Week 9

We get our flight plans this Fri! So excited. By the next letter I'll know if I'll be flying solo or with other missionaries. PLEASE e-mail me pictures of the family.

Tue

Elder Evans over the Asia missions spoke again. He talked about miracles and how to get them. The funny thing is that he seemed to know our zone personally. He talked about an Elder Tano from Hawaii and we have an Elder Tano from Hawaii.  He talked about a native Portugese speaker who had to learn Japanese and English simultaneously and we have a few of those. He talked about if you're from Indianapolis and you're going to Nagoya you can still perform miracles. I felt like that devotional was specifically for us.

Wed

2nd wave of the stomach flu. No handshaking policy back in place (not that they ever took it off but we just started handshaking after a while). My district got to host new missionaries. We met them at their cars and took them to their rooms and classrooms. There were 600 missionaries coming in that day, 600 the next week, and 800 the week after that. We're already starting to feel the tidal wave. The sisters I hosted were all from UT. Two of them were going to Alaska and the other to Sweden. Abraham Shimai got to host her best friend coming in. She was very bubbly afterwards. They had pumpkin pie ice cream at lunch. It was yummy.

Thu

During personal gym time in our rooms, the Phillipene sisters worked out with us. I worked them so hard they said that they were sore for 3 days afterward. Sis Miller and I read the BoM in Japanese together and I understood most of it! At least, I got the gist of it. I made it through 50 min of personal study staying awake and then the last 10 min I finally caved. We taught a lesson about the Atonement and we thought it didn't go that well because it didn't seem to be meeting the investigator's needs, we couldn't come up with answers to his questions and we weren't prepared. After the lesson, Todd sensei (the teacher playing the investigator) came up and said that he felt that it did help him and that it wasn't as bad as we thought. He quoted D&C 122 saying that all these experiences in the MTC will be for our good. It picked me up for sure. Nielsen sensei said that he would be leaving us to teach a new district of kohai, just like Taylor sensei. In his place, we get Rust sensei, the Hoosier! Another bittersweet moment, losing a teacher but getting one just as good.

Fri

I stayed awake all day! There was good salmon for dinner. Abraham Shimai had a painful canker sore so she bought some numbing medicine from the bookstore and accidentally numbed her tounge.

Sat

It was Australia day so King choro brought in his Australian flag and hung it up in the classroom. I watched a health and saftey video for missionaries that made me germaphobic and wish to only eat baby food. The presenter was definitely doom and gloom. Our sensei's said that we should practice giving a two-person lesson, so from now on one of us is sitting out in a lesson. I'm not sure how that will work out. Kramer choro caught the stomach flu. I learned how to fold origami giraffes. TRC was on laptops using Google + hangout. Because the headsets would have feedback if you sit next to each other, we had to sit on opposite sides of the room. I taught with Tingey sensei because they had to have equal numbers for the laptop/headset set up. The headsets had an echo of the other person's voice and that was very distracting. The "investigator" was my TA from BYU. I was suprised to see her and she me. I couldn't bring myself to call her by her first name, it was always "Chinen sensei."

Sun

It started to rain on our temple walk. By the time we got back it had turned to snow. We gave the district meeting lesson on baptism and it went over well. We focused on the sacrament and how it is a weekly renewal of our baptismal covenants and that the clean feeling that comes from baptism can be felt through the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost. We watched the Joseph Smith movie in English, but it was a different cutting than the original. It was in chronological order, had some scenes that weren't in the original and left some of the original scenes out. I like the original cutting better. We ran into our Russian friends and chatted for a while. They are leaving the Monday before us so we want to try and get a picture with them. Just as we got back to our residence, the fire alarm went off because someone burnt their popcorn. So we went to the laundry room because it was warm, had vending machines, and we could see our building from the doors. We were let back in 15 min before we were supposed to be asleep. Some sisters were complaining, but ours said "we will be obedient." I'm so grateful for them and their dilligence.

Mon

I caught a cold. Bleh. Because of that, I just laid down on the yoga mats during gym and rested. I didn't fall asleep but I did feel better afterwards. Last day with Nielsen sensei. At least we'll see him around (hopefully).

Tue

I had my hair cut by Stephanie Richey. She says hi and thank you for the crock pot wedding gift. She has a 6 mo old baby girl named Savannah. I'm working on writing down and illustrating my personal gym time workout (basically the Biggest Loser DVD that I did during the summer). I hope that my illustrations make sense.