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.