Email #4 sent from Provo MTC Thursday, Novemver 13, 2014

Hello Family and Friends!

This week, i'll have been in the MTC for a whole month! Wild. The blog is up! So exciting. Just a couple of things to fix. The formatting on the last post is really weird, maybe dad could fix it? And the picture at the temple labeled, "Elder Brown, going to South Korea." That is actually Seagle Chorro, he is going to Kobe and is in my zone. He is incredibly funny and nice. And maybe you could remove the quotes around Yuki? Sorry, but you know where I get my perfectionist genes from. Thank you so much for your letters this week and for sending the package! I haven't received it yet, but I am very much looking forward to its arrival. I don't have anything to request in the mail this week since you guys are so amazing at sending everything! Regarding the letters from other missionaries though, could you just ask the moms to send them to you? Then just copy and paste the letter into a Dear Elder so I don't use email time. It was awesome reading Cam's though! One more thing I still need is evidence that North Carolina is the BBQ capitol of the world. I am also getting my shot today for Hep A, and it is around $75. I'll try to pay with insurance info, but I have my debit card. Is the Citibank account set up? I would really love it if you would let me know so I can know if I can keep using my debit card or not. Thank you so much Betsy for the package, the Sees Candy were a huge hit with my district and so good! Also, thanks to Lisa for her letters, they are so awesome (surprisingly). Dang. I think I'm losing my sarcasm a little bit, everything just sounds mean now. Sorry Lisa, love you! The watch band brand is Triwa, you can find one on their website. It's ok if not though! It was also great getting a letter from Abbie! I'm glad that I have not been forgotten at school, and hope you will always be known as James's sister. Nope, all the ties I have I brought, our Branch Presidency doesn't want us to do tie exchanges. All the awesome ones are thanks to Bryce! I've gotten tons of compliments on them, thanks Bryce. That's super exciting about your patriarchal blessing. I read mine so often now, and it means the world to me! I miss you too! and Liza and Mom and Dad and Kuma! And that's so awesome about Quiggle! Please tell him congrats for me and that I'm super excited for him! I still haven't received a letter from Catherine or Kelsey or Bailey though (cough cough). 

It's been another awesome, great week. Our district is really getting super close and becoming good friends. I'll include some dumb stories from this week just so you still know I'm a teenage boy with lots of room to improve. A couple of weeks ago, Elder Diderickson got some pumpkin bread from his family. He said we could have some and I was talking to some people in our zone and eating some and then it was gone. I had eaten almost the whole loaf on accident! Elder Diderickson was really nice about it. His family sent a new loaf for him and while he was in the shower, I cut off all of the loaf except one slice and hid it in my closet. He thought I had eaten the whole thing again and wasn't very happy, but thought it was funny when I gave it back to him. I wrote his family a letter apologizing for eating the loaf they had sent. He's a great guy. In class, Pearhson Kyodai, one of our teachers (same guy as Yuki) loves long pieces of chalk. I do too, but I have broken two of his pieces by using them. I am no longer allowed to use his chalk, as evidenced by this picture. Once, I replaced the long piece with three short pieces so he thought I broke it. I gave it back to him. I'm a funny guy. There are a few more but they're all dumb and I don't have much time. It's nice to have a district that has the same sense of humor as me, and that has fun while working hard!

 This week has been pretty normal. I feel like I'm plateauing a little bit with learning, so I just need to focus more and work harder! I am also so tired all the time, but I'm figuring out how to work with it. Lindsey would be happy to know that I still fall asleep in class sometimes, especially during personal study. I have to get up a lot and jump around and sing Taylor Swift's, "Shake It Off" to stay awake. I'm getting better though! I did have a really neat experience this week. On Monday of last week, Pearhson Kyodai challenged us not to use our Ninja, or the book that has a bunch of pre made sentences in our lessons. So, for the past two weeks, we've been making our own sentences. We have really had the Spirit more and the lessons have been going much more smoothly! On Friday, the day after I emailed you last week, we had a lesson with Oozeki Son, and it was one of the first lessons we taught with our own sentences. During the lesson, the Spirit helped me so much, it was like He was pulling words out of my mouth that I would never have thought to use or say. It was so neat!

I need to keep working hard and being obedient to keep the Spirit and keep progressing and improving! Sometimes it's stressful because I always feel like I could work harder and be better. Vocab flashcards are hard for me, I really don't like them and it takes me a little bit to learn each one. But I'm getting there! I have also been doing choir and loving it. It's so frustrating though, I can hear that I'm not hitting the right notes but can't fix it. It's great being around such great singers though and feeling like I am too. The choir director is awesome, he's super nice and tells super great church history stories. Heavenly Father really is blessing me with the gift of tongues, along with so many other things. A great district, a wonderful companion, health, loving family and friends, patience, more humility, a strengthened testimony, discipline, a better work ethic,  more of the Spirit, an amazing Branch Presidency, and so much more! I am loving it here, working hard and working hard to work harder, and feel like I'm doing ok! I'll send some pictures after this, that's about it for the week! Love to all of you!

Calhoun Choro