Emily's E-mail from today, Nov 4:
Tell Grandpa McMahan a big thank you for offering to pay $25/month. I'll repay him by working my hardest. When I set out to pay for my mission all on my own, I came up short... $25 per month short! I knew the Lord would bless me for giving all my money even though I didn't quite make it.
My intestines haven't been working well :( I wish they would feed us better in the cafeteria. The food is ok, but it's too dense. I don't like meat and potatoes. I wish they would serve more veggies. We watched "Search for Happiness" in Japanese and English. Even though I had seen it before I came, I remembered how much I love Japan already!
We teach the Plan of Salvation (lesson 2) for 30 minutes in Japanese... in 2 weeks!
Friday Oct 31
After a 1 1/2 hour discussion on the Fall/Atonement with Teixiera Sensei, we watched Elder Holland's "Don't Go Home" talk. Tex Sensei had to leave before the film was done. Afterwards, as a district we shared what we got out of the talk along with our testimonies. The Spirit was so strong. One Elder even cried while he talked. He said that he'd always given up when things got hard before, but this time it needed to be different. I learned two of our Elders had thought about going home. After we shared our thoughts, we just sat. No one felt like moving because the Spirit was so strong. The Elders started hugging each other. Sis. Shaha and I wanted to hug badly, but we couldn't so we just gave handshakes. We finished at 9:45pm instead of 9:30pm.
Sat Nov 1
Companionship inventory went well. I'm learning a lot about how to be a better person from my companion. We switched seats today. Now I'm by the door. It's super nice because I don't feel squished in the corner like my old seat. Each Saturday I love the Korean-Japanese singing battle even more! We Japanese march down from the 5th floor together and we sing. Now that it's the holidays, we sing Christmas hymns. It breaks my heart to know the Senpai will leave soon, but that's something I'll have to get used to because on a mission, it seems to me like people will come and go a lot. The Senpai Sisters passed around a "spiritual yearbook". Everyone took a page to write "good luck-s" and a testimony as well as an e-mail address.
Sun Nov 2
Fast Sunday. I liked hearing the testimonies in Japanese. I'm understanding more and more.
Before church which started at 3, I played hymns ("arranging" and improvising as I went) while Shipp Shimai played the violin. Sisters Shaha and Campos sang. That was totally awesome! After church, we played 3 or so more hymns and one of the elders played the violin a bit. He got a kick out of that. After the Sunday fireside, we watched "Mountain of the Lord." It was extra special to watch since I've been through that temple now.
Mon Nov 3
We learned adverbs today! It's like our Japanese ability increased ten fold!
I was very happy today, but I'm not entirely sure why. I laughed and giggled a lot.
For and hour our district worked in the referral center chat room answering chats from one of the church's websites. That was fun.
Tues Nov 4 -- Today!
We went to the 7am Endowment session with our ENTIRE zone. Then we ate breakfast in the cafeteria. After breakfast we took pictures right outside the temple. It started to rain lightly, but we had a good time. I can't wait until after the mission and I can be friends with these people in "real life." I love the temple!
Japanese is coming along. The hardest part about the MTC is lack of time to review. You are bombarded with new information constantly and the time to review is so little. Plus you need to balance language and gospel study. But, through it all, everyone manages to smile.
~ McMahan Shimai
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