Sunday, January 12, 2014

11 Days To Go!!!!!!!

9 January 2014 MTC Provo, Utah USA

Hello everyone!

This week has been great!

Like always it has flown by. And I am so grateful!! I have 11 days left here at the MTC and then I am off to Tokyo! I should be receiving my travel plans this weekend too! That is really exciting. I'll know exactly when I am leaving and if I have my visa. My P-day has changed too. For the last two weeks I'm here it is now on Thursday. Actually, our entire schedule has changed. It's a little confusing now, and I feel like I've been thrown back to my first week - not knowing what time anything is, and showing up late for classes or things I didn't even know were happening. But it's ok...I leave in 11 days!

So this week during one of our classes we started talking about what the Nihonjin (Japanese people) think of us Americans. There were two words...any guesses???

BIG and LOUD!

Our teacher told us that going to Japan you don't experience too much culture shock. But when you come back home you experience MAJOR culture shock. You get off the plain and the American airports are overwhelmingly loud. 

Dopp Shimai and I taught an amazing lesson this week! Actually...it has been the only one this week so far! Thanks to the schedule change things have gotten a little crazy with teaching too. But, we made our one lesson count. We taught Katayama San about the atonement, and a little bit about repentance. We taught straight out of the scriptures. It was great! That is probably my new favorite way to teach. We've been doing it a lot recently and it works so well. It really invites the Spirit into our lessons and makes it easy to teach simple truths. We had been having a hard time connecting with Katayama San too. But, during this lesson I felt like we made great leaps in the right direction! My Nihongo was really great too! I said everything I wanted too, minus a sentence or two and the sentences I wanted to say, Dopp Shimai would say! IT was crazy! In a really good way. We were super connected during that lesson, and really in tune with the spirit. I loved it. We are teaching Tominaga San tonight. He wants to learn more about the atonement too. And we will probably use the same scriptures as we did with Katayama San, only some different verses and different emphases. Tominaga San really wants to develop his faith, and learn why faith in Jesus Christ is so important. Oh, we're using Alma 34. It's a pretty great chapter! (perfect for someone's scripture study tonight maybe...)

This morning we got to go to the temple. FINALLY! The temple here in Provo has been closed since we got here. It finally re-opened on the 6th. It was so nice to get to go. Everyone in my district is in a good mood now. It's great.

Since we are in our final weeks here at the MTC, we get to Skype Nihonjin (native Japanese people) during our TRC time (editor’s note: we don’t know what this stands for). I was so nervous! But it ended up being ok! The lady we taught told me I had perfect pronunciation! And she could understand what I said to her! That was a huge confidence booster!

I am so excited to go teach the people of Japan. I just love them!

As I was teaching her, I got a really great confirmation that I'm going where I'm supposed to be going. And that I'm going for the people.

Yesterday Dopp Shimai and I taught at TRC again. This time we had a man from Nagoya. He was amazing! We talked about faith and we read in Ether 12. He had amazing stories! He had to pick between college and a mission and he chose to go on a mission! And he said it was the best choice he had ever made. He is in his 70's now and still hasn’t gone back to school. One of the verses in Ether 12 talks about miracles. I felt like I should ask him if he had experienced any miracles in his life. He had! And it was an amazing story.

When he was 5, he had problems with his kidney (I think kidney failure) and they had been told he couldn't be helped. His mother had been searching for a church. She met Mormon missionaries and she took the lessons. She learned about faith and decided that she had the faith that the Lord could heal her son. So she took him home from the hospital and prayed for him and he was healed!

Such an amazing story! Miracles can happen if you just have the faith.

After our Skype lesson, we were talking to our sensei about how it went. Turns out the man we were speaking to was the Area 70! We were glad we learned that post lesson, not before!

We got our Japanese name tags this week! My last name in Japanese is mo-ri-na-ri. Which, I was told, translates into loud forest? How cool is that!!!

So here are the funny stories for the week...

Last Wednesday I woke up and had hives all over my stomach. By the end of the day they had spread to my arms and legs. The next morning I was covered! Well, I wasn't a fan so I decided I'd try to take some Benedryl  and instead of taking one pill like I usually do I decided to take two. I thought it would make my spots go away quicker. Only my spots stayed. (The next day I used essential oils and they cleared up by the day after). And the medicine had a not-so-positive-affect on me.

During lunch I suddenly became REALLY tired and I couldn't understand why. By the time I got to our classroom, I could barely keep my eyes open. All through personal study I was struggling to stay awake. Reading my scriptures became really challenging. And I may or may not have fallen asleep mid sentence... By the time class started we'd realized what I'd done; Too much medicine! Luckily our sensei found it pretty funny. And by the time I had to teach, later that night, it had worn off. Everyone got a really good laugh though. And I have learned my lesson for sure!

Later that night we got in our new Kohai (new Japan-bound  missionaries). They are a really solid bunch; 9 Elders who all have pretty awesome testimonies. Anyway, as sister training leaders, we get to do orientation for them (along with the Zone leaders). We were talking to them, telling them how to be most successful here, teaching them about the importance of companions, when one of the Elders started to have trouble with his eyes. They hurt so bad that he was tearing up and he couldn't open either one of them! Everyone was super concerned for him and no one knew what had happened. I did! He had first, wiped his glasses with the very fluffy scarf he was wearing and then chose to wipe his eyes with it as well. I'm pretty sure that he got fuzz in his eyes...and although I shouldn't laugh at his pain it was pretty funny. 

Last night during our class the term "mind blown" was used multiple times. I decided I wanted to translate it into Japanese. I want to say it ended up being "nou fukurata" demo (editor’s note: demo means “but”) the last part may be wrong. It is also brain blown not mind blown demo it works!! Anyways, I was really proud of this so I handed it over to Dopp Shimai. She couldn't figure it out and proceeded to look it up in one of our dictionaries. The translations it came up with were hilarious and she could not figure out what in the world I had written. Some of the words the dictionary suggested were puss and discharge. Needless to say we were soon laughing very, very hard – silently, since it was class time. She was so puzzled! So I finally told her. 

Our district has taken up winking at each other. It's pretty funny. What is even funnier though is when someone gets caught in the cross fire...someone who has no idea what is going on. It usually results in a very red face...or in Dopp Shimai's case- some poor elder who spent all of dinner staring at her!

Well, that is all for now!

I love you all! I love your letters and dear elders. They are greatly appreciated!


Molinari Shimai