Thomas Harper Mission Blog: MTC Email #7

Recently, I've found I love talking in archaic language. We hadst briefly considered writing our epistle home in it, but we hath decided that we wouldst rather have all comprehend it, rather than force thou to ponder it to discern what we hath said unto thee.

So yeah, going to be normal English. XD

This week was fun. Monday is when most of the fun stuff started. On Monday, Dance chorou's companion left for Tokyo, since he already knew Japanese completely and just needed to memorize the gospel vocab, so he needed a new companion. So, long story short, Graham Chorou and I have a new companion! So the three of us are a trio, and have lots of fun messing with each other.

On Monday, I also got a package from my dad. It was full of a Japanese treat called mochi. In English, it would be called a pounded rice cake, but that's doesn't sound like what it is. It has a consistency somewhere between a gummy worm and jello. The variety I got was called daifuku mochi, which means that it was filled with some marshmallow and had some filling in addition. In this case, it was strawberry. Super tasty!

Anyway, I shared it with the rest of my district, and most of them loved it! A couple found it kinda weird, but most loved it! It was really fun, and it seems to have encouraged them to learn Japanese, as they are working harder after trying the mochi. XD

On Wednesday I got a new tie pin. It's a TIE Fighter from Star Wars. It's the spaceships that Darth Vader's side uses that have two large panels for wings and a little spherical cockpit. I thought it'd be funny to wear a TIE Fighter on my tie. :P

We have kouhai now, which are the junior missionaries. They are all super cool, and one of them is actually from Japan! He lived in the US Airbase we have there, so his Japanese is great, and the only thing left for him to learn here is the vocabulary and the lesson teaching skills.

Oh, and I bought some super glue. My iPad case broke a little bit last week. Basically, I had been fiddling with the latch and broke it by accident. So, I bought some superglue and fixed it. And in the process of doing so, just like every other time I have used superglue, managed to glue myself to the case. Thankfully, was just my finger, and I could pull it off carefully with some effort. Did lose some paint to my finger though. Meh.

And now, for WHATEVER THE HECK IT IS CALLED SCRIPTURE CORNER THING(I'd love some suggestions if anyone wants to send me some.):

This week, I finished Alma and made it to 3rd Nephi. In Helaman 14, I found some really cool tidbits. Samuel the Lamanite is prophesying to the Nephites about Christ's death, and says this:

21 Yea, at the time that he shall yield up the ghost there shall be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the earth shall shake and tremble; and the rocks which are upon the face of this earth, which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up;

22 Yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth, yea, both above the earth and beneath.

It says the rocks above and below the earth would be broken up, right? It also says in other places in the scriptures that there will be a lot more earthquakes in the latter days. Maybe there were only a couple of tectonic plates before Christ's death, and at his death, the plates were 'rent in twain', hence why there are so many today. More plates means smaller plates, which means they'll move faster and hit each other more often, causing earthquakes. Just a theory.

Another good one is this:

27 And he said unto me that while the thunder and the lightning lasted, and the tempest, that these things should be, and that darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days.

Some sort of eclipse perhaps? If a big enough comet or asteroid had a near miss with the Earth, it could cause a complete eclipse of the sun, resulting in darkness for days. There is actually an extra planet in our solar system that has a massive elliptical orbit, which is why we didn't know about it for a long time. If it passed by at the Savior's death, it would definitely be big enough to cause an eclipse of that size. Once again, just a theory.

I love trying to find out the science behind what God does. I am sure He uses science for much of what He does. If you are going to design a world, why not design it so that it does what you want it to WITHOUT needed to change it yourself every time? I mean sure, He could have just decided to make it dark, but I imagine He probably did it through some scientific bit He prepared beforehand for that purpose specifically.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for this week. Kinda busy, right?

Cya guys next week!

<DAD: When asked if he was homesick at all> Not really. College prepared me for it. Super happy we had me go there first!

<DAD: I asked him how his ribs were, how excited he was to be headed to Japan in 17 days, how recently he read is Pat Blessing, and how prepared to teach he felt>

My ribs are doing great. Still slightly ripped, although I don't feel more than a slight twinge when I sneeze, so it's only a problem when someone decides to punch me in the ribs. Which, as you might imagine, doesn't happen often here.

YES! Super excited! We are speaking a lot of Japanese, not 100%, but around 60%-ish. When I call from the airport, you'll probably hear me reflexively use Japanese. I only use the Japanese words for a lot of words now out of habit, for instance I say 'demo' instead of but, 'hai' and 'iie' instead of yes and no, and 'kamisama' instead of God. So, I apologize in advance. When I say one during the call, let me know and I'll use the English variant. :P

Ready to teach, both yes and no. The only thing I have a problem with is starting the lesson and picking a topic, but after that it's easy to write up. The entire PMG is essentially one massive collection of lessons, so look through it and the study guide for the topic and the lesson pretty much builds itself!

I actually read my patriarchal blessing recently too! And I noticed something interesting that I hadn't seen before, despite being its own paragraph and being a sentence long. As with everything else, it is predicated upon obedience, but what is says is that I'll participate in the first resurrection. That means two things. First, and probably most importantly, the celestial kingdom is attainable for me. Already figured that out, but the reassurance is nice. :) The other is that I will be around for the Second Coming. Whether in spirit or body it says not, but still cool to know!

<DAD: To his mom in response to her missing him> Same goes for you! I can't wait to get back and hug the living day lights out of you! Or more accurately, since I'll arrive home likely late at night, I'll hug the living nightlights out of you!

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Elder Harper

"Failure is simply the fuel for success"