Konichiwa yo O genki desu ka? Watashi wa kazoku o ai shiteimasu. MTC ni kansha shiteimasu. Watashi to doriyo SYL mainichi desu. It has been so fun to be able to learn Nihongo while learning the language of the Spirit. Toki doki (sometimes) we will mogi (role play) in English, and it's really easy to get excited in English with words rolling off my tongue and scrambling through scriptures to help the investigator (usually my doriyo(companion)) come closer to Christ. We have been able to do between 30 and 70 new vocab words a day. So listening to our investigators is no longer a problem we are able to understand a lot of what they say and we mogi (role play) with our roommates  alot so we get the extra practice, but we still can't formulate sentences and conjugate verbs but I know that if we continue to give it our all,  the Spirit will be able to guide is with the words we need to say.

 

Yesterday we had an experience were we taught for ni ju pun (20 minutes) and we didn't skip a beat. We knew that most of it was the Spirit guiding our words. The MTC has been an awesome experience, and I can't believe I only have one more month until I get to enter JAPAN!! I am very excited, and this excitement is giving me the boost to work twice as hard to be ready.

 

Of course the hardest lesson to teach the Japanese is the Sukui no Mokuteki (Plan of Salvation), they weren't raised with a background that Ten no Otosama (Heavenly Father) exists. They believe in Buddah and that's about it. We continue to come up with new ways to convey to our investigators that our Heavenly Father loves them! Kuwahara San is so close to understanding and his excitement is unwavering. He is very close to his Book of Mormon and loves to learn more! He has actually committed to baptism and we are teaching him and helping him the best we can. He struggles right now because his entire family is Buddhist and if they see him pray they we shun him away from his family, and he really does love his family. More information on Kuwahara will come soon I hope. Watabe San on the other hand knows and believes in Jesus Christ. And when we commited him to baptism he said that he would love to be baptized again. He isn't as patient as Kuwahara San but definitely ask some intense questions, that pushes our Japanese to the sky. For example "How is Jesus, Heveanly Father's son? I don't really understand salvation can you please help me?" and many other questions that are great questions, but we didn't currently have the vocab for. We are working desperately to find answers to his questions and I know that he will accept baptism as it truly is, and not his way of believing what baptism is.

 

Ai Shitemausu yo, I am grateful to be able to be part of the Lord's servants at this time. It's been cool having so many missionaries. We are having our Tuesday devotionals in the Marriot Center. If only you could see the armies of Helaman walking from the MTC to the Marriot center. It looks absolutely amazing to see this flock of suits and ties, and the amount of sister missionaries is incredible. We split about half and half elders to sisters in our 2000 strong choir. I will continue to keep you up to date.

 

Ai Shitemasu,

Wilcox Choro

 

P.S. excuse the spelling we are writing our letters at 5am to dodge the rush for the washing machines.

 

P.S.S we are receving 1000 missionaries a week here at the MTC, how crazy is that?