Week One.

Konnichiwa mina san!

 

It was the best thing in the world to see my inbox full of emails from friends and family! All of the other senkyoshi (missionaries) in my district get letters all the time, every day. I was beginning to think that everyone forgot about me because I only got one from Grandma Flash! (Thanks grandma!!!) There is this thing called Dear Elder where you can write an email to a missionary and then it gets printed off that same day and delivered to me. My address is on my facebook so, WRITE ME! It is a really nice thing to get letters at the end of the day because usually our days here are hard.

 

So this is how my first week has been!

Day 1: I arrived at the MTC and was SO HAPPY. When I got dropped off at the curb I was immediately taken through a maze of people and booths collecting my items and keys and books and everyone was just so nice! Once I got my bags to my room I went to my classroom and met my district and my sensei (teacher). Kosaka Sensei was spouting out all sorts of Japanese and I immediately got overwhelmed and freaked out because I couldn't understand ANYTHING. The rest of the day was busy busy busy. I think I only had time at the end of the night to write like 1 sentence in my journal. But for the most part, my first day was good.

My second day was not good at all. It was so busy and confusing and difficult. There is always so much to do in the MTC and never enough time to do it. I was really having a hard time figuring out how to accomplish everything. We had a mini zone conference thing Thursday night and the Pres of our zone (Pres Mack) and his councilors all challenged us to do all of these things by Sunday. I agreed to complete the challenges but it gets kinda hard when you have to do like 8 things with NO time to do it. So I went to sleep not feeling very happy that day.

The 3rd day was all right but also very difficult. I had to teach my first lesson in complete Japanese. My doryo (companion) is Orr Shimai (Sister Orr). She is the best! She has a very strong personality and she did theatre which is cool because I like that kind of stuff. She also is way into healthy eating so that is SUBARASHII! (WONDERFUL!) She is from Hawaii and she is 19 years old. She has experience in Japanese so that is nice because she helps me a lot with my Nihongo (Japanese). But sometimes it also is frustrating because when we teach lessons, her and our investigator can talk forevs about stuff and I just sit there in silence with no idea what is going on. I am getting better at speaking though, and with understanding the language. My investigators name is Shuma-san and I LOVE HIM. He is the sweetest guy ever! You might think that he is a Nihonjin (japanese person) but really he is super white. He is very kind and very interested in what we have to teach him. He really wants to be a good person, so Orr Shimai and I are really trying to help him understand how to do that. Our first lesson with Shuma-san was TERRIBLE. I just sat there with wide eyes as my companion and him talked about who knows what. Every once in awhile Shuma-san would ask me a question or Orr Shimai would ask my a question and I would just give them a blank stare. I had no idea what they said or how to reply.

My fourth day here was really great though. We taught Shuma-san again and it went a lot better. I actually taught some of the lesson too! We taught him about the nature of God and how he is our Heavenly Father and that he is perfect and that we can be like him. I understood better but was still kinda lost. I can recognize nouns but I struggle with the verbs and particles. I HATE PARTICLES! I cannot figure them out! But the cool thing about our second lesson was that we could all feel the spirit. We also taught Shuma-san how to pray and asked him to pray during the lesson. In his prayer he said something like, God I don't know you, but I want to know you. Please help me know the truth. It was amazing! We challenged him to pray to know if God loves him and we also challenged him to read a scripture from Morumon Sho (the Book of Mormon). It was a good day!

The fifth day was SUNDAY! Everyone here said that all the days before Sunday are the worst, but if you just make it to sunday everything gets better. They were right! It was a good day to just ponder and learn a lot of things. All the devotionals were really good and so was relief society. In relief society we learned about faith and that we should start implementing the phrase, "but if not" in our prayers. We can ask God for things, and we should ask him, but then always make sure to say, "but if not" and then continue to remain faithful. I needed to hear that lesson. It was good for me. On Sunday evening I went to choir practice and the director is HILARIOUS. Everything he says is so funny. He does a really good job getting like 900 missionaries to pay attention and learn the music. I don't know how he does it... The song we are singing is "praise to the man". the MOTAB has sung it before and we are going to sing it tonight at devotional! I'm really really excited. After choir we had a chance to watch a film. Orr Shimai and I watched one called, "The Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar. Wow. I was told that it was a life changer and that is exactly right. Throughout my whole mission I am going to try really hard to learn more about the character of christ and then become that. In times of trial, the Character of Christ ALWAYS turns out rather than turns in like the natural man would. It is a really hard thing to explain with so little time so if you get the chance I would definitely recommend watching it or reading it.

Monday was a pretty good day too. We taught Shuma-san again but it didn't go that well... It's hard teaching lessons you don't know the words for! I had a hard time understanding this time too... I feel so useless just sitting there looking at my companion and Shuma-san as they talk. It is very very frustrating and disappointing for me.

And now here we are to today! P day! Believe it or not, P days are also extremely busy! I only get an hour on the computer so I am trying to type really fast. Sorry for my grammar mistakes...

Although I can't speak very much Nihongo, I can speak a little! I know how to pray and testify and yesterday we learned how to offer a commitment to an investigator. I am working on memorizing Hiragana (one of the alphabets). Once I get that down I can read hymns! I know the first like 10 symbol/letter things. I feel like in my district I am one of the slower learners, but maybe I just feel that way because my companion is a GENIUS.

My district is AMAZING. I love them all so much. In my district we have Jones Choro (he is the district leader and does such an amazing job at it), Poulter Choro, King Shimai, Mataoa Shimai, me, Orr Shimai, Bickle Choro, Dawson Choro, Thompson Choro, Anderson Choro, Neilson Choro, and Watanabe Choro. Watanabe, Neilson, Bickle, and Dawson are going to Saporo but everyone else is going to Sendai. Every has such a great personalities and we all love each other lots and lots! I will have to tell you rmore about them all later because they are playing a great role in who I am becoming.

More about Kosaka Sensei... his is a Nihonjin and he is the best! He is so funny and so kind to us. He is a great teacher. On one of the first days here he had us write in our Preach My Gospel, "I am a Representative of Jesus Christ. I am no longer Miranda Robertson." That had a big impact on me. I am here teaching as if I was Christ himself. I really do need to LOSE MYSELF. It is not about me at all. It is about Christ and others around me. I've found when I remember that, I teach better and love better too. Love is really important when you teach people. If they don't feel loved, then you might as well not waste your time teaching them.

The food here isn't that bad I don't think! You can make a salad or have cookies or ice cream sometimes! Or you can have whatever is for the main entree. Or you can have fruit! I usually can figure out a combination of things to stay healthy!

Speaking of health, I LOVE GYM! It makes my day always so much better. I usually run on the track and it is a great way for me to release stress and to renshu Nihongo. (practice Japanese). Yesterday my district all played sand volleyball with each other and it was so fun. Again, I love my district!

Well, I think that is all that has happened. Remember to send me letters throughout the week! It gets hard waiting a whole week to read an email!

Ten no Otosama ga mina san o ai suru to shite imasu. Morumon Sho ga shinjitsu da to shite imasu. Mitama ga shinjitsu o oshieru to akash shimasu. Kono kyokai ga shinjitsu da to shite imasu. Watashitachi wa Kamisama no kodomo. Iesu Kiristo no mina ni yotte akashimasu, Amen.

(I know Heavenly Father loves everyone. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I testify that the spirit teaches truth. I know this church is true. We are God's children. In the name of Jesus Christ I testify, Amen.)

Robertson Shimai