Hi everybody :) I love you all so much and was so grateful to receive all of your letters. I don't get very many compared to everyone in my district, but they are from the best people so that's ok. I should probably try to write my friends if I actually want to hear from them so I'll definitely try to make time for that today.
The MTC really is so cool. It is so great to be surrounded by other Elders who want to obey the rules and become closer to Christ. I don't know if you know the purpose of missionary work, but it is on page 1 of preach my gospel and it goes - "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."
I think it is the coolest thing and definitely an inspired purpose. We have been having so many amazing devotionals and talks in sacrament/priesthood meetings that have really helped me to realize more about who Christ is and it is amazing. I wish you could hear these amazing talks because they inpsire me so much.
There is this big thing going on in the MTC in the last week and for a few more days because the new mission presidents are having training in the main building of the MTC. It is pretty hectic because there is hardly any access to that building and the cafeteria is cut in half so meal time has been chaotic, but it's because pretty much every single general authority is here in the MTC helping to train the mission presidents. I haven't seen any of them except one, (I'll talk about that in a sec) but you can really feel their presence and it brings a great spirit here. The general authority I got to meet was Elder David Evans from the first quorum of the 70. He actually went on his mission to Japan back when it was just the Asia north mission. Since then he has visited Japan many times and was the area authority over all of Japan for quite a while before becoming a general authority. He is also head of the missionary department! Anyways I think my district got lucky because one of our senseis is his daughter-in-law so he came with his wife and visited us during class in our tiny little room! It was such a cool experience. He talked to us a little bit about how important eternal marriage to teach to the people (as well as to ourselves after we return from our mission:]) "Marriage is He also asked us if we had any questions at all and I couldn't think of a single thing :( The other missionaries in my district asked him some good questions about the language and what Japan is going to be like and he gave some really good and really amazing answers. About learning the language he showed us some really cool scriptures in D&C 33 about just opening your mouth and the words will come to us. I really hope that I can try to speak a lot especially because the Japanese elders arrived from Japan yesterday!! They are so neat. I hope everyone didn't scare them because when we got back from class and saw them in the dorm everyone was so excited to meet them. It was kinda crowded, but after everyone dispersed I tried to talk to them and it was neat, but I realize more and more each day that I'm here that I don't really know Japanese THAT well yet. I am learning a lot about how to say things that I want to teach during lessons, but I need to speak more and learn more and more. Talking with the Japanese missionaries will be a great opportunity for that.
My everyday life at the MTC isn't too interesting at least I think. I just wake up, get ready, and go to class. Then I have meals at the normal time you'd have them. We have an hour of language study on our own and another hour with this rosetta stone-like program called TALL that I am still warming up to. Everday we have an hour of personal study of just gospel stuff in our native language which I really love. We have companionship study during the time that the other missionaries are teaching to get prepared to teach our own investigator. Then we have about two hours evening and night that we spend learning specific language or teaching fundamentals. We also have time to plan our day out and additional study time peppered in where they have empty spaces. It really is important to try to work towards something at every moment you have. Everyday we teach an investigator in Japanese either morning or night. We aren't teaching our first investigator anymore. We actually found out that he is actually a sensei for the Japanese elders. It was really cool to meet him after and learn his real name. Our next two investigators will be our two current senseis which will be interesting, but cool. They pretend like they are one of the investigators that they had on their mission.
About the orange juice I have no idea. I see other missionaries drink it all the time, but I don't dare. I'm glad that you have been able to do so many fun things! So did you just go to a bees game for your anniversary? You oughta do something more special than that! Just kidding. I'm sure it was really neat! I'm glad that Adam's play is settling down and that it was fun to see. Hopefully he will have time to do some really great stuff like his eagle project. I really hope that he can get that done. Time is going by so fast and he'll be 18 in less than 20 days! Wow! That's so great that he took the initiative to get the job though. I'm glad he pushed towards that. I just hope that he is able to be more patient with it than I was. It'll seem like the best job ever during training, but once you actually get out on the floor it is just stressful and boring (at least I think so. Missionary work is TOTALLY different, because it's ALWAYS awesome!).
I am pretty sure that you can send me pictures, but I can't send them through email at all while in the MTC. I will have to try sending you a cd with Andrew's thing, but I have hardly taken any pictures anyways.... As far as the blog you can do whatever you'd like. I can't read anything on them no matter what, but you could always copy and paste them into an email that you send to me. Keep working hard and getting chores done. That's cool about Jacob. I think he will be an awesome missionary and that going will be really great for him and a huge blessing to his family. I will try to pray for him too. I am very glad Steve has been doing better as well.
I'm glad that everyone at Church is excited for me and I hope they know how much I love them and appreciate their support and help to get me this far! I am always going to try my best to be a Christ-like example and hopefully I will be able to help everyone in my district. I love being a district leader because it gives me a great opportunity to work hard and show my love for the missionaries in my district.
Love you! Aishite imasu!
-Hutchinson Choro
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
6/19/12 Hello Family!!!
How is everybody doing??? I'm glad that you all have your spirits up! Stay happy for me :) Today is my first p-day and I have been having a blast! The time is already going by so fast it feels like you just barely dropped me off sometimes. The MTC is really fun and cool. We have a ton of time to study things on our own and go at our own pace and I love it. The environment is fantastic as well.
My companion is a great guy. We get along well even though we are very different. His name is Elder Harper and I actually was friends with his brother Mario at USU. He is half Japanese and is stellar at the language. We make a great team and a lot of the other elders especially the sempai (elders who have been in longer) are really impressed with our skill level. We are really good and figuring out how to say what we want to say. My roommates are not too bad either. They are a lot of fun actually. They are really helpful whenever we have questions about stuff and have taught us a few tricks about getting things done more efficiently.
What I have mostly done so far is teach and prepare to teach in ALL Japanese! Our second day there we had to give our first lesson to an investigator that only spoke Japanese and it actually went pretty well! We taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for us. Since then we've taught him three more times and have gotten him to pray with us and read some about Joseph Smith. Tomorrow we are going to introduce him to the Book of Mormon and ask him to read a little bit of it. The best way to get better at Japanese is to learn how to say the things that you want to say in lessons and apply them. My district has a really cool teacher named Andrus Sensei. He is really fun and great at teaching. I think it would be amazing to teach here after I get home. Oh and I got called to be District Leader! It is a really cool responsibility. I have had some training meetings with the branch presidency which were really cool. My responsibilities are to conduct district meetings, uplift, inspire, and encourage. I also am the Elder that is supposed to get the mail. By the way, please let everyone know that if they want to write me that the best method is through Dear Elder.com. If they do that I'll get the letter here at the MTC the day that they send it. It made me really happy to get the physical letter from you guys and if you use dearelder then I'll get a physical copy that way too!
I hope work is going well for you Mom. I am excited about your new position and hope that everything goes well with it! I have been praying in almost all Japanese now, but I remember to pray for you guys every night. That's cool that trek is coming by so fast for everyone! I'm really happy that Mara and Adam get the opportunity to have that awesome experience. Make sure they have fun for me, ok? If you want you can send me pictures of Adam and Mara in their trek gear. Keep encouraging Mara to read her scriptures and getting ready for seminary! You should get Adam to sign up for institute! It was one of the best choices I ever made. Thanks for putting up the photos. I think everyone will be happy that they can see them. I wish I could've got more, but that's ok! Don't worry too much about tagging people and stuff. How did your anniversary go? That sounds exciting! I hope you were able to spend some good time together. Don't forget to love eachother lots and lots! Thanks for letting me know about Steve. I will pray for him to get better too. He is an amazing friend and his reactivation really built up my testimony a lot. Please let him know that.
I bet that the sunset in Tooele was nice! One of my favorite things about being here at the MTC are the mountains behind the temple. They are probably some of my favorite mountains ever. Let's see.... What else can I say about the MTC? I went to the temple with my district this morning and had a great session. The Provo temple is really beautiful inside and out. On Sunday my zone has a tradition of wearing all the same color of tie and we got some cool pictures of that outside the temple. I'm going to try to go to choir today so I'm excited for that. The food is not bad either. They don't always have my favorite kind of things, but I deal with it. They sometimes have things that are really good though so that's nice! They have desserts at pretty much every meal but I resist! I think I will only have a treat once a week ;) A lot of people have told me that my suit looks really sharp. Thanks for helping me pick out clothes that I like! I got a TON of books so I will probably have to send some of the P-day clothes I brought back and maybe some other things. We had a devotional from Sheri Dew that was really neat about not following the crowd and understanding the voice of the spirit. It was really neat and made me think about how I should do more to more fully understand and recognize the words of the spirit. It is pretty much the most important thing about teaching! The best lessons I've had are ones where we read stuff that we wrote in Japanese off a piece of paper less. My branch president is Krueger Kaicho(President). He is really an amazing example and loves us a lot. He shows it often through his advice and counsel to us. There are only three other missionaries going to Sapporo right now. There will probably be a lot more when the Nihon-jin (Japanese Missionaries) come. I am way excited for them to come and to talk to them. There are a lot of other missionaries going to the other missions in Japan though so my zone is pretty big. We have gym time too which is neat. There are so many different things to do, but I love sand volleyball the best so far. It's the only time we can take off our shoes and "dive".
So I only have two minutes left to type, but I love you guys so so much. I can feel your love and support almost all the time. It feels so different, but so good to be a missionary. It's hard to explain, but I just love it. Sometimes I can feel the presence of those that are in Hokkaido waiting for me to find them and teach them. You guys are the best! Try to be missionaries in your daily lives especially with the new Salt Lake West Mission!
My companion is a great guy. We get along well even though we are very different. His name is Elder Harper and I actually was friends with his brother Mario at USU. He is half Japanese and is stellar at the language. We make a great team and a lot of the other elders especially the sempai (elders who have been in longer) are really impressed with our skill level. We are really good and figuring out how to say what we want to say. My roommates are not too bad either. They are a lot of fun actually. They are really helpful whenever we have questions about stuff and have taught us a few tricks about getting things done more efficiently.
What I have mostly done so far is teach and prepare to teach in ALL Japanese! Our second day there we had to give our first lesson to an investigator that only spoke Japanese and it actually went pretty well! We taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for us. Since then we've taught him three more times and have gotten him to pray with us and read some about Joseph Smith. Tomorrow we are going to introduce him to the Book of Mormon and ask him to read a little bit of it. The best way to get better at Japanese is to learn how to say the things that you want to say in lessons and apply them. My district has a really cool teacher named Andrus Sensei. He is really fun and great at teaching. I think it would be amazing to teach here after I get home. Oh and I got called to be District Leader! It is a really cool responsibility. I have had some training meetings with the branch presidency which were really cool. My responsibilities are to conduct district meetings, uplift, inspire, and encourage. I also am the Elder that is supposed to get the mail. By the way, please let everyone know that if they want to write me that the best method is through Dear Elder.com. If they do that I'll get the letter here at the MTC the day that they send it. It made me really happy to get the physical letter from you guys and if you use dearelder then I'll get a physical copy that way too!
I hope work is going well for you Mom. I am excited about your new position and hope that everything goes well with it! I have been praying in almost all Japanese now, but I remember to pray for you guys every night. That's cool that trek is coming by so fast for everyone! I'm really happy that Mara and Adam get the opportunity to have that awesome experience. Make sure they have fun for me, ok? If you want you can send me pictures of Adam and Mara in their trek gear. Keep encouraging Mara to read her scriptures and getting ready for seminary! You should get Adam to sign up for institute! It was one of the best choices I ever made. Thanks for putting up the photos. I think everyone will be happy that they can see them. I wish I could've got more, but that's ok! Don't worry too much about tagging people and stuff. How did your anniversary go? That sounds exciting! I hope you were able to spend some good time together. Don't forget to love eachother lots and lots! Thanks for letting me know about Steve. I will pray for him to get better too. He is an amazing friend and his reactivation really built up my testimony a lot. Please let him know that.
I bet that the sunset in Tooele was nice! One of my favorite things about being here at the MTC are the mountains behind the temple. They are probably some of my favorite mountains ever. Let's see.... What else can I say about the MTC? I went to the temple with my district this morning and had a great session. The Provo temple is really beautiful inside and out. On Sunday my zone has a tradition of wearing all the same color of tie and we got some cool pictures of that outside the temple. I'm going to try to go to choir today so I'm excited for that. The food is not bad either. They don't always have my favorite kind of things, but I deal with it. They sometimes have things that are really good though so that's nice! They have desserts at pretty much every meal but I resist! I think I will only have a treat once a week ;) A lot of people have told me that my suit looks really sharp. Thanks for helping me pick out clothes that I like! I got a TON of books so I will probably have to send some of the P-day clothes I brought back and maybe some other things. We had a devotional from Sheri Dew that was really neat about not following the crowd and understanding the voice of the spirit. It was really neat and made me think about how I should do more to more fully understand and recognize the words of the spirit. It is pretty much the most important thing about teaching! The best lessons I've had are ones where we read stuff that we wrote in Japanese off a piece of paper less. My branch president is Krueger Kaicho(President). He is really an amazing example and loves us a lot. He shows it often through his advice and counsel to us. There are only three other missionaries going to Sapporo right now. There will probably be a lot more when the Nihon-jin (Japanese Missionaries) come. I am way excited for them to come and to talk to them. There are a lot of other missionaries going to the other missions in Japan though so my zone is pretty big. We have gym time too which is neat. There are so many different things to do, but I love sand volleyball the best so far. It's the only time we can take off our shoes and "dive".
So I only have two minutes left to type, but I love you guys so so much. I can feel your love and support almost all the time. It feels so different, but so good to be a missionary. It's hard to explain, but I just love it. Sometimes I can feel the presence of those that are in Hokkaido waiting for me to find them and teach them. You guys are the best! Try to be missionaries in your daily lives especially with the new Salt Lake West Mission!
6/13/12 - First Day
Dear Family, My first day at the MTC went awesomely! My companion is Elder Harper and I actually was friends with his brother at USU. He is half-Japanese and really nice. I am actually understanding almost all the Japanese I've heard so far. I have met a lot of cool Elders and Sisters from all over the place. Some of them are really similar and some are different, but I know that we all have the same important purpose. The spirit is everywhere here. We sat in on some "mock teaching sessions" where everyone got to participate. My sensei is Brother Andrus and the other choros (elders) say that he is the coolest one. In my room there is one other companionship and they are really nice too. It's not as weird to be with a companion all the time as I thought it would be, especially since we both know why we are here and what we should be doing. The food is not bad at all. I didn't eat a lot today, but we'll see how I feel on other days. They have lots of fruits and veggies that are pretty good so that's awesome. Sorry that this letter is so haphazard, but it seems like a ton has happened already and it's hard to keep it organized. I'm feeling the spirit so strongly and I'm so grateful that my wonderful family and friends helped me get this far. Love, Elder Hutchinson (kanji below)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)