Week Five.

Konnich!

Your week sounds so fun minus all the fireants. They sound like they are a really huge problem! I feel bad for Miles. That would be really sad to hear that poor boy crying from the stings. And I'm sorry that everyone else got stung too! Speaking of stings, are you getting bees anytime soon? I was telling one of the elders in my district about dad and he just thought it was so cool that dad is a beekeeper. I have been asked by the chorotachi to request a bottle of honey! :) I said only if they get their mothers to send homemade bread.

Have a fun trip mom and abby! Tell Abby good luck at college! College is THE BEST! She needs to give me her address so I can write her letters while she is going to school.

Oh hey, thanks for the family reunion letters as well. It was so good to hear from my family!

Mom, I think my teacher got mad because it is a culture thing. He is from Japan so they might just handle situations differently? I'm not sure.

Here is my update!

So I made a list of the things I want to write about so sorry if this letter is disjointed once again. I'm just going to go through the bullet points.

1. Skirts! I like the skirts I have but am realizing that the longer skirts and the pleated skirts are so my favorite! The other skirts I have are modest but almost boarderline when I sit down and it just isn't comfortable. If you ever spend some time in like a thrift store and want to send me a nice granny skirt, I would LOVE that! But I don't need them. Just a gift idea maybe!

2. Exercise pants! I really want to be exactly obedient and have decided that my exercise attire just doesn't work. I am going to use some of my emergency money to buy some bball shorts at the book store I think, but if you find some nice baggy sweatpants (I'm sure the thrift stores have all the good stuff.) you could send some too! I do have a pair of black sweatpants that I wear that work good and my bball shorts are okay but not when I'm doing crunches...

3. Kosaka Sensei once again snapped on us... but this time it was more directed to the chorotachi. He told them they need to SYL more (SYL= speak your language). This last week I really tried super hard to say everything I could in Japanese and it is crazy to see the difference it has made. I don't think I really understood what SYLing was before, but I'm starting to get it. I'm getting quicker at teaching lessons. 

4. So one sister in our district named King Shimai is a tenshi (angel). Her doryo is Mataoa Shimai and for the past few weeks Mataoa Shimai has been trying to figure out if she wants to go home or not. It has been hard on King Shimai because she has had to pick up Mataoa Shimai's slack. Orr Shimai and I have decided to sacrifice half of our study time to help King and Mataoa shimaitachi. We spend a lot of time mogi-ing (role playing) with them to help with their lessons. I'm trusting that the Lord will bless Orr Shimai and I with the gift of tongues as we serve the shimaitachi and sacrifice our own study time.

5. Guess whaaaaat! Last sunday Orr Shimai and I got called as the Sister Training Leaders of our Branch! I think that is super awesome but I also kind of hate it... I'm just freaking out because now I don't have any personal time at the end of the day to catch up on study time that I used to help King Shimai and Mataoa Shimai because now I have to do interviews everyweek! There are 25 sisters in our branch... so there is a lot to do. I literally have no time to study any Nihongo. I am trying to eat meals faster so I can have 10 or 15 minutes to myself to practice or prepare for lessons. I take flashcards with me and practice conjugating verbs while I wait in line for things like at dinner and stuff. I'm just really hoping that Heavenly Father sees my effort and just blesses me and helps me retain this information quickly so I don't have to spend too long reviewing the same thing so I can still stay up on my studies and with the class.

6. Guess what else! I'm now also the senior companion! That doesn't mean much besides I get to decided when to hold companionship inventory (which is when you just sit down and talk about what we love about each other and address any concerns and make sure we don't have contention.) Pretty easy.

7. I have good news! I made it a goal to read 10 min every day in the Morumon Sho while being at the MTC and I finally finished 1 Ne. 1:1 and it only took me a week! Ha ha ha... that is terrible. But just remember that it is in a different language with crazy characters. I'm not just reading it though, I'm translating it so I can understand what I'm reading. I feel like Joseph Smith basically. I'm working on verse 2 right now!

8. So last P Day for the Tues Night Devotional we had a very special guest teach us :) It was Elder Richard G Scott! Can you believe that?! It was so amazing. He taught us about prayer and faith. I feel like the underlying message though wast to pray with faith and then more importantly ACT on that. We live in a church of action. This gospel is a gospel of action. It is so important to do our part and show Heavenly Father that we are willing to do what he asks of us. That's when the blessings and the answers come! It was so awesome to hear him speak. The coolest thing about his talk though is that he started and ended his talk with this "With apostolic authority, I invoke a blessing on all those learning a new language that through their study and by their faith, the Lord will bless them with the gift of tongues." Um, wow! With apostolic authority! It was so amazing to hear that. The last thing he said as he was walking out of the Marriott Center and as all the missionaries were waving goodbye to him, he turned and said to us, "Be good!" Everyone laughed and just yelled, "We love you!" It was so awesome :)

9. Last P Day I got to see the new Temple film! It was SO good! I liked the changes they made. I get to go to the temple again here in about an hour. So that'll be really great!

10. So more about SYL... I have really really really really been trying hard to speak japanese all the time. It is difficult but I am trying. I can't believe I go to Nihon in like 3 weeks. I cannot hold a conversation with a Nihonjin at all. We have 4 Nihonjin sisters that are here just for a couple weeks then they will go back to Japan, but I tried to talk to them and it was just not really working out. It made me realize how.. not good I am at Japanese! But I am surely trying.

11. Bad news... I lost my glasses a few days ago. I have searched and searched and haven't found them anywhere. I check all the lost and founds on campus every day to see if anyone has turned them in but no one has! So I guess I will just be semi-blind the rest of my mission. I also lost my CTR ring... I left it at the gym last week. So now my fingers are bare. But, oh well I guess. I have a cool tan line from my ring so now I get to look at that!

Well, that's all really. This work is good, but it is hard. I had a very hard week to be honest. I spend a lot of time on my knees last week talking with my Heavenly Father. Pray for me that I will be able to accomplish everything I need to right now. I have sisters to help, and language to learn, and investigators to teach. It can get overwhelming. 

I am hoping this next week is better.

I will try to send pictures this week but if I don't have enough time to do that, I'm sorry!

I love all of you so much!

Love Robertson Shimai