Week 5 in the MTC

Konichiwa! Do Deskuka?! Watashi wa genki desu :) 

My Japanese skills are just so amazing, I know. 

I also finally figured out how to send out e-mails to everyone on my contact list (so sorry if this is the first e-mail your getting from me... technologically challenged. The rest of my e-mails should be on my blog.)

So you know how last week I said that nothing really exciting was happening anymore and everyday was just becoming very.. unexciting? Well, last p-day, right after I e-mailed, we had a MAJOR thing happen in our district. We had to have an emergency companion transfer. Which, in the MTC is actually very unusual. Apparently in one of the other districts in our zone (there are 3 districts in our zone) had a companionship... that was not doing so well. Things started getting really bad that it was affecting their whole zone and they weren't able to learn, so Sister Willson and Sister Cary had to be split up so one of the girls could come to our district and Sister Cary had to go to the other district. It was actually very dramatic. Things are doing really well now though! We love Sister Smith who came into our district, she is the sweetest. 

Other than the district change, things really are very quiet here in the MTC. Lots of construction, just like it is in the summer in Utah (only inside the MTC). We are learning so much, each week I look back and feel like I haven't learned a lot, but then I compare my lessons from before to now and it is just a HUGE difference. We used to take language notes into our lessons translating sentences from English to Japanese, but this week we decided that we weren't going to take any notes whatsoever into our lessons and it is unbelievable the difference it has made. In our lessons and in our Nihango. I feel so comfortable doing lessons, and although we still don't understand everything they are saying, I'm amazed at what I can understand through body language and what I receive from the Spirit. I'm so grateful to be stretched so much! It's definitely hard, but I am learning things so much faster and so much more than I would if I wasn't being pushed and stretched. I have one sensei (teacher) here who I swear has seen every side of me. I have cried and gotten so frustrated at him, and he is possibly the sweetest person I have ever met. He pushes me more than he probably thinks he does, but it is so amazing what it helps me accomplish. 

Another thing that I noticed a lot this week, was how much I just absolutely LOVE the scriptures. I'm obsessed. If I had time I would read them for hours. I'm almost done with the Book of Mormon since I've been here, which is definitely the fastest I've ever read the Book of Mormon haha. 

This morning we went to the temple really early and we were just walking out of the dressing rooms when this little old lady sees that there are a whole bunch of sister missionaries and runs over to us and starts telling us all these cute little stories. Oh my gosh, it was so cute. I was watching her and I noticed that she still had a curler in her hair from getting ready! Finally a sister who was working asked her if she could move it outside because she had us all surrounding her and we were blocking everyone going in and out of the dressing room. She was the cutest little old lady ever. 

Also, I've noticed that in a lot of my letters and in my journal writings I have been dating everything June ... I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that it's July and that I'm turning 24 NEXT WEEK. That just seems crazy to me. I think since I'm around a whole bunch of 18 and 19 year olds I've started to act younger haha. 

Anyway, I just love it here. There are days where I am so frustrated with the language, or my companion, or how immature the chorotachi (elders) are, but honestly at the end of the day, every single day I am so grateful to be here. 

Thank you for your support! I love you all!!

Aishiteimasu!

Sis White

Week 4

I don't even know how long I've been gone already haha. The weeks are starting to blend together. Every day I swear goes by so fast. I tried to send a video, but it won't let me send because the file because it was too big :( but I will send pictures!

LUREL HAD HER BABY!! She wrote me a dear elder July 7th saying that she had woken up that morning having contractions and I didn't get the dear elder until 5 pm. Then I got on e-mails this morning at 6:40 am and read Jamie's e-mail first and I just started bawling in the middle of the computer room haha. I was so happy and excited. All of the sisters in my district knew I was waiting to hear if she had him or not and they all started hugging me and looked at the pictures with me. It was such a fun experience. Thanks for e-mailing me and letting me know :) How is Lurel doing? Mom said that baby had shallow breathing at first but is doing well now? Keep me updated!! Dear Elder me!! It's seriously the best getting updates through dear elder. I love you all!!!

Okay so this week was pretty normal! Since I've been at the MTC a lot of exciting random things have been happening and now it's finally just becoming the normal MTC stay. We do get to watch Boyd K. Packer's funeral tomorrow. They are broadcasting it in one of the buildings here, so we get to skip class to go to it! It'll be a really cool thing to watch. Also on Sunday we had a devotional and Jenny Oaks Baker and her whole family came and did a little "FHE" with us. It was super cute. She is Dallin H Oaks daughter, and she shared a lot of cool experiences with us about her dad. Anyway, she's a very talented violinist and her and her kids performed some songs which was really awesome. 

Chris and Jamie! Your town home!!! I love it so much! I am so happy that everything is working out for it! What day can you move into it? I wish I could be there to help you move! Jamie, you're going to love it, it looks beautiful from the pictures Chris sent me. 

Fourth of July was fun! We just had our regular class schedule, but we sang a lot of patriotic songs. The sister from Australia loved it and we taught her a lot of the songs. We also got to stay up late that night and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks! We stayed up until around 11 and I was dying I was so tired. But it was fun to just get to hang out. 

I've had so many amazing experiences this week. It is just unbelievable the spirit that is here. You can't NOT love everyone around you. I just love being here so much. But I really can't wait to get to Japan. We got some e-mails from some of the missionaries that just went and I am so jealous. They already love it there so much and I know I will too.

The language is going well! Japanese is such a fun language. It's one of those things that slow and steady wins the race. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can before I get to the field. We are constantly being reminded that speaking the language is having faith in the Lord. Moroni 7:33 says that "If ye have faith in me ye will have power to do whatsoever is expedient in me." and I know that applies to anything that the Lord wants us to do. If it is good, the Lord will provide a way, we just have to have faith in Him!! We had our mission conference on Sunday, and President Burgess of the MTC told the story of Jesus walking on the water and Peter asking Jesus if he could come walk on the water to him. Pres. Burgess said, that as missionaries, we have left the boat. We have already asked the Savior to allow us to come unto him, but as Peter doubted, we can also doubt and start to sink. If Peter had just focused on the Savior and didn't allow the outside forces to distract him, he would have been fine. We, like Peter, will be fine as long as we focus our eyes only on the Savior and don't let the outside world distract us. It's also such a blessing to know that when we do allow the outside forces to distract us, the Savior will save us if we call out to him. 

Anyway! I will try to send pictures really quick and then e-mail a little later today probably around 2ish. 

Love you!!!

White Shimai

We're all wearing our Japan mission t-shirts!

Sister Anderson and I! When we were singing patriotic songs in class on July 4th, our teacher Bingham Kyodai (brother) put his had over his heart and sang toward me (because I looked like the american flag haha)

If you'll notice, the only one holding the American flag.. is the Australian :) We love her!

This is when we were watching the fireworks! 

Week 3!

Hi family!!

This week was a little crazy but also so much fun! So right after I e-mailed last week all the sisters got called down to an "emergency health meeting" and we were all really really confused. So we went down and apparently the building that they JUST moved us into had bats. The rumor is, is that a girl woke up with a bat next to her head. So they immediately moved out 600 plus sisters out of the building and moved us back into our old building. It was a little hectic. I felt really bad for the people in charge. Not a lot of sisters were very happy, but hey! You never know what is going to happen when we actually get on the field, so I didn't mind it at all. I know they just wanted to make sure we were safe haha. That same day we also got to meet some mission presidents! They had all the mission presidents take a district and do some role play/teaching. We got the Nagano's who are going to the Tokyo mission!! Oh my goodness, I loved them. They are both from Japan but they know English perfectly. They were the sweetest people ever and I loved them both so quickly! President Nagano was really funny, and quoted dumb and dumber to us at one point in the lesson. It was so great! He wanted us to role play with our companions teaching one of the lessons, and then at the end he chose one companionship to demonstrate. annnd of course it was our companionship. haha So one of us pretended to be the investigator and one of us was the missionary. So I ended up being the missionary and I taught the lesson to my companion in front of my whole district and a mission president! (but it was in English so not as bad as it could have been haha) It was a little nerve wracking but after I was done President Nagano told me that if I was going English speaking that he would send me into the field that day haha. It was really sweet. Then! on Friday we got to meet OUR mission president!! President Egan and his wife were also at the seminar. They just got into the field and took over as the new mission president on Monday! It's so exciting that we were the first ones to meet him! He is so amazing. We all love him so much. All of us that are going to Fukuoka (19 of us) got to go do like a little get to know you thing with him. I wish I could go into more detail but I'm running out of time! It was just amazing and I know that it's going to be perfect. 

So we watched the Testaments on Sunday night after our devotional and it was possibly the best thing ever. I've seen it before, but watching it as a missionary it's basically an comedy/ chick flick movie to us now! I can feel myself getting weird after writing that sentence. But we laughed so much during it, but also the very end when Christ comes to the Americas, was just so powerful. I'm probably going to watch that multiple times while I'm here haha. I loved it. 

The language is going well! It's kind of a roller coaster of emotions with the language haha. Some days I'll do so well and think that I'll learn this language in no time, and then other days I can't remember anything. But I really love it! I'm so so so excited to get to Japan. Our Sempei left to Japan on Monday, and I just got so anxious to go. 

Okay, I am running out of time for right now, we're splitting up our e-mail time into 2 parts, so I can write again a little later. 

Love You!! aishiteimasu!

White Shimai

So I completely forgot to tell you all this story. My second day here I went to an early morning workout class and the girl next to me looked like crazy familiar, and so I went up to her after and asked if she was a Daley.. and yep! This is Aaron's daughter, Julianna. She is going to Korea! So we are actually in the same building for class so I see her all the time. I think our districts have the same schedule so we see each other at least 5 times a day haha. It was exciting to meet one of my cousins while I'm here! 

The MTC built this HUGE set in the cafeteria for the Quorum of the 12 and the First Presidency to do the Mission President Seminar. This was only a little bit of it before they completely kicked all the missionaries out of the cafeteria for the whole weekend.

I finally learned all the hiragana and can write them from memory. This was my first time doing all of them. It was also after a very long day of studying, haha I was super tired.