So this is the last email i will be sending from the MTC. Next time you hear from me it will be from TOKYO, JAPAN! HOLY FREAK! am i sooo excited! YES! am i nervous...choto but not too much. I know that I am going to struggle and not know what I am doing or saying for the first few transfers but I'm thinkin since i know that, it won't be that hard. I'm just so nervous about being able to actually form a sentence! But you know, I will learn in time and the Lord will provide a way. And sooner or later I will be able to understand and will be able to talk to everyone. I'm just so excited to actaully get there. In all honestly, I still feel like I'm coming home after this adn that I'm really not going to Japan...yet i am! Thank goodness! I'm so excited! I already love these people! They are so cute and small adn i just LOVE them!
These next few days are going to be really really emotional adn knowing me, I will be crying for the next few days. We said goodbye to our teachers which was really really sad and yes I really cried because they just become your saving grace and you just become so attached to them. I can only imagine what it will be like to say goodbye to everyone else. An emotional wreck. I love the elders that I have been with these past 12 weeks. They have become some of my best friends and I have drawn so close with them in everything. It will be so sad to say goodbye. ANd even more sad to say goodbye to Stevenson Choro. But I am like Ammon and say good bye to him with love in my heart knowing that he is going to help the people in southern japan. that we are in this work together. and how joyous will that day be when we are reunited once again and wrapped in the love of missionary work adn a love for the japanese people. I can't wait!
The MTC has been life changing. If only everyone could just come to the MTC and experience what I have. Those twelve weeks alone will equipe a person with the skills adn testimony needed to survive the rest of life. How much knowldge and a testimony I have gained of trusting in the Lord. That when ruff and rocky times come, how important it is to tie a knot in the end of your rope and hold on. And how important is prayer. The list goes on and on about the things i have gained here and how amazing the gospel is and how it really just blesses you in everything! It's so amazing! I wish the whole world knew what it could do for someone. And before this I don't think I really knew exacatly how special of a gift it was. And how blessed I have been to not have to go without it. I can't wait to see how much I will learn from the mission adn what that will teach me. Becuase if I have learned this much in 12 weeks in the MTC, i can't think about how much i will learn in 16 months in the real mission field! The joy, pain, sorrow and happiness is about to really come and I am so excited to see what the Lord has in store for me. It will be such an adventure that I know i couldn't get anywhere else. Our teachers were showing us pictures and telling us all about there missions adn it just got me so pumped! I can't wait to get out there adn meet the people that I am suppose to help and bring the gospel to. Do i feel prepared in the language...heck no. But am i ready to go heck yes!
I love you all! send letters to Japan now!
Can't wait to meet the mission president and my trainer! Pray for me!
Loves loves!
shimai
Riley's Letter
sup all,
so this week has been pretty crazy. we leave for japan in like two three days which is so crazy. i cant wait. it will be so fun. its really weird winding eveything down here. i love this place so much it feels like home. like it was one of those smc vball, byu hawaii experience where i realized how good i had and cherished every moment. so yeah the mtc has been the best. i love it so much and i will really miss it. i know that the field will be different but i know overtime i will come to feel the same way about the field and i know it will be better. change is good, change is essential and nessecary. its just the adjustment period that can be a little rough but i know that if nothing else i can look back on it and it will all be a funny story. but the good thing is is that i know that it will be more then just a funny story, the lord will be with us every step of the way and it will be an experience of a lifetime. its way cool becasue you know that no matter what happens i will remember monday and tuesday, the first days in japan for probably the rest of my life. so its cool looking ahead to those days becasue its almost like you know you are writing history in your life. its pretty sweet. but leaving is rough beacsue we had to say good bye to our precious gym time, and say good bye to our teachers who were the best people ever. i dont know if dad and cobb is still into the facebook stalking phase but just in case you guys wanted to know my teachers were kevin thurber and erika mcintyre and yeah, knock urselves out and look them up. i loved thurber sensei. he is the man. i want to be just like him as a person but more importantly as a missionary. you can just tell by the way he acts and talks that he worked so hard on his mission and was like the best missionary ever. he was and is a huge example to me so it was way cool to have class with him everyday, he is the man. and mcintyre sensei is just as bomb just in her own way, so i think i definitely got the best teachers i could ask for, they made the mtc experience way awesome. and thurber was hilarious. i totally want to hang out with him again. he is the best. so yeah, i definitely love my teachers. they are the best so its hard to leave them. but i know that the role that they leave open will be filled by my mission president and by the older missionaries in the mission, so its all good. i am also confident for the fututre because i know for a fact that god loves me. i have seen his hand in my life here at the mtc so many times. i have gone through struggles here but time after time i see the lords hand in everything. so it is way comforting to know that the lord will be with in japan, he is the same, yes i will still have struggles, probably even more but i kknow that i will continue to see his love and his hand in my life. so its all good. i am so excited. it should be the best thing ever. i really dont want to pack though, so eventually i should probably do that, probably monday morning, i am leaving the phone call thing to you guys and natalie, so if we talk i am way pumped to talk to you guys, it should be sweet. today we have an all day in field orientation which is okay, so thats why this email is so late in the day. i am a little sick but its all good, i think being sick and stuff is all mental. if you tell yourself ur not sick and if u try and act like it then u wont be, so todays meetings have not been the most pleasant to sit thorugh becasue i am not feeling to well. but nothing serious its all good. tell cobb thanks for the letter and email from grandma's house. its way fun to here from her, she is the best. tell her i love her and thats way sweet that she saw colbie. we had elder cecil o samuelson speak to us on tuesday so that was way good. anyways, i dont really know what else to say, sorry when i sit down at the computer my brain just seems to go dead.
but its super weird that my next email to u guys will be from japan. i cant believe it. so crazy, im so excited.
so since its my last email from the mtc i guess i'll talk about my expereince here before i go. everyone needs to get here. it is the best. i kinda think that its like winning a championship (but i wouldnt know how that felt but the twins would NCS Champs 2011 hollllaaaaaaa!!!!!). like you assume winning a championship is awesome and its something desireable. just like you desire to enter the mtc and serve a mission. but like winning a championship you dont know how good it actually is or feels until u actually do it. its the same thing with the mtc. you dont know how good it really is. you dont know how strong the spirit is until you are inside. someone could tell you how good it is but it really doesnt matter unless you experience it for yourself. people dont know how cool it is to put on that name tag everyday. so tell the twins and your teachers that they need to do everything they can to experience it for themselves becasue it is the absolute best. if i could choose between re living hawaii again (which by the way still in my books as one of my best life experiences ever) or re live the mtc expereince, i would pick the mtc. i loved my time here and i am confident that the field will be just as good in its own way, so i am really excited. life is good when you know of heavenly fathers love for you. its the best. you can get pumped on monday to here some mad japanese, i'll take advantage of the last time to speak to people that dont know what i am saying so it doesnt matter. but i look at learning a language as a game.its pretty fun. well i gotta go do more missionary stufff. i hope to talk to u guys on monday. i will live it up these next few days, i know how good i have had it here. thannk you so muhcfor all the support. i couldnt have odone it without u.
love elder steevenson
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