The picture is left to right; Elder Cannon (Randy's MTC Companion), Randy, Sister McIntyre (Randy's Mission Presidents Daughter who is serving a mission) and Elder Mckeller (an Elder from Australia going to the same mission as Randy)
Wow, another week has gone by since Randy left for the MTC to prepare for teaching the people of Japan. Today his letter sounds so confident. He is more and more assure of himself and his ability to teach. Excitement is evident in his letter. Basically he has approximately 3 weeks left until he travels the skies to Japan. He will be able to call home from the airport and check in with us, but once he lands in Japan we will not be able to talk with him again until Mother's Day. 2 months away, but still it will feel like forever. The only time Randy will be able to talk to us will be on Mother's Day and Christmas. This year we are all planning on going to Mike and Jessica's in Reno. Wouldn't that be a wonderful surprise for Randy to be able to talk to everyone then.
He wants pictures! He would love to have people send him pictures that he can take with him. Maybe it will keep his memory fresh on what we all look like....LOL...and stick figures don't count.
His Japanese is coming along great, in fact he will probably soon start to forget English a little since basically he will be speaking Japanese for the next 2 years. I wish he could record himself speaking Japanese for us, but I guess there is no videos. That's ok, I will survive.
Ok, here is his latest letter:
Dear Mother, Father, Friends and Family.... hmmmm apparently this new email thing doesn't support the return key. Very annoying for me, because I like my paragraphs. Anyway, life is good at the MTC, I can't say much is happening because not a lot is. The only recent change is that we are now a zone of 120+ Japanese speaking Missionaries, one of the largest zones ever. O and we can shake hands again, President Smith (The MTC Mission President) told us that last Sunday during Mission Conference. Anyway, the Japanese is coming smoothly and I'm able to teach the lessons fairly well. In fact I practically taught the second lesson (Sukui no Keikaku(plan of Salvation)) on my own. My companion kind of requires a set lesson plan to follow but the "investigator" wasn't cooperating with our plans so I had to jump around quite a bit in the lesson and our lesson plan went out the window. It was a great experience though and boosted my confidence a lot. Though next time I'm going to make my companion teach most of the lesson. I'll simply tell the "investigator" Watashi wa sukoshi nihongo o hanashimasu. (I speak a little Japanase). Anyway life is good here. I was actually writing micheal, but I forgot to send the letter off, I'll rewrite him today and get off to Portola before my Day ends. I promise. Also, Gypsy I sent you a letter but apparently you couldn't recieve it, I'll send it to Mother's tonight so that you'll get it during spring break. Tell Alex to mail me, or else! then again, that threat is void because A) I'll be half way across the world in a couple weeks and B) I'm a missionary so there isn't much I can do anyway. And I should recieve my travel plans sometime next week I believe. I'm REALLY extatic(SP?) to go to Japan. I can't wait to teach the Nihonjin. By the way Japanese words will slip in all the time while I'm writing, but that's because I'm slowly forgetting how to speak english. So keep a dictionary on hand. I don't need anything else at the moment, other than the cookbook, addresses and small things. Also it would be nice if I could get some family pictures, since you know, the only pictures I have are of Hannah and Tavie, and Jean, cause she sent me a wallet sized picture a while back. By the way, since I haven't updated in so long, I have looooong been over the bronchitis and my ankle is just about fully healed, just hurts now and again when I hit it wrong. hmmmmmm what else can I talk about.... We are loosing our teacher Tsuchiya Sensei this week because we have so many Nihonjin coming in and not enough Japanese Teachers. He has possibly been the greatest person I've ever come to known, He is Supa Genki all the time and I've never seen him get down even though he takes about 16 credit hours at BYU is president of the Japanese Club at BYU works 3 Jobs and is now engaged. I wonder how in the world he does it. Tell Bobby to Pop me a Dear Elder so that I can snag is address and then I'll write to him. I just don't have that many addresses. Anyway, I love all of you, friends, Brothers, Sister, Mother, Father and everyone else. You are always in my prayers and I miss all of you. Your Missionary Son, Brother, and Friend, Elder Randall K.K. Tateishi
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