Hazumi-mashyou

The District at the Temple.  What an inspirational sight.  Can you believe there are 53,000 of these righteous kids?

 

 

The title of my email means, "let's bounce." Haha. My Elders are obsessed with saying it. In Japanese it literally means "lets bounce something" but they don't seem to care that they're saying nonsense.

 

Konichiwa!!!!

 

I'm so excited it's Pday, mostly because we get to go to the temple today! wahoooo.

Sister Tingey and Sister Willis hard at work

 

Exciting things that have happened this week:

* My companion Sis. Willis became the new coordinating sister for our branch. The reason this is exciting is because I am the Branch coordinator, and have been required to go to all of the meetings. We were having to go on splits everytime I had a meeting which is no fun because we are basically in love, so now that she is coordinating sister we get to stay together on Sundays!

Is that a halo above Lucy's head?

 

This past Thursday I taught 2 lessons in the TRC. Usually one is exhausting enough, but my senpai (has been in the MTC longer), Sis. Goodale, asked me if I wanted to teach a full Japanese first lesson with her in the TRC. We taught some of the Japanese sisters that arrived a few weeks ago and I loved it!!!! I actually like teaching in Japanese way more than in English, weirdly enough. Its probably because when I teach in English I have all of these things swirling around in my head and no idea what to actually say, but in Japanese my vocab is so limited that I'm able to just give a concise, on the point lesson about whatever I need to without freaking out. Needless to say, I'm excited to get to Japan.

Study corner with a beautiful view of the mountains

 

Japanese is really starting to click. I finally understand how to use multiple grammar patterns to construct a sentence. For some reason it just never clicked before. I'm loving it, though, and Sis. Willis and I try to SYL (speak your language) every day.

 

I'm not leaving early! Phew. The senpai are leaving next Monday, and I didn't receive any travel plans to go with them, so that is a relief. There is another missionary in my branch who has a lot of Japanese experience (he is wayyyyyy better than me) and he basically begged our teachers not to send him out early haha. I can see why. I'm really sad the senpai are leaving, though. I have made lot of good friends, but they are all really excited to go.

If anyone knows what this says, please translate!

 

I had two amazing spiritual experiences this week. One occurred last Tuesday in the temple, and then another a few days later. The second experience was a direct answer to prayer. I always had a testimony that Heavenly Father cared about me and has answered many of my prayers, but this was seriously the most obvious, direct answer I've ever gotten and I'll never forget it. Major testimony builder!

 

I ran into Sister Gill the other day!! She works in the MTC now with missionaries who have reading disabilities. It was really fun to catch up with her!

 

It has been snowing a lot and I couldn't be happier. Sis. Willis loves the rain (ehhhhh), but I am soso sosoos happy when it snows. Mostly because for the next 15 months of my life I'll be living in the tropics sweating all day long. Sis. Willis is going to Sapporo (The frozen chosen) and she is not too happy about it. Yesterday we found this extremely giant red coat in the givaway box and I made her take it sayign she would really need it in Sapporo (knowing it was extremely hideous, hehe). We took it to our room and I made her put it on and it was the most hideous jacket of all time! haha. I'll send some pictures. It looks really awesome with her red hair.

There's always time for girl time!

 

I'm glad everyone got my letters!! I sent some pictures and I'm planning on printing some more today. I

 

I'm 1/3 of the way done at the MTC! It's funny, everyone has these theories about how time works in the MTC and it's all true. People always say, "The days feel like weeks, and the weeks feel like days," "The first 4 days are the worst, and then it gets better," and some other things. Well, it's all true.

  

Jyamatta!

 

Love, Tingey shimai