Week # 4 at the Missionary Training Center

Well I am still here at the MTC doing the same thing every day!! hahahahaha! Still loving it though. Well I got some stories from this past week so here we go.

   First, During my last preparation day (P-day), after I was done emailing my district. I went out to the field and we were just chillin in the shade talking, then we noticed on the other side of the field an elder had gotten hurt playing soccer and we recognized him as one of the elders from one of the other districts going to Japan. So one of the yard duty people came and helped him and we all thought he just rolled his ankle but later found out the next day that he tore his ACL and then went home a day after that. Sad story but really made me not want to ever play soccer here. The elders in my district play sometimes so I just go and run 1 or 2 miles around the field. Don’t want to be like that other elder and tear my ACL...again!

Also, this week I have seen sister Coreanne Kellogg several times and have talked to her which was nice. Also, yesterday was new missionary day and I got to see McKay McClelland, Austin McCauley, and Bria Lawrence. It was nice to see some familiar faces and I can’t wait till September when I get too see a whole bunch more!

This past Sunday was probably the best mtc devotional I have ever been to. I was holding back tears the whole time. So the mtc announced that the Nashville tribute band (lds country band) would be at our devotional and I thought they would just play one song or something, but when we got there I realized it was almost like a concert. The band just played these very spiritual Christ centered songs and in between they would talk.  It was just soo amazing and not a soul in that room was not touched by their music. It was the best!! I encourage all of you to go look them up. I don't really care for country music too much but their message was just soo good that I loved it!!

Another great experience this week was when my companion and I were teaching one of our investigators aka a teacher who pretends to be an investigator. So this was our 4th lesson with Aoyagi’s son and things were going great and then I started to testify about baptism and I felt the spirit so strong so I asked him if he would like to be baptized and he said YES, it was awesome. I continued to bear my testimony and promise him all the blessings that come from baptism and me and him were just crying, it was such a heart-warming experience. Even though my Japanese is terrible and he is already a member it was still such testimony builder to my companion and I. Love missionary work!!

Love, 

Elder Myers

This is elder Bataglia we speak Portuguese a lot cause he is from Portugal. he is going to kobe japan and was called japanese speaking, guess he wasn't cool enough to be called portuguese speaking. love him though.

My MTC District

LOVE THIS RING!!! it says segi o erabu or choose righteousness. its soo cool!

Sometimes at the end of the day you are just wiped out!

 Week 3 in the MTC!!!

This week, language wise has been very good. This week I memorized the first vision in Japanese, which is pretty cool cause if I say it fast, it sounds like I’m really fluent. I study really hard so that I can know as much as possible before I leave here. Also I’ve gotten a lot more into Portuguese this week. Before I would just talk to any elder I saw with a Portuguese name tag, and I still do that, but this week I got more serious in studying it so now I’ve been reading pmg in Portuguese everyday along with o Livro de Mormon (the Book of Mormon in portuguese) and one of my goals is to read o Livro de Mormon before I leave the MTC. So language is going good, still working on learning more characters, I almost have 2/3 of all characters down. Really loving both languages!

This week I have been doing a lot better at exercising, I do lots of push-ups and pull ups and bands every night so that has been really good. Also I have been able to actually go and lift a couple times this week because I convinced one of my roommates to start working out so me and him just go on splits in the morning and go lift and my comp and his comp go to the field. The food is still super nasty and getting really old. I still eat salad for every meal except breakfast I usually eat 4 hard-boiled eggs with some chocolate milk. 

So our whole district (at least the elders) are going through music withdrawals so this week has been super fun cause we have been attempting to make music. Sometimes its good and sometimes its not so good. We all try to make it into the showers at the same time cause that’s where the best acoustics are. We also have service twice a week and that’s where most of our music magic happens, we just bang on whatever is near and try and make a beat and me and this other elder just go for it and start singing. Its fun to sing and be funny it makes the days easier.

We have an elder in our district who is from Saint Louis, he is the one that sings with me a lot, and he hardly ever gets letters or packages and on Tuesday he was kind of down and then jokingly he said, " if I don’t get a letter tomorrow I’m going home" so I was like oh don’t worry ill pray for you tonight that you will get something tomorrow. So the next morning while everyone was eating breakfast I went back to the room with my comp and I wrote this elder a letter it was kind of a goofy letter but its okay. So then right before our district leader went to check the mail I went like 5 minutes before him and stuck the letter in the mailbox (being former district leader I new the combo). So then when he came back and was handing everyone their mail and he gave this elder my letter and he was so happy then he looked who it was from and all I wrote was Bob and that the address was somewhere in Antarctica so he was super confused so then he opened it and read it and then realized it was from me. It was super funny! Then luckily the next day he actually got a letter from family. 

The MTC is great I am learning and growing soo much. It’s the best!! 

Love,

Elder Myers

We play a lot of spike ball here!!

Japanese language is hard!!

So this week was pretty good. It always the same thing here, class all day, studies in the evening, and then sleep. All the days seem to blend together. BUTTTT this week one of my roommates almost died hahahahaha. jk jk so he got this big pimple that started to swell up and it just kept getting bigger and bigger till it looked like another brain then because it was right between his eyes one morning he woke up and his eyes were swollen so we took him to urgent care and they gave him a huge shot and told him that if he waited any longer he could have gone partially blind cause the bacteria would have spread to his eye. He is fine now he just it taking lots of pills. My comp and I along with our roommates always have lots of fun goofing around when we have breaks or at night when we are just in the dorms. Also I made some more friends with some elders going to Brazil so I talk to them a lot and I also made friends with a teacher who teaches Portuguese so we talk and stuff and I love that. I’m doing my best to not forget my Portuguese but it’s hard when I am trying to learn and speak Japanese 24/7. Also the food here is getting old. I don’t know how I am going to survive 7 more weeks with this food. I have lost 10 pounds so far. I am down to 160 now. Everyone said I would gain weight but I’ve been eating healthy so I’m not putting on weight but at the same time it has been hard for me to work out really hard here so I am losing muscle mass slowly and just getting more defined. My comp and my roommates hate working out so during gym in the morning we always go to the field and do something. So to make up for it sometimes I work out in the half hour we have at night but most of the time I am too tired at the end of the day and just want to lay down and talk to my roomies and goof around. 

   Language wise, this week was really good and really bad. On Monday my teacher made me and my comp give an on the spot lesson about gods love and about prayer...it was bad! It really made me realize that I don't know ANYTHING and that I need to work a lot harder so I started studying a lot harder cause I never wanted to embarrass myself like that again. Then on Tuesday we had trc which is when you teach member volunteers and its supposed to be like teaching members on your mission and this was our first time doing this cause we are used to teaching investigators so we treat them like they know nothing about the gospel and now we have to teach members who actually know about the gospel so that made it harder to plan a lesson for some reason. But my comp and me get there and we get this nice old lady straight from japan and a return missionary from japan and then following them we taught another lesson to another return missionary. Both lessons went well. Later on that day my teacher hands me a note and its from the members we taught and they just told us that we did a great job and that our Japanese is really good for just two weeks here and then on one of the notes there was a note just for me and it said " Elder Myers; Thank you for your testimony. It really invited the spirit and we could tell you meant it.” Then our teacher explained to us that a lot of the people who volunteer are struggling in some way weather it be with work, school, or with their testimony and so I felt super grateful that my testimony could mean something to someone especially when it is in my terrible Japanese. Also our investigator lessons are getting better and we are better able to actually converse and come up with things to say on the spot rather then read and lesson off a paper. I am studying very hard so I can speak the best that I can and understand the language. 

Love 

Elder Myers 

MTC District at the temple

Elder Myers, Elder Roubicek and Elder Fogg

Free time = Singing time

Well I survived the fist week so that's good. The first day was a little crazy but it was good. my comp is Elder Walker from Orlando Florida and he is a VERY interesting elder he is a good guy with a good heart we are just very different. I love everyone in my district they are all super cool and I mostly hangout with the elders from my district that we room with. Me and my comp room with the tri-panionship so we pretty much turned into a companionship of 5 because we are together 24/7. If you look at the pic of my district it goes (left to right) elder zollinger, elder yardley, elder Reid, elder Robins, elder wride, me, my comp elder walker; the sisters (left to right) sister oswald, sister joe, sister pickrell, and sister smith. My favorites are Elder zollinger and Elder Reid. So now for the good stuff, I got here and we had an orientation and then went to our first class and our teacher only spoke japanese so we were all super lost except for elder Robins who took japanese in high school and one year of college. Also, they gave me Portuguese name tags the first day so I asked to get jap ones too so now I have both, so sometimes I switch between Portuguese and jap just too confuse people. Everyone thinks it's super cool that I was called Portuguese but am learning jap here. So on the first night I found out that the elders two doors down from us were going to Brazil and Portugal so I went and started talking to them and found out they had been here 6 weeks and we all became good friends so every night from then on out during free time at the very end of the day I would always go and chill with them and speak lots of Portuguese. hanging out with the Portuguese elders is pretty much the only thing that kept me sane through my first week here. They were super cool and really chill but sadly they left two days ago so now I'm trying to find other Portuguese speaking elders so I can practice and luckily I have been able to find some and become friends with them too but I don't see them as often.  

 

      We study A LOT here and at times it is very hard to stay focused when you are in a tiny class for 12 hours every day but my jap is getting better and the more I learn the more excited I get. so far I have learned about one third of the characters I need to know but now I can actually write with characters , sing hymns in jap (hymn books are all in characters) , I can pray pretty well now as well, and also bear my testimony in jap. Me and my comp have been teaching an "investigator" since the second day and it has been a major struggle since our jap is terrible but because of the struggles we learned a lot. I can actually mostly understand my teacher now hahahahaha. The elders in my district and I try to speak as much jap outside the class as possible so that has really helped and of course praying day and night that the Lord will bless me to help me learn this language. 

        The MTC at times is a crazy place, especially the first couple days, but it has been good. The food here isn't too bad except for that if you don't watch yourself then you will get fat so I've pretty much made it a goal to eat 90 percent salad and fruits here. if you eat as healthy as possible here your body will be very grateful cause some of the stuff they serve here isn't too nice for your stomach hahaha. You pretty much figure out everything you need to know about the MTC by the first Sunday so after the first Sunday things calm down a lot.

        The spirit that is here is crazy and I love it.  we have had two devotionals since I got here and they were both so powerful and have helped me learn and grow so much. I have grown so much in just this first week. Being called to be district leader was an overwhelming experience but I have learned so much from it and it has humbled me so much and has taught me how I can better serve people. The MTC is overall an amazing experience and I look forward to the 8 weeks I have left here. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Love you all, 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Elder Myers

Elder Myers and Elder Walker

My MTC district

study time!