Week 3!

Konnichi wa! I hope you all are enjoying this lovely Doyobi!!

     Life at the MTC is starting to feel pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary (like a photo shoot or anything) happened this week.  That is a strange thing to say because everything we do here is completely out of the ordinary. (Like saying prayers all the time and teaching lessons in complete Japanese and dressing up every day and such...). Probably the thing that is most out of the ordinary here is the time. Everyday seems SO long and I feel like we learn SO much, but at the same time I feel like I have SO much to learn and not nearly enough time to learn it all!! Looking back at this week, I really am amazed at how much I learned. By Friday night, our whole district was pretty burnt out. We had so much information in our brains! We had just had a long lesson about "itadaketai to omoimasu" which is basically "I would like to humbly receive of the honor of you doing this" or somthing along those lines. It is what we use when we want to ask somebody to do something. Like "will you do this?" It was so complex for such a simple thing to say and my district was so confused and just when I thought my brain could not take in any more information, my sensei started teaching how to conjugate adjectives. AHH who knew adjectives could be conjugated?? Haha I love it!!!

     I suppose I will tell you a little bit about my life here at the MTC. We wake up at 5:50 and get ready and eat breakfast at 6:45 and then have personal study time. The rest of our day consists of the following:

Planning and studying to teach investigators: This week we had two investigators. We had our first lesson with Watabe san on Wednesday.  (It is actually just Taylor Sensei playing the role of Watabe san, who is somebody Taylor Sensei actually taught on his mission.) Eddy shimai is pretty much in love with Taylor Sensei so she was really nervous going into this lesson, and I was pretty nervous as well because it was our sensei acting as an investigator. Well we were praying hard to have the Spirit with us and to feel calm. It worked! It was actually a really fun lesson. We taught him just a simple overview of the gospel and asked him what his beliefs were. After some conversation, we got on the topic of baptism, so we decided we might as well include the baptismal invitation. He told us a story about how he was in California and all these people from other religions were telling him "oh get baptized" "you've gotta get baptized" and so he thought "why not?" and he got baptized and he said it was fun! Okay, he told us this story in Japanese. It is a really GOOD MOMENT when I hear a funny story in Japanese and I can understand it and I can laugh along. We were all in the lesson just laughing and enjoying ourselves. He accepted the invitation to be baptized! Except  we don't know if he really understands the importance of getting baptized into our church and what it really means, but he is getting baptized!

Our other investigator is Shibatta san. We've taught him 4 lessons so far and we're starting to get really comfortable with teaching him. In fact, in the last lesson, I decided that I did not want to be reading the lesson from notes and I just wanted to say what I knew how to say. I went in without the lesson plan all written out. I just had an idea of what we wanted him to feel and to know and to do. I had a few vocab words available, but other than that, I just spoke what I knew! It actually felt wonderful because I know the Spirit was working with me and helping me to say what Shibatta san needed to hear, and not just say what I had written down on a piece of paper. Tonight is TRC and I'm planning on doing the same thing--speaking from my heart!

Classroom instruction: Classroom instruction is still the highlight of my day. (Actually it is tied with waking up in the morning and putting on my name tag. I just love doing that!) We've been reading the Book of Mormon as a class and it is incredible how much revelation we receive. We only need to read a few verses and everybody in the class has been inspired and can talk about wonderful things we've learned. During class lately we've also been doing role playing, so the whole class will act like the investigator and the sensei will act like the missionary, or the whole class will be the missionary and the sensei will be the investigator, or we just watch the sensei teach somebody else. Anyway, I learn VALUABLE things from these role plays. It helps me know how the investigator needs to be feeling and how the missionary needs to be feeling. One time when we were watching Sensei Anderson teach another sensei acting as an investigator, we paused in the middle of it and the other sensei asked us how we thought the lesson should continue. We were all basically trying to understand what had even happened in the lesson because it was all in Japanese, and he said that we should not be focusing at all on what was being spoken. He said we were called to invite others to come unto Christ. We did not receive a mission call in the mail to speak Japanese. It was a call to bring others to Christ, and we happen to be doing it in Japanese. So he said because of our call, we have a right to revelation. He encouraged us to focus on the feeling in the room rather than what was being spoken. HOLY COW the feeling was amazing!! I really did not know very much of what was being said but I felt like I knew exactly what the investigator needed to hear and feel. Yep it was good.

Gym time: This week I started working out with Wells shimai. She is in my district and she is a gymnast for BYU. She is super fit! (Oh p.s. she has kissed more guys than my roommate K'Loni did. Yeah.) Anyway, we work out so hard and I think my muscles are getting huge. Working out feels wonderful.

Meal time: Gross. But we sit together as a zone and I love my enitre zone so we have fun! All the dai sempai are leaving on Monday for Japan!! That means I'm moving up to a sempai. I am really going to miss them! Especially my sister training leaders Anderson shimai and Culotta shimai. We have become great friends and I really look up to them! During gym time on Thursdays, they always to "Treat yourself Thursday" so they eat a bunch of food and tell stories instead of working out. Well this week we joined them for a pickle party! Yum. Haha Culotta shimai and a HUGE FAT pickle and then Shelton shimai had a jar of pickles. Also Shelton shimai has received 3 HUGE packages FULL of food!! So there was a ton of food there. It was a bunch of fun hearing all the stores.

Language study: Self explanatory. We study language. But here's my huge language mistake of the week: I was asked to say the closing prayer in class. I meant to pray for the gift of tongues, which is "igen no tamamono." Instead, I accidentally said "igen no tabemono" which is the food of tongues. I didn't realize I said this until dinner right after class when I was blessing my food and realized I was using the same word I had used in class. Well, I was embarrassed. After dinner, we went back to class again, and I was asked to give the closing prayer again! This time, I made sure I said gift of tongues. However, something about being a Crofts kicked in, and I started to laugh and I could not stop. Ahh it was so embarrassing because our entire district and our sensei were all kneeling down on the floor waiting to go study and I couldn't even finish my prayer because I was laughing so hard. I really did not want to be laughing because I knew it was not good timing, but I really could not stop laughing. Hmph.

     Well, that's the life of a sister missionary preparing to go to Japan! If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. For now, I'll just let you all know that I KNOW the church is true!! God loves us!

Love,

Crofts shimai