February 21, 2011

Dear Family,

I don’t know if I’ve been this relaxed in a long time. Our awesome member Fujimoto Shimai works at a hospital in a children’s wing and it has two computers. So first, it solved our problem of emailing at a good place and second, it’s dead quiet which is so nice I can’t describe it (except my keyboard is super loud). Third, I love being around a member like this. She is the nicest woman in the world. And fourth, who doesn’t love emailing somewhere free?

Happy Birthday on Tuesday, Mom. I love you so much. This last week my love for the whole family has grown so much. I can’t wait to sit and talk with mom and maybe fix something or just talk. I can’t want to go fishing with dad and just stand their in the river looking stupid. I hope you have a great birthday.

So the Elder Holland thing was really good. I wish I took better notes. I was super, super good at taking notes in the MTC because I wasn’t too far removed from debate so I could flow it all. But this week I had some troubles balancing focusing, feeling the spirit, and taking notes. I feel like I mainly just listened and tried to just feel the spirit. It was pretty life changing. Elder Holland always talks about Preach My Gospel and how much his mission changed his life. He explained both of those in depth. He explained how he had nothing in life and didn’t even know what a mission was. He said it made him who he is today. He was also very sympathetic and said he knows that we feel like we have the weight of world on our shoulders. But then he said it’s because we do have the weight of the world on our shoulders. He said we would be stunned to know how much responsibility we actually have. It wasn’t scary though it was actually motivating to hear that. I actually forgot my notes today but I think I’ll just mail them home. I have to fax a copy to the mission home today. That’s a little weird but oh well. Elder Rasband, President Stevenson (area president), and Elder Ishii (his son lives in my ward and I’ve met him several times) all came. It was pretty incredible. I got to shake President Rasband’s hand twice because he forgot he did already after he leaned over to say something to his wife.

I will never forget when Elder Holland stepped off the stage and as he was attaching a portable mic to his suit he said, “I’ll get down here so that I can get RIGHT IN YOUR FACE,” (as he grabbed elder Brown’s face and shook it). Everyone laughed really hard and then sat up a little straighter. Then he said he was just trying to be funny and like lightly slapped Elder Valentine on the cheek. I was laughing pretty hard at this point. He is a powerful man. We all took a picture together and right after the flashes went off he got up from his chair and turned around and started giving us instructions. He made things completely comfortable and he gave the meeting very quick direction.

The story about Preach My Gospel changed the way I look at missionary work. Preach My Gospel was thought up because President Hinckley saw the incredible number of returned missionaries that were inactive. So he made an announcement in front of all the general authorities that we had to improve the way we do missionary work. The primary purpose of Preach My Gospel is to actually convert the missionary. To that point, the discussions were memorized and uniform and so they were ineffective at teaching to people’s needs. It didn’t actually require a missionary to do it. Anyone could do it. The missionaries’ testimonies weren’t used at all so it was completely leaving out the advantages of the missionaries. I found this all very interesting. I’ll write more about that when I get my notes.

Two weeks ago right as sacrament meeting was starting I was asked to translate for Kato Shimai, a Philippine woman. I wasn’t translating for her because she could speak Japanese. I was translating the talk that sister Wixon gave at the last General Conference. I want to hunt her down and tell her what I think about her huge vocabulary. Kato Shimai read the first sentence of the paragraph that she had chosen to read and I just looked wide eyed at the audience. There was no way I could translate that type of English. It ended up being really messy and a pretty bad experience for me, but at least it’s over.

Dad is like Jack Bauer. In the first season he saved Skyview debate. Then the next day he saved all of Billings’s high school debate. This season he is saving Montana high school debate. Next he’ll be saving debate from an invasion from china.

I went out to meet with inactives with Kondo Kyoudai. He always randomly tells people about us (people he doesn’t even know) and tells them to listen to us. I always thought it was weird but this time I wanted to embrace it because at least he is trying to help. So he says he has two people that he kind of knows from back in the day. He said he wants us to give them Book of Mormons. He didn’t go to the door with us though. He stayed around the corner and once they said no to my super energetic offer he would slip out of the shadows and say “good evening....” It was really creepy. We had a hard time not laughing. In the end neither of them took a Book of Mormon but that’s okay. It would be much easier if we did that with all of our members (in a less creepy way).

Well that’s it for now. I’m just trying hard and trying to get stuff done. Thiago is still doing well but he’s slowing down. Next week is transfer calls. I hope I don’t leave but its okay if I do. Love you all. Have a great week. Thanks for working hard and reading your scriptures.
Love you.

Tyler