Mission Impossible Japanese Style! 2/12 MTC

Hey! How's life everyone?!

Pretty good? 

Great! But I bet it's not as great as mine! 'Cause I'm on a mission! Haha

So Quick news for this week:

-Maderios kyodai (one of my sensais) cut his hand pretty bad, so he can't write, so he withdrew from BYU, quit working at the MTC and is flying back to Hawaii today. That kinda stinks, but it's alright, he was acting out a dang tough investigator, and now I don't have to worry about teaching him anymore haha. Jk but kinda not..

-Robby's Here! And he's on my floor in the residence, I feel kinada bad for him though, he's in the crappy zone...most of the missionaries in his zone are slackers. One of them who's been here as long as I have, just learned how to pray this week, which we learned how to do the first day...So yah...hopefully he doesn't get to influenced by their work ethic.

-Clarissa is here too! She's in Robby's zone, along with all the other missionaries going to Nagoya! 

-We got LOADS of new missionaries in with Robby's group. 48 to be exact. I don't like most of them unfortunately...they all just sit in the halls and talk. They're in for a huge rude awakening when they get to Japan and don't know anything.

-We had a rap off last night right after zone prayer. And it was pretty awesome

Alright, so since I'm leaving in a week I figured I'd reflect on what the MTC is like, and why I like it so much haha

So reason Numba 1: The MTC is like the Tower of Babel! Everyones always muttering jibberish in different languages and it's awesome! 

2. Because of numba 1 you can travel the MTC and it's kinda like traveling the world! Last P-day I went on a quest to explore which languages were in each building, and pick up free language books I might want on the way, and it was awesome! Which leads to number 3

3. You can get soooo much free stuff here! I found a bunch of normally expensive stuff, just lying around from people leaving it here when they leave. Like all my awesome Portuguese books! And my Spanish, and Italian, and German books...If you know where to look you can pretty much find whatever you want here haha.

4. Unlimited food. Buffet for every meal, pretty much fantastic.

5. You can make friends from around the world here! I now have friends in China, England, Portugal, Canada, Korea, Cambodia, Australia, New Zeland, the Philippians, a few weird some/Central american countries that I can't pronounce/spell, Hawaii, all over the U.S. Japan...It's awesome I love international friends. Especially if I can buff off them when I travel their country haha jk...but kinda not..

6. I get to learn Japanese!

7. The spirit here is awesome! And we have so many opportunities to receive revelation for the rest of our mission! It's fantastic! We have Devotionals twice a week, which are huge spiritual highlights, then if your really seeking insights, and new inphormation, you can get taught so much via the spirit, through lessons, the scriptures, devotionals, talks, etc. Everything here is pretty much fantastic.

I'll end with a little spiritual insight. This week I was pondering alot on the HOW to feel the atonement's power. I already learned that I need to become truly converted myself, and know how to use it, in order to bring other people into the gospel "You cannot convert others past your own conversion." So anyways I was thinking about whether or not I had felt the atonement's power before, or if I've ever truly repented...I mean I don't have any huge sins or anything...but I wanted to really know the atonement well, like Ammon, and Aaron, etc. So anyways a 3 weeks ago elder Nelson said "True repentance is true conversion, and true conversion is true repentance" Then in last Sunday's devotional, the speaker said "True conversion, is WANTING to keep the commandments" So do some simple algebra, and you come up with "True repentance, is wanting to keep the commandments" aka if your desires have changed, then the atonement has changed you, and you have repented. So what your thoughts and desires, and become perfected in Christ. Anyways that's the insight of the day! That one was pretty big for me! I feel like I understand repentance/the atonement alot better. 

Here's some pictures for ya!

1. Priesthood Power.

2. The Shimai in our zone! (I don't have a picture of the Elders in my zone...otherwise I'd give that too)

3. All my Portuguese books!

Mission Impossible Japanese Style! 2/5 MTC

Hello all! This weeks had alot of ups and downs, but overall it's still been great :D We're getting our flight plans next Friday! Got a little over two weeks left!

So last weeks email I mostly talked about spiritual stuff I'm learning at the MTC...so I think this week, I'll talk about all the other stuff I've learned at the MTC haha.

This week on Monday our Sempai's left, (one of the districts in our zone) they're mostly headed to Sapporo. So it's been kinda weird being here without them. When they left me and my comp inherited all of the passed down junk from generations apon generation of MTC missionaries...There is alot. We've  got books of all kinds, a pumpkin dressed like an elder that's been here since Halloween, Christmas stuff from 2 years ago, lots of junk food and soda that people's family's have sent them, 7 white boards, at least 20 church pictures, homeopathic medication for any ailment...etc.. So that was fun sorting through, we through away all the crap and put the rest in one of our extra closets. Oh the one thing I was actually looking forward to getting was stolen by the MTC Brass. It was a memory foam mattress...It was going to be soooo good haha. We've had alot of Beef with the MTC brass over the weeks...they're just super bored so they get people in trouble for almost nothing.

Actually I probably should define some of those terms for you, haha that'd be kinda fun. So MTC Brass is like the military brass, except for at the MTC...duh. their leader is a Man named Angus kyodai (yes like the beef, oh and kyodai means brother) He's a giant hunk of a man, that's been in the MTC for forever, I'm pretty sure he's either one of the three nephites...or a physical form of the destroying angel...He's always angry and he thinks he's in a war zone all the time. A week or two ago an elder tried to go to the bathroom without his companion, and Angus grabbed him made him point out who his companion was...then he went down the stands and PICKED UP and elder who he thought he was pointing too haha It was the wrong kid! He was so scared it was great. Then the elder shook his head saying it was the wrong companion, so he went up a row, and grabbed the next kid. And carried him up the stairs to his companion! How crazy is that!? We've seen him in the background of old training videos, so he's been here a while. Yesterday when we we're setting district goals we decided the punishment for getting lazy the last week would be to take off your suit jacket at a devotional and stand up. And let Angus come get you haha. 

So that's Angus... 

We've had been with the Brass on a couple of different occasions. They stole my memory foam matress...Our sempai's left at 3:30 in the morning, and left it outside our room right before they left. Then when we woke up at 6:30 it was gone. The brass had a 3 hour window to get it...but they managed to. Then our district president got a security report about a defaced mattress fire hazard hahaha Which is pretty ridiculous.  

Oh actually I should explain the Beef cycle. I feel like I reference it alot in my emails but no one knows what I'm talking about haha. So we have some pretty creative elders in our group..and we've come up with what we call the Beef cycle. It's alot like the pride cycle, but it describes companionships. So quick review of the pride cycle.

Pride------->Punishment------>Repentance/humility-------->Prospering/Blessings/Stacks.

Everyone on the same page? K good. So the Beef cycle is pretty similar, You start with some Beef. You and you companion don't agree how to plan, one of you takes forever to get ready, one of you sings all the time and won't stop beatboxing...whatever the beef is..all companion ships have it. That leads to...Comp Inventory! That's how you're supposed to solve beef right? You talk it over, figure stuff out...get a couple bruises and you're good. Now you've got what we call a fresh start, you're working together, you can feel the spirit stuffs good. Now you get to the prosper stage. You get blessings, stacks if you will. You try and stay in the prosper stage as long as possible, but it's hard, eventually you end up with more beef, and the cycle restarts itself. Here's a diagram for ya. Beef----->Comp Inventory------>Fresh Start-------Prosper/Stacks/Gift of Tongues. Pretty simple right? We'll there's more too it, that's the primary version of the Beef Cycle, lets move on to Sunday school. So there's a couple different scenario that we've found, which are exceptions to the Beef cycle. For instance, what if your companionship is going great, your staking papes, feeling the spirit going well. Then you hit that Saturday night weekly planning session and mandatory comp inventory. Uh oh. Now you've got beef. Sometimes people will bring up old beef, that's already been settled, or maybe you bring up beef that really doesn't matter, things you don't like about their character, etc. just because that's what you do in comp inventory. Then all of a sudden you went from the prosper stage, back to the beef stage. And then the beef leads to more comp inventory, which leads to more beef and so on and so forth. That cycle is what we call the well done cycle. It's when the beef gets over cooked. Avoid that cycle at all costs, it's deadly to companionships. Another possibility you need to be aware of, is Subliminal Beef. That's when you have beef that hasn't been brought up yet, or completely settled by comp inventory. That's almost more dangerous than the well done cycle. Because at least then the beef was cooked. Subliminal beef just kinda sits out and rots, and gets nastier and nastier as time goes on. Then when you got to cook it. It can't be done. We've experienced a bit of subliminal beef in our companionship, it wasn't pretty. Haha the other companionship of elders taught the Beef Cycle as part of their district meeting lesson two weeks ago. It was great. Anyways, beware of beef. You might want to learn the beef cycle, and teach it to others, so they can be aware of what stage their in, and what actions have to be taken to avoid beef and get back into the prosper stage.

Hahaha....Recently most of the beef for our companionship has been why Pennington Choro hasn't seen any Disney/Pixar movies. I mean...just why!? He hasn't seen Hercules, or Tarzan, or Up, or Frozen or anything "praiseworthy and of Good report." haha 

Really I can't take credit for coming up with the beef cycle, it was the tripanionship of elders in our district. They know more about beef than anyone. We've just learned about it and used it.

I pretty much just spent my entire email time describing the beef cycle...hahahaha That's awesome and really sad. Like no one emails me, and nothing happens here so I had nothing else to do haha.

The only different thing this week was getting to be ZL. It's pretty cool because I get to worry about everyone else's problems instead of my own, sometimes I even forget I have problems! Haha it's one of the blessings of service I think, takes your mind off things. So that's lucky.

Here's the proverbs of the Day. This one's for Mom.

"ryouyaku wa kuchi ni nigashi" Which means "Difficult things can be good for us." (Or literally "Good medicine can be bitter to taste")

and on that I've been feeling lately..."Ishi no ue nimo sannen" Which means "perseverance brings blessings (lit. If you sit on a cold rock for three years, it will eventually warm up).

Aishtemasuyo!

Coleman Choro

Mission Impossible Japanese Style! 1/29 MTC

Hello! So this has been probably my favorite week of the MTC, or maybe of my life haha I'm on a spiritual high right now and it's fantastic :D

Quick news: 

Broke the pull up record officially with 35.

Became Zone Leader :)

Found out we're getting Ipads in March

I'm learning Portuguese!

One of our districts is leaving on Monday :( But that means we get all the stuff they can't fit, so early Christmas! Haha

And...God has pretty much directed every part of my week this week and it's been fantastic :D

So let me tell you WHY this week has been so great :D Last Sunday I had the opportunity to teach about recognizing the spirit, and when I was preparing it I realized that there was alot of things that I could be doing better to make my MTC stay much more effective.

 Like for example I'm using my "prayer journal" again, except a little differently now, and it's made a world of difference. I say a good prayer in the morning, and I write down the things I prayed for. And I always include "help me to learn what I need to learn, in order to be the most effective missionary" or help me and the people teaching me, to learn whatever it is I need to learn to be able to touch the most lives,  And to help me recognize the promptings of the spirit. So anyways I write down all the things I asked for in blue, and I leave a space on the page, then at the end of the day I go over how God had answered my prayer, and how he had guided my learning...and boy have I gotten some great insights this week :D So I'm sorry if this email ends up just being about churchy stuff..but I am on a mission..that's kinda all we do haha.

There's LOADS of things I feel like I've been prompted to do, and practices/habbits I should start to help in the field in the future. 

One was I need to take some time and write a letter to God thanking him for my companion. For how much the companion fits me, and helps me grow, and is a perfect match for me at this time. When I write it, I get more insights as to why God wants me with my companion, and then I can go back and read it whenever I'm struggling to have patience with him. This companion is pretty great so I probably won't have to read it much, but I feel like this could help alot in the future.

I Learned SO MUCH about the Atonement. MAN it's my favorite topic! I was pondering why it says in the scriptures "preach nothing but repentance" all over the place, and other things like it.

When it feels like there's so many other good things we need to talk about. Annnd I've realized that in order to be truely converted you need to experience the atonement's redeeming power. And that all of our commitments I give investigators need to give them a chance to experience that power. All the good converts of the church, in the scriptures had great experiences with the atonement. Like the Anti-Nephi Lehi's, Paul/Saul or Ammon and the sons of Mosia etc. It doesn't mean we have to be vile sinners in order to feel the Atonement'd saving power, we're all vile sinners in our own way. The atonement is "The root of all Christian Doctrine" The mission purpose "To invite others..." is all about using the atonement. Elder Nelson said when he came "True repentance is full conversion." When we truely repent, and realize what extent Jesus did to save us, it because easy to follow him and his commandment, it becomes easy to always remember Him. "The root of all Christian Doctrine" is a good talk if you want to look it up. Anyways I've had lots of insights about that this week. And I feel really blessed to have all these insights now, before I'm teaching real investigators. It changes how I teach, and changes how I pray.

Oh haha another one I got is....Portuguese! Haha you're all probably pretty confused on that one. But when I ponder during personal study time, what I need to learn to teach effectively...I always end up thinking how much I wanted to learn Portuguese! I mean it's like the most useful language ever...I could learn Spanish and French and Italian super easily if I knew Portuguese! And could travel most the world! 

Haha that was my reason for wanting to learn before the mission...now I feel like I've been led to want to learn Portuguese to bless people in my mission. After I realized the desire, I prayed for help learning it. And...I found all the Portuguese learning books just while walking around! I have a Portuguese PMG, missionary learning book, all the pamphlets, the grammar/verb card, the grammar learning book...the whole shibang! There's also two Portuguese speaking sisters in our zone that want to help me learn. They're actually called to Japan Portuguese speaking haha One of them made me a set of flash cards :D Anyways all this stuff just kinda appeared after I started looking. And I just found out that alot of missionaries that go to Nagoya end up learning some Portuguese, because there are lots of factories there and LOADS of Brazilian immigrants. I learned that after I had already learned I wanted to learn Portuguese. haha  So that's exciting! I'm going to come back tri-lingual! :D Which has always been a desire of mine :D Of course, I'm learning Japanese first, but I figure after 4 or 5 months of Japanese, I might start cracking into my Portuguese books :D So we'll see how that goes.

Anyways..in conclusion. When I completely gave my life over to God. To let him be the teacher and the planner, and the speaking, my life got waaay better. Everything just kinda works out how it's supposed to when I take the time to find out what exactly I'm supposed to doing. It's something I've known for a long time, but haven't applied it as much as I should have.

Oh! And for a proverb or two :D

頭の上は得覆え Which is pronounced atama no ue no hae o oe. It means "And why behold-est thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider-est not the beam that is in thine own eye (literally...swat the fly on your own head). haha

Alright here's another more serious one.

ならぬ姦淫する画家人 naranu kannin suru ga kan-nin. Which is patience is found in bearing the unbearable. 

So my teacher and my companion make fun of me, and pretty much won't let me even talk about learning Portuguese haha. Guess I'm learning patience.

Anyways thanks for the prayers! They really help!

aishtemasu!

Elder Coleman 

Mission Impossible! Japanese Style! 1/22 MTC

Heyyyy Familia! (or Kazoku around here)

So first some news: Payge Flake left! And Jessica, and all my other Thatcher friends, we see alot of missionaries come and go, being here for so long...haha But our new missionaries in our zone are awesome! A couple of them played volley ball in high school, so that's what I do in gym alot now, before it was super boring...couldn't ever get a set so there was no spiking. But with good people it's alot of fun! :D

Oh Robby has a good chance of being in my zone! And he'll probably get an Ipad! The new Japanese missionaries are getting Ipads to train with this week, so that's cool. Our sempai's our leaving the same week he's coming, he has a good chance of being in our group.

I did 35 pull ups yesterday! And broke my own personal record and the MTC record :D So that's cool. ALthough I have to do it again with the official people watching to get on the wall of fame

Sang our version of I'll go where you want me to go on Sunday, with one of the new missionaries. It was really great :D Oh and I got to teach the lesson in priesthood about using the BOM in our own and others coversions....That was supppppper great. I love teaching. It's my favorite, and it's soo cool to receive prompting about what to teach, or what to share :D I'm teaching again this sunday for our district meeting, actually...not that I think about it...I've taught a lesson, every Sunday except the first haha. Awesome. 

Elder Ballard came and spoke on Tuesday! Had lots of insights :D

I'm finally healthy, I eat from the gluten free room....which is waay better food than the rest. The other food is really yummy...but highly processed and has lots of preservatives, the gluten free room is home cooked meals :D

Oh and I'm sleeping well finally! I got myself some earplugs...didn't think that my comps snoring bothered me so much, but I've been sleeping great since I got them so I guess that was the problem!

Oh and I love getting Dear Elders! They're awesome, but for future notice..I don't leave till the 23rd of Feb. So stop putting the 19th on it because they always cross it out haha.

So funny story, one of the elders in our district found out the word for poop, unco and has been using it alot in his everyday SYL speech, so it's been floating around in my head alot..so last Friday when we were teaching about faith, which in Japanese is Shinko, I accidentally said switched them and said in order to obtain unco we need to....and then the investigator just busted up...haha I so that was a little awk. but we laughed about it and still had a great lesson :D

Spiritual thought of the day...It's really really cool how the spirit can inspire us and give us revelation in order to teach fake investigators...Like I pray about what they need to know, and then I write, and as I write I get Ideas of what I need to teach about, and it's really cool, and alot of times it's strait up revelation. But it's just really interesting at how the system here works so well...like how the spirit testifies of truth everytime we learn or teach it, even if we already know the truth. For example on Monday the teachers switched our teaching schedule without telling us. So we prayed about and prepared a lesson, for one investigator an 80 year old Japanese dude named yuichi...and I usually start by looking at the teaching record for a while and thinking what they need, and my eyes kept being drawn back to the restoration...which we had already taught him, and he has a really strong grasp of. Like he's prayed to know if the first vision happened, and is reading and praying the BOM daily and stuff, he's getting baptized next Saturday actually, he's the best :D Anyways we prepared a lesson for what we thought was yuichi, and tried to teach to his needs, but then we found out we were teaching ozeki shimai, who needs to learn about the restoration still. Then we read over our lesson plan and it was totally 100% to her needs, it was what she needed to hear. So even though we didn't know who we were teaching, the spirit knew and honored our efforts at preparing. Isn't that cool!? I mean she's not even a real investigator! But the spirit still cares enough to give us that revelation! 

Ok  That's all I got time for! I'll end with another Japanese proverb or two. 

なせばなるなさねば、ならぬ何事も、ならぬわ人のなさぬなりけり

Which means: Those who try to succeed, succeed. Those who don't try, fail no matter what. Failure is the lack of people trying.

 Not as weird as the dog hitting the pole one...but here's another weird one

六十の天来 It is never too late to learn (lit. Learning to write kanji Characters at age sixty)

Anyways I love you all! MTC is great. The spirit is awesome, and Japanese is hard. That is all

Aishtemasu!

-Elder Coleman

Mission Impossible! Japanese Style! 1/15 MTC

So this weeks been pretty exciting! Lots of fun stuff happening over here :D

Yesterday we got kohai! New missionaries that are in our zone :D Apparently we're part of some pilot program...that's what I hear..But anyways we got 10 new shimi (sisters) and 6 new choro! (elders) in two different districts! They're pretty cool, we have a whole 6 weeks to hang out with them, so we'll probably get pretty close. Oh also, I'm actually running out of cards here...can you send me another batch of 30 or so? That'd be cool. My business/write me cards, you know the ones haha

So teaching in Japanese is going really great still! I'm getting pretty efficient at planning with the spirit/using gift of discernment to know investigators needs, so we can plan to teach to them before they tell us them. It's pretty fantastic. We committed both our investigators to baptism :D

Oh and at TRC this week we taught a ningonjin (Japanese peeps) from Sendai who got converted by the missionaries! And she recognized my name! I told her dad had served a mission there and she got excited and wanted to see a picture haha So I showed her the old family Christmas card I have in my bag from before Brenden's mish, she wasn't sure if it was you though. Her name was Emy, she didn't speak any English, and we taught her about prayers from your kokoro (heart) that you can give through out the day to ask/plead for help.

So I'm some words I think in are English even though they're japanese..just because I use them alot...and I accidentally type them...so I'm just going to go back through at the end and translate them in parenthesis. Also I think I start every paragraph with so or also...how weird?!

-I finally got to go to the temple! It's been closed for winter break forever!

-I didn't break all the records! I might still do the pull up and push up one..but the new soccer juggle record is 1103...and I can't even count that high...let along juggle that long. The pull up record is only 33 I can beat that now if they let me fish a little...if not...then maybe not.

-Elder Nelson came again this week! Again...I liked his wife's talk better than his...haha she's just a really good speaker! And he is too! Just..not as good as his wife haha. So spiritual insight of the day: Sister Nelson talked about the key to success on your mission being desperation. And how when you're desperate for something you don't let anything get in the way of obtaining that goal, you find time, excuses go away etc. And then I thought alot about being humble and having righteous desires and all that other stuff, and wrote a bunch in my church journal. Oh yah! I made an awesome church binder thing this week! I'm now super organized! The front part has my goals and my language study plan, then there's my japanese notes, and then my notes from church and devos/any other spiritual insight I get, then there's my investigators section with their teaching records and old lesson plans, then my talks in japanese ( I write one a week) and scriptures I've translated and want to memorize, then a misc. section with quotes and letters to people and stuff. It's awesome! I poured some essential oils on the leather cover so it smells good and helps me stay awake/think. Maybe I'll include a picture. I'm really proud of it if you couldn't tell :D It also has my to do list on a sticky note taped down, and the scripture I'm trying to memorize on sticky notes (right now it's the first vision). It's working really well :D I've planned out like..every second of my week :D

-Another insight I had this week, since I have another 6 min on email...We have an awesome choir director and I get alot of insights from singing with him. Anyways he was talking about peter walking on water, and then seeing the storm come and having fear and falling under the water...and how jesus reached down below the water to bring him up...Then he talked about no matter how far down we've sunk....jesus can always reach down and bring us up, as long as we call to him, and reach back. He's the one who's "Descended below all things" That got me thinking about judging people, and how most of the best missionaries and converts are always the people you wouldn't expect to see in a church. Alma the younger, paul, etc Because they really needed the atonement and used it and felt it's power save them from the "gall of bitterness" and even hell. They know how bad it can be without the gospel. When people are already living a righteous life, they don't see a reason to accept the gospel, they don't feel much of a change when they are asked to keep commitments, because they are already living right. It's the people with tatoos, a hard past, that a really ready for the gospel, and really need it in their lives. Those are the people I'm looking for. I want to go teach in a prison! That'd be sick! Never judge people...no matter what your judgment it. It's wrong. If you think they're mean and scary and would never accept the gospel. You're wrong, if you think you know them you're wrong. But Heavenly father knows them, and loves them..so you can learn what they need to hear.

Anyways...My times up...dang it, didn't put any pics on...my bad...I'll send you the memory card next week so you can see all of them :P

Oh and Japanese proverb of the day!　犬も歩けば棒汁 or in romaji inu mo arukeba bou ni ataru aka sun rises on the evil and on the good; even experts make mistakes (literally...if a dog walks, it will hit a pole). 

Love you all! Aishtemasu!

-Elder Coleman!

Mission Impossible! Japanese Style! 1/8 MTC

Hello Everyone!

Sorry, for not writing an email last week! I spent the whole time fighting a ferocious computer that didn't want me to email pictures home...I gave up I think I'll just mail the Camera's memory card.

But I did send a package with lots of letters home and a couple things that I don't need! So hopefully that'll arrive soon.

So I'm still not sleeping to great...but I've found a solution to my sleeping in class problem! Every time I dose off I get down and do 25 push ups! I'm averaging about 75-100 a day :D Which is perfect because this week they reset all the gym records! I decided I want to set the pull up and maybe the push up record! :D I've been doing 25 pull ups a night usually, and If I up it up to 50 or 75 (not in a row...in a day) then I bet I could probably set a record that will last a few months. I'm helping a guy in my district set the mile record too...He's a cross country runner for BYU hawaii, but he's super out of shape right now, because of the all you can eat buffet everyday...but he'll probably set a nice 4 min 20 or 4 30 record. The old record was 4 30 anyways so we were planning on breaking it. I might do the soccer juggle record too...who knows?!

Wow I guess I haven't  emailed home since Christmas..a whole lot has happened since then hopefully this isn't too long of an email :P

Christmas day elder Nelson and his wife came and spoke to us. I liked his wife's talk better than his though :P David Archuletta came and sang to us that week to, along with brother Elliot, the Tabernacle choir organ player, the did stuff together, and it was really cool. 

My comp took three years of Japanese in HS too, so we're able to SYL (speak your language) alot more than most people. It's pretty awesome. We've probably gone a few mornings never speaking English! I feel like that's the best way for me to learn, just speaking alot, and making up weird sentences haha.

The head church's head media guy came and spoke to us, and showed us some sneak previews of how Mormon.org is going to be set up, it's pretty awesome! And they're making another video for this Easter that's supposed to be better than "He Is The Gift" and "Because of Him" So that's exciting!

Our lessons are going really well! I love teaching with the spirit! It's the coolest thing to just be there with the spirit testifying of the things we say in our broken japanese! I've really realized that we can't teach people anything related to spiritual matters without the spirit, he is the teacher. I've gotten pretty good at recognizing promptings and speaking with the spirit, I even thought I got a taste of the gift of tongues in our last few lessons :D A few times when I wanted to testify of a certain principle, I would all of a sudden remember the words I needed, even though I couldn't remember them before. So that's pretty exciting! :D

Lots of people are here that I know! Payge got here last week! It was super nice seeing her again! Even though I can't hug her haha And Jessica Morthenthaller (hard last name to spell..) I also hosted someone I knew yesterday. That was cool. We were hosts for the incoming missionaries, and one of them recognized me from when we went hiking together, so I called being his host and got to talk to him for a while and show him around...I don't remember his name though.

Oh and I got a chance to practice energy work yesterday! It was really cool, because I felt like I was being guided by the spirit to know what I needed to do for him!  I've never used the spirit like that before! Alot of people are sick right now, stuffs going around...I'm sick too...haha We're not allowed to shake hands, or have any contact with each other haha. I also gave a blessing last night to the kid I did energy work on, since we were both sick, we had alot of time to talk, and I gave him some essential oils and talked about energy work and stuff and he asked me if I could try and work on him....He's got alot of emotional baggage that needed to be cleared..

Anyways, I'm doing great! MTC is fun, Japanese is awesome! If I could just get healthy and not be so dang tired this would be perfect! I'm singing I'll go where you want me to go in sacrament tomorrow, that's kinda cool. And I'm playing piano for sacrament, that's fun. 

Love you all! Thanks for the letters/emails! 

Aishitemasu!

-Elder Coleman

Mission Impossible! Japanese Style: 12/24 MTC

Hey!

The MTC is great! The spirit is great! Food is great! but super processed, and it does kinda weird stuff to you, this'll be a long 10 weeks haha.

My MTC time got extended! We're here an extra week because they skipped a transfer for Christmas and New years week. So I'm heading out Feb. 23rd, that's why it's 10 instead of 9 weeks.

Japanese is coming along well! Mostly.. Every elder in my district studied before hand in school, but I am the furthest along, because sensai is such a great teacher :D Well at least I was the furthest...my companion took 3 years, and he has a photographic memory, and he learn pretty much every word he sees..so now he has a way larger gospel vocabulary then me, I'm kinda super jealous, because I have an awful memory, and have to write down everything in lessons. All the Japanese I took in high school came back within the first two days, but the new stuff isn't sticking too well.

We've been teaching investigators in Japanese since the second day here! And it's awesome! It was pretty funny, because the sensai pretending to be an investigator didn't expect us to actually know or understand Japanese, so when he said the prayer, he prayed for us to be helped learning Japanese, and to feel the spirit while we're at the MTC and stuff haha and we totally understood everything haha. Lessons are so cool though, we've taught everything from the atonement to the Christmas story haha. I'm so lucky I have a good companion, we both really want to learn and work, and so we SYL (speak your language) all the time to each other, and have learned a ton that way! I just wish I had a better memory! I learn a ton one day, and then it's all gone the next day!

Speaking of which, my companion is named Elder Pennington, he's from Tennessee and he's awesome. He was home schooled, but his dad taught him Japanese as a language credit. We get along subadashi (wonderful). I know it's only been a week, but I keep accidentally typing Japanese words thinking they're English haha. It's kinda awesome...but kinda not haha 

Good news! One of the girls is from Hawaii, and she said elders who went to anywhere in Asia or the Pacific get half off tuition at BYU Hawaii! So that's awesome :D I'm so excited, that's definitely the school of my choice if I get into all of them :D

So I'm doing pretty well here...except for falling asleep in class all the time...I came to the MTC with 2 hours of sleep, and haven't really gotten to catch up on it too much. I sort of have, if you follow all the rules, you should be in bed a full 8 hours, which I do..But I have pretty restless sleep.. So I end up falling asleep in meetings and classes that don't let me talk or move for more than half an hour...which is alot of them haha. I haven't made it a full day without falling asleep in at least one class. That's my big trial right now haha. It's super hard, I try so hard to stay awake, and when my comp. realizes I'm falling asleep he'll kick me to wake me up...but most of the time no one realizes. I've mastered the look like your praying look, from practicing so much at EAC and now I do it on accident all the time haha. 

I'm calling home tomorrow! Not skyping, so don't expect me to call on skype, just with the phone. I think it's around 4:30, don't realy know. 

Kaylee should send me my hobo gloves, because I left them at home, you should also include some Kleenex haha.

I got my allergy meds, thanks for that! I've been feeling kinda sickish, and I'm not sleeping well at all, mostly because I'm cold and the blanket they gave me isn't big enough to cover me haha. I'm going to start wearing lots of clothes to bed haha. Oh and if you have free time and feel like searching stuff on the internet for me...I'd love it if you sent some sheet music in Japanese over to me! I want to sing in church, and they want it in Japanese, there are two guys in  my district that sing, and they're both tenors, so if it could be a duet, or a trio that'd be great :D

My watch shattered even more...I cracked all the glass out and have been using it this week without any glass, it stopped working today though...so I'll have to get another one of those sometime.

I sent an email with lots of pictures...at least I think I did haha. If not, I'll send them next week, I could just email them from my fancy Camera, but I feel like that's cheating/breaking the rules a little bit. So I won't. Oh and can you forward this on to everyone? Can you take out the stuff about my medicine, and anything else kinda weird and forward it to everyone? Oh and is everything in my missionary kit consumable? Because they taste pretty bad...but I've been using it to get rid of a cold/sore throat. And can you send me Sister Romney's email address? I've been taking creeper pictures of her daughter every once and a while and can't send them to her now, since I forgot to bring her email address. 

That's all I've got time for! Talk to you tomorrow! 

Aishitemasu!