Aloha family,
My P-day is on Tuesdays now. I can't believe Mom is in Hawaii! How fun! I just wanted to send you guys a note and hope that you are all doing well.
The Japanese is slowly but surely coming along. This week I was looking around here at the MTC and thinking about how much every missionary is someone special, and how I bet not one single missionary got here by themselves. So many people have made such a difference in my life and helped me by their example.
Something that I liked a lot that my teacher, Bishoff Sensei, told us is that, "Some of you might think you don't have enough faith to learn this language. But I would like to tell you that you being here shows that you do have faith, because faith is an action". That helped me a lot to hear. My companion helps me a lot too and we try to speak in Japanese to each other, even though I end up doing a lot of hand motions.
I love Bishoff Sensei. He is my favorite teacher but actually we have a new teacher now since most teachers are BYU students, and their semester just changed so now they have new schedules. I was sad but feel grateful he was able to teach us.
He always tells us that the most important thing is that we are standing in for Christ, and doing whatever he would do and whatever he would say if he were here. Another thing he said that I liked is to "not wait to start your ministry when you get to Japan. Start now by standing in for him"
We went to the temple on Friday and this cute little boy pointed to me and Sister Rogers when we were walking home and said "Look, Mom, missionaries!" And it made me think about what Bishoff Sensei taught us and how I don't want to wait till Japan to be a representative for Christ.
Two days ago all the "Sempai," all the oldies who just completed their 9 weeks here for the Japanese pilot program, left for Japan. I was sad to see them go, 3 of them were our roommates. Yesterday they called me down to the front office to pick up a sister, Sister Yamada, who was supposed to fly out to Nagoya yesterday but her airplane was not working so they sent her back from Salt Lake to the MTC temporarily. Her companion was going to the Tokyo mission, and had already left, so Sister Rogers and I got to adopt her as our third companion. It was a pure joy!
I LOVE sister Yamada! I cried saying goodbye to her today. Last night she blew a fuse in our room and 3 of the other rooms in the residence halls when she tried to plug in her camera charger. It was hilarious. She runs track and is very tall for a Japanese person, but she loves candy. I love that Japanese people are so curious about everything and childlike. Sister Rogers and I have a large drawer full of candy that somehow we've accumulated and Sister Yamada, I'm pretty sure, examined closely / sampled pretty much all of it.
She was such a bundle of joy! Having a Japanese companion made me so excited to go to Japan! She sat next to me during our classes and was so happy to help me translate what i wanted to say in Japanese.
During gym we played horseshoes and softball and we taught each other different words. I was trying to show her how to do cartwheels in the grass because I saw one elder who was practically a gymnast doing back flips and I tried to explain to her what gymnastics was, but then I confused her and she thought his name was "Elder Gymnast". These types of situations happen to me alot when trying to speak Japanese but it always makes for a good laugh.
Also I love my district. I think I would say: Watashitachi wa districto oishdaymasu. They are great and their testimonies are so strong.
This week I tried not to use notes in our discussions and at first it was quite terrifying because I feel like my Japanese is like a kindergartner's. But it was so amazing. I am learning alot about faith and when you demonstrate it, or just try to use the little bit that you have it seems to break off and multiply by hundreds.
One of our senseis told me that using notes holds me back so I stopped doing that and tried to "let the spirit be my notebook" and actually the lessons have never been better. I still probably sound like akindergartner, but I feel the spirit so much stronger in our lessons testify of the truth.
I love you all so much and am so grateful to be a missionary!
love
marni
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