Anyunghashimnika?
My MTC training is coming to a close! This is my last P-day before departing, and so I've been pretty busy today, trying to get all our last-minute errands done with. Real quick, here's what I did today:
Woke up around 5:50, headed to our building to do our P-day service which started at 6:05. I vacuumed today, which was a pretty easy job. Breakfast at 7:25, then we headed back to the residence real quick before our pre-departure haircuts (I just got one like 3-4 weeks ago!). Since I wanted to follow up on coughs and since Elder Stapley wanted some medicine as well, we stopped by the health clinic, (it was a new doctor, and he wanted me to stop by the BYU health center to get an x-ray to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong), and then a nice shower. I did some ironing, and then some shoe-polishing, and Elder Stapley and I headed down to the health center.
We got the x-rays done pretty quickly, but the technician talked to us about our mission and his mission for like 30 min (he served his mission in Idaho!). It was fun and interesting to hear his stories, but it took us much longer than it should have to be done and out. Anyways, then we had laundry, recheck with doctor to follow up on x-rays (no problems with lungs), lunch, more laundry, and then back to the health clinic to pick up medicine (the doctor says it's probably a sinus infection, so he's prescribed antibiotics).
We went back to the residence and started packing along with the others in our district. It took us only like an hour to do - I've got one suitcase pretty much done, and it's at about 40 pounds. I'm pretty sure that the other is going to be nowhere close to being full, so I don't know why I had two full suitcases worth of stuff when I got here... But I've got enough done that I can probably finish packing in, oh, 15 minutes or so. We wrapped that up, and now I'm here.
Busy, busy day - normally, our p-days involve preparing lessons a little bit, or maybe taking a nap for awhile, but this is my last big chance to prepare to go, so I guess it's good that we're actually using it.
I'm allowed to call home from the airport, but I don't know how it will all pan out - I bought a phone card, so I'll just use that to pay for my call. I don't know when I'll be able to call though; I would guess in Salt Lake, depending on time and phone availability. I may be able to in San Fran, but I don't think we have enough time. And I'm pretty sure things get tricky once we reach Tokyo. I'll to my best to call, but I can't promise that things will go smoothly enough to guarantee it. At best, I'll have maybe and hour to call, but if there's other missionaries who need to call, that'll be cut short. Who knows, we'll see. Somewhere in the range of 8:30 to 10:30 seems to be the most likely.
We've had a few picture-happy days, especially since we've been thinking about heading out, so here's a few more pictures. We'll probably end up taking a ton of them on Sunday. If I have time, I'll try to upload them like Dad said, but I'll likely end up sending the best ones by email anyways.
Speaking of emails, how do you plan on writing me in Korea? I think there's been new rules that you can email as long as you think you need on P-days (not 100% sure though), so emailing will work fine by me, but it's up to you. Letters are more fun in my opinion.
Since Dad asked about teaching, here's what happens real quick - both our teachers are our investigators. They choose one investigator that they had on their mission (someone they worked a lot with), and pretend to be them. By doing this, they already know about what problems the investigator has, what their needs are, background about the person, maybe habits, things that worked to help convert the investigator, things like that. Basically, our investigator is a person who once was a real investigator, but looks like our teachers. We usually teach 1-2 lessons per week (it might supposed to be more, but we've had things get pushed back several times); it kind of depends on how things work out. I think we've taught one investigator like maybe 9 times, and the other around 11. I'm glad we're able to do this though; if I had to head out with almost no "real" practice like Dad did, I would be much, much more nervous about going to Korea.
We usually spend, oh maybe couple or a few hours total (including reviewing last lesson, planning next one, and then looking up words and scriptures to teach them) to prepare each lesson. They're supposed to go 25 minutes, but that depends on whether the investigator has a lot of concerns or not. Hopefully, I'll learn to prepare lessons faster, because two investigators is a handful for us right now!
It's frustrating at times though; we taught one investigator about the Restoration, then about some concerns he was having (we covered the Doctrine of Christ, focusing on repentance and prayer). We thought he was progressing alright - he said that he prayed daily and committed to read the Book of Mormon. But we asked maybe our 7-8th lesson in what he remembered about the Restoration, and he said he had forgotten everything. That was really disappointing for us. We gave him a few hints, and then his words were, "Oh, yeah, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and wrote the Book of Mormon, right?" He apologized for his bad memory... I don't know if that means we didn't teach it super well (it was one of our first lessons, so that's likely), or if the actual investigator had a bad memory.
But there's exciting times as well. We asked him how he felt when he prayed, and he very sincerely told us that he was grateful that we could come and teach him lessons. I think in every prayer we asked him to give, he mentioned the same thing. He said that before met ting with us, he never prayed, and now he's starting to. I know it's my teacher, but it made me really happy that we could have made a difference, even if it was a small one, in this man's life.
We do a little bit of practicing teaching with other members in our district, but they're usually parts of lessons ("practice proselytizing" or "teach the pre-Earth life"), not full-blown lessons. We also have what's called "TRC," where volunteers come to be taught a lesson. These tend to be more of a discussion than a lesson, but we get to try to teach people as members instead of as investigators. I think one companionship in our district taught a real investigator there once though, which is kind of cool (but kind of scary. There was a member there to help out though).
Oh, funny story about the McMurrays, since Dad mentioned them in his letter. I was hosting for the new missionaries (when the new missionaries come in, the older missionaries can volunteer to "host" and to help them find their residence and classroom, get classroom materials, answer questions, that sort of thing), because it was my last chance, and I hadn't done it yet. I hosted one elder going to Mexico, and another to Italy, and I was back at the curb wondering when I should be done and go back to class. I went to ask the others about their plans, and I was in the middle of talking to my district about when they were going to be done, and guess who I saw? The McMurrays pulled up the the curb right where I was! They were still in the car when I said hi, and then we chatted for a bit. I'm sure they've already told you about this though.
To Dad - I'm supposed to send you a copy of the receipts of the medicine I bought, so expect that in the mail sometime soon. Sorry I don't send real letters...
Oh, and thanks for the airport information and Japanese money! :) Hopefully, there'll be enough time to poke around a bit in Narita.
Thank you also for the donuts. I was not expecting to get 24 of them when I went to pick up my package, but I shared with everyone and they were gone pretty quickly. I talked with Richard and he also says thanks for the food :).
As for the missionary scripture, I think I'll stick with the D&C one. Teaching with the Holy Ghost and how to do that is something we've talked a lot about, and it's something I've been pondering over for awhile; I don't know, it's a hard thing to do, but I like how these scriptures promise that if we do have the Holy Ghost, we'll be doing what Christ would do, and that that's a promise from God. It's through the Holy Ghost that we have the power to convert.
To Lisa - I asked my sisters about shoes, and boy, did they ever have a lot to say about shopping for shoes. I took some notes, but there was a lot said that I didn't really understand, so hopefully you do! :)
The overall consensus was that shopping for shoes are hard, and there's very few shoes that are both missionary appropriate and cute. They said to shop in the off-season (whatever that means), but I guess you have plenty of time to do some shopping around before your mission. Reds, blacks, and browns are the most common colors to get shoes in; one sister was particularly proud of the fact that she found gold shoes that she could wear. They said it's probably not a good idea to buy cheap shoes, because they fall apart pretty quickly (they're not meant to be super sturdy). Price range for most sisters was $65-$85 per pair of shoes, but it depends on the brand and quality. Speaking of brands, Toms are apparently not that good, but Taous (may be expensive), Clarks (something about Ashlynn Avenue?), and Naturalizer shoes are pretty good. For sandals, Dansko, Chacos, Keenes, and Merrels are recommended. Other than that, buy shoes that can match many outfits, expect shoes to be a little bit ugly (my notes say "ugly" about 4 times), walk around beforehand first to break them in and see how comfortable they are, and if you reaaaly want cute shoes, save them for a Sunday, or some day when you don't need to do a ton on walking. Also, start looking for skirts now, and get ones with pockets.
I hope you learned a lot. I learned much, much more than I ever cared to learn about women's shoes from this, so appreciate it! :D
It's good you had so much fun at SOAR. It sounds like with that and your ACT, you'll be able to easily make it into BYU. Then we can go to school together! <3
To Daniel - I know you've mentioned it in a previous letter, but how long is it going to take for your toe to heal? Is it getting better, or can you even tell? How long ago since you broke it again, and what did you do to break it? At least it's summer, so you can take it easy a bit. It's probably a little bit more of a problem during school. What, other than your foot, is going on in your life? I love to hear about everyone else's normal, everyday life, since I'm not allowed to have one. :D
Aaaand I'm out of time. I hope you enjoy the pictures! Thanks for all you do for me!
Love,
Luke jangno
Andrew with some of his district members
Andrew and his companion, Elder Stapley
Traditional "pointing at the map" photo
Andrew with Richard Roylance, who is headed to Kobe, Japan. You can see how close they'll be -- Richard is pointing at Kobe, and Andrew is pointing at Busan. Busan is about 200 miles from Kobe, and only about 30 miles from the closest Japanese island.
Andrew with some of his district.
Note:
Anyunghashimnika: A more polite version of his usual "anyeonghaseyo."
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