Dear Brother and Sister Williams,
We just wanted to let you know that Elder Williams arrived safely and is doing great. We are thrilled to have him in our mission. In the next few weeks we will be sending you some more information about him and the mission. Once again, thank you for lending us your wonderful son for this important work. Warm Regards, Sister Gunnerson Japan Nagoya Mission Secretary
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Konnichi wa Minasan: (Good Afternoon Everyone:) Soshite (so), this is my last week from here at the MTC and I will shortly be headed to Nippon (Japan). So here's how the my Monday is going to go. If I even fall asleep I will be waking up at 2:30 AM to be to the vans by 3:30 AM. My flight will leave at 8:45 AM and I will fly from SLC Airport all the way to Tokyo, Japan. (This changed by the time Monday rolled around - he ended up with a layover in Portland, OR) It will be a 16 hour flight (yay wooppy hooray) and then a 3 hour lay over in the Tokyo Airport till I board my final plane to Nagoya, Japan. After the quick 1 hour flight, I will be in Nagoya at around 7 pm Japan time on Tuesday, Sept 22nd. From there we will go to the mission home and receive further instruction and the next day we will all head out to our respective areas. After that I will be with my companion and will we be together for the next 12 weeks as I continue to grow as a person and in the language.
Other than that not much has happened. The days keep rolling by and I keep going so not much else to report on but its awesome. Ai shite imasu (Love) Elder Williams Konnichi wa Minasan kara MTC, So this week flew by again. The MTC just keeps getting faster and faster and I kind of want it to slow down so I can study but then again I really cant wait to get to Nihon. Its just around the corner and I will receive my new name tags and flight plans tomorrow. It really is almost time to leave the MTC. Its bitter sweet because my teachers are awesome but then again Nihon here I come. This last week is going to be jam packed full of things as we have some orientation thing that we have to do and pack and get stuff cleaned and the list goes on and on. Anyways My NIhongo is progressing as I lean more and more bunpo (grammar) and more and more conjugations, which there are a lot of. I feel pretty confident an=in my ability to teach people about the Gospel but my conversational Nihongo is chotto warui (a little bad). We had a nihongin in our class for a few hours and I realized I could talk about only a few things. Food, the gospel, and where I came from and am going. This is something that i have to work at but will probably come with time and patience. As my MTC experience draws to a close I am looking back on a fun time that had lots of good experiences and tons of funny times, but now the honto ni dendobi hajimemasu ( the real missionary work begins). When I step on to the plane I am leaving behind a safe place. A place where the main focus is learning and growing. And now I am headed into a place where I will be focused on teaching but through this I will learn as much as I can. MInasan o Ai shite imasu, Williams Choro
Konnichi wa Minasan: (Hello Everyone:)
All is well here in the MTC. So the interesting stuff started happening on Sunday this week as a new district leader (DL) was to be chosen and it was kind of narrowed down to my companionship and couple of others, except one of the others already had a calling. So it was kind of down to me and my companion. I really didn't care who my new DL was going to be, as long as it wasn't me, because I would rather focus on studying then having to go to meetings. Anyways, my companion is the new DL and he is trying to get the district onto the same page and he’s been having a bit of a struggle with that. Everyone is very independent and wants their own thing, while my companion wants to unite them behind one common goal, which is really hard. On another note, there is something called tie trading going down every Saturday and it happens in my room. I have joined in the trading, with ties that have been given to me from people, and I have gone from having ties people think are bad to some really good ties. It is definitely an interesting time of night as 20+ elders cram into one small room trying to get new ties. Tuesday was an amazing devotional by Elder and Sister Oaks. He taught very plainly and mostly from the PMG (Preach My Gospel). It was really kind of cool. He also taught us not to assume too much, and that sometimes going over something multiple times is a good thing. Yesterday we had a really good TRC (Teaching Resource Center) lesson. It was over skype, and we had this sweet old lady named Sagiri San. She was awesome. She lives in Tokyo and is in the Tokyo South Mission. We taught about “Jiai to Ai” (Charity and Love) and she seemed to thoroughly enjoy what we taught and what our message was about. This experience was crazy, as it made me realize the time difference. We sat down at our computers at 7:30 PM and we were talking with the Sagiri San, who had finished her asagohan (breakfast), at 10:30 in the morning in Japan. Well on a sad note, we lost one of our teachers because BYU started back up and he had to return back to the district he was originally with. His name is Crandall Kyodai (Brother) and he was actually companions with Nate Hill, my roommate at USU last year. He taught so much and helped us grow in our Nihongo (Japanese) and spirituality. He taught us a lot, but the teacher who stepped into this place is amazing too! Ima (now) back to a shiawase (happy) note. Our travel plans come next week, but I'm not really sure how my visa is doing because I really haven't thought about that and have been focused on other things. Hopefully all is well. Also we hosted senior missionaries and this coming Wednesday we are going to host the incoming new senkyoshi (missionaries). In closing, *Minasan o obemasu. Watashi o ai shite imasu. Watashi wa wakuwaku desu. Demo Nihon to ikimasu. Chotto kowai desu. MTC wa subarashii desu. Demo Watashi wa Nihon honto ni ikitai desu. Watashi o akashitai desu. Iesu Kirisuto no fukuin o ai shite imasu. Matsu Jitsu Seito Iesu Kirisuto Kyokai o ai shite imasu. Josefu Sumisu ga Kamisama no yogensa data to shite imasu. Monson Daikancho ga yogensha da to shite imasu. Kazoku ga ein da to shite imasu. Ai, Love, Williams Chourou Elder Williams Translation: *Remember everyone. I love you. I am excited. But me going to Japan. Little bit scary. The MTC is awesome. But I really want to go to Japan. I want to bear my testimony. I love Jesus Christ's gospel. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know Joseph Smith was God's prophet. I know Pres. Monson is a prophet. I know families are eternal. P.S. Keep me updated on all the sports accomplishments in the family and a little bit about the Spurs and Broncos when their respective seasons start, and especially when the NBA finals start. Another Week in the Books
Konnichi wa Gokazoku (Hello Family) : We are in the thick of things here at the MTC. Try to figure this next part out: Nihongo wa totemo muzukashi desu. Demo, Watashi wa Nihongo o aishitemasu. Watashi wa mainichi o hatarakimasu. Demo, watashi wa asobu koto o aishitemasu. Watashi no sensei wa totemo subarashi desu*. One of our teachers is leaving because the school year is starting up and he can't work with two districts any more. Its sad but ok. I cant wait to get in the field. Japan is so close yet so far away and I am scared to be completely immersed in Japanese culture, but at the same time I cant wait and I am super excited. Oh and if you ever begin to worry about me just remember the song "Don't you Worry Child" by Swedish House Mafia. In the chorus it says, "Don't you worry, Don't you worry child, cuz Heavens got a plan for you. So don't you worry, don't you worry child." I'm fine here. Me and a couple of the older elders/sisters (cuz I'm the second oldest in my district amongst the elders) help out all of the younger elders with homesickness, but no one has really been that home sick yet. That's Pretty much it from here in the MTC. Ai, Williams Chourou P.S. Here is the translation for the Japanese at the top: * " Japanese is really hard. But I love Japanese. I work every day. But I love to play. My teachers are extremely awesome." Hello everyone, I'm still alive and kicking but every new day here in the MTC presents new challenges and new opportunities for growth. Our teachers are awesome and every day we are learning more and more bunpo (grammar). This has helped me expand my horizon in Japanese, but for now I am working on learning around 100 conjugations and it's a bit tough but hey welcome to the life of a missionary. There have been some awesome experiences this week as my companion has convinced me to be in the choir. And this week we sang with the Nashville Tribute Band at the Sunday devotional. If you don't know who the band is it's ok neither did I, and you can look them up. It was still an awesome experience though. Then on Tuesday it was Elder Larry Echo Hawk. He had many inspiring stories that made you think about life. As we have progressed in Japanese one of our teachers, Crandal Kyodai (Brother) ,who is awesome, decided to teach us some awesome kanji (characters). These kanji are relatively common in Nippon (Japan), and have deep gospel meaning behind them. The first three we learned were Ship, Forbidden, and Naked. If you can figure out how they relate to the gospel they kind of blow your mind. Well I hope everything is awesome outside of the MTC.
Love, Elder WIlliams Konnichi wa The MTC is still hard work. Our district has developed a motto, "Work Hard, Play hard." For us this means we study when its time to study and are serious when its time to work, but when its gym time we play hard. This is to mine and everyone's benefit as we have been recognized as one of the hardest working districts. We are always learning more and more and the days start to blend together and I cant seem to separate them anymore. We get up at 6:30 and go to gym at 6:40 till 7:30. Gym is an enjoyable time then we head to breakfast, then to class until lunch, and then more class after lunch all the way until dinner. Its crazy how much we study and read. Because of all the sitting I have decided to start running at least a mile every day in gym if not more and its great I'm definitely not Carnea but I'm still fast.
The Care package was nice and the b-ball hoop is much appreciated. It hangs on my closet so when I'm lying in bed I can sill shoot hoops. Now all I need to do is train the ball to come back to me and things will be much easier. I have also learned that the MTC food is not what makes you fat, but the candy that all the parents send. My companion had two boxes of cookies and I told him we need to get rid of some, so I just started handing them out to everyone, with his permission of course, and I still couldn't get rid of even one box. Besides my running in gym time our district has decided to pick up playing volleyball together at least twice a week. Its lots of fun and a couple of the shimai (sisters) played in high school. As of yesterday, all the missionaries that came in on the same day, are now considered senpai, or senior missionaries. This is great as we want to help the cohai, younger missionaries, do the best that they can. Well that's pretty much all that's going on here in the MTC. Love Williams Choro |
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July 2017
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