Week 10- Provo, MTC

HELLO!!!!
Ah! so I am getting so excited to leave for Japan!!! We received our flight plans last Wednesday and every day since the idea of leaving seems more and more real as we have departure meetings! So here's the schedule:

I leave the Provo MTC at 5am Monday December 6. From Salt Lake I head to Seattle for a layover, that flight is from 8:30-9:30am. We have a 3 hour layover in Seattle at 12:30 we then take a nice 16 hour flight to Tokyo JAPAN!!!!!!! and will arrive there on December 7, 4:35pm their time (yes I will be time traveling, missing a whole day!). What we've been told is that we will be allowed to somehow make contact with you in Tokyo to let you know that we've arrived safely (whether this is by email or phone, I don't know, it depends on the Mission President). So that's my schedule!

This last week is a little different too, we pack all week during the little free time we have (so mostly today) and then we go to different meetings. Last night we had a health and safety meeting, which applied to mostly S. American missionaries, but I still found really interesting. The church takes a lot of precautions and works so hard to keep us as healthy and safe as possible. Do you know they've invented a water bottle specifically for us that can purify ANY kind of water you put in it? not just filter it put purify it!!! and they've made hand sanitizer that lasts 60 hours (that's insane! but so cool!)

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the packages and letters I received. It was funny, I hadn't gotten any mail this past week and then yesterday I not only received quite a few letters but 2, TWO, packages from you all! Thank you so much! You don't realize how much it means to get letters from you!

Thanksgiving here was fantastic!!!!! Elder Holland came in the morning with his whole family and spoke to us. He bore such a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made for us. One thing that really stuck out to me was that Christ went through everything for us and through it all everyone of his friends left him. It was Him alone who bore the pain, Him alone who suffered on the cross, and Him alone who took upon the sins of the world. Even Heavenly Father left Him for a time, when he called out "Abba, Abba, why hast thou forsaken me?" So great was His agony, so great was His loneliness. Me I'm not alone, me, I have friends and you who support me so well. I'm not alone, so who am I to complain, who am I to ever feel alone, because nothing, NOTHING, we do in this life can ever compare to what our Savior had to go through. NOTHING we do will ever make up for what He went through for us. However, we can strive to lighten His burden by working to be like Him. One less sin of mine He has to carry, can help lighten His load, albeit slightly, but it will be a little bit less.

I love you all so very much!!!
Erin