Week 01 :: MTC

Sorry, this is thick (only real ones will read the whole thing)

こんにちわ! (Konnichi wa) 

Whoa. Where do I begin. 

Being here feels like a dream, a slightly stressful, exhausting, exciting, Japanese challenging, spiritually uplifting dream. And I feel so honored and privileged to be here serving the Lord. 
So much has happened because life is busy here at the MTC, everyday we wake up 6:30 and we are grinding.

I’ve run into a lot of elders and sister I know and some of you may know, sister Tu’u and Vivian HoChing, Elder Matina, Elder Hunkin (not related to Tutehau I met him in Texas), Sister Sol Lee, Sister Leilua, my friend Yuka from BYUH (I forgot her last name) sister Bird, elder Rencher, elder Magalei, Kaylee from BYUH forgot her last name as well smh. It’s so awesome to see all these young men and women out here hastening the lords work. 

Companion/district. 
My companion is Jolley Shimai and she is from Salt Lake City, Utah. She attended Olympus high school, loves musicals, tap dancing and is a twin. She’s the cutest, my favorite memory of her is when I said to her “let’s get this bread” she didn’t know what it meant so I explained it to her and she said to me the next day “let’s get some bread” I was WEAK. Man I love her, we now say “let’s get this gluten free bread” because she and another sister in our district are both celiac. 
My district consists of 9 people total. Jolley Shimai & I, Tuaitanu & Oniki Shimai (from Kearns and South Jordan) Martinez & Sosa choro (from Washington and Orem) and the half Japanese trio Sherman, Holmes, and Lewis Choro (American fork, Idaho falls and Georgia). 6 of the people in our district are half Japanese. I’m the only quarter Japanese, and Tuaitanu and Jolley Shimai are the only non-Japanese. 

Japanese language is hard. We’ve learned how to say basic greeting, prayer, testimony and invitation phrases along with the hiragana alphabet/writing system. We are currently learning katakana alphabet and how to conjugate Ichidan and godan verbs within the SEVEN BASES and it’s crazy. I honestly had a hard time imagining myself being able speak Japanese but I have faith that if I’m obedient and diligent with studying that I will be blessed with the gift of tongues.
“Obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles.” 

Aside from studying the language and having fun, the most important thing we do here at the MTC is to learn of Christ and deepen our own conversion. We listened to this awesome talk by elder Bednar titled The Character of Christ. It was life changing. I don’t think anywhere else has access to it except for the MTC :/ the main characteristic of Christ we focused on is his ability to turn out when the natural man would turn inwards. 

For example, the atonement. Despite the way man treated Jesus Christ, he loved us so much that he suffered for our sins and felt every pain so we could become clean again and fix our mistakes so we can enjoy the blessings of exaltation. 

Something to think about: What are ways we can turn out when the natural man in us would want to turn in? 

I love you all so much, please keep the missionaries in your prayers! 

またね