Phone call

 We heard from Kolton at 6:00 on Monday morning.  He called from the Salt Lake Airport before his flight to Seattle.
    He sounded great - excited but nervous to go to Japan. He said that 32 missionaries were headed to Kobe with him.  32!  Wow - that's quite a few.
     The MTC has been a bit of a struggle for him.  Kolton is, to no one's surprise, a bit of an introvert and spending every minute with his companion was one of his biggest challenges.  Not that Baldwin-choro wasn't a great guy - Kolton had nothing but great things to say about him.  But, Kolton has always liked to just have people leave him alone so that he can do his own thing.  Luckily, he was able to get past this need to be left alone and was able to really enjoy the comradarie of the other missionaries.
    Kolton has always had really high expectations for himself.  He went into the MTC expecting to be able to just study his way into being fluent.  As Andrew and his roommates know, he is a studying machine.  That kid can study like no other.  What he discovered was that he just didn't have the time to study that he wanted. He also had to learn to study in a group setting - he was so used to doing it solo.   It was hard for him to lower his own expectations to what was actually possible to pull off during his stay.
    Overall, it was a good learning and humbling experience for him but he was glad to be moving on.  The Japanese missionaries are there for nine weeks now and that is one of the longest stays.  I guess the missionaries going to Tahiti are there for nine weeks, as well, because they are learning both Tahitian and French.  I'd be curious to know if any others stay that long.
    Thanks for all of your prayers.  He has needed them and we are grateful for all of the support that so many of you have given him through prayers, letters, and packages.  We, as his parents, appreciate it and are so thankful to have you in our lives.
Jillyn