ElderTylerBrower: Elder Brower's first week!!!

Wow, my first week is D O N E!! And oh boy, what a first week it has been. The second I left the car, it was like I became part of a well oiled machine! They have everything set up so that there is no question of where to go and what you are supposed to do once you walk into the MTC. They have people there guiding you through the initial things that you do and you just... let them take care of you because you have no idea what you are supposed to be doing. One of the first shockers I had was really, truly, I received 15lbs of books the second I walked in the door! Holy cow, that was overwhelming but that wasn't nearly as bad as when I walked into the classroom and not an English word was spoken to me. Luckily, words and phrases were written on the board so when my teacher was trying to talk to me she would point to what she was saying and even with that, I had no idea what she was saying! The complete immersion... i'm still not used to but I have gotten more used to the fact that my teacher(s) won't speak any English to me and that I have to really try to focus to understand them.

While on the subject, my teacher spoke to us for the first time in English yesterday and it was amazing! It was like I never heard her voice before! It really was a big deal for her to speak English even if it was for just a few sentences. She was telling us a story about her time in the MTC and how she struggled with understanding the nihongo (Japanese).

Now, my wonderful companion:

He is strait from Hamilton New Zealand and is a fantastic Choro (Elder). He is very outgoing and has a lot of friends here at the MTC because he arrived two days before us because he is an "international elder" and became friends with all of the other internationals. Like me, he loves to eat which is great and we have a good time. I have a lot to learn from him! A lot. He has a wonderful testimony and is very spiritually driven and he knows so many scriptures. It is great! "Ngatai choro, what is that one scripture that says that one thing?" And he knows it!! ha. It's great!

The Shimai and Choro in my zone and district are so great and I couldn't have asked for a better branch. I was worried about them being rather young but their testimonies are so strong and much like my senkyoshi (companion), I have a lot that I can learn from them! I have pictures that I am going to send to you today when I get a chance but... I didn't know I was going to email right now because we just started doing our laundry and we were right next to one of the labs and... I wasn't prepared i'm sorry! But I'll do my best to get some pictures your way!

MTC food *singing angels and trumpets* I think it is pretty great and oh man, it seems like we are eating all the time and you can eat all that you want and there is hardly ever the same thing served so we have options and variety and it is just wonderful!

My Nihongo is getting better! It's only been a week and I'm about where you would expect me to be with a language after studying it for an entire week with no prior knowledge. I know the hiragana characters (the characters that the japanese use for words that they use in japan), I somewhat understand basic sentence structure and my vocabulary is small but growing. It's interesting because you can't really grow your vocab without growing your grammer and vice versa so everything about the language has to grow at one slow pace! But, it is growing! The language is so cool but everything, everything about it is different from english. The sentence structure is way different, the words are crazy and a mouthful, the particles are hard to understand... just, everything is different!

Our third day, we received out first "investigator." His name is Kojima San (Mr. Kojima) and we had to teach him in japanese on our second day here; talk about overwhelming! Our books and resources are the most wonderful thing right now when you know how to say nothing! It's been a struggle because we have to teach him everyday and basically, we know nothing so it is... a unique experience every time! Sometimes it goes well and he understands our "caveman nihongo" and other times he asks us questions that we have no idea how to answer so the lesson doesn't go so well but it isn't anything that bearing a testimony won't fix! Ha. I know how to pray and testify very simply and as I said, my Nihongo is growing everyday.

Yesterday was the best day because all the new missionaries arrived and it was crazy to see how much we have grown and changed since a week ago. We walked around saying "welcome to the MTC" as if we ran the place to all the new missionaries (because they have an orange dot on their tags). We had some good laughs about it.

I'm sleeping well, i'm learning well, i'm eating VERY well, and things are wonderful here! I know that since we spend literally all day in the classroom I will learn so much in the 9 weeks that I am here. Week one is down! Only 8 more to go!

As my last note for the week, we check our mailbox twice a day. Use the dear elder website and send me mail! That is the best part of the day when something shows up! IMPORTANT! Send me email addresses in these letters because I have zero time to write and i can type so much faster! But if you send it through dear elder, I will get the letter! You all are amazing and I love you all! If I think of anything when I come back to send some pictures, i'll let you know.

Love, Brower Choro