MTC Aug 31, 2010

Week 9

Mission Log

Many interesting things occurred during this past week.

Tuesday: When we were coming back from the temple, we saw three elders from our district running by with suitcases in their hands. We were like "What's going on?" When we got back to the room, all of Elder Payne's stuff was gone. He went home. His companion, Elder Larking, is now companions with Elder Horne and myself. We have three in our companionship. It's a little weird, but it's OK. Both of my companions are going to the Nagoya, Japan mission whereas I'm going to Kobe. So, I'll never see either of them in the mission field. Then, we went to the devotional. They finished putting the bleachers in. So, the gym is opened back up. Now, they have enough room for the majority of the missionaries to sit in the gym. We get there really early so that we can get a good seat. There are two different sets of doors to get in. We're first in line at one of the doors. But, they end up not opening those doors. So, we were last in line to get in the other doors. When we finally got in, the place was packed full of missionaries. They were telling people to start going to the overflow rooms. We kept looking for a spot anyway. It's especially hard for us to find a spot because there are three of us now. But, we find one eventually. It turns out, Elder Holland was the speaker at that devotional. He was incredible. He's very passionate about what he has to say. I think my notes from that meeting have more exclamation marks than everything else I've written in my life put together. It was cool. After the devotional, we met with all of the native Japanese missionaries and talked with them. It was also really fun.

Wednesday: We were studying. Then, after something that Elder Larking said, (something really funny) we decided that he should go to the health clinic and see the doctor. We go down there and sit in the waiting room while he sees the doctor. He comes out and tells us the (really funny) diagnoses. They said that the medicine should arrive around 4:45pm. It was already like four. So, we just waited there for it. It didn't come. Then they told us that we can either walk to the BYU health clinic or wait for the medicine to be delivered tomorrow. I jumped at the opportunity to be able to see the outside world. A health clinic worker walked by and they decided he could just give us a ride there. So we got to ride in a car and we got to leave. He got his medicine very uneventfully. Then, the lady there asked if we wanted to walk back to the MTC or if we wanted a shuttle. I got excited to get to walk back. But, Elder Larking said, "We want the shuttle." So, we sit outside for twenty minutes waiting for the shuttle to come (it's only a five minute walk). When it gets here, there are already five other missionaries in it. Instead of going back to the MTC, it is taking the other missionaries all over the place. First it goes south to downtown. Then, it goes way up north to who knows where. We probably rode in that shuttle for an hour. It was really fun to be able to leave the MTC.

Thursday: We had the TRC. For the first part, there were five new Japanese sister missionaries in the room watching us. They were writing notes like crazy. I'm pretty sure that they copied down word for word everything that was said. Then they left. Our "investigator" kept laughing when we'd say stuff. I don't know if that's because our Japanese was funny or if she just liked to laugh. It all turned out OK though.

Friday: Successfully stopped a zombie invasion from occurring. (just kidding)

Saturday: Defeated seventeen armed guards using only my bare hands. Flipped the switch to turn off the countdown for the nuclear bombs. (again with the humor)

Sunday: I was writing my talk in the the morning and I wrote this sentence that had some really great kanji in it and just looked awesome. So I said, "I'm just going to stop here." In church I got called up to give my talk. I just had to make up the ending. Then, the devotional was Director Heaton. He is director of the whole MTC, and his son is our teacher. He had me come up to the front and help with a demonstration during the devotional. I'm pretty much famous now.

Out of time.

Elder Isaac D. Swift