Week #5 at the MTC

Thurs. Nov 6

It's hard to write in your journal every night because you need to prep for the next day.
TRC Week 5 was an improvement. For 15 minutes, in Japanese, we helped investigators "move" by putting pictures of things in boxes and then we taught them how to pray. Then we taught the 2nd lesson in English. We focused on teaching in unity because that was our goal. The progress of learning Japanese is very slow, but it is coming. It's like watching your hair grow. You can't tell it's growing, but one day you realize you need a haircut!

Fri. Nov. 7

Tex Sensei gave the first section of the lesson in Japanese today in class and... I understood 95% of it! I love Japanese. It's feeling more and more comfortable to speak. It's so weird to hear someone pray in English now. I've been so happy these past couple days and my district has commented on my cheerfulness. They remembered how quiet and unapproachable I was the first week. I don't know why I'm so happy.

The class block after dinner, Sis. Shaha and I were studying in the stairwell. I reached over my desk to get something from the floor and totally belched. The belch kinda of scared me because it was unintentional and out of the blue. Sis. Shaha was laughing like crazy. When we came back to our room she said how that morning she'd prayed and said how she hadn't laughed in a long time.

As a companionship we learned 15 new tango (vocab) today and... it took 30 minutes. Wow.

Sun Nov 9

During MDT before lunch today, we kohai and our next door neighbor senpai had a scripture war. Draney Choro started it by walking into our room and, without saying a word, wrote a scripture from 3 Nephi on our blackboard. Then we rebutted and Budge Choro walked silently into their room and wrote a scripture on the board. This went on for 40 minutes. It was super funny. I took a picture of our blackboard.

And elder from the other Japanese zone is from Brazil. His English is poor. Sis. Shaha and I talked to him at the water fountain today. The speaker at the mtc-wide fireside had a few missionaries share their conversion experience if they'd been baptized within the past 3 years. The Brazilian elder called to Japan went up. His English was poor, so the speaker attempted to talk in Japanese (he'd served in Japan years ago) but that didn't go too well. Then the Brazilian elder said, "My doryo speaks Portuguese." ("doryo" is Japanese for "companion") It was so tender. His companion didn't look Brazilian but he spoke Portuguese and he translated. I just can't get over how he said "my doryo speaks Portuguese."Apparently there are a number of Brazilians called to Japan.

During Relief Society, the end counselor in the general primary presidency spoke. Sis Matsumori or something like that. We watched a short film where they sang "I am a Child of God" in different languages. A tear came to my eye when they came to Japanese. The language seems more and more familiar and I'd rather hear something in Japanese than English.

During Sacrament Meeting, I played the piano, Sis. Shipp did the violin, and Sis. Shaha and Sis. Campos sang. I also accompanied one of the senpai district's musical numbers. There were 3 musical numbers. Before dinner, we sang in 4-part harmony as a district. 2 elders and 2 sisters. It was awesome. We have some pretty good singers in our district!

Mon, Nov 10

Sis Boone asked me to play for some musical things on Thanksgiving. Yeah! They called my name over the intercom during dinner. "Sis. Emily McMahan, will you please come to the front desk?" I'm accompanying that girl from my mission prep class who is going to Sweden. I'm auditioning with her Thursday. Her accompanist couldn't make it last minute. Remember I auditioned a couple weeks ago? I'm playing on the 16th for Relief Society!

I'm realizing that exposure is a great way to learn Japanese. Even if you don't understand everything, it's awesome just to read.

TIP for future missionaries-- get your Preach My Gospel laminated! They do it cheap in the MTC, but it might be just as easy to do it ahead of time when it's brand new.