Weekly Gaijinmail

The countdown is on, Nihon in just a few more weeks! Already getting MTC homesick, if that were possible. Okay, maybe just friend-and-teacher-sick. I won't be foodsick, I already am sick of the food. Vegemite Sunday is a thing, in our zone, and it's hilarious when some of my American friends continue to have it every week because they're convinced if they keep eating it they'll eventually like it. I swapped Elder Watson's weetbix for some of my vegemite this week, he's from Melbourne and he's going to South Korea.

I totally started writing that last sentence in Japanese sentence structure, until I realised it didn't make sense... in fact, just the other week I was writing and I literally called out "what's the word for Kyudosha?" In English the word is "investigator." I'd say that's a bit of a rare word to forget as a Missionary!

Elder Rowling's sensei from when he was at the MTC, Holbrook Kyodai, subbed for our class one this week, he's totally cool and Elder Rowling's must have put a good word in for me 'cause he was totally awesome to us. Our teachers are so awesome! I say this every letter but seriously, if anyone had these guys for teachers for school they would love school and never want to leave! I'll get a photo with them all before I leave, but I love them all, they're so patient and caring.

It's great being able to go to the Temple every week, and yesterday we had the opportunity to be hosts, which means we welcome all the new missionaries in and show them to their rooms, take them to collect their materials and then drop them off at class. I met some great people who are really outgoing, and of course I saw lots of people crying! Lots of mothers crying! And lots of people who couldn't get away from their family sooner, funnily enough haha.

I had a weird experience when this person I'd never met or heard of before randomly walked past me, before she had even made it to the MTC office to check in, yelled, "you're Jennadene's boyfriend!!" And I was so dumbfounded I had no idea what to do, while my two friends next to me just laughed. Apparently she's one of Jen's friends who recognised me from photos she uploaded to her Facebook.

Unfortunately no Lost In Translation this week, which I guess is a good thing, it means we're getting better at the language, right?

Last night for TRC we had our first skype call, where we skype someone in Japan for 40 minutes, and share a message with them. Elder Heap and I had the awesome opportunity to talk to Kegiri, quite an elderly Japanese man from Sendai who spoke no English. Our call went for almost 50 minutes, but we got acquainted, had a few laughs and got to know each other before we shared a message about prophets, which unexpectedly led us into prayer. The Spirit was really strong as we each shared experiences and testimonies on both of the subjects, and afterwards we felt so uplifted. Kegiri spoke just as much as we did, so it really did feel like a discussion instead of a lesson. And the fact that we deviated from what we were expecting to talk about the whole 40 minutes really shows that we were guided by the Spirit. I learnt a lot from our time all together, and we had so many laughs. It was really great, we all felt comfortable and our goal was to invite him to come closer to Christ, and I believe we were able to do that by sharing our testimonies on why we follow the Prophet, and on why we pray and how we feel when we do. It was great! I love TRC, it's my favourite activity to do here.

Ja, best be off to get some of that greased up 'Murican food, know what I'm talking about? Hope to hear from you all again next week. Biofuze out.

Love from Elder Wheeler