Matrix in the MTC!

What did your companion do to deserve this?

In the MTC it seems that special powers are awarded to the faithful! 

How awesome is that? Saluting the American flag at the Provo Temple and looking at the Wasatch front! What a gorgeus view and a missionary that loves the Lord, his country, nature and of course his family and friends! We love you Elder Rahn! Keep up the good work!

Here is a much better picture of that first edition Book of Mormon under glass in the MTC lobby.

Looks like he is really alert and learning! :) He says it is by far the hardest thing that he has ever tried to learn. (Japanese) He is actually doing well, because of the help from the Spirit. He truly feels it and loves how amazing it is to experience the "gift of tongues" in this way. What a great blessing it all has been!

Elder Rahn has been learning and sharing so much of his feelings in his letters. Truly treasures for us as parents! What would you do to have your children grow up and have testimonies of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father and know that they can have the Holy Ghost with them as long as they are doing what is right? To be worthy and willing to spend 2 years of their lives in full time service of their Redeemer and thrilled to do it!  There isn't any greater joy than watching your children walk in truth and want to share it with others because they truly love them.

One of Elder Rahns best friends, Elder Trebas, has been in the Phillipines now for a month, but they did get to be in the MTC at the same time for about 10 days and saw eachother a little bit. Here they are at the famous world map pointing to their destinations. They are far from home, but sort of near eachother! Elder Trebas has sent some great pictures of his experiences thus far. Great to be able to support one another in the most important things in life like building th Savior's kingdom on this earth!

Elder Rahn and Elder Sjavic know how to have a sense of humor and keep smiling! That is a good talent to have when you are with 9 other guys 24/7 and studying Japanese now 9 hours a day. Check out their weekly schedule! Good thing for that happy sense of humor, too! They are air bikeriding! :) It is so great to hear about his experiences of working together and struggling  through with a pretty positive attitude and really making it good. We couldn't be happier, even though we surely do miss him. He had to have substitute teachers (sensai) because they were gettig sick, also. He and his district are alittle behind in the language than they would like to be because of this, so they are really pushing now. Keep up the good work!

Logan is right in the middle! I should have made it a bigger shot. A lot of power there!

Logan is loving being Rahn Chorro!  That is like Rahn Elder in Japanese! He loved entering the MTC and getting his "Dork" dot. That was an orange dot on his name tag. As you can see, it is gone now. (They file it after the first day. :)) He has his Preparation Day on Tuesdays. He does laundry and writes letters and he actually gets 30 minutes on the computer for emailing. It is timed and they have to finish or it is lost. He usually goes to the temple on Tuesday also. We love Tuesdays for emails and Fridays for regular letters. He has 10 guys in his district. 8 are going to Kobe and 2 are going to Sendai.  They know how to work hard and play hard when they have their PE time and in between. 

I couldn't figure out how to turn the photo of the Book of Mormon, so I will have to ask my blogging coach, Kate! Logan has spent some of the last couple of weeks quarantined with other Elders because of the swine flu! They even had to stop the parents from the traditional coming in and saying goodbye to their missionaries. They just had to leave them at the curb! We got to enjoy the grounds out front and have the little film and goodbye's!  We took a picture in front of the Japanese flag as a family. It was bittersweet! We also went to the Provo River for a little while right before the MTC because that was a special place for us to take Logan the year we lived there and his Dad was attending BYU.  

It is amazing that it has been 6 1/2weeks since Elder (Logan) Rahn entered the MTC. In some ways it seems like 6 1/2 months. It is awesome to see the happiness that he has experienced as his testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ has grown tremendously. His weekly emails and letters are full of the Spirit and his wonderful way of sharing thoughts with us. We went into the MTC the night before he reported and he started to really get excited when we walked in there. They had the nicest sister at the desk. There was also a first edition copy of the Book of Mormon under glass. That was really neat.

Family's the Best!

We had such a fun time taking family pictures at Woodward Park

12 days later!

It has already been almost 2 weeks since Logan, I mean Elder Rahn, entered the MTC. (Missionary Training Center.) We received our first letter and fist email on Tuesday of last week, because we were on our yearly Key West trip and our friend had to red us his letter and about 20 minutes later his email arrived. What a treat to hear his enthusiasm and experiences.That was a long 6 days!

He says that his first companion is Elder Sjavick from Washington. He has 10 missionaries in his branch; 8 going to Kobe and 2 to Sendai. They are learning Japanese 8 hours a day and he says it is crazy how they do it, but it works! Language by immersion!

Eldeer Rahn said that during his PE time he is running and playing baseball! He used to love baseball but gave it up completely a few years ago and he says that he still has his "awesome" skills! :)

Tomorrow we should hear from him on his laundry time. He gets exactly 30 minutes to email. If he doesn't send it in time, the whole thing is lost because it automatically shuts off. 

His friend Preston, I mean Elder Trebas, left the MTC today for the Phillippines San Pablo mission. That is exciting!

His other friend, Andrew, I mean Elder Sorensen, has been in Georgia for about 3 weeks and is having great success there. Really great to hear!

We miss Logan, but we are loving our Elder Rahn immensely! Pictures soon!

This is Elder Rahn's Mom. 

I am just going to quickly update his blog for him. 

He entered the MTC today and it was a great experience. He was really excited after we took a quick look at the MTC the night before. Then when we got there, he was even more excited that it was finally here and the wait was over. We even saw Elder Dubin from our old Moorpark ward as he passed by us.

It definitely was tough saying the last goodbye and getting one last hug, but it was also very good and such a sweet feeling of peace knowing that he is doing what he wants to do and has covenanted with the Lord to do. 

For all of you that told him that I would be the worst one with my crying there, you were wrong! I did my usual. There were tears flowing but no blubbering or anything! Yeah! 

We all miss him already, but this is what we have hoped for all of his life. That he would be willing and worthy and have a strong testimony of the gospel and want to share it with others. He has worked hard and made the good choices that he has needed to so that this day would come! He hopes that you will all write to him. His address is:

Elder Logan Rahn

MTC Mailbox # 183 

JPN_KOB 0720

2005 N 900 E.

Provo,Utah 84604-1793

You can write to him in the MTC until he leaves there on July 20th. If you use DearElder.com it will usually get there that day or the next and it is free in the MTC. 

Goodbye

Well it wasn't easy but I have said most all of my goodbyes. Today I am being set apart as a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'll be in the MTC ( Missionary Training Center ) for 2 and a half months. During that time i will be learning japanese pretty much 24/7 so hopefully by the end of my training I'll have a good understanding of the language.

I wish you all good luck on the 2 years I am away and hope that you continue to follow my blog as I serve and my mom updates it. Good-bye! I'll miss all of you! Don't be afraid to write! I want any letter I can get I'll always answer! 

Alright, so this Blogging stuff is kinda fun. So just to get up to speed after that little flash back, after I received my call the real wait began! Preston was the first of the Thunderous Three ( thats what Preston, Andrew, and I named ourselves ) to leave. before he left we had a lot of fun watching 3 seasons of the Office, going to Boomers ( a Fun Zone kinda place with Go Karts, Mini Golf, arcade games the whole shibang ), going to Laser Quest, going out to the Range, shooting off rockets, and all the other fun stuff you can do in Fresno........ok there is fun stuff to do here and if we could think of it we did it. It was a good time.

I was able to participate in Preston's setting apart, which was an awesome experience, and then we said our good-byes and he was off to the MTC ( He's actually still there and I'll most likely be able to say Hi when I get there).

Me and Preston posing with our ULTIMATE ROCKET!! 

It was about 3 feet tall and was supposed to 

shoot to about 3500 feet. But it malfunctioned 

during its 2nd launch and didn't make it.......

So after Preston left Andrew was next in line. He actually only left like 2 weeks ago. Anyways Preston and I had fun...but me and Andrew had a blast! ( sorry preston you were prolly having more fun in the MTC anyways.) We did all kinds of awesome stuff including going Sky Diving! Which was a crazy awesome experience. Andrew and Anna had already done it a nd they were like, " Common Logan you gotta try it." And I was like, " Your right I'm gonna do it."

And I did. And it was Awesome. I have a video of it but I can't figure out how to get it onto here so I can't show it to you guys.

After Sky Diving we decided to have a nice morning round of golf and then head out to Oxnard to go Sailing in the afternoon ( it was a good day for Sailing too )

Andrew having some fun riding the waves...I think.

Sam  (my Gf for those that don't know ) 

and I

And Captain Logan Ocean Explorer ( Or so I thought )

Beautiful view off the Bow of the boat

After our awesome weekend, Andrew's Family and my Family went to Utah for conference and some other things. Because we were in Utah at the time my family was able to attend Andrew's setting apart and I was able to participate in it as well. It was a very sad but cool experience to have the last of my I'll call them ( Preston and Andrew ) brother's cause they are, set apart as a missionary and enter the MTC.

So that brings us to the present day. Yesterday ( April 18th ) my dad and I had a day to just hang out and have some fun. We went to the Range and shot for a couple hours, then went to a sporting goods store and had some fun looking around and getting a couple things. It was a really fun time. So ya, I leave in 17 days and hopefully they can be as fun as the last month or so has been.

The Call

Well it has been about a Month and a half since I received my call, but i can still remember it very vividly. It came on Friday, Feb. 20th, and I decided I would wait a day after receiving it so that I could have some friends and family around when I opened. So on Saturday February 21st I opened my call. Now just as an FYI I was insanely nervous. I had absolutely no clue where i was going or what language I may have to learn. Everyone had made a guess as to where they thought I was going and the guesses ranged from New York, New York to Hungry or German, all the way over to Japan or the Pacific Islands ( of course I'll admit i was secretly hoping for Japan ) but I knew that where ever I was called was where the Lord wanted me to go. 

So I slowly cut the top off the letter and eased it out. And then quickly covered it so that I could read it line by line ( to prevent myself from cheating and reading it in my head before I read it out loud ) and *drum roll please* it read, " You have been called to labor in the Japan Kobe Mission." (just watch the video)

HOW COOL IS THAT!!! Man I almost passed out! The craziest thing was the overwhelming feeling that the Kobe Mission is where the Lord wants and needs me to be and this point in my life. Having my friends and family around was just an added bonus on an enormously spiritual experience. It was awesome to have my 2 best friends there as well.

 

Heres a picture of us with our calls.

We decided it would be cool if we all posed with the Book of Mormon in our respective languages 

( Left to Right: Andrew Sorensen, Georgia Atlanta North Mission (English) : Preston Trebas, Philippines San Pablo Mission (Tagalog): ME! Japan Kobe Mission ( Japanese)

Receiving my call was truly an amazing experience and I know there are many more to come in the next couple years.

Starting my Missionary Blog

Well I have about 2 weeks before I officially become a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been called to serve the Lord in the Japan Kobe Mission and couldn't be more excited. I have wanted to serve in Japan since I was 10 years old and almost passed out when I read my call. I report to the MTC ( Missionary Training Center ) May 6th, 2009 and should leave for Japan around July 22nd according to my Visa papers. My mission, for those of you that are not LDS, will be 2 years long and is centered around bringing others to the Knowledge of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It will also consist of much service and of course a little bit of fun.

So before I leave on my great adventure I decided I would start this Blog ( which my mom will continue after I leave ) so that I can share my experience with you my close friends and anyone else that would like to take a peak at what an LDS Mission is and what LDS Missionaries do with their best 2 years.