Date
September 17, 2015
Area
Companion
Week 2, MTC
It's so strange to think that I've only been here for two weeks. The weeks go by so fast, but the days feel like like weeks. Seven more to go. I don't know what everyone was talking about, *cough, cough Ben and Reed* but the cafeteria food here is awesome. It's a bit too awesome; if I don't watch it, I'm going to have rice cheeks before I even get to Asia.
This week has been an emotional roller-coaster of fun and grief. Reason for the fun: I've grown a lot closer to my district, my companion, my roommates and my dai-senpai (those missionaries in our zone who came in six weeks earlier). My zone is the greatest zone of all time. Every morning during gym time we're on the courts messing around and playing volleyball. We sit more or less as a group during meals, and the dai-senpai are in-and-out of our classroom almost half the day every day.
Reason for the grief: the dai-senpai are leaving on Monday. I'm going to miss them all so much! For the last two days we've been signing 'bye-bye' books and having fun whenever we get the chance. it's been rough, I'm really going to miss all of these guys. What's worse, they're all going to either Kobe or Fukuoka. It's highly likely that I will never see any of them again. I've only known them for two weeks, but two weeks in the MTC is a lifetime.
As far as class goes, we've upgraded from teaching Youkou-san to being taught by Youkou-san (his real name is Fitz Sensei). We're now teaching two different investigators, Ishida-san (Fitz sensei) and Nagamori-san (Hueffner Sensei). Both of these so-called investigators were real investigators that Fitz Sensei and Hueffner Sensei taught while they were on their missions. Eventually we're going to teach Watanabe Sensei and Horne Sensei's 'investigators' as well, but not quite yet.
Every Monday we've started doing what are called TRCs-- Teaching Resource Center. What they're having us do is go in as a companionship and for about twenty minutes, talk with and share a short family-home-evening-like message with members of the Church from around Provo. It's all in Japanese, of course. most of who we've had already have been to missions in Japan. Speaking with them is really interesting, because we're not working with a lesson-plan like we are with our investigators. It's all off-book, even though we more or less know what we're going to share for our spiritual message. Trying to explain what I'm thinking in English in Japanese is probably the most challenging thing I have ever done in my entire life. With out first person, I managed to stumble out a testimony with a lot of help from her, but with the second guy, I could not for the life of me remember any of the words we had figured out two minutes before in the other room. I had to apologise and say what I was going to say in English. There's nothing more frustrating than that kind of a failure, but I got over it pretty quickly.
We get our kohai (under classmen) next Wednesday. I'm super excited to meet them! But at the same time, I reeeaaaallly really don't think I'm ready to be a senpai. not in the slightest.
I'll be sending an additional email with pictures attached.
Signing off, from the Happiest prison on Earth, Zylks Shimai. Ai Shite Imasu!