing too exciting though. Every Sunday, the Branch president wants us to make 3 different quorums, and the districts need to be intermixed with each other, and they have to be different each week, and we have to assign a different companionship to teach the lesson each week, and each of the 3 quorums needs to have one of the 4 DLs in it to conduct the meeting. So it's kind of an unnecessary hassle that repeats every week, but we have a pattern down that's working pretty well. Other than that, we're mostly just trying to make sure the kohai are doing well. One of them went home this week....So pray for him, that he'll be ok back at home. One of the sisters in our district went home this week too....Pretty sad that we had to say goodbye, pray for her as well though!
Girls' camp sounds like it was a huge success! That sounds so cool. I bet the girls loved it!
Sounds like you are staying way busy! Don't be stressed! Thanks for the spiritual thought, I think that's such a cool analogy.
We will probably be leaving first thing in the morning on Monday, August 1st. So Taylor will probably need to stop by in the few days before that...
The Provo temple is closed so we are cleaning it today, I think it will be fun. And then tonight will be our last TRC with RMs here in the MTC, because next week we will have TRC over Skype with にほんじん！(Japanese people) it will be so cool.
Love you so much!
--
Elder Paskett
1- we can't view missed calls, so every missed call that phone has
ever gotten is still a missed call. They just keep adding up.
2- The 2 desks accurately represent our different approaches to
lessons. We get along really well, but definitely different people
haha.
3- Hermana Hansen!
4- Elder Morrise!
5-- fireworks + international celebration of freedom
6-- The zone.
7, 8- Chōrō-tachi bonding
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