Week 6 in the MTC

 Well, I'm really running out of things to say, The MTC has really become the same routine over and over and is progressively getting less eventful. We're now way past rush hour season at The MTC so the overall population isn't as large as when I arrived. Plus our Senpai left for the field this past week so now we are the official Dai-Senpai. It was sad watching them go, but then we came to the realization that we're receiving our official Japanese name tags and our flight plans next week. Gracious time flies here. Time is by far the most limited resource as a missionary, so making the most of it is priority number 1. The MTC is so awesome, it still makes me a bit sad that people think of it so poorly and ruin the awesome experiences they can have here with their sour attitude. But I'll let them figure out their pity parties, if anything it's an opportunity for them to grow. 

The language has been flying, we have completely finished our Language Guide which is a cool little book filled with grammar and doctrinal vocabulary. Our classroom is right next to the Nihongen (Native Japanese) Classroom, so we talk to them a lot and really make progress with the language simply through conversation. Chab Choro and I have started going into lessons with a topic and a commitment. That's it. Plus we've been getting better and just overall conversation so we spend a good amount of time getting to know our investigator and their concerns before we even jump into the lesson. Most the time we have to change the lesson around on the spot so we can meet the investigator's needs. It's a whole new type of challenge, but the fact that we can successfully do so after 6 weeks of study still blows my mind. Chab Choro and I have also been putting study time focuses on reading and writing in the language. But this is no regular ABC's. Even after being able to read and write in Hiragana, Katakana, and a solid 50 Kanji characters, we haven't even made a dent in this devil language. One of our books has Kanji from the scriptures, it said if we learn 1 kanji character a day every day for the rest of our mission (Over 700 characters) we might be able to understand 93% of the Japanese translated scriptures. Luckily They have tons of extra characters in the book (about 2,000 total) and Chab Choro and I are already ahead. So it's not too big of a concern, but just a cool fun fact for ya'll.

In other news, we've started doing yoga in the mornings, at first it was a joke, but then it turned out to be awesome. Which really helps because I sprained the heck out of my knee and it's still sore, but the stretching helps. Also I found out how touchy the health clinic is here, after I initially sprained it, I couldn't fully extend my leg. I just went to the clinic to get ice and planned on popping some ibuprofen, but when the nurse found out I couldn't extend it after getting my ice, they wanted me to have an appointment. It ended up just being ligament damage (duh), but the best part is they had me get an x-ray just to make sure there wasn't even the slightest fracture, which required one thing. Going to the Outside world. We went a block down the road to the BYU Health Clinic, there were TV's and Magazines. A bunch of heathens if you ask me. Also, music I think? It's been too long, I can't remember what that wonderful sound was called. I'll catch ya'll next week, keep on keepin on. 

Week 5 in the MTC

Alright, I know I've been organizing these emails on a day to day basis, but I'm not feeling that anymore. I was spending too much time emailing. So I'll give you guys a summary and some fun
moments.

So this past week was a bit rough, well, as rough as it can get at the MTC. I got sick again, except this one lasted much longer than the previous time, I don't want to get into details but I've just been feeling gross all week. It was a good mix between a head cold and some stomach flu. BUT THAT AIN'T STOPPING ME. I've still been having an absolute blast here and this language is so much fun. The grammar of Japanese is literally backwards from English. So I guess you can say
I'm slowly becoming ambidextrous in sentence structure.

Anyways, I'll talk about some happenings from the past week. So Elder Chab is amazing at this language, but he does stress the lessons and
has admitted to his stress. We recently went into a lesson with a topic, a commitment, and a couple vocabulary words. No game plan. I was expecting a lot of unsurety out of him when going into the lesson, but it was awesome seeing him fired up and ready. After that lesson we both came to the agreement that it was the best lesson we ever taught. It was fantastic seeing that growth within a couple weeks. Also, we've been making progress on reading and writing those big, scary kanji
characters. I think I'm turning Japanese.

While we're on the subject of Elder Chab, the guy sleeps for about 2 of the 3 hours we're in class, yet he's got more of the language down then I do. But his sleeping style is hilarious, he's got the head bob going and every once in a while he snores himself awake. For a missionary who doesn't have access to the outside world, this is entertainment at its finest. Don't worry, I'm a good companion and I
wake him up every once in a while, but most of the time I enjoy the show.

We got new Kohai (New Japanese Elders) who are still in that awkward break-in period, but they're slowly warming up and getting more outgoing. We've been helping out wherever we can to make them feel comfortable, some of them have come out of their shell and they're actually quite hilarious. They come from all over the world, some more exotic than others, such as Germany, Bulgaria, France, Ireland, and North Las Vegas. Awesome Elders if you ask me.

If there's one thing I'll miss the most about the MTC when I leave for Japan, it's the fact that I wont be able to consistently play beach volleyball on a daily basis. Let me tell ya, I have been throwing down the hammer lately, I'm surprised the ball hasn't popped yet. I'm kidding, but man it's fun, I don't know if it's because we're missionaries or what, but everyone's such a good sport.

Other than that, I'm so stoked for Japan. Time is weird as a missionary, it moves so much faster, every time I go to bed I'm still surprised how fast the day moves, and the weeks move even faster. I
can still vividly recall my first day here, yet I've already been here for over a month. I've only got 4 weeks left before I touch ground in Japan. It's gonna fly by.

愛しています,
Elder Cuff

Week 4 in the MTC

Thursday: Again, productive, but nothing special. Learned and practiced more of the language, joked around a bit, and just overall enjoyed the MTC. Although I've been enjoying reading the book of Matthew, I don't think I've really read any of the New Testament since Freshman year seminary. It's been awesome reading it from a different light. The Life of Christ takes on a whole new meaning. 

Friday: We got great news, a whole new load of Japanese Elders and Sisters will be joining our zone! In fact we'll be gaining 2 entire districts made up of 8 Sisters and 12 Elders. It's a similar feeling to becoming an upperclassmen in high school, since now we have officially become Senpai. It's been fun looking back that exactly 4 weeks ago I had no idea what anyone is saying and I felt like a lost puppy. The Gift of Tongues is crazy real, there is no way that I could have learned this much Japanese in 4 weeks. When I first got here I could introduce myself and tell people that I was Elder Cuff. That was it. Now I get to have conversations and crack jokes with the native Japanese missionaries in our Zone. It's so much fun, plus everything is exponentially funnier in Japanese. And then, it happened. We had a bomb dropped on us. Conversation isn't too bad in Japanese, but effectively discussing The Gospel is a whole new ball game. We've had to use notes and phrases for our lessons and basically wrote out a translated script when working with our investigators. Our teachers, who act as the investigator anyways, said that we can no longer use notes in that fashion. Our lesson plans had to be written out in English, and if we wanted to use what we wrote, we'd have to translate it on the spot. I was a bit excited about the new challenge, but Elder Chab was a bit unsure, luckily, he's a freaking prodigy and has picked up more of the language than I have. 

Saturday: Our teachers are so amazing! Seriously, every class is awesome. I'm still amazed that I have that much fun in a 3-HOUR class block. Saturday was our last day to use scripted notes. We had a lesson with one of our investigators and it's a good thing Elder Chab was there cause I could not speak Japanese for the life of me, I didn't translate some of my notes correctly so our investigator was completely lost during my portion of the lesson on The Atonement. Later that night on our 2nd class block we had personal companion coaching with our teacher, the legend, Strauss Kyodai. He pulled me out of the biggest rut that I've ever been in at the MTC. Remember it's okay if you feel like absolute garbage; cause there's only one direction you can go after that, which is up. 

Sunday: Fast Sunday, oh the humanity. Just kidding, it wasn't bad, plus the upside of fast Sunday is we get a steak dinner and ice cream for dinner. Fast and Testimony meeting was so satisfying, who knew that a bunch of Elders could be so spiritually strong? Choir practice came around, and the song we were singing was special, it was called, "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer" and it is absolutely beautiful. Loved every minute of it. I can't remember who spoke at devotional that night, but I know he was an administrative member of the MTC who served in Japan. I know he talked about repentance, but he had a super monotone voice, and spoke for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I fell asleep, I'm not sorry. 

Monday: I'm sorry, but when it comes to my schedule at The MTC, Mondays, and Thursday-Saturday all blur together. It's just going to class, teaching lessons, and studying, no devotionals, choir, meetings, or time at The Temple. But this was the first day that we taught without any notes; about 95% of what we said in a 35-minute lesson, was straight from our minds. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Honestly my confidence in the language has doubled since that first lesson, I kind of wished we did this before.

Tuesday: You know how last Sunday was the best day ever? Yea, I lied. Tuesday? BEST. DAY. EVER. We taught a stellar lesson, made progress on a new form of grammar, and then choir came around. We went through the entirety of the song, and we asked why we were suddenly doing such a special song for Tuesday devotional. Here's why. Elder Bednar and his wife came and spoke to us. When an apostle enters a room, you don't even have to be looking, you feel it. He spoke on effectively taking in the words of General Conference through organizing your notes into 3 sections. Doctrine and Principles, Invitations, and Promised Blessings. Or, as I remember it, DIBs. Also he talked about going to conference while at the MTC, which I can relate to, and said, "Conference never changed, I did" Also fun fact about conference. The speakers at conference aren't assigned topics, or even coordinate. Heaven does. Every conference has a theme, and all their talks come together every time. The best part is they don't ever talk about it with each other, they get prompted, prepare, and then show up individually. How do you like them apples.

I'd love to tell you so much more but I'm under requirement to get a haircut. My appointment is in 15 minutes and my laundry isn't done. Later Nerds.

Naturally, this is NOT the MTC choir. It is the hymn that has touched Elder Cuff's heart and strengthened his testimony of our Savior.

Week 3 in the MTC

Elder Sadler: Pictured back and center with his arms spread. Probably the funniest guy in our district, he hails from a rural town just south of Birmingham, Alabama. Just a good ole country boy. Dad, you would love talking to him, he's a hoot.

Elder Crippen: Front and center, crouched. Although he currently lives in Utah, he grew up surfing in Cali, and is a total Cali surfer dude. Always super relaxed, and wants nothing more than to chill on an island.

Elder Cuff: haha, what a dweeb.

Elder Jones: Pictured between myself and Elder Sadler, standing. Although a bit quiet, he's really the go to guy for vocabulary words and translation. He stresses about the language a bit, but I can see

that he's slowly relaxing about it. Overall amazing guy.

Elder Chab: Pictured far right, looking fly as can be. My companion, just a goofy guy who doesn't mind lowering his shoulder and going to work, what more can you ask for out of a companion? Nothing. Nothing is your answer.

Elder Davis: Not pictured, but took the picture with his old school Polaroid. You'll hear about him in the rest of the post. Although a bit unconfident, he's got an amazing heart, works his tail off, masterfully handles the piano, and is fluent in French. Super great sense of style too, the guy never looks bad.

Elder Davis, owner of the old school polaroid!

So. Much. Food. And maybe 2% of it was actually ours before all the Dai-Senpai left, the rest is their leftovers. But we have 4 boxes of Oreos so I can't complain.

Mom insert: Above are the pics and the captions Eric Elder Cuff sent with them. Below is his letter.

FOR THE BLOG: First off, HUGE shout out to Veronica! Those cookies were fantastic, you Da Bomb! Except they called me from the residence hall at night to come pick it up from the front desk, they did it over the intercom, while I was showering. So that was a wild night. 

Thursday: Honestly, just another day in the neighborhood, we went to class, ate food, and laughed a little. Nothing special or commendable really happened, which was really weird. Except for one minor detail, I had a head cold, but it wasn't anything I was worried about, took some meds and a good amount of Vitamin C. 

Friday: Woke up with a fever, and had to back out of class. Turns out that same morning Elder Davis woke up vomiting, so he was my buddy at the residence hall for the day. Elder Davis is absolutely amazing, he's picked up the language faster than anyone, and it helps that he's already fluent in French. He's a classically trained competitive Pianist, and he is GOOD. He plays those big classical epics, and he's played through the hymn book enough times to have a majority of those songs memorized, if not, he can sight read them perfectly fine. It's insane, and he's got some amazing fingers, he plays so smooth. So it was nice to have some music while being sick, and he was able to relieve some stress. I miss music (And my dogs), music is strictly prohibited at the MTC, so choir and Elder Davis practicing is the only release I've got. 

Saturday: I'm back, and conference is starting. But time is nearing for the Dai-Senpai to leave for Japan. What's Dai Senpai? I'm glad you asked. So every 3 weeks a new batch of Japanese elders arrive at the MTC, we're here for 9 weeks. The new guys are Kohai, the guys who have been here for 3 weeks are Senpai, and the guys who have been here for 6 weeks are Dai-Senpai. The senpai kind've kept to themselves, but the Dai-Senpai really reached out to us Kohai and we became real close. So to reward us for being fun guys, they gave us all their food since they couldn't take any to Japan (They flew out early Monday morning). Anyway I'm on a tangent, it was sad to see them leave, and besides all the Dai-Senpai, over 700 other missionaries around the MTC left that same day, so this place has turned into a bit of a Ghost Town. I always love Uchdorf's talks.

Sunday: BEST. DAY. EVER. First off, I'm no longer sick, so it became a lot easier to pay attention to conference, and I didn't fall asleep, unlike half of the MTC. Also, turns out Elder Yamashita was our teachers (Brother Strauss) mission president when he served in Nagoya. And our teacher knew the guy with the prosthetic leg, who I guess is the nicest guy on the planet. The entire day was awesome, and it was fun watching and listening to the MTC General Conference Choir, a lot of people we knew were in there so we were constantly pointing out friends when it showed the choir. But listening was the best part, man it was pretty. Then Sunday night after priesthood we had a devotional, so here I am not wanting to here anyone talk considering I had been in the gym listening to guys talk for 6 hours. Well that works out, cause our devotional was a performance/devotional from Vocal Point. All of them RM's, and between songs they each spoke to us about missionary work, and other doctrinal topics. It was also the last night for the Dai-Senpai, so there was a bitter sweet feeling in the residence hall. Spiritually, I was spilling everywhere, my cup was more than full.

Monday: Well now our residence hall was full of food that the Dai-Senpai gave us (Seriously, Don't send anymore food) And we're back in class. We taught 2 different lessons that day, one was with a returned missionary who went inactive, and the other was with and investigator who comes from a buddhist family but doesn't have a belief. The Japanese is flying, for the first time, we were able to answer questions without having to use a bunch of translated phrases. It came straight from our mouths, forming our own sentences. Which is hard to do cause the grammar is completely backwards, and most the time you don't need a subject in a sentence which you always need in English. Most the time it's implied, it's a very implied language. But we did it! The investigator lessons are becoming less of a hassle as it gets easier to communicate. 

Tuesday: Tuesday FLEW. It was seriously the fastest day to ever occur at the MTC, we only had one class black, so the majority of the day was study time. Myself and some of the other elders have been working on getting a head start in reading and writing Kanji, which are the crazy chinese characters. So we've been having races and competitions in reading and writing kanji, which really helps the learning process. We also found out that if you hold you missionary name tag just right, you can turn it into a kazoo. So we started making motorcycle noises and ran around the MTC. We regret starting it, because now a lot of elders around the MTC run around making motorcycle noises with their name tags, which is funny until you're trying to study. Then it's just annoying. Also we had a devotional with the Relief Society General President, Sister Burton. but the talk I really liked was her husbands who mentions "Scraping away the world as a missionary." Which is the best thing ever, life as a missionary is so simple. Difficult? Sure. But simple none the less.