Fourth Week at the MTC

Hello,

 Well, the fourth week was pretty eventful. First of all, I was called to be the District Leader, effective Sunday, as our current District Leader, with his companion, will become our new zone leaders, as the senpai in the zone only have two more weeks.  I think it should be a fun calling and will let me serve the rest of my district and it should be a good learning experience.  Besides my calling, last week I was bestowed a Pokemon by the Pokemon master who just barely left for Nihon.  My Pokemon is Kabuto (which I looked up in the dictionary and in Japanese it means helmet) and apparently it evolves into something pretty cool but I don't know about Pokemon that much so my little brother Austin will have to look it up for me (Austin: I expect a DearElder no later than Saturday on the subject).  I told the Pokemon Master that at BYU I was majoring in Archaeology (NOT ANTHROPOLOGY BEN!!!) and then he flipped through his sticker book of Pokemon to find me the fossil Pokemon I was looking for.  So now that I have a sticker I am officially a Japanese missionary..

Another cool thing that happened this week was the MTC was hosting a new mission president's seminar where all of the soon to be mission presidents came on campus.  To train and teach them, members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and at our devotional, we had five of the Apostles!!!  Elder Nelson, Anderson, Ballard, were all there and Elder Bednar and Elder Christofferson spoke to us.  I sang in the choir like usual and we had been practicing Praise to the Man so some of us were hoping that President Monson would speak but the devotional was still really great.

Going into the devotional I had had a question in the back of my mind.  Earlier that day we had practiced giving a fifteen minute version of the first missionary discussion complete with the Baptismal invitation.  We were paired up with other people in our district that weren't our companions and were told to talk in English to practice the teaching side instead of practicing Japanese.  So I thought it would be pretty easy as I was of course, a missionary, and I thought I could handle it pretty well.  For some reason, I stunk it up.  It wasn't that I didn't know the discussion, but that instead I just didn't apply it to the person I was teaching at all and I felt like that if it was real life they might not want to hear another lesson.  So, I came into the devotional that Tuesday night with the question of how can I improve my teaching and be able to connect with people.  Like always, when we have a question and we take it to the Lord, I got my answer.  Elder Christofferson said in his talk that "greatness comes as you lose yourself" and to "ask for charity" from God and he will give it to you.  I think lately I have been focusing too much on me and not focusing enough on others.

Jesus once said that "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."  It is the great irony that if we focus on making others stronger, we ourselves will be made stronger in Christ.  I know that if we stop caring so much about what we think and how we feel and we turn outward, that Christ will in effect make us better people and we will happier now than we were before.  By having more charity, I can make my teaching strong enough to have the Spirit testify of the truth of our message and that God will bless my Japanese for it too.

 Shawn

Week Three at the MTC

Hello Everyone,

On Sunday night, the da senpai (those in our zone who are six weeks older than us) packed up and we all said goodbye.  Only two of the six elders in the zone are going to Nagoya (#futurecompanions) so saying goodbye to the others were a bit tough because I might not see them any time soon, especially the Spartan King Ollino Choro who is an Auzzie.  I was so blessed to have such good elders as my examples and they really helped me and all of my district feel at home.  They will all do great and can't wait to hear from them over in Nihon.

On a happier note, I got to talk to Eric Mika this week!  For those of you who don't know he is, he was a BYU basketball player that started for the team this year. He decided to sacrifice and take a break from basketball in order to serve the Lord and go on a mission.  I never brought up the fact that he played for BYU and it never even came up.  He was really humble though and we just talked like any other missionaries would about where we were from and where we were going and how he will be in Rome when the temple is dedicated.

Another person some of you might know that I saw here this past week was Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve.  This was my second apostle so far and knew more of what to expect this time around. Last week when Elder Cook came, in our district meeting we talked about the apostolic blessings that Elder Cook left with us.  So this time around I payed really close attention to the promises he made to us.  All of them were really cool and comforting but I think my favorite one was that he blessed us "to teach with understanding and that those we teach will understand the word and have it take root in their heart".  One of my biggest fears of being on a mission is that because of my shortcomings that I will miss an opportunity to invite someone unto Christ and fail them.  But what Elder Ballard promised us helped me remember that no matter how inadequate we feel or how incapable we are, that if we have faith and try our hardest and best, even if it a small amount, that Christ will make up the difference.  Missionary work is hard and life is in general too.  But we should always remember that Christ and our Heavenly Father are here for us and that they love us and want us to succeed.

In class this past week, we practiced giving someone an overview of Lesson One in Preach My Gospel on The Restoration of the Gospel in five minutes or less.  Before we started, our teacher asked us to think about what the main theme of the lesson was.  After we finished, we talked about how the whole lesson was really just an invitation.  An invitation to know that God is our Father in Heaven and that he loves us.  An invitation to have one's family be strengthened by the Gospel of Christ.  An invitation to learn of Christ and his teachings and to come unto him and to find out about the Restoration.  

God has restored the true church through Joseph Smith in the latter days because he is inviting us to be a part of his restored church and we wants all of his children to partake of his gospel and come unto him and be happy.  I know that the only way to truly be happy is to follow Christ and come unto him.  Over the past three weeks I have had my fair share of troubles but I have kept coming closer to Christ everyday by living it and I know that whatever troubles I may have, Christ and His Atonement will always be there for me.  I am so glad to be able to serve the Lord and be a missionary and can't wait to go to Japan and invite the Japanese people in Nagoya to come unto Christ. 

 I hope that everything is going good back at home and I will talk to you again next week.

Elder Hall

MTC District

Hall of Fame

Shout out to everyone who has deareldered and written to me in the past week like Mom and Dad, Aunt Enid and Uncle LeGrande, Shelby, and Grandma and Grandpa (the cookies were delicious by the way).  It really means a lot to me to hear from all of you and know you are supporting me!  Although I am still looking for a letter from Austin.  It must not have reached me!

We had new elders come in yesterday to the MTC so I am slowly moving up the food chain.  I am also getting my Pokemon today from one of our da senpai (the missionaries who are in the zone that have been in the MTC longer).  Everyone gets a Pokemon sticker in the zone that relates to their personality and you evolve before you leave.  I don't know much about Pokemon but it means I am growing up.  I have already said my first prayer in Elder's Quorum in Japanese so I am getting the language more and more everyday.

This past Tuesday I was able to see my first apostle I have seen since I've been here in the MTC!  Elder Cook and his wife came and gave a great devotional.  I was able to sing in the choir as we sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer to him.  It was so cool to all stand up as he entered and exited the room and see one of the Lord's special witnesses.  The best part of the devotional was when he gave us an apostolic blessing that as we lose ourselves in the work that we, our families at home, and those we serve will be blessed by our missionary service.

In our classes this past week we have been learning about the fundamentals of teaching.  At first I thought this would be really just like learning the language but it has been getting me closer to Christ and living his doctrine.  One day we were discussing the role of the Holy Ghost in our lessons and our teacher had us role play as a missionary teaching a member who was concerned about getting baptized and had a hard time deciding whether or not to be baptized.  We split off and I was assigned to teach the teacher and I was the missionary.  He started off the role play by saying that he felt like he was being pushed to be baptized.  I was trying to comfort him and answer any of his questions or help him with concerns but I just felt like I wasn't helping him.  He finally said he didn't know if he wanted to meet with the missionaries anymore.  When he said that, I didn't know how to answer, even as we had been speaking English for the whole discussion.  I stood there in silence trying to think of something to say.  A minute of what I thought was awkward silence past and I still didn't know what to say.  Then it popped into my mind to tell him that I love him and that Christ loves him and that the missionaries and Christ are always there for them.  The spirit then was so strong and I realized afterwards that those words I would have never really spoke but it was the Holy Ghost telling me to say them.  Even though it was a role play, I could still feel the love that God had for me, Clark Kyodai and my future investigators.  I finally understood the principle that we are nothing without the Spirit and that the Spirit is the one that converts people.

I have learned so much about teaching and the Spirit as well as the Savior and God's love for me and everyone.  My testimony over the past week has been strengthened by practicing good teaching methods, such as receiving revelation through the Book of Mormon, as well as through the testimony of my teachers, leaders, devotional speakers and my fellow missionaries.  The MTC is bringing me closer to Christ as I forget myself and get into the work by living his gospel for myself and continuing on the path to full and true conversion.  I know that God loves me and all of his children (that includes you!!!)  and that he has created a plan for them to get back to him.  I am doing well and hope that everyone back at home is well.  Until next week my friends!

 Love, Elder Shawn Hall

You can send me a letter via dearelder.com (free while at the MTC) or at shawn.hall@myldsmail.net....would love to hear from you!!   If you are not familiar with dearelder, it is where you can send a letter to a missionary via this website and they will take the letter, print it out, and deliver it to the missionary the same day.

Because I Have Been Given Much

I heard my first Japanese pun the other day.  We were learning the numbers and how to share a scripture and our teacher was writing numbers on the board to test us on how we are supposed to say it in Japanese.  Then he wrote 55 on the board and spoke English for one of the first times only.  "What is the speed limit in Jerusalem?  Go ju go!".  Because go ju go is Japanese for 55!  I thought it was hilarious and nearly died laughing.  Good old Clark Kyodai (Brother Clark).

Overall, life is going pretty good.  We have gym time every morning at 6:40 to 7:30 and then breakfast and we study in our classroom.  Then we go and teach our investigator which is followed by class instruction right after lunch.  After class we have more personal and companion study and then have personal time in our residence halls and then quiet time at 10:15 before we go to bed at 10:30.  It is different Sunday and Tuesday nights with devotionals (which is probably my favorite part) or P-day.  Personal time is also a highlight of the day in which I hang out with the elders in the zone.  We are pretty resourceful and we putted with a golf ball using a cane into a Pringles can!  Only one other elder got it in but I was second close, hitting the side of it.

I've seen a couple of familiar faces here at the MTC.  I saw my old co-worker from the MTC-West, Elder Tonni who just left for the Eugene Oregon Mission.  I see Sister Hannah Gibson from the stake most meal times and have said hi.  I also saw two people from my YSA ward in Provo.  I saw Brian Longhurst and my old home teacher Sam Christensen who is my Asian buddy going to Cambodia.

As far as the language goes, it is pretty tough.  Other languages have regular alphabets that you can pretty easily read as long as you learn the pronunciation, but Japanese has four different writing symbols.  Romanji which is what most of our textbooks are in is converted from Japanese symbols to the latin alphabet.  Most of the words in the dictionary or scriptures, and even hymns, are in a mixture of hiragana, katagana, and kanji which are all with symbols.  So it sometime feels like I am having to learn twice as much.  Ricks Choro, my companion, took three years of Japanese in high school so he knows a lot more and he helps me whenever I have a question.

Being bad in the language isn't the end of the world though.  The Tuesday devotional this week Elder Schwitzer of the Seventy said that "People don't care if you can conjugate every verb, people care that you care."  That really has encouraged me to not just learn the language of Japanese but also the language of the spirit.  This first week in the MTC I have been able to feel the spirit and to feel so much of God's love for me and those that surround me.  Before the devotional began this week, we sang an opening hymn entitled "Because I Have Been Given Much".  It starts out by saying "Because I have been given much I too must give".  This week we had been talking a lot about our purpose as a missionary and I think this song helped me find it.  I have been lucky enough to have been born in the true church and have lived in a family who has lived it righteously all my life.  I can never repay my debt to God or my family for giving me so many blessings in my life.  What I can do is spread the gospel to the people of Nihon (Japan).

Because I have been given the gospel, I too must spread the gospel.  I want to teach the people of Japan that there is a God in heaven who is our Father and that he loves us and wants us to succeed.  I want them to know that their Father in Heaven loves them so much that he has set a plan for us to come back to him and that our loving brother, Jesus Christ, came down to this Earth and died for us to be able to repent of our sins and become clean again.  The Lord has brought the gospel back to this Earth through the prophet Joseph Smith and in the teachings of the Book of Mormon.  We have a living prophet today that speaks for God and whom will lead us and guide us in these last days.  I can't wait to serve the people of Japan and am trying to do everything I can so that I can be ready to bring this life saving message to them.  I love the MTC and am ever so grateful that I choose to come on a mission.

 Love, 

 Elder Shawn Hall 

 shawn.hall@myldsmail.net