Obedience Changes Everything!

MTC is good!  It really does get faster with each passing day.  These last few weeks have gone much faster than the first week alone.  So, there's that!  I've had several opportunities to teach some native Japanese people and it makes me SO pumped for the field!!  They are so kind and sweet and fun to be around.  Not to mention, reading Todd's letters makes me so excited to get down there.  It sounds like he's being insanely blessed by The Lord, I hope my experience is similar!

I do feel like an old-timer.  Its weird to talk to people who are only here for a week and to think that I've been at the MTC 4 times as long as they ever will be! d: BUT ON THE SUBJECT!  I know what I want to do when I get home.  I think.  I really want to go into the animation program still and maybe emphasize hair/particle design, then become a student director, then move on and work on movies or games.  I want to start my own company.  We'll see if these desires come true, but I think I could be really good at it (: Anyway, the reason I brought this up is because I really want to work at the MTC.  Its a nice paying job, the teachers get really nice hours because its on campus, teaching Japanese is something I LOVE and think I could be good at, and its in a spiritual environment with tons of Elders and Sisters who I would have loads of fun with.  So, while I'm doing animation, I want to work here.  That's the current plan (:

 I miss my creative outlet of drawing... I brought a sketchbook.  Don't worry, I've used it once, and even then, hardly had any time at all. d: I'm being a good missionary.  I actually gave it away to one of the sister's in my district because I don't get to use it anyway... But I'm already thinking of buying another XD

My Comp’s great!  I love him.  We're on really good terms.  We're similar in a ton of ways, but that includes the quiet and submissive bit, so we have a hard time deciding who gets to make decisions even though both of us can make split second ones with little effort.

Missionary work is not easy.  At the same time, though, I think I'll have a much easier time with it once I get out into the field and have other people to focus on and help!!

So, I had a gift of tongues experience.  One of our progressive investigators (practice investigators), Tsuboyama Shimai told us that she really wanted to get baptized, but her family might disown her if she did.  I don't know how, but I spoke the best Japanese I've ever done using words I didn't know I knew and saying just the right things.  Her and Clark Chourou were shocked by the end when we both bore our testimony.  We left the room and I just couldn't speak because the spirit was so strong in my chest.  That was a very new sensation.  I can't describe it beyond that, but Clark Chourou gave me a high five and said, "GIFT OF TONGUES BABY!"

I got to skype with Kyle Porter!  He's an incoming Elder from Lone Peak, so our teachers decided to let us help with their skype lessons to make him less afraid to come.  Kinda cool (:

Shout out to the color guard who sent me a massive, pink, pungent-old-woman-perfume-drenched Dear John letter.  Like, 6 people broke up with me.  Pretty hard stuff.  Thanks to the rest of you guardies for being true (;

But seriously, that letter was fantastic.  Elder Clark did NOT find it funny.  Especially all of the hundreds of "we should just be friends" sticky notes from Kate.  I read him a few and was laughing really hard and he asked, "Dude... are you ok?  That's not funny." I tried to explain the joke, but he just found it offensive XD

His humor is different from mine.  Some people get my humor, but...  He thinks I'm a doofus probably (;

MAMA!  I found Frozen Junior Mints under the 18M conference building!!!!!!!!  I got some just because they made me think of you.  And also, I'm in love with them now, they taste like home.

Please send me ear plugs.  Two new Elders moved in with us, Elder Pagel and Elder Johnson.  They are two of the coolest young men I've ever met.  Elder Pagel goes to the Flight Academy, which is so cool (I've actually met a couple Elders who do, and they are all SUPER cool,) and he reminds me of Carson.  He motivates me to finish my workouts in super cool ways, like, "I'll do twice as many as you do!  Don't stop now!!  Come on, make me hurt!!  30 seconds, you can do ANYTHING for 30 seconds!"  He's tight.  THAT SAID.  THEY ARE LIKE BEARS IN THE NIGHT.  It begins with Wilkenson Chourou's deep humming as he falls asleep.  Then Harolsen Chourou (bless his heart, he has a nazal infection,) begins snorting horribly, and then the two newbies begin to erupt like snotty volcanoes.  Like the ferocious 3-headed daemon from Hades's layer himself, they snort and wail and grumble, and I WAS AWAKE UNTIL 12:30.  So I tried to buy some earplugs here and what I got were a dozen cotton balls drenched in what could only have been a mixture of hand sanitizer and vegitable oil.  My hands and ears were super sticky after putting them in, and I could still hear Wilk whispering, "Hey Stout.  Hey Stout, do you hear me?" from across the room!!!  Chinain Shimai promptly threw them in the trash without thought.

But, I've gotten to sleep before 11:30 every other night... I'm getting used to it.  However, if you wouldn't mind sending a pair of standard orange ear-plugs, that would be delightful.  And send an extra pair for me to just play with, cuz I freakin love those things.

So, Swenson Shimai is the greatest teacher EVER.  But apparently she got a job at a high school as a sewing teacher just a few weeks ago, so by the time I get another letter from you, she'll be gone ): She's so funny.  She reminds me of Chelsey, but also has a super nerdy side to her and has the funniest Japanese voice.  When she screams, "ICHI, NI, SAN, STAAATO!" (One, two, three, start!) I laugh so hard.  Or when someone does something wrong and she screams, "BATSU!" or "KUIARATAME!" I'll miss her.

The theme of this week has definitely been obedience.  In our devotionals and other lessons its come up a million times.  I testify that obedience changes everything.  If you're where you're supposed to be, doing what your supposed to be doing, then you are so much happier and grow so much more.   I've seen the obedient missionaries and the disobedient missionaries and DANG, can you guess which side learns better?  And it’s not only by a little bit.  Obedient missionaries have SO MUCH more of the language down.

I finally finished D&C!  That book is so applicable to me and my fellow missionaries, but all of you as well!  It’s modern revelation.  Crazy.  Brother Hall would be proud of me!  Or not.  He never was proud of me... \:

HA!  One funny quote from Chinain Shimai, or else this wouldn't be complete.  She winked at Elder Clark and he flipped out and told her that around here that's suggestive and shouldn't do it as a missionary, then we all tried to explain the different kinds of winking.  Eventually she threw her hands up and said, "I do not understand this winking thing!!"

Hope you enjoyed the longer email!  Thanks to those of you still reading (; To those of you who aren't... I don't think I would have read an email this long either d: I wrote down key words for stories throughout the week to tell you, and that turned out to be a great idea, cuz look how much I got down!

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!  AISHTEIMASU!!

-Elder Stout

President & Sister Butler: