Week #7--MTC

konichiwa kozoku 

3 weeks left till i leave all i can tell you is im getting so exited, more and more every day

as i start to catch on to nihongo more and more i love that much more. ja, watachi wa have had another subarashi week not to say its easy but i learnd allot and i actually spoke a decent amount in our p.i. lesson i wasnt saying allot before. so come wednsday we will be what is known as a daisenpai evry three weeks we go up a level cohai senpai then daisenpai honestly i dont feel quit ready for to be that far yet but ill do my best so im no longer the DL they switch every 3 weeks my doryo (companion) is the new one.

 id tell you about everything i did this week but you kind of allready know since watashi wa sent the scedual the dake koto chigou (only difference) i would say was language understanding i feel like iv recieved so many blessings this week and in that lesson yesterday i felt the seirei (spirit) so strongly and when ever i work hard its amazing i suppose it also tells me when i did something wrong i feel terrible when i do something that seems little but it seems like a good learning experiance. ahhhh i cant tell you how exited i am to get to nihon i keeps poping up in my head and i just get more exited.oh ya you guys wanted to know how the host thing works. its nothing special, every wendsday new missionaries come in and you can just volenteer to be a host its super easy.

ya ya ya i forgot we got our new name tags in katakana ill send a pic later. any way ill end with a message,

just remember that no matter you activity no matter your physical mental or spiritual state you have a father and a brother in heaven that love you and know exactly what your going through. trust in them pray allways, before anything you do, they want so badly to help you, but they cant if you dont ask always do things that keep the spirit around, help others when you can stay calm in stressfull situations deal with issuse with love and kindness the only 3 thing you should rais your voice for is to call out to someone to sing a joyfull hymn or stoping something of true evil. recognize the little blessings and thank our father in heaven for them it brings so much more joy to your life when you see all that he does for you even though we never realy know. even trully kind kings of the past have expected to be referd to as lord or king, remeber, (to parafraze the video i told you to watch) of all the respectfull titles we could give him he asks us to call him father. i know personaly that he loves and wants to help us, we just need to have the courage to ask.

i miss and love you all 

kemp choro  

Week #6-MTC

konichiwa kozoku

3 weeks left till i leave all i can tell you is im getting so exited, more and more every day

as i start to catch on to nihongo more and more i love that much more. ja, watachi wa have had another subarashi week not to say its easy but i learnd allot and i actually spoke a decent amount in our p.i. lesson i wasnt saying allot before. so come wednsday we will be what is known as a daisenpai evry three weeks we go up a level cohai senpai then daisenpai honestly i dont feel quit ready for to be that far yet but ill do my best so im no longer the DL they switch every 3 weeks my doryo (companion) is the new one.

 id tell you about everything i did this week but you kind of allready know since watashi wa sent the scedual the dake koto chigou (only difference) i would say was language understanding i feel like iv recieved so many blessings this week and in that lesson yesterday i felt the seirei (spirit) so strongly and when ever i work hard its amazing i suppose it also tells me when i did something wrong i feel terrible when i do something that seems little but it seems like a good learning experiance. ahhhh i cant tell you how exited i am to get to nihon i keeps poping up in my head and i just get more exited.oh ya you guys wanted to know how the host thing works. its nothing special, every wendsday new missionaries come in and you can just volenteer to be a host its super easy.

ya ya ya i forgot we got our new name tags in katakana ill send a pic later. any way ill end with a message,

just remember that no matter you activity no matter your physical mental or spiritual state you have a father and a brother in heaven that love you and know exactly what your going through. trust in them pray allways, before anything you do, they want so badly to help you, but they cant if you dont ask always do things that keep the spirit around, help others when you can stay calm in stressfull situations deal with issuse with love and kindness the only 3 thing you should rais your voice for is to call out to someone to sing a joyfull hymn or stoping something of true evil. recognize the little blessings and thank our father in heaven for them it brings so much more joy to your life when you see all that he does for you even though we never realy know. even trully kind kings of the past have expected to be referd to as lord or king, remeber, (to parafraze the video i told you to watch) of all the respectfull titles we could give him he asks us to call him father. i know personaly that he loves and wants to help us, we just need to have the courage to ask.

i miss and love you all

kemp choro

Kemp Choro & Elder Perron, Connor got to escort his bff into the MTC!

Week #5-MTC

koooooonnnniiiiichhhiiii waaaaaaaaaa watashi no tomodachi. ganki desu ka. watashi wa ganki desu to deshta. konshu wa subarashi deshta ne, ego de, gomenasai,

soshde, as i said above my week was subarashi deshta ne, eto mostly the norm for this week though that alone is great im getting morer and more exited to make it to japan i know there are people there preparing to recieve this fukuin and i want so bad for them to be able to. nihongo is hard but i understand its perpose and am willing to do the work.

this last sunday we watched legacy wich was great a little dated but the spirit was just as strong. also i saw the best mormon message ive ever seen, go on to lds.org and go to mormon messages and watch "earthly father and heavenly father"it grew my respect for you dad and for our heavenly father, after watching that i just want to say to you dad thank you so much for all you have done for us your family i have taken all of it so much for granted and i still do, i dont thing i could ever thank you properly for being the wonderful loving father you are all i can say more about that is that i hope i can be as good of a father to my future kids as you were and are to me thank you so much. this place is amazing truly ive been broken down and built up stronger and taller so much here this is the best choice i could ever have made and i love all of you so much for preparing me for it without all of you and our heavenly father i would ither have never decided to go or would already be back home.i will do my best to be what the people in japan need and i9 know im not alone in the effort, and nither are any of you  i promise, if you are ever in a moment of sadness stress or any thing, pray, if you are going to do anything easy or difficult pray beforehand, and "especialy if you dont want to pray pray untill you do", i know for a fact that that is true and that this gosple is true prayer is a gift to us that we all me included take for granted so often.i will say it again, watashi wa anatatachi ga aishitemasu, totemo arigato gozaimasu

ps. dad my sugestion for a good japanese book is "a dictionary of japanese grammar" its a big yellow book the first 60 pages are super helpful and informitive

Week #4-MTC

First off to answer your question dad watashi itself means i (wa, ga, o, ni, etc...) are particals that mark subgect and object and such the can be omited in casual convesation but watashi wa just type it and omit tokidoki (sometimes) .

ja (anyway) so im going to tell anata wa (you) a chotto (little) story, in ego so its easier gomen (sorry). so when i first got here in my district i met every one and got to iknow them all well a one elder farr i think you might remember i find out he whent to a naval acadamy for two year befor comeing on his mission, he's 20, so one thing we all notice about him is his eating habbits he only eats salad while we all eat all the food they had for us wich by the way dad is not good for you, ja after the first 3 weeks i lean from others in the district that he has lost 11 pounds just from eating like that well im like wow thats crazy so last week a little after i last wrote to you i talked to him i sleep right above him,and said farr choro it would apear that what you are doing is working so im going to eat the same way you do him being him was like alright just fallow me and ill show you the ropes i have been eating salad and meat no carbs or sugar no soda prety much just water for a week now and about 5 days ago started doing a "spatain workout" literaly the workout the actors for 300 did, every other day now and cardio on off days as is that workout wasnt cadio enogh well befor i started all of this a week ago i weighed 310 today after workout i just dropped below 300, i intend to keep this up in the mtc and do my best in the field so ill give you updates oh and dont worry its definatly enough to eat its just really healthy.

ja other than that watashi wa mtc ga ai shitemasu (i love the mtc) the spirit is so strong here and i feel so privlaged to be here i cant wait to get to japan and serve the lord. i already told you i got to shake Niel L. Andersons hand that was cool and ill see someone cool at tonights devotional too.

dad thats so wonderfull that you are haveing a missionary experiance, gambatane (do your best)/ (good luck)

i love you all and am greatfull for all of you

anata no kadomo to tomadachi Kemp choro (you child and friend elder Kemp)

matane.(till next time)

Week #3-MTC

well watashi wa can tell you why my letter might have been short watashi wa have 5 or 6 letters to answer in this hour i have to do so and you know how slow of a typer i am. but any way ill try to give you a run down of watashi no week from last p-day so tuesday after watashi wa wrote you my day was good went to the temple and saw something new i cant really talk about which was so cool then had the devotional at the mariot center like every tuesday that was good as usual, wendsday was the same as the other days her is a basic run down of my day

 6:30 wakeup 7:00 be at classroom for district morning meeting 7:15 breakfast 7:45 personal bankyo 8:50 3 hours of of sense slinging nihongo at our faces 11:50 lunch 12:50 gym 2:10 personal language bankyo 3:10 tall or computerized language learning 4:10 aditional bankyo 4:50 dinner 5:35 another 3 house of nihongo slinging twards my face 8:35 district devotional  then doryo planning 9:30 onward personal time to 10:15 quiet time 10:30 lights out.

now thats thursday scedual the other days acceped tuesday/ p-day are the same acceped swiched around a bit and a sevice asighnment on wed. sunday consists of priesthood sacriment meeting some really good devotionals and videos of our choice and more sleapy time oh i forgot to mention we dont know who is giving talks in sacriment untill the meeting so we all have to prepair talks in nihongo assuning we get picked. whheew so thats what mt weeks will consist of until my last week the only thing that really changes is the amount and type of spiritual experiances from it all that i am blessed with. this is the busiest ive ever been in my life but some of the best i cant believe i ever felt overwhelmed at school it was nothing in comparison although i have the spirit helping me so much here i know i would have broken down already without it. 

so i was appointed district leader for the next 3 weeks so thats fun i guess it hold to the pattern decons pres. teachers pres. priests fist counselor elders district leader although for the life of me i dont understand why they would pick me for any of the positions i guess they see something i dont. but ill do my best.

oh ya somthing about the 3 hour nihongo slinging session an hour of every class is devoted to mogi or roleplay where the sense pretends to be a nihonjin who dosent speak and ounce of english and we have to go teach them in nihongo but when we relly on the spirit we have som great experiances there even with the fact that we can bairly speak to them let alone teach a lesson oh and no memorizing that is now a big nono.

anyway id just like to mentio0n this that i am so greatfull to you guys all of you especially mom and dad, for all that you have done for me i dont deserv the blessing of having family and friends like you i was totaly honest in my farwell talk that i could not have made it to this point without anatatachi.

arigatou gozaimasu 

kemp choro

Later that day:

we had devotional tonight and Neil l Anderson spoke we got there quick and had floor seats he staid a little longer cuz of weather and i got to shake his hand also on the way here to tell you that we we met two sisters who had a room mate hyperventalating they asked us to give her a blessing so we ran back to residence got the oil and blessed her i know something was going on with the spirit so strongly tonight i love you and want yoiu to know i know i am suppose to be here and that i am safe kemp choro  

A letter from the REAL companion!

Week #2-MTC

why konichiwa watashi no kazoku, i read your letters and (to mom yes i got all that you sent and ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU FOR THE DEAR ELDER STUFF, I WAS LIKE YAAAAAAAA CHIPS AND KASO, and so was my district among which i shared they love me more now) well anyway i wanted to tell you about the devotional we had last week but it was after id already sent emails so ill tell you now, we had it at the mariot center and RICHARD G SCOTT came and spoke it was sugoy desu ne. and yes i miss al of you although again theres not much time to think about it i also dont have much chances to draw iv done it a few times but im just so buisy all the time.

anyway im loving it here its hard but worth every second. thanks so much for all youve done to prepare me for this i couldent have made it otherwise

hope to here from you soon 

kemp choro

Letter from Elder Farr

Elder Farr, Connor's MTC companion sent us a letter: 

Week #1-MTC

watashi no kazoku

word bank:

kazoku- family
nihongo- japanese

nippon- japan

watashi- i

watashitachi- we

watashi no- my

ten no otosama- father in heaven 

doryo- companion 

suberashi- awsome

chorou- elder

choroutachi elders

arigatou gozaimasu- thank you so much

konichiwa, konbanwa, or ohaio gozaimasu watashi no kazoku. i am eager to know how your all doing i know its only been 6 days but with how much we do here in that much time it feels like forever you know that first day you talked about how our teacher speaks in ego the first day, well that did not happen it was nihongo from the start and we only just herd him say a full ego sentence yesterday so it was like a treat we were all so exited. oh my gosh we get pounded with nihongo every day and i'v learned as much as i would have in a year or more of school courses in there six days but my goodness it would not happen without the spirit here and help from watashitachi no ten no otosama without all the prayer and study we do i could not take it all in there is so much. as part of our learning we have a person acting as an investigator from nippon who can only speak nihongo and we have to teach him in our companionships for 20 min its hard because we cant just throw doctrine at him we need to teach in a way he can understand and relate to and i wish so much that i could speak freely but i just dont know how. we do prepare lessons and the spirit is always there but its hard to let go of that frustration. but on a happier note all the choroutachi in my district are suberashi des ne they all feel like brothers to me which i suppose they are bot you know what i mean my doryo is great i am always amazed  at how much of a connection to the spirit he has and how he can buckle down and just do the work. ja i love you all and i miss you how ever little time i have to miss you, arigatou gozaimasu for helping me to this point. P.S. sorry for the bad spelling dad if i used spell check it would have corrected all the nihongo words

from your son, brother, nephew, friend Kemp chorou