June 15th

A little information about the MTC.   

There are 2 districts that came in on the 5th. One of them has 12 people (6 sisters and 6 elders) all going to Sapporo, Then the district that I'm in also has 12 people but 9 of them are giong to Sendi and 3 of us are giong to Sapporo. In my district there is 4 elders and 8 sisters. A district is the same thing as a classroom. We spend a lot of time with them! But it's all good becuase we are really close and I really love them all. It makes me kinda sad that I won't be serving with them once we all get to Japan. :(

 

   Church is the best here at the MTC!! It's so nice and relaxing! We have a lot of personal study time where we just study the scriptures and we can prepare the lessons that we'll teach next week. At 9:30 all the sisters gather to watch music and the spoken word (which is where we watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing and there's usually a spiritual message to go along with it). Then we have Relief Society all together and we have a speaker. Last week Sister Anne Clegg came and spoke to us about how our purpose as missionaries is to invite everyone to come unto Christ and that we should always expect miracle becuase they are all around us. It was a really good talk! Then we have more personal study time and around 3 we have Sacrament meeting and everyone speaks Japanese! I'm not to the point yet where I can understand what they are saying, but I can definitely feel the spirit of their message as they talk. Then we usually take a walk up to the temple then come back and have more study time <--- see lots of study time!! I also joined the choir here so we have practice and then we go to a devotional.

 

   So I've been learning Japanese now for about 10 days and it's really hard, but it's coming slowly, but surely! I think I told you about our first investigator, OnagaSan, and we taught him a few more times this week. They went good, but it's a little slow since there is so many things I want to tell him, but I just don't know how to say them in Japanese. It can be a litle frustrating at times. Best surprise ever though: OnagaSan is now our teacher! His real name is Workman Sensei, he served him mission in Japan and now he lives here in Provo. He has a wife (she's Japanese) and he showed us a picture of her and she is so pretty! And they are expecting their first child!! It was a little strange when he taught us for the fist time, but I really like him as a teacher. He'll continue to pretend to be our investigatior, but I feel like we already have a really special bond with him!

 

Love you lots! hope all is well!!

Morrison Shimai