Letter from Matlock – 28 September 2010

Dear (Family in Japanese characters),
We went on 2 day splits with the zone leaders and those splits helped me in about every way possible. He revised my language study plan and basically amped it.  He pointed out that if I consistently study at least two Kanji a day, I can be fluent up to a 6^th grade level, by the end of the mission, which is basically all you need to read anything.  He also pointed out that if I find the right book I can study vocabulary that’s in line with the TOIEC test, the Japanese language proficiency test.  So basically he said do this and this and this and then be amazing at Japanese when you go home.  Heck.  Sounds good to me!  I’m terrible right now.  I have come leaps and bounds from were I’ve started but I still see this mountain towering over me.  But despite this I think my language capabilities should progress rapidly over the next few months.  I hope.
I was going through our member record book and I turned the page to find…Jackie Chan!  Apparently one of our members was good friend with Jackie when they were both younger and they would practice fighting together a lot.  And they’re still good friends! How crazy is that?
Every week we go visit an old folks home.  We were talking to an old lady and I was not paying much attention that is until a realized that the conversation was beginning to repeat itself!  I thought that was pretty amusing.  Then my companion plays this old man at Shogi or Japanese chess. The man never says a word but he destroys anyone at Shogi.  That really makes my companion frustrated.
Other interesting tidbits – while we were housing we found a reverse doorbell.  Instead of ding-dong it went dong-ding!  We rang it twice.
I also got cussed out by a drunk guy for the first time.  I also say a lady walking a 3-legged cat.  That was weird.
Oh- back to splits actually.  We worked on finding a little bit.  I got some really great ideas from him.  In fact I think finding may become more like the F-word – Fun!
Anyway,
(Elder Wyman in Japanese characters)