FIRST LETTER  GREAT NEWS

 

We got our first offical P-Day Letters from Haley !

 

Kazoku=family. That's y'all. 

 

First off, I love the MTC. Second, I miss you all and hope all is well! Third, someone please tell Macrae to email me because I don't have his email..

 

Wednesday was kind of a blur. I felt like a gross sweaty mess the whole day because I was running around all over the place. But it was GREAT! My companion is Taylor Shimai and she is from Provo. We literally walked past her house on our way to the Morris Center for Sunday dinner. She's SO quirky :) . She always has all of us laughing. She's taken like 5 years of Nihongo and just shows us all up and makes me feel stupid. But she's super helpful when I need it (which is often). Oh, dad! Tell Shawn I met his neighbor, Smith Shimai! She's in my district and lives across the street from Shawn! Her companion is Carpenter Shimai. They're both lovely gals who I quite enjoy. The rest of our district is choro tachi (Elders). And Dixie's nephew is in it! Jensen Choro. He's cool. He knows some Nihongo already and is always happy to help those of us who were preparing to teach in the wrong language (me).

 

Thursday was another blur. Everything just blurs together here. One thing I noticed this day was that EVERYONE is SO happy here at the MTC and I blame it on seirei (the Holy Ghost). It's always here and I Love it. Although, my brain is kinda like "I need a break!" sometimes. It's a lot to handle when you're not used to it. Randa! Taylor Shimai told me that my lashes looked fabulous and I was like "I could cry. That is so nice of you!" and then I had to explain to her how I'm an eyelash snob. I don't think she judged me too harshly for that. 

 

Friday. Another blur. BUT WAIT I HAVE A COOL STORY. So Hansen Kyodai (brother) is our sensi (I laugh every time some one says that) and he was teaching us our Nihongo for the day when the door to our classroom opened. So, all of the apostles and First Presidency and everyone was here last week because they were training the new mission presidents. And we were on extra lock-down. We couldn't go in certain building because of it which kinda sucked but oh well. Anywho, the door opens. And from my seat I see someones hand first, then their name tag and all I can think is "No freaking way." then I see his cute little noggin. IT WAS DALLIN H. OAKS. He just walked in and was like "Can I sit here? What are we learning?" So all of us were like "uhh... hang on, I need to get over being starstruck for a second but we're learning Nihongo." And his response? "Oh, that's too important! I can't interrupt that!" He then proceeded to stand up and shake all of our hands while introducing himself as "Brother Oaks". HOW COOL IS THAT!? The rest of the day our district was just in awe that it happened. And he didn't go to any of the other classrooms. Just ours. What a blessing! 

 

Saturday! So. We taught our second lesson in Nihongo on Saturday. I skipped the details of the first because it was awful. And I don't need to give Max anymore  ammunition to make fun of me with. The second went a little better but not by much.. I was just soooo confused when our kydosha (investigator), Moeka San, said anything. BUT I AM LEARNING AND GETTING BETTER. I also got to meet my mission president and his wife on Saturday. They are incredibly nice and I'm so excited to have them over in Nihon with me. Also, I got hit in the face with a volleyball. By my own teammate. And on Friday I tripped in the sand when I was going for the ball and full on face planted it. I've made a great first impression.

 

Sundays are crazy. I mean, every day is go go go but Sundays are just insane. Our sacrament meeting is mainly in Nihongo. That's right, you guessed it! I was confused the whole time. OH WELL. I will learn. I started trying to learn the Hiragana characters on Sunday and I have them mostly memorized buuuut there's like 3 that I can NEVER remember. And then there'f 46 more Hiragana characters that are like "adjusted" to mean different things and then I have to learn Katakana and it's "adjusted" characters. It's a little rough. Sunday devotionals are the bomb. I won't bore you with the details but they're cool. And I'm so excited for Macrae to get to go to them! After the devotional, a bunch of us Davis kids got together and took a picture but I don't have that and won't till next week because Sister (Ashley) Hale took it on her camera and she doesn't have P-day till Saturday. 

 

Monday was super duper productive. I practiced my Hiragana, we taught Moeka San, played some more volleyball, studied some more since that's like all I ever do. Yup. That about sums up Monday. 

 

Tuesday. We taught Moeka San and I understood so many words!! Like, I could figure out what she was saying because I knew most of the words in some of her sentences. Also, Taylor Shimai and I didn't really prepare a lesson for this one because we were "lets just let Moeka San ask us questions she has". And let me be the first to say, great idea on our part. The spirit was sooooooo strong. I cried. Big shock, I know. But when we were testifying of Heavenly Father's love for us, I couldn't help it. Tuesday night devotionals are also cool. Not as cool as Sunday's but still. Taylor Shimai, the shimai tachi (sisters), and the chourou tachi (elders) from our district all joined the choir. We sang "Hurrah for Isreal" and wow. When there's 904 missionaries singing it's kind of impossible not to get chills. And we always sing "Called to Serve" which is subarashi and all but I feel like I'll be sick of it by the end of 9 weeks haha but right now it's amazing to hear like 2,500 missionaries singing it.

 

I already napped today. Another big shock there. It was lovely. I miss naps. The temple is closed for cleaning so we can't go to it but we'll get to go in a couple weeks. Yup. That's about it. Nothing super cool. 

 

I'll send some pictures from my iPad in just a little! But for now I must go switch my laundry.

 

Well. Watashi wa ai shite imasu!

--Fishburn Shimai

 

P.S. "shite" is pronounced kinda like "stay". Don't mix that up. It'd be bad..