One month down. 23 to go. Everything's starting to get pretty repetitive here. However there were a couple fun things. I forgot to mention last week about TRC. It's kind of like a family home evening style teaching appointment where you show up and get to talk with and teach real members, all in Japanese. We do it on Mondays. Our first week was an absolute disaster. We taught two 20 minute long lessons. The first lesson went all right, we didn't really understand what was going on but we made it through without any major problems. However, as we were about to walk into our second appointment, the brother running TRC said "Oh by the way, the brother in there brought a real investigator with him. Good luck" and opened the door and sent us in. 

We were terrified and forgot the very important step of getting to know the people in their and just launched into our lesson. We were "teaching" (I use the term loosely in this situation) about recognizing and listening to the holy ghost. We each tried to share stories and a few scriptures about times when we've recognized and followed promptings. Then we still had about fifteen minutes left so we asked the member (who said his name but I totally missed it) if he had any experiences of that kind. He shared something that we didn't understand and so we asked the investigator (whose name I didn't catch either) what she thought about all this.

 She didn't really want to answer at first, but with some coaxing from the member she started talking, and it was all really fast and really unintelligible (at least to us). However, I did catch one thing she was saying: "to omoimasen" which she said at about the end of every sentence. This phrase unfortunately means "I don't think that..." and so the only thing we could tell from what she was telling us was that she was negative about what we said. But since we didn't know what else she was saying we couldn't respond or address her concerns. So, with five minutes left, we said "We're out of time. Goodbye!" and walked out. It was bad. I never wanted to go back. 

That's why, this week, when we never got a notification about TRC and I thought we didn't have it, I was way relieved. My hopes were dashed when the TRC coordinator walked into our classroom at 6:30 on Monday evening and said: "Hey! Sorry I forgot to give you a notice, but you've got TRC tonight at 6:40." That was one of the most terrible moments of my life. We all packed up and rushed over there, had probably 2 minutes to prepare a lesson, and were each thrown into a room. 

The member in the room's name was Amy (I think that's how you spell it.) She's a Japanese native from Tokyo who's living here and studying English at BYU. Because we didn't really have a lesson prepared, we just spent a lot of time getting to know her and becoming acquainted. She was awesome. She's just the sweetest woman, and she wrote down our names so she could come say hi next week. We also forgot our Japanese scriptures, and so when we shared some scriptures in English, she wrote them down so she could read them at home in Japanese. You could just feel her faith. It was a wonderful experience, and we walked out of there feeling that we'd made a friend and been spiritually uplifted, both from that fact, and from the brief message and discussion we had shared and had about revelation from the Book of Mormon. 

The next lesson we taught was very similar. We spent more time learning about Aaron, the member there, and less time focusing on what we were teaching and we had the same result. It was a great lesson. We've talked a lot in class (and I know I've talked a lot about it in my emails) about teaching people, not lessons, and this was a real life example. The first week we focused on lessons and got our trash kicked, but the next week we really tried to focus on who we were teaching and had a great experience. It was also really encouraging to see how much my Nihongo improved in just a week. I had felt that I hadn't really learned anything this week, and that I was at the same place as last week but I understood a lot more and was able to say a lot more on the fly than I was last week. I'm looking forward to TRC now. It was way fun.

Other things that have happened:

Investigators: We have one investigator who is very easy to teach and very receptive to our message. He has a baptism date and we're working toward baptism with him. Our other investigator, who I may have mentioned before, is far more difficult. He doesn't really open up about his life and why he's talking to the missionaries (the reason he gives being that he wants to learn english, but seeing as we haven't spoken a single word in english the entire time we've taught him, there's either another reason, or it's just the fact that our teacher has to play this investigator and meet with us until we leave), and so we're really working on becoming better at what I mentioned above, about teaching people not lessons. 

That's kind of felt like our theme for this week. We're trying to help him understand the nature of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, who he thinks are mean, powerful, judgemental, and impersonal beings that want to punish him through commandments, and I think that until we can figure out why that is (a goal that has been hindered by both our poor nihongo and poor teaching skills) we can't help him understand  what God and His Son are really like. So that's what we're working on this week.

On Sunday we watched a video called "For Such a Time as This" by Elder Holland. It was like "Character of Christ" that I mentioned last week, in that it was a talk he gave at the MTC that they keep showing because it was so good. His point was that he was thankful to live in this time, because it's the dispensation that has given every righteous person in previous dispensations hope. Those people knew that eventually their dispensation and all the work they had done to preach and teach in it would go to waste. The gospel would eventually leave the earth and, in essence, those people would fail.

 But we are the people who will eventually win. The gospel's never going to leave the earth. Our dispensation is the last and it is the one that will stay, and so it's our job to take full advantage of it and ensure that we are living up to the hope that all those that came before us had. It was way awesome. I don't know how available these videos are outside the MTC, but if you can get ahold of it, watch it. It's amazing.

Fun stuff:

It was kind of a boring week in that regard. One cool thing: one of our new roommates, Elder Rees, has an older brother serving in Fukuoka. That brother is Nick Walton's companion, and has been for like 7 months. We also found out today that the two of us played on the same lacrosse team in 8th grade but neither of us remember until today. So that was kind of fun. 

Also a prank war has erupted in our residence hall, one in which I have yet to take part. It's involved cranking up others' thermostats so they come back to a sweltering room, lobbing thin trash bags full of freezing water into the showers (which explode on impact) and locking alarm clocks into other people's drawers--set for 3:00 in the morning. I'm lucky I haven't been caught in the crossfire yet. 

My scripture this week is D&C 50:21-22, which really teaches about the topic I discussed above, teaching people and not lessons.

 21 Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth?

 22 Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth,understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together.

So there you go. Have a good week everyone. Also send me mail, preferably through Dear Elder (unless it costs money, I don't actually know. If it does then forget that). Like I said, it's a status symbol. Plus when no one gets mail, and that mailbox is empty, it makes everyone sad. Not just me. So really it's for the good of the community.

Eadie Choro with Eadie Brodie on his back.