It snowed here! It's still just as sunny here, but the air is freezing. What's really fun, though, is watching the sun come over the mountains. About 9:00 AM, these huge beams of light start to appear in the Canyon and shine everywhere. Now that the weather has turned cool, perhaps a jacket is in order.
This week we got the new Kohai! There are a lot of people going to Tokyo. Our district has been stepping up the language, with as much SYL as possible, and special English Fasts.(No English allowed, only Japanese) Our Nihonjin teacher (Davis-Sensei) calls it an Enlgish War, or an English Military Operation in Japanese. It was a little confusing the first week, because some of the Kohai thought we were ignoring them, when we were actually just on an English Fast. I'm surprised that we know as much as we do, thinking of how little we knew on our first day.
Japanese is still going well. I can actually understand what they say in Church, and this Sunday, I had the chance to say the Sacrament prayer in Japanese.
Also, if you want to read/hear some really good missionary talks, there are two that really impressed me (I can't remember if I told you before).
1. "The Fourth Missionary" by Lawrence E. Corbridge.
2. Elder Holland's "Don't you dare go home" talk (I don't know what it's actually called)
Did I mention that every Sunday after the Fireside is movie night? We usually get to pick between Testaments, the new Joseph Smith Movie, and Legacy to go see as a district.
Also, just so you know, the shoes and socks that we bought are extremely comfortable. I've been walking around and climbing 5 flights of stairs many times a day to get to class, and they are great! That was a very, very worthwhile investment.
Also, the winter dress code is now in effect. I might just put away my short sleeve shirts and slacks for now.
Before she left, one of the Sisters in our district told us all the great places to eat and buy things in Tokyo. Supposedly, ties are very cheap there as well. Also, they have the most amazing stationary in Japan, with random, completely nonsensical english phrases on them. I'll have to get some and write my letters on it when I get there.
Only 3-4 weeks left here (I lose track). If you want, I can send some things home at the end. Everything else simply goes into the inheritance box for the Kohai in the hall. (For example any books that I don't need, but want to keep, or my notebook so you can see my notes and what I do all day here).
Thanks for sending all those pens a while ago. I think the bunch of Black-n-Blue pens you sent me will be fine, though. I have enough to last me the rest of the MTC and a couple months in Japan.
If my letters seem kind of disjointed, it's because:
1. Learning Japanese is kind of messing with my English Sentence Structure.
2. I write a little bit of everything during the week in my Journal, and compile it into a big blob on Tuesdays.
Thanks again for the abundance of letters and packages. Madison's devotionals are always fun, the class loved the little sticky tumbling men (Adam fell that man might be...) It's also amusing that the letters Mom sends me are very very similar to the letters Elder Draney's mom sends him. We also managed to make a few Hiragana out of the twisty baloons, I think I took a picture of one.
Thanks again!
-Elder Mumford
-Tokyo, JAPAN!
