Got this email from Jarek on September 18:
Week two is down and it was better than the first week. I learned a lot more Japanese. We have two new investigators to teach. It is a lot of fun to role play and every time i feel like we get a little bit better at speaking Japanese and get a bit more confident in making our own sentences. My companion and I are trying to learn 30 words a day as well as a new grammar principle and 4-5 phrases teaching the lesson from the preach my gospel. Watashi wa watashitachi ga Iesu Kirisuto no aganai ni yotte kanzen ni nareru to shitte imasu. I know that through Christ's Atonement we can become perfect. I love learning this language as hard as I feel it is all the time, we spend 10 hours a day learning different things not just Japanese but also important things we need to have when we teach and before we teach. We had a great Sunday Devotional we learned more in depth about the Plan of Salvation, the talk was giving by the president of the sunday school of the church. It was a great talk! On the Tuesday devotional Richard G. Scott spoke to us! It was so exciting to have an apostle here to speak to us!!! He spoke on the importance of prayer. My favorite line from the talk was "Pray is a Supernal Gift" Supernal meaning godly, and knowing that prayer is a godly gift and our way to communicate with god is a great thing. I Know that when you are praying you are speaking with god not just saying words. Prayer is huge on a mission, we pray all the time and I love it!
Nothing
amazing really happened (aside from the great devotionals and always
feeling the spirit.) my companion and I get along very well we haven't
even really had any problems, we are also the cleanest people in our
room! I know its hard to believe for some people but its true, My
companion taught one of the people in our room how to roll socks
together and he was so amazed by that I was laughing so hard, I thought
that everyone knew how to do that:) That was just really funny! I am so
grateful for parents who taught me these simple things so I don't look
like a noob, and have to be taught these simple things by other people.
I'm
so glad that my companion knows what hard work is and wants to be early
and accomplish the same things that I want to. We have a guy in our
district who tries to break any rule he can that won't kick him off his
mission, I don't know if swearing is normal in Australia where he is
from, but he swears a lot and we remind him that you aren't suppose to
say those words but he doesn't really care and it really makes me mad
sometimes. He also over sleeps every morning not one day since I have
been here has he been out of bed before 6:45 and i'm not saying that is
terrible but exact obedience brings miracles and when it says arise at
6:30 and everyone else can you can do it too. He has also been "sick"
twice, and only in the morning to sleep longer, then in the afternoon he
is fine. This really makes me mad because not only is he wasting his
time, but he is also wasting he companions time who by the way is a
super hard worker and is the DL for our district. Anyway that is just me
kinda venting and telling you future missionaries what not to be. I
know that we all struggle with things, but I know we can pray to the
lord and he will help you he wants to bless you and sometimes you just
have to ask and then do your part.
Well, I love all of you guys so much, hope you guys are having fun with everything!
Elder Stevens
This was the first letter we received from Jarek after dropping him off at the MTC on September 3. This letter is dated Sept.11
I did have a good first day even though it was the
hardest day. It was really hard for me to hold back tears for the first
time in my life but i tried my best. My
daily routine is wake up at 625 pray then brush teeth. then from
640-730 we have gym time. 730-800 we have prep time for the day, then
800-830 is daily plan session with the comp, 830-1230 is personal comp
and lang, plus a little bit of just extra study. then class for 3 hours,
dinner then we teach an investigator in nihongo (japanese) we did that
on the second day. as well as study for 2 and a half hours after that.
then we leave the classroom at 930 prep for bed until 1015 and at 1015
its personal quiet time devotional. 1030 lights out. food is good enough
to eat nothing to be excited about or anything. i just copied and
pasted from dads email. that is our daily routine. I miss you guys and I
wish i was home but i know that what im doing is right and the lord
wants me doing it.
Love Stevens Choro (elder)
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In my email to Jarek, I asked him two questions to help me with my talk for the adult session Stake Conference that President Brinton asked me to give:
To answer your questions What u do think we as a family did to help you to love and want to preach the gospel? And what din you think we can do now to even better hasten the Lord's work for the younger kids? for the first Love and support in our choices and in our activities really helped me want to serve, I think that the close bond that we had and being able to hang out as a family really helped as well. And for the second question there was a quote in our tuesday devotional "remember the gospel is the greatest gift received and given! Knowing that the Lords gospel is the greatest thing that we have received and knowing that it is also the greatest gift that we can give, would really be good to know at a young age to help to hasten the work because when we want everyone to have this gift is when sharing the gospel and hasten the lords work becomes a second nature and is what we want to do all the time to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of all mankind. I love you I hope this helped you!! and I know that your talk is going to be absolutely amazing! give me the details. the first pic is of my companion he is awesome then next is of my district. Ill try to take more pictures i have more but none really that i want to send.
Love Stevens Choro
P.S.
if the dear elder isn't that expensive I would love getting those
during the week when you guys want to tell me something our have
questions so i can ponder them:)
P.S.S. I need a
pink tie for pink Wednesdays? and for the care packages just mints and
letters are the things i use and like the most! I let you know if i need
anything else hopefully not too much
