Ikemen

This week was super cool. Every day blends in here so I'm not really sure what happened though! We had two awesome speakers this week, Elder (someone) from the 70 in charge of the missionary department and Elder Corbridge of the 70. The former spoke about how taisetsu (important) the rules are and how even breaking the smallest rules has eternal significance. Which is so true! The thing they stress the most here is exact obedience and if we're exactly obedient we can reap the blessings of it! It astounds me how many people aren't exactly obedient right after hearing such a powerful talk! Just, wow. Elder Corbridge talked about a few things. After Christ performed miracles and taught people, he taught them His doctrine (plan of salvation, baptism, repentance, Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End) and how every few verses in the gospels that "the people were astonished at His doctrine." Astonished is such a great word! Am I astonished at His doctrine? He then spoke about the importance of tying every concept into the Doctrine of Christ because when people don't follow commandments or keep commitments or even leave the Church it's because they don't understand the doctrine and the importance behind it, so we need to teach them how following that doctrine will allow them to go through the temple, be endowed with power, and receive eternal life. So powerful! I'm going to do my best to live up to this standard in my teaching. 

Cool thought: In less than a month I'll be in some little old Nihonjin's home teaching him/her about God, potentially for the first time they've really heard about Him and His glory. Crazy!!!!!!

There's not much to write about this week except that it was a good week and very fast. Anyone thinking about going on a mission, study the scriptures and read Jesus the Christ and get a Family Proclamation and your favorite picture of Jesus and put those in your scriptures. They make such an awesome difference in your study. I encourage everyone that will be exactly obedient to serve a mission! If you have an obedience problem, figure it out and then come because the Lord only needs obedient missionaries. 

I love you all! 

み んなさん！愛しています！神様はあなたを愛しています！イエスーキリストの教会はしんじつので、私はすべてのにほんじんに教えたいですよ！ジョーセフース ミスはほんとにかいふくの預言者でした。キリストのほど私は強くないのでかいぜんするひつよがあります。すべての人はキリストのようになるがほしいです。

私はとてもステキですわ！だから、みなさんにどうやってステキになるか教えるひつよがあります。私はイケメんだよ！

（のりえさん、巧みさん、私の東京の女べんが好きですか？） 

じゃまったね！

シャーキー長老

All of the Fukuoka missionaries in my zone. 

A nice candid of me.

Week 4

This week has been super good though nothing too out of the ordinary. The Nashville Tribute Band came and played in the Sunday devotional and they weren't really my thing but they sang quite a few songs about the Restoration of the Gospel and about Joseph Smith so that was neat. Elder Echo Hawk of the 70 and his wife came and spoke to us on Tuesday and they spoke about how good enough IS NOT good enough, especially in the gospel. The people that often times think they are 'good enough' are the ones that fall away from the church and lose their faith. As we learn in Alma, faith is active and requires growth. We have to plant the seed of faith, let it grow, and if it's a good seed we continue to grow it and nourish it until it's a beautiful tree of faith. Good enough doesn't continue to nourish that faith because it thinks that we are good enough! There's no simpler way to explain this true and eternal principle that faith and conversion are active and constantly need to be nourished! If it's not, then it will be lost forever, only to have to be replanted and regrown all over again. It's SO much easier just to nourish it a little here and a little there until one day you have a great tree of faith. 

This week our teacher Panginaban Sensei talked to us about receiving Divine Implicit Swagger. This swagger is when no matter what is going on in your life you are 120% sure that Christ has your back and will help you and guide you and comfort you to the point where you essentially forsake your own will to God because your will has transformed into God's. By doing so you will have Christ's spirit with you always and you'll know "all things which ye should do". This Divine Implicit Swagger shows in your demeanour and choices you make and ultimately, if you're truly doing God's will, you are helping others to receive this internalized conversion and knowledge and be able to go through the temple and make covenants with God and endure to the end until the day that He comes again, and like Paul said "I have kept the course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is a crown of righteousness laid for me" or something like that. Paul is the purest definition of Divine Implicit Swagger. 

Last week we had a sad moment. Maxwell Chourou went to the hospital and found out he had a completely torn ACL and had to fly back to Ohio on Saturday for surgery. He'll be able to study Nihongo at home and hopefully when he comes back in two to three months he will be here for two weeks, but he definitely will end up going to Japan. What a trooper! It's better to find out here than in Japan because they would have just reassigned him stateside if he found out it was completely torn there. 

I made some eternal gospel goals this week and wrote them down and laminated it to carry with me everywhere. The overarching goal is not just to reach heaven and be okay with that. I want to be LIKE Christ. I want to be there next to Him and receive EVERYTHING the Father has to offer me, like we are promised in the scriptures and especially the Doctrine and Covenants. I don't just want to receive eternal life, I want to be next to God himself and have that crown of righteousness Paul spoke about given to me. That's what matters. And I'm going to help and aid everybody I can to receive the same. Why would anyone settle for less? In order to help people I teach receive everything the Father has to offer, I made it one of my goals to go through the temple and/or be there when they get sealed to their family for time and all eternity at some point during my life and as I wrote that down I was overcome by the spirit and just felt a very powerful impression from God that I would be able to do that and that this is truly His work and His glory. 

I love it here so much and I'm excited that I've seen pretty much half of the kids from Timpanogos here at some point. I love all of you so much, I can't even begin to explain!

Pics: Pushup Party from Monday Night. Family Home Evening if you will.

 

Me and Sherman Chourou and Colton Chourou, aka the Tool Squad. Colton is going to West Point and is one of the best men I've ever met!

 

Devotional Musical Number

As you can probably tell, Me and Sherman Chourou and Nielsen Shimai played in the Sunday devotional! It was crazy playing in front of like 3000 people but our douryous said that that was the best we ever played it! We got shouted out by the speaker (I forgot his name) at the end of his talk and he said that our number strengthened his testimony on how much he knows that his redeemer lived. Plus, I could see the screen and when I was on there so I smiled intentionally and everyone (the girls) said they loved that and that we did a super good job and we met the MTC presidency and their wives afterward and got a card that said thanks for playing and bringing the spirit and that they encourage us to audition at least once more while we are here and I think we're going to audition in two weeks again! That was such a cool opportunity and I'll never forget it!

This week I decided to go vegetarian and I might just do the rest of the MTC vegetarian because they meat here is a little iffy and the vegetables and green machines (spinach wraps) are super good and I get one for lunch and dinner and anyone coming to the MTC should know that the wraps are hands down the best food here.

Also, my best friend growing up since I was three years old, Takumi Palmer, got his mission call to Fukuoka last week and I'm hoping everyday that I can be his trainer or senior companion or even just companions at some point (even though we might get in more trouble together than actual work being done)! I'm so excited for him and I know I'll definitely see him in Japan at conferences at the least! I remember we used to joke around and say we'd go to the same mission and now it's really happening! I truly know that our Father in Heaven has prepared us both for the wonderful opportunity to serve the Nihonjin in the Fukuoka Mission and that He's definitely in control and guiding us from up in the sky. I'm SO EXCITED!

My district signed up to help host on Wednesday and that was a wonderful opportunity to serve and help the new missionaries and three of my five had fourth floor rooms so carrying their luggage (after working out that morning) in 90 degree weather wasn't physically pleasant but it was a spiritual boost to be out and selflessly serve like Christ would, even if it's just helping new missionaries to adjust to life here. 

Also, today on the way home from the temple I saw four women from my ward, Sister Sperry, Sister Richardson, Sister Bradley and even my mom! That was crazy! They all tutor here and it was super weird seeing my mom and I avoided the hug but yeah I just still don't know what to think about that, I can't wait until I get to Japan and then I definitely won't see anyone I know, only a bunch of Nihonjins staring at me! 

Our senpai (Upperclassmen ish) in our zone left on Monday and Tuesday and I'll miss them and their influences so much, especially McArthur and Hirschi Chouroru. They were the Zone Leaders and I got to work with them a lot and closely as a District Leader and I know that they'll do great things in Japan. Since they all left, that means our massive 50 person transfer is the oldest in our zone and we got six new kohai (underclassmen) on Wednesday, all elders. The work is going to start progressing faster and faster in Japan, I just know it! Partly because we're all being prepared in ways that we couldn't imagine, and because 12 years or so ago President Eyring said in a conference over there in Japan that the work would start progressing very, very quickly over there when the children being raised then would become missionaries, and that moment is approaching quickly. Aren't apostolic blessings the coolest? And especially being able to see the beginning of that? I'm so pumped and I want to go to Japan as soon as I possibly can!

I know MTC emails aren't the most exciting because it's the same monotonous routine for us here, for five more weeks or so too, but somehow the MTC manages to be an awesome, spiritually testing and growing place and so far it hasn't gotten old here! I love it so much and I love seeing all of my friends from school here and I'll be able to see most of the people from Timpanogos because I leave here on September 21 which is so far away yet it is so close! 

1) Me and Sherman Chourou and Nielsen Shimai (next to me) and her companion after the Sunday devotional because split gender pictures need companions!
2) Me and Elder David Hurst 

I love you all unconditionally!

Elder Tschirki

愛しています!

シャーキー長老

Bulbasaur

Konnichi Wa Minnasan!

The MTC is so great and the last week went by so fast! They say that on your mission you have the longest days and the shortest weeks of your life and that is so beyond true.

This week Sherri Dew came and spoke on Sunday and she was spitting straight fire and truths about how we MUST become converted and 'wrestle' with the Spirit and the Lord if we want to have any success on our missions. THEN on Tuesday, President Russell M. Nelson and his wife came to speak and they spoke about how we must become 'epistles' of the Lord and have His gospel and truths and our conversion written upon our hearts. Then he cracked a lame joke about how he left his initials on many people's hearts and he's just a funny, caring guy. 

The Japanese is coming great and I made a goal to memorize 400 vocab words per week and be pera pera (fluent) when I get to Japan. That amounts to about 3000 words by the time I hit Japan but I can see the rewards of studying Japanese hard and it will continue to bless me as I prepare to teach the wonderful Nihonjin (Japanese people). All of our books our named after Japanese words, like Bulbasaur, Charmander and Magikarp and even the teachers call them that so that's awesome! 

Me and my douryou (companion) taught one of the Zone Priesthood lessons on Sunday about baptism and that went great. Sacrament meeting was amazing too and my Branch President, President Stevenson is one of the most caring, Christlike people I've ever met and I have had such a wonderful opportunity being able to work with him. 

Teaching by the Spirit this week has been wonderful because I've been guided in my lessons and been able to vary greatly from our lesson plans to meet the investigator's needs and questions and I know that the Spirit 100% is there and guides us if we are ready and prepare with the Spirit and with our Kyuudousha's (Investigators) needs in mind. 

Me and Sherman Chourou have been hitting the gym hard this week and we auditioned today to play in the Sunday devotional and it looks like we're going to. He's a viola major at BYU and the girl who is playing the violin is a violin major there too and I'm just me. We're playing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and after our audition one of the MTC Presidency's wives told us that since we are here for six more weeks that we should audition again and we were actually going to audition with "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" this week and we have it down perfectly and then we changed plans so we are definitely going to audition once more.

Also, the pics I took all happened today on Tight Pants Thursday (P-Day). (We also have Aoi Nekutai Kayoubi (Blue Tie Tuesdays)). 

A picture of Polaraid that Walker Shimai took of me; me and Sweeten Chourou doing laundry and then me and Sherman Chourou doing our laundry today on Tight Pants Thursday.

​There's no place I'd rather be besides Japan right now.

Aishteimasu! I love you all!

6 Pack/Kanshou

Week one in the MTC is in the books and it is subarashi (wonderful) here! I haven't been homesick at all and I completely love everyone in my district and literally this is the happiest place on earth (sorry Disneyland but you have nothing on the MTC, especially in the Japanese zones). Plus we have so much fun, way way way way more fun than I thought it would be. 

So everything here is great and the food is tasty but it's not as good as home cooking, duh. Plus it either makes you geri suru (Have diarrhea) or have totemo osui unchi (constipation) and there really isn't an in between. Only 8 more weeks of warui unchi (bad poop). 

My companion Chadwick Chourou (elder) is from American Fork and he's a pretty cool kid. We have two shimais (sisters) in my district, from Alberta near Waterton, and the other is from Wellington, New Zealand. They're so cool and faithful and help keep us rowdy chourous in line and help us shyuchu suru (focus). Plus they're also going to Fukuoka so that's so exciting!

The sisters asked our whole district to sing in the choir so we did and this last devotional we sang A Child's Prayer and it was so powerful because it's an 800+ person choir and probably 500 of that is men so it's intense and beautiful and the devotionals are subarashi.

I got called to be the first District Leader in the MTC, and because of that opportunity I have had such wonderful experiences with helping those in my district and becoming very good friends with them all. I have developed so much more of a Christlike love for everyone and already love the people of Japan so much even though I obviously haven't set foot in Japan yet! 

In our Japanese classes we only speak Japanese duh and the gift of tongues is so real and we all see vast improvements in our Nihongo (Japanese) every day. We have been teaching an 'investigator' all in Nihongo and have given her a Book of Mormon and committed her to baptism and then we get a new investigator starting tomorrow. In class and around campus we decided to try and itsumo nihongo de hanishimasu (only speak Japanese) and we are getting so much better, especially in saying rude, playful things to each other.

If you don't know what kanshou is, look it up. Apparently Japanese kids do it all the time. 

Also, Sherman Chouruou and I made goals to eat as healthy as we can and get a six pack by the end of our MTC stay. I don't have a picture of him but oh well, next week for sure. 

It's so cool to see so many of my friends from school, it's such a neat experience that we are able to go and spread the gospel all over the world!

It's time to go now and I'll update you guys next week on Thursday whenever I can!

またね！

シャーキー長老

Elder Tschirki

Pics: Me and Elder Waldron; my district on our temple walk flashing our gang sign (G in Sign Language); me and my douryou (companion) Chadwick Chourou; Me and Elder Chipper Brown; Me and Elder Ean Isobe; Me and Elder Dante Rodriguez