Hey! Hey! Hey! It's a beautiful day! And I'm HALFWAY through my em tee shi experience! I can NOT believe how fast time goes here! It's already been a month. That's crazy to me.
BECCA: THANK YOU for the fabulous package!! Oh my goodness it made me so happy! And the watch is adorable. The sisters in my district go on and on about how much they want to steal it from me! Haha and now "what time is it" doesn't have to be my most used Japanese phrase! So thank you again! I love hearing about the little Jason Jr. moving around in you! I am so stinkin happy for you!
This week was a week of miracles. I'll write about a few of them, and you may read them and think it is nothing special or out of the ordinary, but to me, they were definitely miracles.
I'll begin with last Saturday. We had our second TRC experience. The first lesson we taught was just to another companionship of Elders who got here the same day we did, so they knew just as much Japanese as we did. It was pretty nice being able to go in there and teach and have us all understand the same things. Except then one of the Elders started reading a bunch of stuff that he had written down and nobody (probably him included) knew what he was saying so we just tried to move on and then he'd read something else off the paper and again, nobody knew what he was saying. Haha it was sort of a funny frustration. Our next lesson, we taught a return missionary. We decided that the best way we could invite the Spirit was by teaching and testifying about Christ, so we shared some verses in Alma 7 and asked how he felt about it and then testified. I had a sort of battle in my head because I thought I would ask him to pray to feel Christ's love, and then I thought I shouldn't ask him to do that because he is a return missionary and I'm sure his relationship with Christ is already fantastic, but then I decided to invite him anyway. When we got out of the lesson, Eddy shimai reminded me that our TRC task of the week was to invite our investigators to receive revelation through prayer. I had completely forgotten we were supposed to do that, but I did it anyway! I definitely feel that I was guided by the Spirit in the lesson. Even though it probably wouldn't have been a big deal if I didn't complete my TRC task, it was a testimony to me that the Lord knows what needs to be accomplished and He's here to help always.
Sunday: Have I mentioned that I love Sundays at the MTC? Yep, I just love Sundays at the MTC. It's just a whole bucket full of happiness and learning. Sacrament meeting gets better every week because I can understand more and more. However, last week was a little rough. BECAUSE. The musical number was Abide with Me, the same exact arrangement Sarah played for my farewell! I tried my hardest to hold in the tears, but I did not succeed. It was probably the hardest time I've had at the MTC so far. But things got better after sacrament meeting when we went on our temple walk. There is a woman from Japan who loves to wait at the temple on Sundays and talk to the Japanese missionaries. She was SO happy to see us there and for almost an hour she was asking us questions and helping us with our Japanese as we tried to answer them and then she took about 10 pictures with us and she was just so happy and nice! Again, it got me incredibly excited about my mission call.
Monday: Taylor sensei has been out of town all week, so we have had substitute senseis. On Monday, our sensei was from Tokyo, so he spoke REALLY really good Japanese! He was a fun sensei though because he taught us a lot and he had a lot of fun with throwing out jokes and saying funny stuff in Japanese. He was really excited about the missionary work and about all of us going to Japan and it made me more excited about learning the language. It was mine and Eddy shimai's turn to teach the progressing investigator, so we taught him (playing the role of one of Watabe san's friends.) It was a difficult lesson, but I feel like we learned a lot. He was just talking about how he believes god is in everything, like that a flower can be a god and the trees are all gods. He also said religion was really scary and he didn't want to be killed because of his religion. It was hard to go to the very basic of what God is and what our gospel is about. The fact that he was super difficult to understand was an obstacle as well. That lesson was probably the most realistic lesson we've had so far though, because afterward, he told us that is what 80% of the Japanese people believe about religion, and our class had a long discussion about how we can reach to the hearts of the people instead of just trying to teach doctrine.
Tuesday was a very spiritual day! In class, we did more mogi (role play). We were practicing being able to teach with the Spirit and according to the investigator's needs. As Eddy shimai and I were mogiing, it was amazing to me how much the Spirit was guiding what we were saying. It wasn't even a real lesson, we were just acting, but as we invited the Spirit to guide and testify, it did! Another testimony to me that this church is true. I learned and felt a lot during the devotional and before the devional during choir practice and after the devotional during our district testimony meeting. To sum it all up:
Wednesday: We had another substitute sensei, Reading Sensei. He was HILARIOUS! Haha he told a story about how he bought a new bike in Japan and then one night they were late so they were hurrying back and they passed a drunk man on the sidewalk and then his companion in front of him slammed his brakes and then he crashed into his companion and he was super angry because he had broken his brand new bike. Well, you may not think that was funny, but try hearing that story in Japanese with the person acting everything out with Japanese mannerisms. It was funny. We also taught Shibata san. It was another difficult lesson! We have been trying for many lessons to explain the need for repentance, but he really doesn't understand. He thinks he hasn't done anything wrong so there's no need to repent! Well last lesson I decided to go back to the basics and see what his relationship with Christ was. I tried to help him understand that as he read the Book of Mormon and prayed, he would have a stronger desire to follow Christ. I'm not sure if it sunk in well enough or not.
Thursday: A big shout out to everyone who sent me a DearElder on Wednesday or Thursday, because Thursday was the record in my district for somebody receiving the most dearelders: 11. Wahoo! And I got Becca's package on Thursday so it was just a real exciting day.
Friday: The big miracle of the day on Friday was with TALL. TALL is our language computer program thing, kind of like Rosetta stone but based off of the lessons in PMG. Well, I dread going to tall. It is not the most exciting thing in the world, and in fact, a lot of times I can barely keep my eyes open. Well Eddy shimai and I were both taking our time to get to the TALL lab when I thought about how the hour that I would spend in the lab was the Lord's hour, and it was an hour that I should be using to prepare to teach others the gospel and help them come unto Christ. So I prayed for the Lord to help me be excited and to learn a lot, and it was the BEST TALL experience by far! I did some listening exercises and I feel like I understood almost everything the native speaker was saying. Then I studied grammar and it made complete sense to me! I was excited to keep going on and on, but unfortunately dinner time came. Eddy shimai got a real great package yesterday and in it was a mini Japanese hymnbook for me! I LOVE iT! I seriously took it around with me everywhere yesterday, and for each one of our studies I made Eddy shimai sing and opening and closing hymn with me.
Every night after we do planning our district does something called the hot seat, where once person has to sit in front of the room and we all ask questions. I've learned a lot about my district! There is one Elder who reminds me almost exactly of Elder Hoover, one who reminds me so much of Elder Feil it's almost creepy, and there's an elder who is so good at video games he's made $36,000 from it. Crazy!
Dad: Do you just love being so close to work?
Mom: NO BRACES!!?? I can't wait to see a picture of that! Congrats on making it to state! That is quite the accomplishment! Just know I've been here cheering you on! There's a sister in my district who thinks you would get along so well with her mom. She's spunky and fun like you and she plays tennis (4.0). I could get my haircut here...each missionary gets one free haircut! But everybody is telling me that even though I really really want bangs, I wont want them in Japan.
Jason and Becca: Thanks for the dear elders and thanks again for the great package! Everyday I think about the great parents you are going to be. Are you going to name him Afton?
Beej and Jana: Sup Croft. Hope school and work is going well! Enjoy the swimming pool!
Tyler: Sorry to hear you've been sick. I pray for you all the time! I love you!
Sarah: Thanks for the dear elder! I love reading about your life! I'm glad you enjoyed M&S. I have fond memories of all my music camps! Did you just fall in love with your music? If you're wondering, I'm on team J Pie. I guess baby linky is alright too though if that's who you decided to be with. The elders really want to see a picture of you. You should send one.
Danny: thanks for eating all the pretzel M&Ms. Would you rather live in a land where everybody spoke a different language, and they talked all the time, or in a land where everybody spoke the same language, but they could only say 5 words a day?
Joseph: How's school? Did you get the letter I sent you? Could you read it? Did you notice that I just guessed your address and I got it right? I haven't even lived on that street since 5th grade!
Carl: Thanks again for sending me all the updates and the scriptures and stuff! I very much enjoy it! In answer to the one question of yours that I actually understood, yes, I do like my sensei. But I'm not crazy in love with him like a couple of the other sisters are.
Thanks for all your support! I just love you! The church is truer than true!
Love,
Crofts shimai
No comments:
Post a Comment