Switching to the Japanese District...

So its been an interesting week. Yesterday was not P-day, so today is instead. Yesterday, I went with my companions to In Field Oreintation, since they are both leaving for the mission field next week. It is a day-long seminar, and I'm going to have to go again in 2 weeks..... haha. I have a feeling the second time through won't be as interesting. haha.

So the cool news for the week is that I've had someone to practice Japanese with! A sister missionary from Japan moved into our district on Thursday, so I've been able to teach some more in Japanese, during the practices in class.

I move into the Japanese speaking branch this coming monday, and their P-day is Tuesday, so you'll all be hearing from me very shortly. haha. I'm going to have 2 companions again, and I kind of met them already, or I shook their hands anyway. I'll be joining them on their 10th week, and my 4th. It kind of feels like cheating, haha. I'm going to miss the international district though. We get reserved seating for devotionals and really good meal times (It's ironic that I mention that, since I used to hate the 4:30 dinner, haha), and we also have people from all over the world, which has been the coolest part of being in the international branch. Some of the missionaries have some really interesting stories. For example, one Elder from a country between russia and the Middle East was telling us how the branch presidents in his country are corrupted and they are giving tithing money to the government. The military was also against his serving a mission, so he kind of had to sneak out of the country to come to the MTC. Yeah, kind of a different experience than what I had.

I'm glad that I'll be able to practice Japanese more, but at the same time it's kind of lame that I'm moving out just when I got someone to practice with, who's actually a native speaker. Oh well.

Alright, I'll let you guys know how my new district is on Tuesday!

じゃあ、またねぇ！

オライリ長老

PS - I just thought I'd mention that I've seen many missionaries that I knew before I got here, such as Elder Blackley, Elder Rookstool, Elder Whitaker (been a while since I've seen him), Elder Campbell, Elder Young, and several others.  I saw Elder Rookstool just 3 hours after he arrived, and somehow we both had free time for about an hour, so I showed him some stuff around campus. It was fun. Yeah anyway that's all.