Donuts from Home ...

First off, I have managed to make my carnation instant breakfasts last more than half of my stay here. But sadly, tomorrow I will use my last one and I will shed a tear. 

Now, down to business. 

So my poor senseitachi.. They have to deal with us 5 out of 7 days a week. And last week we decided to pull another joke on Gappmayer Shimai. So Banks Chourou had to go to the eye doctor and we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to tell Gappmayer Shimai that he was partially blind. So we did. Dahl Chourou led him into class and helped him sit down and everything. She then asked what was wrong and why he was wearing sunglasses to which he replied "my eyes are just having some problems and I can't really see so I went to the eye doctor today. So yeah, I can't see right now". And she took it exactly how we wanted her to. She proceeded to wave her hand in front of his face and everything. We also told her that Elder Holland spoke at our devotional on Tuesday. She believed that as well. So she got up to go become "Kimura Shimai" so we could teach her and as she was leaving Banks Chourou was like "Shitsumon ga arimasu (I have a question). *takes off sunglasses* did you really think I was blind this whole time?" She didn't say anything. She just kicked her chair back and left us alone to bask in our glory. When she came back she just glared at us but we thought we were pretty funny. 

Shout out to Yiff and Liza for the donuts. They were delicious!

So I'm pretty sure I told y'all that we were getting new roommates a couple weeks ago. Well, they're going to Texas and one of them has deemed Smith Shimai, Carpenter Shimai, Taylor Shimai, and I the Mormon version of Mean Girls (but in the best way possible, of course). Smith Shimai is Gretchen, Carpenter Shimai is Regina George, Taylor Shimai is Karen, and I am Caty. So there's that. It all started because she was like "sooo are you four ALWAYS together?" which we replied yes to. And here we are now (Emailing side by side like little ducks in a row).

OKAY. So basically Sunday night devotionals are the best thing to ever happen to anyone. Since Sunday was Pioneer Day, we had a special devotional. The Nashville Tribute Band came and did like a little concert for us. The choir was able to sing "back up" for them for 3 songs and it was soooooo darn cool. We sand "I Was Born", "John's Song", and "When the Son of Man (Comes Again". Seriously. So cool. And at the end, the lead singer sang us a song that he wrote about his mission and then we sang it all together. I think it's called "The Hardest Thing I've Ever Loved to Do". Probably a good 95% of the people watching were crying. SO COOL, PEOPLE. If you want some good "churchy" music. Look up those songs. I would listen to them all day if I could but then again, I'm a missionary soo... I was especially saddened that Macrae wasn't in the MTC for this devotional. He would have loved it!

Shout out to the fam for the cute card they sent me!

Quick little missionary moment: don't ever ignore a prompting. EVER. The Spirit prompts us to do little things so that he knows we can be trusted to do what we need to when he prompts us to do the big things. Okay, I'm done. Jk. I lied. Read your scriptures. Say your prayers. Now I'm done.

Our senpai got their flight plans on Friday. Which means they leave Monday and we get kohai! Wahoooo!!! So I'll get my flight plans in a couple weeks and then I'll be able to let y'all know when I'll be able to call ya when I'm at the airport. If my flight plans are similar to my senpai, I'll be flying straight to Nihon. WAHOO. That should be interesting..

SCRIPTURE TIME!! All of Alma 26 (not just because my favorite scripture is Alma 26:11-12 but because it's a great chapter). Alma 29:9, D&C 31. Yup. Those are good ones. 

Welp. I love you all. Every one of you. And Jesus loves you. And Heavenly Father loves you. 

And I love Jesus. And I love this gospel. And I love being a missionary.

Ai shite imasu!!!

--Fishburn Shimai

LOVE YOU ALL !!!!

Whitney Rigby - Haley

ONE MONTH!!

OH GOODNESS. 

OH MY.

OH ME OH MY.

One month, fam. I have been in the MTC for exactly 4 weeks. Whaaaaaaat? Crazy. This time next month I'll be preparing to leave for Japan!!!! AHHHHHH.

First off, shout out to Mama and Papa Fish for the rockin' hump week package. I love all of it. 

My brain. I think it's going to explode any minute. It always hurts from thinking so hard all the darn time. Literally. And I don't use that word lightly. Trying to translate and think in Nihongo all the time is exhausting. We did an "Eigo Fast" on Thursday which meant that we weren't allowed to use any English and oh boy. We about died. Half way through the day half of the chourou tachi were laying dead on the floor. It was rough. But it seriously helped so much! Macrae, use your Spanish in the MTC as much as you can!!!!

We learned the "soft" baptism commitment in Nihongo and JSL so basically I'm pretty cool now *hair flip*. (Not really, I forget darn particles in it all the time. Particles are the worst thing to ever happen.)

OH. OH MY. BEST THING EVER. Okay, not really but it made me so happy. We were at dinner and it wasn't one of my better days so I was a little bit upset and as I stand up to leave this cute sister from Taiwan was like "Sister! You're beautiful!" and I pretty much had to hold back tears. She was so cute! So then I asked her if she spoke Mandarin or Cantonese (because I like knowing these things) and she said Mandarin and I was like "oh, cool! My best friends family is from Hong Kong and speaks Cantonese so I was just wondering" AND THEN this cute sister next to her got so excited and was like "I'M FROM HONG KONG!!!!" So that's the story of how I made two new friends this week. Shout out to Liza Lin for her cool background helping me get friends *peace sign emoji*.

Fun fact: there were 2,350 missionaries in the MTC (idk how many there are now) and last night at the devotional, the entire gym was filled and then the overflow was filled and now we're getting more missionaries today so basically I picked the busiest time I possible could have to be in the MTC. But oh well. It's great seeing so many of them!

OKAY. Now time for the actually cool story. So. Sunday Devotionals are lowkey the best thing ever. So we all go in and then we're told that instead of having a speaker we were just going to watch the "Character of Christ" video from Elder Bednar. So we watch it and then when it got over we were all just thinking we were allowed to continue on with our Sunday's like we normally do. Oh, no. We were wrong. IN WALKED ELDER BEDNAR HIMSELF. Yes, you read that right. He decided to come surprise us and answer any questions we had about the "Character of Christ" talk he had given because they show it every Sunday night as one of the movies we can watch. HOW COOL!? 'Twas great. Macrae, watch that talk your first Sunday. I promise you won't regret it. 

One month has already come and gone. I can't get over that. I only have 17 left!!!! That seriously blows my mind. 

I think my Dear Elder is broken. Mom and dad keep telling me they sent me a letter through it but I never get them.. So maybe just stick with email haha. I'm okay being the only one knowing that I got mail. 

You know how people always say that there are angels among us to help us and all that jazz? It's true. I have two angels here at the MTC that I can see. The first is Gappmayer Shimai. She is hands down the greatest person. Ever. We do "coaching" with our teachers sometimes where they can talk to us one on one and every time she asks who wants coaching I have to force myself not to raise my hand and to give other people a chance. She's just fantastic. The second angel is Smith Shimai. She's Shawn's neighbor and I'm pretty sure she was sent straight from heaven. I'm pretty sure if it weren't for her I would go insane and constantly live in the fetal position. We're SUPER similar so we're comfortable sharing and opening up with each. We're also not really sure how we're going to survive once she's in Nagoya and I'm in Tokyo. Good thing we'll live so close to each other when we get back!

Scriptures!!! Mosiah 16:9 and Mosiah 14. That's some good stuff. 

Sorry, my emails always end up being forever long.. My bad.. But I love you all SO DARN much. Really, truly. I hope you have a lovely day. I hope you can feel my love!! 

I love being a missionary!! The church is true, y'all. I promise you.

Ai shite imasu!!!

--Fishburn Shimai

Eigo fast massacre

Different interpretations of my pal, Perry (2)

Different interpretations of my pal, Perry

Shimai tachi chikara (sister power)

Shimai tachi chikara (sister power2)

Banks Chōrō is seriously the greatest artist.

Countries Tracking "the Adventures of Sister Fishburn"

In reviewing the statistics of Haley's Mission Blog, we noticed she's got some international interest. 

Here is the list of countries that visit Haley's Mission Blog .

United States Australia France Japan Canada Germany United Kingdom

FIRST DAY LUCKY BUMP !! 

For anyone who's been on a mission (or just imagine),  your first day at the MTC, your Parents are dropping you off at the curb, and you run into your next door neighbor as she's heading across the street to the Temple.   W H A T  L U C K !!!

WHITNEY RIGBY & HALEY FISHBURN

Sister Power at the Provo Temple

Hello!!
As of today, I have been in the MTC for three weeks and am starting my fourth week. But by MTC standards I am halfway through my fourth week. It's weird. Totally screws up my counting but oh well *shrug*.

Wednesday night we had TRC (I don't actually know what that stands for) but members from around Provo come and you teach them and they are told to only speak whatever language you are learning. Well. Let me tell you that this was a humbling experience. I didn't understand like anything. I was so proud of myself for getting better and then I got a smack in the face from reality. I can understand my sensei tachi (teachers) because they purposely use vocabulary we know. Everyone else doesn't care what we do or do not know. It was a rough hour but it was still fun!

The English speakers that got here the same day I did have now left. Bummer. From this point on, people who got here after me, will be leaving before me *thumbs down*. And we're getting new roommates today so we'll have six girls living in one room *thumbs down*. Oh well. C'est la vie. 

OH. Greer Chourou's dad owns a kettle corn truck, or something like that, and he sent us all kettle corn with custom labels. Super cute. Super yummy. I thought of dad the entire time I ate it. I also had chocolate milk with my breakfast this morning in honor of Papa Fish. 
I have something y'all will find funny. Apparently my branch president felt impressed to give Taylor Shimai and me a calling. We are now, drum roll, please... Music coordinators! Yes, you read that right. I am in charge of music. Good thing I'm so very musically gifted. But all we really do is get people to play the piano, do a musical number, and lead the songs we pick. So I don't actually have to do anything that requires sweet melodies flowing to the ears of the congregation. 

Sunday's devotional was on charity and was sugoi (awesome). I had studied charity earlier on in the day and was like "This is perfect!" After the devotional, we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. Such a good movie. And it's so nice to just chill and relax for a little bit. My brain is on overdrive and not thinking for an hour was AMAZING. 

So Gappmayer Shimai makes us introduce ourselves like if we were knocking on doors if we're late for class so our district makes sure we're always early. On Monday, we were like 10 minutes early and when we tried to go into the room, she told us to wait out in the hall. Being the mature adults we all are, we hid. We went into an empty classroom and waited for her to come look for us and then when she did we all ran back into our classroom like the sneaky little ninja's they're training us to be. She came back in and was like "How did you do that!?" We thought we were pretty funny. 

We had a sub yesterday and he was hilarious. Oh my goodness. We were all in that afternoon slump and just wanted to nap (everyone, not just me, dad.) and so he took us outside to do yoga and get "Genki Power". We also reenacted WWII with our zone in the form of paper airplanes flying every which way down our hall. We kept joking that someone was going to be sent home because of a paper cut to the eye or something. Do not fret, there were no casualties. 
Also, I have tooooons of pictures to send but for some dumb reason I can't get them to upload on these computers. 

Scriptures!! Jacob 6:12, Enos 1:7-8, Moroni 7:37, Mosiah 2:16-17

I love you all SOOOOOO much. Never forget that. And never forget that Jesus loves you. Because He does. 

Stay cool.Stay classy.

Stay sassy.

Ai shite imasu!!--Fishburn Shimai

LOVE YOU ALL !!!

At the Provo Temple with the District Gang !

The MTC teaches you many valuable life lessons and skills; including, but not limited to, shuffling cards. I've never been able to shuffle cards and I finally figured it out as I was shuffling my Katakana flashcards. BOO YEAH. 

I won't bore you with too many stories this week. Wednesday was Wednesday. Nothing special. P-Day ends at 6:00pm and then we had class with Hansen Kyoudai. That's about it. Thursday was Thursday. We taught a lesson to Moeka San and it went great! We have also taken to playing a very competitive game of foursquare during our exercise time. We usually end up playing volleyball though because we all get too into four square haha.

The Chourou tachi have decided that Nephi must have been "exceedingly yoked" since he's always reminding us how he was "large in stature". And now that's all we hear. "Exceedingly yoked" or it sometimes evolves into "exceedingly dope" when they're talking about a scripture or something. 

So story time, Moeka San isn't really Moeka San. Her real name is Gappmayer Shimai and she's our other sensei *insert giggle*. She is AMAZING. Seriously. I love her. She told us that her past districts have told her that she's intimidating but I don't think she is. She is super honest and way funny. The Chourou tachi will say something and she'll just be like "No, you're not helping." or "That's stupid." Again, she's great. She also served in Tokyo South so two thumbs up for Gappmayer Shimai. So since she's no longer Moeka San we don't have an investigator right? Wrong. She just picks different people she taught on her mission and acts like them and we teach them. So now she's Kimura San. And Hansen Kyoudai has become Iida San. We're now going to be teaching every day, switching off between teaching both of them. CRAZY but it will be so helpful for us. 

Since we couldn't really celebrate the Fourth of July, we had a "special" devotional on the 2nd. The speaker (I can't remember his name right now and I left my other journal back at my room:/) spoke about the restoration and how everything had to be perfect for it to happen. That includes America being a free country and having freedom of religion. It was basically a history lecture focused on the restoration. You can bet your cute little bum I loved it. After they let us stay up late to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire and while it was lovely, it wasn't Kaysville's Fourth of July and I was much too tired the next day. 

Two people in our zone have gone home in the last week and it makes me so sad. I hope they know how much we all love them and I hope they can figure out whatever it is they need to. I can't even imagine how hard it would be to go home early and I just want them to be happy. 

Fast Sundays are kind of awful but kinda great. I think it was the first Fast Sunday that I wasn't hungry all day long. When you fast with a real intent and purpose, it's SO much easier to fast. I wasn't dying of hunger until we were in line for dinner and EVERYONE KEPT BUTTING IN LINE. Oh, I was peeved. So peeved. Their hunger is not more important than mine so they should have to get in the back of the line just like I did. But oh well, Jesus said love everyone and that is what I must do so I just stayed quiet and let them go. (I mean it's their salvation, not mine..)

GUESS WHAT. So yesterday we had our first lesson with Kimura San and afterwards Gappmayer Shimai pulled me aside and was like "Your Nihongo! You're getting so good! You opened your mouth and started talking and I was like 'Who is this girl?'!" I AM LEARNING!!!! Which makes me so happy because I feel like I am trying so hard and constantly trying to learn more and get better so it's nice to hear that it's working and paying off. 

Last night as we were getting in bed, Carpenter Shimai was like "Fishburn Shimai, I just want you to know that you're a great example and you're always so happy and I enjoy that. Ai shite imasu". It was so perfectly nice at the exactly right moment for me. It's the little things that really matter. 

Scriptures!! So we're reading the Morumon Sho together as a branch in 60 days (so basically while we're in the MTC) and so I thought I'd send some of my favorites for y'all to read and ponder or just read and nod your head. So. 2 Nephi 16:8, 2 Nephi 25:29, and 2 Nephi 26:23-24.

Well. I love Jesus. I love this gospel. And I kinda like y'all. (that last one was a lie)

Ai shite imasu!!!

--Fishburn Shimai

Look what Haley's Mom found hanging in the hall !

...out there for all the World to see.  Get ready Japan !!