Natalie leaves the MTC today for Japan so here is a collection of pictures from her time there.
Showing posts with label MTC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MTC. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
3-10-2012 Email: The Beginning of the End
I only have two days from this moment left in the MTC. 24 hours. Two nights of (pretending to) sleep. Six meals. Two suitcases to pack. Not that I'm counting down or anything.
I'm so excited! These last few days have been great for getting me even more pumped up to go than before.
Our last day of normal classes with our teachers was Thursday, and it was actually pretty sad to see them leave because since we spent so much time together it felt like the teachers were part of our little MTC family (a couple of people may have cried, and since I'm a bad person I may have laughed at them a little inside. But it was totally sad to say goodbye). It was exciting to hear some of their stories from the mission and look at pictures, especially of the real Iwane San and Saito San, who we have been teaching (see older blog posts). It's fun because since both of our teachers served in Sapporo, it's totally possible that we could meet the people they taught too. It's crazy and awesome to think that we'll be doing the same things in the same place in just a couple of days....
Yesterday we had our big prep day for leaving the MTC, and it was pretty fun. They jam packed all sorts of good, relevant information into like 12 hours of class. They had some fun interactive stuff including playing with iPads a little bit, which is always a win. We learned about things like the importance of setting goals, working with members, having faith and how to find people. Good stuff. We've actually talked a lot in the past couple of days about setting goals, and the power of expectations -- how we shouldn't let what other people say limit us. Brother Mills, who used to be a Mission President in Japan and is now in charge of all of the international MTCs, had an amazing chat with us about this. He talked about the four minute mile, and how it was widely accepted that no one could ever run faster than that. But then once it was broken, the expectations changed and a really short time after that it was broken again. A lot of times you change how you work based on what your goal is, or what you think can happen. On our mission we talked about how instead of focusing on what others have said or what we think, we should try to find out what is expedient in God, because if it's expedient for God he can make whatever needs to happen happen for it to be accomplished if we have faith.
Sorry this email is so short. My brain is a little all over the place. But I think there might be something exciting happening in the next few days that will make my next email a lot more exciting... It's so crazy that we'll be in Japan so soon! I alternate between being super exciting and a little nervous about being somewhere with real people who speak Japanese all of the time, but mostly I'm just super super excited to actually go there and help real people and apply what I've learned. It'll be hard, but I already know it will be the most amazing thing ever.
Nihon ni Ikimasu!
(Going to Japan!)
I'm so excited! These last few days have been great for getting me even more pumped up to go than before.
Our last day of normal classes with our teachers was Thursday, and it was actually pretty sad to see them leave because since we spent so much time together it felt like the teachers were part of our little MTC family (a couple of people may have cried, and since I'm a bad person I may have laughed at them a little inside. But it was totally sad to say goodbye). It was exciting to hear some of their stories from the mission and look at pictures, especially of the real Iwane San and Saito San, who we have been teaching (see older blog posts). It's fun because since both of our teachers served in Sapporo, it's totally possible that we could meet the people they taught too. It's crazy and awesome to think that we'll be doing the same things in the same place in just a couple of days....
Yesterday we had our big prep day for leaving the MTC, and it was pretty fun. They jam packed all sorts of good, relevant information into like 12 hours of class. They had some fun interactive stuff including playing with iPads a little bit, which is always a win. We learned about things like the importance of setting goals, working with members, having faith and how to find people. Good stuff. We've actually talked a lot in the past couple of days about setting goals, and the power of expectations -- how we shouldn't let what other people say limit us. Brother Mills, who used to be a Mission President in Japan and is now in charge of all of the international MTCs, had an amazing chat with us about this. He talked about the four minute mile, and how it was widely accepted that no one could ever run faster than that. But then once it was broken, the expectations changed and a really short time after that it was broken again. A lot of times you change how you work based on what your goal is, or what you think can happen. On our mission we talked about how instead of focusing on what others have said or what we think, we should try to find out what is expedient in God, because if it's expedient for God he can make whatever needs to happen happen for it to be accomplished if we have faith.
Sorry this email is so short. My brain is a little all over the place. But I think there might be something exciting happening in the next few days that will make my next email a lot more exciting... It's so crazy that we'll be in Japan so soon! I alternate between being super exciting and a little nervous about being somewhere with real people who speak Japanese all of the time, but mostly I'm just super super excited to actually go there and help real people and apply what I've learned. It'll be hard, but I already know it will be the most amazing thing ever.
Nihon ni Ikimasu!
(Going to Japan!)
Saturday, March 3, 2012
3-2-2012 Email: Flight Plans!
It's official -- I will actually get to leave the MTC someday! Someday soon. Specifically, March 12. A glorious day.
All of us Japanese missionaries got our flight plans yesterday, and it was a moment of great joy. Only our district leader can open the mailbox, where our plans would be delivered, so we all followed him like excited little ducklings after dinner and were pretty much freaking out in hope and anticipation outside of the building watching for his return (they could have come Thursday or Friday). We were acting crazy enough that people walking by stared, and that was before we even knew if they would actually be there that day. Sarger Choro tried to pretend like they didn't come and it was a normal mail day, but that only lasted like three seconds before everyone swarmed him. Then we all joyfully skipped back to our classroom building where we all compared plans and continued to freak out.
It's just so exciting to have the actual plans in your hand! Especially when you've been sitting in the same little classroom for nine hours a day. We're going to Japan! And my flight plans are perfect, mostly because our flight doesn't leave until 11 a.m., so we don't have to leave the MTC until 8 a.m. (I know lots of people who have had to leave at like 3 a.m. or 4 a.m... Our roommates going to Kobe have to leave at like 5 a.m. I think. Ew.)
This week was also awesome because for our devotional on Tuesday Elder Holland, of the Quorom of the 12 Apostles, came and spoke! That actually means that now since we've been here we've heard from both Elder Holland and Elder Nelson twice. I've decided they are our official Apostles of our MTC stay. Having the opportunity to listen to Elder Holland again was naturally just wonderful. I took around a million notes since I'm a compulsive note taker so it's hard to pull just one good thing he said out of them to put on here, but he talked a lot about missionary work and letting it change you to make you an even better person, even if you were already fantastic before. He also talked about how important the Book of Mormon is, and how he is concerned that we don't use it enough. He said even though not everything we teach is specifically in the Book of Mormon, it all stems from it and is rooted in it. The Book of Mormon can change lives. It's awesome how you can learn something new to help you in your life every time you read it.
Ok I want to share my travel plans with my family so this has to be short. But life is good! And soon we'll be in Japan, which is awesome.
Love ya.
All of us Japanese missionaries got our flight plans yesterday, and it was a moment of great joy. Only our district leader can open the mailbox, where our plans would be delivered, so we all followed him like excited little ducklings after dinner and were pretty much freaking out in hope and anticipation outside of the building watching for his return (they could have come Thursday or Friday). We were acting crazy enough that people walking by stared, and that was before we even knew if they would actually be there that day. Sarger Choro tried to pretend like they didn't come and it was a normal mail day, but that only lasted like three seconds before everyone swarmed him. Then we all joyfully skipped back to our classroom building where we all compared plans and continued to freak out.
It's just so exciting to have the actual plans in your hand! Especially when you've been sitting in the same little classroom for nine hours a day. We're going to Japan! And my flight plans are perfect, mostly because our flight doesn't leave until 11 a.m., so we don't have to leave the MTC until 8 a.m. (I know lots of people who have had to leave at like 3 a.m. or 4 a.m... Our roommates going to Kobe have to leave at like 5 a.m. I think. Ew.)
This week was also awesome because for our devotional on Tuesday Elder Holland, of the Quorom of the 12 Apostles, came and spoke! That actually means that now since we've been here we've heard from both Elder Holland and Elder Nelson twice. I've decided they are our official Apostles of our MTC stay. Having the opportunity to listen to Elder Holland again was naturally just wonderful. I took around a million notes since I'm a compulsive note taker so it's hard to pull just one good thing he said out of them to put on here, but he talked a lot about missionary work and letting it change you to make you an even better person, even if you were already fantastic before. He also talked about how important the Book of Mormon is, and how he is concerned that we don't use it enough. He said even though not everything we teach is specifically in the Book of Mormon, it all stems from it and is rooted in it. The Book of Mormon can change lives. It's awesome how you can learn something new to help you in your life every time you read it.
Ok I want to share my travel plans with my family so this has to be short. But life is good! And soon we'll be in Japan, which is awesome.
Love ya.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
2-24-2012 Email: Missionaries and Internet
Guess what?? I only have two more p-days after today in the MTC! That means you'll receive two more emails from here, and then all of a sudden my emails will become infinitely more entertaining because they will be sent from Japan.
But for now I'm still in the MTC. So here we go:
The biggest news of the week is that the new Japanese missionaries, both Nihonjin and Kohai (people who have been here for less time), are officially here! There are actually more of them than we had originally been expecting. I think there's like 69 of them all together, but I'll get back to you on that. We haven't been able to talk to them very much yet because the first week is an intense enough adjustment that they don't really want all of us who have been here longer freaking them out by asking them tons of questions, but they seem cool! And it's cool to see where everyone is coming from -- I still don't know where most of them are from, but I do know that we have Kohai from Taiwan, Germany, Brazil and Australia! The church really is worldwide.
This week for our Sunday Fireside the Provo MTC Mission President, President Brown, spoke to all of us and he focused mostly on being a hard worker, but he also mentioned a little something that I, as a journalism/new media type person, thought was really cool. Apparently four missionaries were interviewed by Al Jazeera last week for a documentary they are going to show in April, so he started by having the missionaries come up and talk about their experience with being interviewed, and then he talked a little bit about how the ways we can share the gospel has evolved since the church was first organized. He said that we are in the midst of an internet revolution, and that the time the internet will be used on missions is soon at hand -- and that he suspects it will happen during the time we are on our missions! He mentioned that we could eventually use iPads and other glorious things... I would like that.
There are actually missionaries who use the internet a lot already. Here at the MTC we have missionaries who serve in what we call the Referral Center. These missionaries are typically people who because of physical limitations probably wouldn't be able to serve a mission in the field, but thanks to the internet can reach a lot of people! They spend all of their days on Facebook as themselves chatting with people who have questions about the church, or they chat with people on Mormon.org who have questions and I think they use twitter to answer questions too. It's pretty cool because they get to teach entire lessons to people, just online. You should totally pop over to Mormon.org or Facebook and say hi! Sometimes we're jealous of them since they get to be on Facebook when we don't...
Um, I can't think of much else that is different this week. Well, yesterday Northrop Shimai had a chiropractor appointment and while we were waiting to be called in I got to sit in a really fancy back massage chair, so that was fun. But that's pretty much all I can remember! I'll write something exciting next week, I'm sure. Because on Thursday we get our flight plans!!
Love you all lots and lots. Aishte imasu!
But for now I'm still in the MTC. So here we go:
The biggest news of the week is that the new Japanese missionaries, both Nihonjin and Kohai (people who have been here for less time), are officially here! There are actually more of them than we had originally been expecting. I think there's like 69 of them all together, but I'll get back to you on that. We haven't been able to talk to them very much yet because the first week is an intense enough adjustment that they don't really want all of us who have been here longer freaking them out by asking them tons of questions, but they seem cool! And it's cool to see where everyone is coming from -- I still don't know where most of them are from, but I do know that we have Kohai from Taiwan, Germany, Brazil and Australia! The church really is worldwide.
This week for our Sunday Fireside the Provo MTC Mission President, President Brown, spoke to all of us and he focused mostly on being a hard worker, but he also mentioned a little something that I, as a journalism/new media type person, thought was really cool. Apparently four missionaries were interviewed by Al Jazeera last week for a documentary they are going to show in April, so he started by having the missionaries come up and talk about their experience with being interviewed, and then he talked a little bit about how the ways we can share the gospel has evolved since the church was first organized. He said that we are in the midst of an internet revolution, and that the time the internet will be used on missions is soon at hand -- and that he suspects it will happen during the time we are on our missions! He mentioned that we could eventually use iPads and other glorious things... I would like that.
There are actually missionaries who use the internet a lot already. Here at the MTC we have missionaries who serve in what we call the Referral Center. These missionaries are typically people who because of physical limitations probably wouldn't be able to serve a mission in the field, but thanks to the internet can reach a lot of people! They spend all of their days on Facebook as themselves chatting with people who have questions about the church, or they chat with people on Mormon.org who have questions and I think they use twitter to answer questions too. It's pretty cool because they get to teach entire lessons to people, just online. You should totally pop over to Mormon.org or Facebook and say hi! Sometimes we're jealous of them since they get to be on Facebook when we don't...
Um, I can't think of much else that is different this week. Well, yesterday Northrop Shimai had a chiropractor appointment and while we were waiting to be called in I got to sit in a really fancy back massage chair, so that was fun. But that's pretty much all I can remember! I'll write something exciting next week, I'm sure. Because on Thursday we get our flight plans!!
Love you all lots and lots. Aishte imasu!
Friday, February 17, 2012
2-17-2012 Email: Welcoming Newbies
Hello Minasan!
So I'll start with the most fun part of the week first. On Wednesday all of the Japanese missionaries got to host the new missionaries who were coming in (new missionaries come in every Wednesday)! It's really quite awesome. Basically as soon as the new missionaries step out of their cars we get to take care of them for the next little while. The Elders take all of their luggage out of their car, and then if it was a new Sister they would come take them to us girls so we could take them to their rooms and to get their name badges and pick up tons and tons of books and then drop them off in their classes. It's so fun to meet the missionaries right when they get there because they are so excited but freaking out at the same time.
So I'll start with the most fun part of the week first. On Wednesday all of the Japanese missionaries got to host the new missionaries who were coming in (new missionaries come in every Wednesday)! It's really quite awesome. Basically as soon as the new missionaries step out of their cars we get to take care of them for the next little while. The Elders take all of their luggage out of their car, and then if it was a new Sister they would come take them to us girls so we could take them to their rooms and to get their name badges and pick up tons and tons of books and then drop them off in their classes. It's so fun to meet the missionaries right when they get there because they are so excited but freaking out at the same time.
And it's so cool to see where everyone is going and where they came from! Apparently there were like 115 new Sister missionaries who came in this week, so we all were able to host a lot of people. I hosted three, and they were all awesome. For my first batch I had two really cool international missionaries; one was from England and going to Madrid, and the other was from Australia and going to Temple Square. After that I had one more Sister who is going to Siberia and is from Salt Lake City. It's so amazing how many places people are going to share the gospel. I hope I get to host again before I leave! Sometimes you luck out and are assigned to do it more than once. And next week is when we get our new Japanese missionaries! It's going to be a party.
Another awesome thing about this week: in the past three days I have run into four non-missionary friends at the MTC! The first person I ran into was on Valentine's Day and it was pretty much the most exciting thing ever, because it was Melissa Alder! It was so incredibly unexpected and happy. Apparently she got a job here tutoring Senior Missionaries in German or something. And then the next day when we were hosting I ran into Kira Roerig again because she is still really cool and teaching Spanish here, and then I ran into a guy friend from my Freshman ward who works here too, and yesterday I ran into Angela Breedlove who is teaching Spanish here too! Oh and I found Peter Carroll's sister Lena too because we were hosting at the the same time, so that was cool. Basically, the MTC is the place to be.
This week has had some interesting medical fun too. Sunday was probably the craziest. We were in Relief Society on Sunday, which is a church meeting with all of the Sisters in the MTC, watching an intense Mormon Message illustrating a talk Elder Holland gave about a boy who was struck by lightning, and right when the coach was about to give the boy a priesthood blessing to help him get better Sister Lewis urgently called my name. Sister Northrop was leaning on her shoulder, and I thought she was just leaning on her because she had a headache or something but she she was entirely unconscious and not responsive. Long story short, we got her to wake up a little, laid her on the ground, got some people to call for help and a ambulance came and loaded her onto a stretcher and she was taken to the Emergency Room. I met her there and we were there for a few hours (I totally thought of you while I was there Kim!), but all of the tests came back normal so we went back to the MTC.
She was totally fine from that point until Monday night, when she started throwing up. And after trying to go to class for a little while on Tuesday and having some Valentines Day fun she started throwing up again, so we went back to the health center and they decided to keep her so I spent most of the rest of the day with a pager (to let me know when to pick her up) instead of a companion. I felt very 90's cool. And now after a good amount of rest Northrop Shimai seems to be doing better - I think the passing out and stuff was just a culmination of a lot of stress and other things, and the doctors seem to have said the same thing so hopefully we should be good from here.
And don't worry, we've still been having a lot of fun! The Elders were especially hilarious on Valentines Day. Northrop Shimai's dad sent her the balloons that you use for making balloon animals, and they are like especially hard to blow up yourself but the Elders wouldn't give up trying to make them inflate. It's probably a you had to be there type of thing, but it was so funny watching them die trying to blow up these balloons and not being able to get any air in. Stilson Choro was the first one to fill it up, and he made a yellow hat/crown that he wore proudly for the rest of the day. And Eckman Choro made a rhino that kept me company until Northrop Shimai came back. No one else succeeded at making anything, haha.
Ok, I'm out of time. But things are going well here! It's crazy that we're getting so close to being able to go to Japan!!
Love you all,
Sister Crofts
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Happy Valentine's Day from the MTC!
My roommate Lewis Shimai was a genius and decided that we needed to do a photoshoot with some mustaches her mom sent her, and then send them out as Valentine's day cards! We had way too much fun with them. In the one with all of us we're signing "Happy V-day!" And then the rest we were just having fun.
All of the Shimai (sisters) during our last service day before the Nihonjon (native Japanese Sisters) left! We get to wear classy goggles sometimes.
Northrop Shimai with our Senpai the day before they left! So Sad! Cooper Shimai, left, is going to Sapporo! So we'll see her again soon. O'Rourke Shimai, in the middle, went to Tokyo. She is super cool and from Australia. We miss them lots already.
The last night before the Nihonjin left! Also so very sad. They were so much fun to have on our floor, even if we didn't always communicate 100% super well. We had a cute candy exchange going on, and sang a song together in church. (All of the Shimai sang Come Thou Fount, because Andersen Shimai always sings it in the shower and they wanted to learn the English lyrics to it.) We've all decided to be Facebook friends in a year and a half. So it will happen. They were so cute and fun.
Apparently this huge hunk of rings of Japanese flashcards has been passed down for six generations of Senpai to Kohai, and our district was selected to inherit it! It is called the oracle, and you have to treat it with respect haha. There are lots of random vocabulary words and Kanji on it!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
2-10-2012 Email: A Day in the Life
Konnichiwa Minasan!! (that = hello everyone)
Ok, confession. I literally cannot think of one specific especially email worthy thing to say about this past week. So, since I feel like I should still write something I've decided to just give you a little run down of what an average day in the MTC is like. Here we go!
1) Everyday we have to be out of bed by 6:30 a.m. For all of you who know me even only decently well, you should be well aware of the fact that it is clearly a miracle that I have been able to wake up by then everyday so far. Seriously, there is no way I would have been able to pull this off if I was at home. Some people come back from their missions all excited about how they've been waking up early or something and then proceed to wake up at 6:30 a.m. for like everyday for the rest of their lives, including weekends. Let me assure you that this will not happen to me. But, I'll be able to tell stories about how I did it for a year and a half!
2) At 7:10 a.m. we go to breakfast (except for Sundays when the schedule is a bit different). We eat all of our meals in a big cafeteria where they typically have several different lines with different options. The best mornings are when they have pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. I live for those days.
3) From here it varies a little bit in the order of things, but everyday we have the same few blocks of things that make up the day. The activity that we have the most often during the week is Personal Study, during which we have time to just study the scriptures (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, etc.), Preach My Gospel (which is an awesome book that helps us prepare to teach investigators) and other mission approved books. It's really nice to just have quiet time (assuming it's a day where the Elder's are decent at focusing) to remember what is really important and why we are here. Plus, if we don't know what we are teaching and have a testimony of it we would be pretty terrible at teaching. We typically have about two hours of Personal Study a day, and about 14 hours (assuming I can count right...) a week.
4) Another big block of our schedule is classroom instruction, which we have either once or twice a day for three hours each time. We have two teachers who alternate class periods, Thurber Sensei and Todd Sensei. They're both students at BYU and are really cool. When we're in class we usually learn about Japanese grammar for an hour, and then we get to teach our progressing investigator (I think I referred to this in one of my first emails... Bascially we get to practice teaching about the gospel to our teachers, who respond how one of their investigators on their mission would have acted. Right now we're teaching Iwane San and Saito San) in Japanese. During the third hour we usually learn about more spiritual things and how to effectively teach them or have coaching missionary study where teachers will come help us with our lesson planning and such.
5) During the day we also will have another hour or two just for studying the language. Once a day we go to TALL in the computer lab. TALL is essentially a Rosetta Stone-like program that helps you learn the language by learning vocab and phrases and listening and that kind of stuff. There's this really fun game called "Whack-a-Ji" that is basically like Whack a Mole except you hit the Kanji characters for the sounds they say. I am a champion.
6) My favorite time of the day is gym!! I LOVE it. It's so wonderful to move around after sitting in the classroom for a billion hours. I run three miles everyday on the track or on one of the ellipticals (depending on how lazy I'm feeling) and then do crunches while watching everyone else play four-square (which may sound lame, but everyone gets so intense into it that I find it really hillarious). I'm going to miss having the gym when I'm out in the field... But I'll be in Japan so I think I'll be ok. And I'll get to ride bikes all of the time there! I love bikes.
7)At night we have an hour to get back to the room and change and all that and then be in bed by 10:30. Which I generally dislike almost as much as waking up at 6:30 a.m. since I'm such a night person. But laying in bed after a busy day is quite nice!
As you can probably tell, every moment of our day is always packed, but I like it that way. It helps keep you focused, and being in your room is really boring anyways! Partially because there aren't any Elders there goofing off to entertain you. There are a few fun changes to the average day -- like on Fridays we have our preperation day where we have time to send emails and write letters and do laundry, and on Thursday mornings we get to do service (aka cleaning another residence hall's toilets, which is surprisingly fun here since it's a change of pace), and on Tuesdays we have devotionals, and Sunday nights we get to watch church morvies... It's a nice way to spice things up! It's really funny to me to think that I drove past the MTC all of the time when I was at school, usually on the way to the Dollar Theater, and had no idea that I was driving past this entire world. There are like 2,000 people here at any given time learning and living their lives! It's pretty cool.
Ok, I'm way out of time (got to stick to that schedule!), but I think you're all awesome!
Ok, confession. I literally cannot think of one specific especially email worthy thing to say about this past week. So, since I feel like I should still write something I've decided to just give you a little run down of what an average day in the MTC is like. Here we go!
1) Everyday we have to be out of bed by 6:30 a.m. For all of you who know me even only decently well, you should be well aware of the fact that it is clearly a miracle that I have been able to wake up by then everyday so far. Seriously, there is no way I would have been able to pull this off if I was at home. Some people come back from their missions all excited about how they've been waking up early or something and then proceed to wake up at 6:30 a.m. for like everyday for the rest of their lives, including weekends. Let me assure you that this will not happen to me. But, I'll be able to tell stories about how I did it for a year and a half!
2) At 7:10 a.m. we go to breakfast (except for Sundays when the schedule is a bit different). We eat all of our meals in a big cafeteria where they typically have several different lines with different options. The best mornings are when they have pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. I live for those days.
3) From here it varies a little bit in the order of things, but everyday we have the same few blocks of things that make up the day. The activity that we have the most often during the week is Personal Study, during which we have time to just study the scriptures (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, etc.), Preach My Gospel (which is an awesome book that helps us prepare to teach investigators) and other mission approved books. It's really nice to just have quiet time (assuming it's a day where the Elder's are decent at focusing) to remember what is really important and why we are here. Plus, if we don't know what we are teaching and have a testimony of it we would be pretty terrible at teaching. We typically have about two hours of Personal Study a day, and about 14 hours (assuming I can count right...) a week.
4) Another big block of our schedule is classroom instruction, which we have either once or twice a day for three hours each time. We have two teachers who alternate class periods, Thurber Sensei and Todd Sensei. They're both students at BYU and are really cool. When we're in class we usually learn about Japanese grammar for an hour, and then we get to teach our progressing investigator (I think I referred to this in one of my first emails... Bascially we get to practice teaching about the gospel to our teachers, who respond how one of their investigators on their mission would have acted. Right now we're teaching Iwane San and Saito San) in Japanese. During the third hour we usually learn about more spiritual things and how to effectively teach them or have coaching missionary study where teachers will come help us with our lesson planning and such.
5) During the day we also will have another hour or two just for studying the language. Once a day we go to TALL in the computer lab. TALL is essentially a Rosetta Stone-like program that helps you learn the language by learning vocab and phrases and listening and that kind of stuff. There's this really fun game called "Whack-a-Ji" that is basically like Whack a Mole except you hit the Kanji characters for the sounds they say. I am a champion.
6) My favorite time of the day is gym!! I LOVE it. It's so wonderful to move around after sitting in the classroom for a billion hours. I run three miles everyday on the track or on one of the ellipticals (depending on how lazy I'm feeling) and then do crunches while watching everyone else play four-square (which may sound lame, but everyone gets so intense into it that I find it really hillarious). I'm going to miss having the gym when I'm out in the field... But I'll be in Japan so I think I'll be ok. And I'll get to ride bikes all of the time there! I love bikes.
7)At night we have an hour to get back to the room and change and all that and then be in bed by 10:30. Which I generally dislike almost as much as waking up at 6:30 a.m. since I'm such a night person. But laying in bed after a busy day is quite nice!
As you can probably tell, every moment of our day is always packed, but I like it that way. It helps keep you focused, and being in your room is really boring anyways! Partially because there aren't any Elders there goofing off to entertain you. There are a few fun changes to the average day -- like on Fridays we have our preperation day where we have time to send emails and write letters and do laundry, and on Thursday mornings we get to do service (aka cleaning another residence hall's toilets, which is surprisingly fun here since it's a change of pace), and on Tuesdays we have devotionals, and Sunday nights we get to watch church morvies... It's a nice way to spice things up! It's really funny to me to think that I drove past the MTC all of the time when I was at school, usually on the way to the Dollar Theater, and had no idea that I was driving past this entire world. There are like 2,000 people here at any given time learning and living their lives! It's pretty cool.
Ok, I'm way out of time (got to stick to that schedule!), but I think you're all awesome!
The end.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
MTC Pictures #2
We finally got a group photo of all the girls who came in on December 28!
Me with your package and letter to Annie.
That's what the mail room looks like. Tada!
Sister Abraham and I.
Look at us both going to Japan! Isn't that fun? Yay!
My companion and I with a couple extras in front of the temple.
Our Elders love photobombing so much that whenever you take a photo in their vicinity you can play a Where's Waldo type game to find them!
Our view from our classroom window is really awesome. We're five stories up so we get to see a ridiculously beautiful sunset every night. Love it. It is totally worth the five flights of stairs...not that I have to climb them anymore thanks to Northrap Shimi! Only injured missionaries get to use the elevator. Isn't it kind of weird that I just look at BYU campus all day though? I mean I just graduated from the place and thought I'd be gone for a while...
Me and the humidifier.
Now you can have a visual of the humidifier that won! I figured it deserved to celebrate its victory with a moment of glory on the blog.
The roomies.
All of us outside our room. I liked my hair that day so I made them take a picture with me. There you go mom!
Me and my old roommate Nataly.
I got to see my roommate from Junior year who is going to the Dominican Republic a couple of times. This one was during service, and I ran into her because she lives in the building we clean. It was happy. But she left me already. She was gone quick!
My companion and I waiting for our shuttle to come take is to physical therapy. We're pretty good friends with that bench now since we visit it three times a week.
Monday, February 6, 2012
2-3-2012 Email: 50th Anniversary of Missionary Training!
Hello Everyone!
I feel really lucky to have been able to be here in the MTC this week, because it just happened to be the 50th anniversary celebration of missionary training! (meaning the MTC and the couple of language training places before it) Apparently on December 4, 1961 the first missionaries recieved language training before going to their missions in Argentina and Mexico. There have been missionaries since the beginning of the church, which was way before that of course, but until 50 years ago missionaries would go directly to their missions and have to figure out the language and everything there! That would only be slightly terrifying... I am very grateful for the MTC haha. Oh another cool MTC fact: apparently in 2007 the one millionth missionary entered the Provo MTC. That is a lot.
I feel really lucky to have been able to be here in the MTC this week, because it just happened to be the 50th anniversary celebration of missionary training! (meaning the MTC and the couple of language training places before it) Apparently on December 4, 1961 the first missionaries recieved language training before going to their missions in Argentina and Mexico. There have been missionaries since the beginning of the church, which was way before that of course, but until 50 years ago missionaries would go directly to their missions and have to figure out the language and everything there! That would only be slightly terrifying... I am very grateful for the MTC haha. Oh another cool MTC fact: apparently in 2007 the one millionth missionary entered the Provo MTC. That is a lot.
So the actual celebration was on Tuesday evening, and there was a lot of build up for it and speculation about who would speak. We ended up getting to hear from Elder Russell M. Nelson (for the second time since we're been here. Cool, huh?) and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who are both from the Qurom of the 12 Apostles so it was really awesome. Funny note, before they started talking Elder Nelson had them announce the then current results of the presidential primary in Florida. So I'm sure that means that it's ok for us to receive the occasional presidential election update (hint, hint).
There were a lot of extra visitors for the event so it was actually kind of hard to get seats in the gym, but luckily our Branch President had suggested joining the choir a few weeks ago, and if you're in the choir you automatically get seats... so that worked out really nice! It was a lot less stressful. I'm sure being in the overflow would have still been cool, but it's way more awesome to be in the same room as Apostles! Win. Elder Holland only spoke for a few minutes and then Elder Nelsen gave the main talk. They both focused on the legacy of missionary work in the church, and it was really inspiring.
Elder Holland said that we had stepped into history that night, and then said that we are obligated to honor the history of missionary work in the church. He said we are not perfect, but that we should do our best and stand tall and true like the missionaries who have come before us and will come after us. And then Elder Nelson shared some stories about some of the really awesome missionaries who have come before us and how much happiness they were able to spead to others and just the importance of the Book of Mormon and the wonderful influence it can have on other people's lives (another fun fact: The Book of Mormon is now available in 107 languages). After that he asked us to join him in a prayer to rededicate five buildings on the MTC campus that have recently been rennovated, and it was a really neat experience that I am sure I will always remember. I'll definitely remember the whole night, because it was a real treat and a great event to make us even more excited about being able to be missionaries right now. Yay!
The other big news for the week is that our Senpai (we call the Japanese missionaries who have been in the MTC longer Senpai) and the Nihonjin left for Japan! It was so sad and so exciting at the same time. We had a lot of fun taking picures with the Nihonjin the night before and such, but it's so weird not to see them around all of the time now! The classroom area seems so empty. But it was also so exciting because that means that we're even closer to being able to go to Japan ourselves! We've officially reached the halfway mark. And it's also really cool to think that the next time we see some of our Senpai will be when we are both in Japan together... I'm sure they are already doing an awesome job of being missionaries over there because they are really cool.
But it is also weird because usually the new Kohai (Japanese missionaries who have been here less time) would get here next Wednesday, but this time there won't be any new ones until February 22nd! We're going to be so lonely. Plus, being a Senpai sounds like fun because the Kohai think you know everything. Apparently what is happening is that the next group of Japanese missionaries is going to be a pilot group of sorts, to see if it works to learn Japanese in 10 weeks instead of 12. That will be interesting. It'd be cool to get out in the field sooner, but I think I will enjoy having a little extra time to improve my language skills...
Um, not much else has happened. As an update to last week's medically crazy blog entry, physical therapy has been helping Northrop Shimai's knee a lot. There's still a long way to go of course, but it is so wonderful because it is helping a lot! And we get to take nice little field trips off campus three times a week, which helps with my claustrophobia...
Well, I'm out of time but I love you all! And thanks so much again for all of your letters! You rock.
But it is also weird because usually the new Kohai (Japanese missionaries who have been here less time) would get here next Wednesday, but this time there won't be any new ones until February 22nd! We're going to be so lonely. Plus, being a Senpai sounds like fun because the Kohai think you know everything. Apparently what is happening is that the next group of Japanese missionaries is going to be a pilot group of sorts, to see if it works to learn Japanese in 10 weeks instead of 12. That will be interesting. It'd be cool to get out in the field sooner, but I think I will enjoy having a little extra time to improve my language skills...
Um, not much else has happened. As an update to last week's medically crazy blog entry, physical therapy has been helping Northrop Shimai's knee a lot. There's still a long way to go of course, but it is so wonderful because it is helping a lot! And we get to take nice little field trips off campus three times a week, which helps with my claustrophobia...
Well, I'm out of time but I love you all! And thanks so much again for all of your letters! You rock.
Crofts Shimai
Saturday, January 28, 2012
1-27-2012 Email: MTC Medical Maladies
Before anyone freaks out, it´s not me who is having the medical problems. I just have a cold, which is a constant here so it doesn't really count. OK, now I will proceed.
We'll start with the biggest news. Although it's kind of hard to choose the biggest thing from this week, i think this may be it: we got a new roommate! it was totally unexpected. I will illustrate how it went down for you.
We had just gotten back from gym in the morning when we heard that Sister Abraham had been paged and needed to call the front desk. She called them back, and they said that she needed to come up to the front desk to pick up her companion. But her companion, Sister Lewis, was of course right next to her so she was like I think you have the wrong person. But the front desk insisted so they decided they should go check it out. They had said the girl's name was Stephanie Collins, which we of course didn't recognize, but while they were gone and I was (unsuccessfully because of the distractions trying to take a shower we discovered that there was a Sister Collins who had been in an older group who had gone home on medical leave. And it was totally her! So now there companionship turned into a threesome. But it was so crazy since no one had mentioned anything to them. And even though we have six beds in our room because we have three bunks we only have four desks and four closets (that were already full) and she had three huge suitcases of stuff that we needed to fit in all of a sudden... And we didn't even have any sheets for her or anything. So we're still adjusting, but she seems pretty nice so far. It's cool that she was able to come back, and she'll be leaving when we do for Sendai, Japan. Apparently she was two weeks from leaving for Japan when she found out she had diabetes (MTC medical weirdness #1).
One thing you should know is that by the time we had a unexpected new roommate it had already been a weird week. After gym on Saturday (now that I'm thinking of it, most of the craziness of the week went down after gym) said that she was feeling weird, and by the time we had returned to our room her face had swelled up super super bad. Such as that she had to take three Benedyls. But then it still didn't get any better, so after some midnight fun in the hall she went to the Emergency Room with her companion where she had to be injected with all sorts of stuff before it got better, and they didn't get back to the room until like 3:30. And even though she is fine now, they still have no idea what triggered it. (MTC medical weirdness #2)
And the other main medical weirdness that had been going on here is with my companion. She's been having problems with her knee almost since she first got here; it has been swollen all of the time and twitching and causing lots of pain and such. She's had problems with it before, but never this bad and it seems to be getting worse every day. We told Sister Collins when she moved in that she had moved into the room of mysterious swelling (because of the Northrop shimai and Abraham shimai). We just really don't know what is wrong. We did get to take a field trip off campus to an orthopedic specialist, which was pretty exciting. But we had kind of been building up that we just needed to survive that long to find out what was wrong and then everything would be better, but that wasn't what happened. The doctor (who was really nice) said that it could be one of two things (nothing showed up on the x-ray), and that they have to start with the more conservative theory which is just treated by physical therapy, so we have to try that for two weeks first before she would have her knee scoped.
But that didn't really help with the pain now, and it is still continuing to get worse. Yesterday after gym and service (Northrop Shimai didn't work out, don't worry), while I was in the shower apparently Northrop shimai collapsed in the hall with pain so bad that the other girls had to call for a wheelchair and one of them, Soderborg Shimai, took her straight over to the health center. I went and waited for her with Walbeck shimai, Soderborg's companion, and the doctor sent her out on crutches and super drugged up. We tried to go to classes for a little while last night, but it was just way to hard for her. if you think teaching in another language is hard, try doing it with a companion who is on muscle relaxant and lortab. Ya, it's not really possible so we went back to the room for the rest of the night and our roommates brought us dinner. My companion slept for five hours, which is pretty impressive!
Today has been pretty good so far and we did make it to the temple with the help of a shuttle, which was really awesome to be able to just go serve the Lord. And we have a follow up doctors appointment for yesterday's craziness in less than an hour, and then an off campus physical therapy trip this afternoon so hopefully we'll be able to figure something better out for Northrop Shimai. I hate seeing her in pain so incredibly much! But I'm sure we're both learning a lot from this. My favorite scripture of the week is Mosiah 4:9. (I think that's it. i don't have my scriptures with me! It's about believing that God knows everything.)
And don't worry, this week has had fun stuff too. For example, pretty much all of the Elders in my class decided to write my sister awkward romantic letters and they were so funny they just made me die. Amber will have to pull a couple of good one liners for you. Plus, no week can really be all bad when you're on a mission! i wouldn't describe the week as bad, just ridiculously crazy. Thank you to everyone who wrote me!
Aisshte Imasu (love you)
P.S. I apologize for typos and typing weirdness. I'm pretty sure this is the worst key board in the world.
*Okay, this is Amber now. The letters I got from those Elders are hysterical. They were sprayed with perfume and had many wonderful drawings. They also all wrote what kind of animal they were. I could definitely tell they were having way too much fun with this. And as Natalie asked I will put quote a few lines for your enjoyment too. I mean, I could never hide such precious treasures for myself so here you go.
-"I'mma stealthy panda bear, and I'mma gonna sneak my way right into your heart. Seriously, that's how I roll. These other guys got nothing on me, guaranteed."
-"Out of all the Elders in the district I am the best looking."
-"My friends call me an eagle because I swoop up all the ladies."
-"The letters are sprayed with my cologne so now you know what I smell like."
-"I'm sorry I know basically nothing about you except you are awesome (so I've been told, and Crofts Shimai never lies)."
We'll start with the biggest news. Although it's kind of hard to choose the biggest thing from this week, i think this may be it: we got a new roommate! it was totally unexpected. I will illustrate how it went down for you.
We had just gotten back from gym in the morning when we heard that Sister Abraham had been paged and needed to call the front desk. She called them back, and they said that she needed to come up to the front desk to pick up her companion. But her companion, Sister Lewis, was of course right next to her so she was like I think you have the wrong person. But the front desk insisted so they decided they should go check it out. They had said the girl's name was Stephanie Collins, which we of course didn't recognize, but while they were gone and I was (unsuccessfully because of the distractions trying to take a shower we discovered that there was a Sister Collins who had been in an older group who had gone home on medical leave. And it was totally her! So now there companionship turned into a threesome. But it was so crazy since no one had mentioned anything to them. And even though we have six beds in our room because we have three bunks we only have four desks and four closets (that were already full) and she had three huge suitcases of stuff that we needed to fit in all of a sudden... And we didn't even have any sheets for her or anything. So we're still adjusting, but she seems pretty nice so far. It's cool that she was able to come back, and she'll be leaving when we do for Sendai, Japan. Apparently she was two weeks from leaving for Japan when she found out she had diabetes (MTC medical weirdness #1).
One thing you should know is that by the time we had a unexpected new roommate it had already been a weird week. After gym on Saturday (now that I'm thinking of it, most of the craziness of the week went down after gym) said that she was feeling weird, and by the time we had returned to our room her face had swelled up super super bad. Such as that she had to take three Benedyls. But then it still didn't get any better, so after some midnight fun in the hall she went to the Emergency Room with her companion where she had to be injected with all sorts of stuff before it got better, and they didn't get back to the room until like 3:30. And even though she is fine now, they still have no idea what triggered it. (MTC medical weirdness #2)
And the other main medical weirdness that had been going on here is with my companion. She's been having problems with her knee almost since she first got here; it has been swollen all of the time and twitching and causing lots of pain and such. She's had problems with it before, but never this bad and it seems to be getting worse every day. We told Sister Collins when she moved in that she had moved into the room of mysterious swelling (because of the Northrop shimai and Abraham shimai). We just really don't know what is wrong. We did get to take a field trip off campus to an orthopedic specialist, which was pretty exciting. But we had kind of been building up that we just needed to survive that long to find out what was wrong and then everything would be better, but that wasn't what happened. The doctor (who was really nice) said that it could be one of two things (nothing showed up on the x-ray), and that they have to start with the more conservative theory which is just treated by physical therapy, so we have to try that for two weeks first before she would have her knee scoped.
But that didn't really help with the pain now, and it is still continuing to get worse. Yesterday after gym and service (Northrop Shimai didn't work out, don't worry), while I was in the shower apparently Northrop shimai collapsed in the hall with pain so bad that the other girls had to call for a wheelchair and one of them, Soderborg Shimai, took her straight over to the health center. I went and waited for her with Walbeck shimai, Soderborg's companion, and the doctor sent her out on crutches and super drugged up. We tried to go to classes for a little while last night, but it was just way to hard for her. if you think teaching in another language is hard, try doing it with a companion who is on muscle relaxant and lortab. Ya, it's not really possible so we went back to the room for the rest of the night and our roommates brought us dinner. My companion slept for five hours, which is pretty impressive!
Today has been pretty good so far and we did make it to the temple with the help of a shuttle, which was really awesome to be able to just go serve the Lord. And we have a follow up doctors appointment for yesterday's craziness in less than an hour, and then an off campus physical therapy trip this afternoon so hopefully we'll be able to figure something better out for Northrop Shimai. I hate seeing her in pain so incredibly much! But I'm sure we're both learning a lot from this. My favorite scripture of the week is Mosiah 4:9. (I think that's it. i don't have my scriptures with me! It's about believing that God knows everything.)
And don't worry, this week has had fun stuff too. For example, pretty much all of the Elders in my class decided to write my sister awkward romantic letters and they were so funny they just made me die. Amber will have to pull a couple of good one liners for you. Plus, no week can really be all bad when you're on a mission! i wouldn't describe the week as bad, just ridiculously crazy. Thank you to everyone who wrote me!
Aisshte Imasu (love you)
P.S. I apologize for typos and typing weirdness. I'm pretty sure this is the worst key board in the world.
*Okay, this is Amber now. The letters I got from those Elders are hysterical. They were sprayed with perfume and had many wonderful drawings. They also all wrote what kind of animal they were. I could definitely tell they were having way too much fun with this. And as Natalie asked I will put quote a few lines for your enjoyment too. I mean, I could never hide such precious treasures for myself so here you go.
-"I'mma stealthy panda bear, and I'mma gonna sneak my way right into your heart. Seriously, that's how I roll. These other guys got nothing on me, guaranteed."
-"Out of all the Elders in the district I am the best looking."
-"My friends call me an eagle because I swoop up all the ladies."
-"The letters are sprayed with my cologne so now you know what I smell like."
-"I'm sorry I know basically nothing about you except you are awesome (so I've been told, and Crofts Shimai never lies)."
Saturday, January 21, 2012
1-20-2012 Email: The Battle of the Humidifier
Hello all of my favorite people!
First, can I just express how weird it is how fast time passed this last week? It was really weird. All of us Sisters were talking the other night and we all feel like we just had P-day yesterday! So if I can't think of much to say in my letter today, it's because time passed so quickly that I'm not even sure what happened. All of the missionaries who have been here longer say that it gets even faster at week 6, which will just be insane. And then it's supposed to feel even faster than that in the field... So I'll probably be home to talk to all of you in person in about seven seconds. Don't be surprised.
Let's see, what did happen this week? Oh, we started out Saturday with something really cool! We had our first ever visit to the TRC (which I think stands for Training Resource Center) and I have to admit that I was totally nervous for it, but it turned out to be wonderful! What happens is they have volunteers, just students from BYU or other members, come and be themselves and then we teach them a simple lesson. Can I just say how nice it is to teach members? It was so nice to have them understand that we were learning a language and such. They were super helpful, instead of just giving us blank stares like we sometimes get from our teachers when they're pretending to be Japanese investigators... We got to teach a Sister who served her mission in Finland and is really good at Japanese and she was really nice, and it was fun just to be able to have a friendly conversation in Japanese. I think we all went in pretty scared but came out really excited. I'm glad I get to go back tomorrow!
Here's a happy note I keep meaning to write about -- I've been able to see two of my old roommates since coming here! One was total luck. I ran into Kira Roerig, one of my roommates from Sophomore year just by chance in the dressing room of the temple and it was so happy! Especially since I hadn't actually seen her since before she went on her mission to Spain like three years ago. And then last week one of my roommates from Junior year, Nataly Arce, entered the MTC because she's going to the Dominican Republic for her mission! She already knows Spanish though so she'll only be here for three weeks, but it was so wonderful to see her. Yay friends!
Now for the story that goes along with the title of this post. I know you've all been waiting for it!
Once upon a time, my companion really needed a humidifier because the dry Utah air was being mean to her body. So we trekked to the MTC health clinic only to discover that if you want a humidifier you have to be placed on a waiting list. So we waited for days and days and days until finally, one cold day, we recieved a notice slip in our mailbox saying that the time for my companion to suffer no longer had finally arrived! Or so we had thought... We went and picked up to humidifier, and great was our joy. At least until that night, when it tried to kill us at two in the morning with noise. But we unplugged it and thought all was well, until the next night when it got even worse! And so it continued until any time it made one little sound I wanted to smash it. Wanting to kill things is probably not a trait missionaries should have. Just saying. So we took it back to the health center, where they said they would throw it away so it could never torment missionaries again and we were given a gentle giant humidifier to take it's place. And ever since, there had been peace in the bedroom and everyone could sleep so they lived happily ever after.
Ok, so that may seem like a silly story but sleep is a big deal. We get so little of it that if you're constantly waking up through the night there is pretty much no way you are going to survive. So being able to make the humidifier function right seemed like a huge victory! Every time I see the functional humidifer I feel a deep joy in my heart. Because we totally won. Take that noisy humidifier!
Before I close I feel like I should share a spiritual quote or two since we do spiritual things all day, and I've been learning a lot so I figure you might like to learn too! This week our Tuesday devotional speaker was Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the 70, and he had a great talk about missionary work and the like. Here are a couple of gems that I liked: "Perhaps his (God's) plan might not involve removing that hardship, but he will surely help you if you earnestly ask him" Successful missionaries (and anybody, really) refuse to let circumstances get them down... They choose to be positive... They think of how they will act, not react."
And ok, maybe you can have one funny quote too. Todd Sensei on not speaking in a monotone voice: "The Japanese may like robots, but they don't like missionary robots" Good advice to remember.
Sidenote, I apologize for if my English and storytelling is becoming worse. Sometimes by the time we reach p-day our brains have started to turn to mush from all the information that's been crammed in it the rest of the week... Plus it's stressful to try and type so much so fast!
I love you all, and thanks so so so much to everyone who has sent me mail! It makes me so happy! I'll reply as soon as I can. Hopefully I'll have time to get a batch of letters out today! Yay snail mail!
Me in my coat practicing for Sapporo.
Our new years eve celebration in our room! At…10pm. There were some girls who counted down to ten with horns and it was pretty funny. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been asleep for midnight that I can remember. Northrop Shimai had the cool glasses and some mango martinelli’s that I’ve never had before.
My district except Northrop Shimai and I who were on the hill goofing off.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Pictures from the MTC
Here are the first pictures we have gotten from Natalie! The captions are written from her too.
The group. We spend every moment together except for sleeping pretty much so I can already recognize them by voices.
A picture of us in front of the temple. We get to go on walks around the temple on Sunday afternoons and it is definitely one of the highlights of the week. Yet another reason why Sundays win. We get to leave the MTC grounds and remember that there is a sun and we get to watch church movies. Yes. Walking. Yes. Therefore, win.
(Me and Brianna Northop)
They put up Christmas lights on the trees and branches next to the main building in the area we walk through a lot and they were super cool! They took them down the other day and it was really sad. But the roomies and I got a picture with them before they were gone!
(Me, Brianna Northop, Stephanie Abraham, Kailey Lewis)
Saturday, January 14, 2012
1-13-2012 Email: Native Speakers
Hello everyone!
Lots of things happened this week. You probably could have guessed that without me telling you though, so I´ll fill you in on the more specific details. I even tried keeping a list of some things as they happened during the week so I could remember to put them in this email. Aren´t you proud?
But first, a pet peeve. For some reason the Spanish speaking missionaries like to do something on the computer that deletes English from the list of possible languages to operate the computer in. So I had to use some of my precious 30 minutes to change it back to English so I could type. Ok, now we can move on.
This biggest thing that happened this week was probably the arrival of the Nihonjin (nihonjin = Japanese person). They closed the MTC in Tokyo a little while ago, so now they send the native Japanese missionaries who are going to serve in Japan here to get trained, but since they already know the language they only stay here for 3 weeks (compared to our 12). It's really cool to have them here! There are four Japanese sisters and then eight Japanese elders. The four sisters are living a room right next to ours so we get to attempt to talk to them a lot. Notice the word "attempt." Even though I can understand most of what my teacher says in class and what our investigators say, apparently I am totally incapable of having a remotely functional conversation with an actual Japanese person! Like one sister tried to start up a friendly conversation about it being really cold and where I came from (or at least I think that was what was going on?) and I couldn't think of a single thing to say! But they are so cool that I still love them anyways. And hopefully I'll know more soon! We'll get another batch of Japanese missionaries three weeks before we leave for Japan, so hopefully by then I'll be able to say more.
Speaking of speaking in another language, I gave my first sacrament talk in Japanese this week. I can't remember if I ever mentioned it before, but every week our entire church meeting is held in all Japanese. And every week every single missionary is supposed to prepare a talk on the same subject, and then two seconds before people speak, as in after the sacrament, they announce who out of all of us will be giving the talk. And of course I got to be the very first one to do it out of the newbies (last week was fast sunday, so we didn't have talks). Usually that would totally freak me out, but luckily I had written out a talk the day before and was feeling pretty good about so I literally just went up to the stand and read it and then sat back down. I think it sounded decent. I've decided I'm going to keep it though so I can read it at the end of my mission and laugh at how terrible it is.
The other really cool thing that happened this week is that for our Tuesday devotional Elder Russell M. Nelson, one of the apostles of the Quorum of the 12, came and spoke to us. He talked about the gathering of Israel and it was super deep, but still really cool since the gathering of the 12 tribes of Israel is what we're participating in right now. One of my favorite things that he said was that all of the prophets have been looking forward to this day, so isn't cool that we get to be a part of it? I took lots of notes because I do that compulsively after being a journalism major.
Um, what else. In case any of you are wondering how I'm doing without tv and movies we occasionally get to watch fun videos in class and on Sundays like "What is Stress" (which actually just ended up stressing all of us out by reminding us how stressed we were) and "The District" (which is like a church made documentary that follows missionaries in San Diego to show us what life will be like) and they help fulfill my TV watching needs. Plus, on Sundays we can watch things like the Joseph Smith video or old talks and I love it. Sundays win.
Oh also, I just heard about The Daily Universe becoming a weekly and some of the craziness surrounding it from Amber, who saw it while performing her sisterly facebook duties. And it hurts my heart so much. So if any of you are still in the know (being in the MTC is like as far out of the know as you can be) and have more information about what is going on you should totally pass it on to me. Because I like knowing things. Especially about the DU, where I spent the last few years of my life.
Ok, I'm out of time. Love you all so much!
Crofts Shimai
Saturday, January 7, 2012
A How to Guide
*I, Amber, am writing this post as Natalie requested in the last Email.
So, you like Natalie a lot. And you miss Natalie. And you want to make her day a little bit more bright. But, you can't find the time to pull out the pen and paper to write a letter. That's alright, it happens to the best of us. But wait, I have a solution to your problem! Drum roll please.... Use www.dearelder.com!
This is a website that allows you to write letters to missionaries as if it was an email. No pen or paper required! Writing letters to the MTC is free too! All you need to do is go to the website and sign-up for a free account. You then can click on the tab that says "write a letter". For Natalie, you pick "Provo MTC" in the drop box and then "write a missionary". The next step is to fill out your information and Natalie's.
Natalie's address:
Sister Natalie Crofts
MTC Box: 169
Mission Code: JPN-SAP
Estimated Departure date: 313
And that's all you need. Then you get to type away to your hearts content.
What happens is they will get your letter, print it out and bring it the the MTC. FOR FREE! It is an awesome website. Natalie won't be able to write you back in the same way but she'll get your letters a lot faster and then she can write you back a hand written one when she has time.
So try it out!
Once Natalie is out of the MTC and into Japan you can still use dearelder.com but it will cost a dollar or so. Still totally worth it though.
So go now. Write away. Natalie loves mail. And you.
So, you like Natalie a lot. And you miss Natalie. And you want to make her day a little bit more bright. But, you can't find the time to pull out the pen and paper to write a letter. That's alright, it happens to the best of us. But wait, I have a solution to your problem! Drum roll please.... Use www.dearelder.com!
This is a website that allows you to write letters to missionaries as if it was an email. No pen or paper required! Writing letters to the MTC is free too! All you need to do is go to the website and sign-up for a free account. You then can click on the tab that says "write a letter". For Natalie, you pick "Provo MTC" in the drop box and then "write a missionary". The next step is to fill out your information and Natalie's.
Natalie's address:
Sister Natalie Crofts
MTC Box: 169
Mission Code: JPN-SAP
Estimated Departure date: 313
And that's all you need. Then you get to type away to your hearts content.
What happens is they will get your letter, print it out and bring it the the MTC. FOR FREE! It is an awesome website. Natalie won't be able to write you back in the same way but she'll get your letters a lot faster and then she can write you back a hand written one when she has time.
So try it out!
Once Natalie is out of the MTC and into Japan you can still use dearelder.com but it will cost a dollar or so. Still totally worth it though.
So go now. Write away. Natalie loves mail. And you.
1-6-2012 Email: Surprise!
Surprise! My P-day is actually on Fridays!
Last week they just gave us the Saturday as a P-day so we could get our lives in order and such, but from now on I'll be writing today. At least while I'm in the MTC. Fridays must just be fantastic everywhere! And just so you know, it's typically the only day I have to write paper letters too, so if you don't hear from me for a week just know that I still love you. Thank you so much to everyone who has written me through Dear Elder! It makes me so happy to hear from people! Amber, maybe you should do a bloggy thing letting people know how to use it since it's free? Both the awesome Annie and wonderful Melissa seem to like using it a lot. I like it too because it means I get things fast! It's almost like texting or facebook. Almost.
Yesterday we got a little surprise -- Harukawa San (San is like Mr. in Japanese), the investigator we had been teaching since our second or third day here (I already can't tell the days apart at all...), is actually our second Japanese teacher! He was going to come knock on the door of our classroom and surprise us (we finished teaching him the day before), but a few of us actually ran into him in the hall because we needed to use the room he was in and ruined the surprise (I want to see how many times I can use the word surprise in this paragraph. Also, parenthesis). It was pretty funny, because at first we were like "Harukawa San! We love you! We never thought we'd see you again!" And then we totally saw his teacher badge. It turns out that his name is actually Todd Sensei (sensei = teacher), and he's from Utah (dad you might like this, he's from Roosevelt), not Sapporo. But he did serve his mission in Sapporo, as did our other teacher, Thurber Sensei. Brianna Northrop Shimai and I totally lucked out to have both of our teachers be returned missionaries from Sapporo, because in our class there are missionaries going to Nagoya and Fukoka too! There are twelve people in our class (there are three twelve person classes of missionaries going to Japan who reported the same day I did, just fyi), and only four of us are going to Sapporo -- Northrop Shimai and I, plus Stilson Choro (choro = elder in Japanese) and Galeria Choro. I think their companionship is kind of funny because it's the oldest guy missionary in our group, Stilson Choro who is 22, with the youngest missionary, Galeria Choro who will turn 19 in the MTC. But that is entirely beside the point. And I already feel like we're a really great group, but I'm probably biased.
But anyways, back to the investigator (which if you didn't know, by the way, is a person who is interested in learning about the Church) who turned out to actually be our teacher. Apparently Todd Sensei had been responding to our questions and lessons as an investigator he had during his mission who was named Harukawa. And even though it wasn't necessarily "real," it was still a great experience, and it felt pretty real. It gave a glimpse of how awesome it will be when we have investigators in the field who respond the same way-- on our last visit we committed Harukawa to be baptized next month and it was just so happy because we know how much joy that can bring to a person's life. We also learned a lot of what we can do better, i.e. for me things like being able to speak Japanese functionally. But I somehow doubt they expected us to be fluent the first week... I hope. And from now on our teachers will be taking turns acting as one of their investigators did, so we should be able to learn a lot more.
Overall, things are still going really well! We made it through our first week, which everyone says is the hardest in the MTC so that's good. It's an adventure! I hope all of you are having lots of awesome adventures too. If you ever get bored you should write me! I promise to write something awesome back. I might even draw you a cool picture too.
Love you all, Sister Crofts
Last week they just gave us the Saturday as a P-day so we could get our lives in order and such, but from now on I'll be writing today. At least while I'm in the MTC. Fridays must just be fantastic everywhere! And just so you know, it's typically the only day I have to write paper letters too, so if you don't hear from me for a week just know that I still love you. Thank you so much to everyone who has written me through Dear Elder! It makes me so happy to hear from people! Amber, maybe you should do a bloggy thing letting people know how to use it since it's free? Both the awesome Annie and wonderful Melissa seem to like using it a lot. I like it too because it means I get things fast! It's almost like texting or facebook. Almost.
Yesterday we got a little surprise -- Harukawa San (San is like Mr. in Japanese), the investigator we had been teaching since our second or third day here (I already can't tell the days apart at all...), is actually our second Japanese teacher! He was going to come knock on the door of our classroom and surprise us (we finished teaching him the day before), but a few of us actually ran into him in the hall because we needed to use the room he was in and ruined the surprise (I want to see how many times I can use the word surprise in this paragraph. Also, parenthesis). It was pretty funny, because at first we were like "Harukawa San! We love you! We never thought we'd see you again!" And then we totally saw his teacher badge. It turns out that his name is actually Todd Sensei (sensei = teacher), and he's from Utah (dad you might like this, he's from Roosevelt), not Sapporo. But he did serve his mission in Sapporo, as did our other teacher, Thurber Sensei. Brianna Northrop Shimai and I totally lucked out to have both of our teachers be returned missionaries from Sapporo, because in our class there are missionaries going to Nagoya and Fukoka too! There are twelve people in our class (there are three twelve person classes of missionaries going to Japan who reported the same day I did, just fyi), and only four of us are going to Sapporo -- Northrop Shimai and I, plus Stilson Choro (choro = elder in Japanese) and Galeria Choro. I think their companionship is kind of funny because it's the oldest guy missionary in our group, Stilson Choro who is 22, with the youngest missionary, Galeria Choro who will turn 19 in the MTC. But that is entirely beside the point. And I already feel like we're a really great group, but I'm probably biased.
But anyways, back to the investigator (which if you didn't know, by the way, is a person who is interested in learning about the Church) who turned out to actually be our teacher. Apparently Todd Sensei had been responding to our questions and lessons as an investigator he had during his mission who was named Harukawa. And even though it wasn't necessarily "real," it was still a great experience, and it felt pretty real. It gave a glimpse of how awesome it will be when we have investigators in the field who respond the same way-- on our last visit we committed Harukawa to be baptized next month and it was just so happy because we know how much joy that can bring to a person's life. We also learned a lot of what we can do better, i.e. for me things like being able to speak Japanese functionally. But I somehow doubt they expected us to be fluent the first week... I hope. And from now on our teachers will be taking turns acting as one of their investigators did, so we should be able to learn a lot more.
Overall, things are still going really well! We made it through our first week, which everyone says is the hardest in the MTC so that's good. It's an adventure! I hope all of you are having lots of awesome adventures too. If you ever get bored you should write me! I promise to write something awesome back. I might even draw you a cool picture too.
Love you all, Sister Crofts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
12-31-11 Email
Hello!
I'm alive and writing an email! But no pictures. I tried to attach it but it's totally and completely impossible! They only let you type, and you can't put pictures on the computer because there is no desktop. So I'll just have to mail them old school style.
Um, I don't know where to start! So much has been happened even though it's only been like three days. I guess I'll start from the beginning. That's generally a good place, right? First, let me introduce you to my companion, which is the person I get to spend all of my time with. Her name is Northrop Shimai (shimai means sister in Japanese), and she's from Vancouver, Washington! Small world, right? She's really cool, and actually knows a lot of Japanese because she did immersion school growing up so I feel like we will be a great partnership. She definitely knows a lot more than me, but that just means she can help me get better faster. And I've been remembering a lot of what I learned in school, but we'll get to that in a sec. I have two other roommates who are also really awesome. My friend Stephanie, Abraham Shimai, is one of them! She lived across the hall from me last year at Hampstead and is just a wonderful person. We don't have classes with each other even though she's learning Japanese too (she's going to Kobe), but we still see each other all of the time. And her companion is really cool too. Her name is Lewis Shimai and she's from Montana. I sleep on a top bunk, which is kind of cool because then I get to use to top of the closet as a shelf.
Next, I'm sure you want to know how the Japanese is going! It's kind of crazy. But good and fun. Right after dad dropped me off I just got to drop off my bags in my room (the schedule here is so packed that they never actually gave us time to unpack, we just had to use the time we had to get ready for bed to do it), pick up my name badge and then report directly to the classroom where they only spoke Japanese. Luckily I could generally understand what they were saying and follow instructions as they told us what to do with computers and such since I took classes before, but I have no idea how the people who had never heard the language before did it! That would be stressful. It was kind of stressful anyways! After that they sent us to a bunch of classes about how to be a missionary where they would do things like have an investigator come in for the class to ask questions and it was kind of overwhelming because I had no idea what should be said. But I'm feeling more confident. We actually taught our first "investigator" yesterday (they don't tell us if the people who come in are actual investigators or just volunteers, but I'm kind of feeling this guy isn't real.) Wouldn't it be a bad idea to send investigators to people who have only two days worth of language? I think it went pretty well even though neither me or my companion really knows any religious words so we read pretty much straight out of the book. But I think the conversational bit in the beginning went really well and I did understand everything he said except a couple of words. When most of the Elders (guys) came back from teaching him they were just laughing about how they had no idea what just happened. We have to teach him again today though, and I'm running out of questions we could ask to make the lesson last longer before we just read out of the book... I have to admit I would be perfectly happy if he just talked about himself the whole time and we didn't have to say a single word. But I guess that probably wouldn't help us learn the language as much. Darn it.
Well, I guess I should share the computer with the other missionaries. Just know that things are going well and that even though the days can be long I'm surviving! We get an 50 minutes of gym time every day though and it's pretty much the best thing ever. I just run around the track and it helps me clear my mind and wake up some more. I hope you have an awesome New Year's Eve for me tonight. I'll probably be asleep since we're supposed to go to bed at 10:30.
Love you all so much! aishte iru.
Natalie
Natalie getting dropped off at the MTC.
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