Week 1: MTC Jitters

Well look at this! Here I am, finally in the actually MTC, having a companion and stuff and eating MTC food and speaking Japanese and EVERYTHING!

 

Wednesday was the day I came in, as you are probably aware. That honestly feels like it was about 3 weeks ago. Days here are so slow going. We often forget if we just ate dinner or lunch.  I live on the fourth floor of my building, so me and my fellow Shimaitachi (that means sister is Japanese) have to climb a lot of stairs to get to our bedroom. The bedrooms are more built for 4 people... and there are 6 of us, haha, so we've had to do some minor adjusting. So far, it's really worked out great. One of those mini-MTC miracles, I suppose. There are a lot of those that happen! My companion is Jones Shimai and she really is a sweetheart. I'm very happy with our companionship. The other sisters in our room are Collison Shimai and Southworth Shimai and Feist Shimai and Lopez-Ruano Shimai (who I knew before entering the MTC). Feist and Lopez-Ruano are in our district and are both also going to the Tokyo South mission.

 

In fact, everyone in our district is going to the Tokyo South mission. There are 12 of us in total. 4 Shimai and 8 Chōrō (that's elder in Japanese, btw). I'll be quite honest, we're probably the funniest district around. We're a bunch of clowns. It's a miracle that we get any work done. (Another MTC miracle!) I'll just run off their names, so you can know: Rockwood, Cluff, Berube, Lundberg, Wright, Ford, Hansen, and Nebeker. It's really strange how close and how much like a family you can be in only 6 days. It was bizarre seeing them in regular p-day clothes today.

 

Our teacher is Willard Sensei and he is quite honestly an excellent teacher. He was just married 6 months ago, after knowing his wife for 3 months and she's been pregnant for 3 months... Willard Sensei is hilarious, but also very spiritual and let's us figure out most of the stuff on our own (with teh help of the spirit) which is frustrating but longer lasting then just trying to just teach us Japanese.

 

Did you know that when you are speaking a langauge they have you teach in that language on the 2nd day? Talk about terrifying! I was so surprised that they had us teaching so soon. Mostly we end up teaching and saying thigns straight out of a book and most the time have no idea what we are saying nor what the investigator is saying and it's confusing and frustrating BUT! The good thing is that it can only get better. My Japanese is definitely not good. But it can only improve.

 

There is nothing like the spirit in the MTC. You look around and see all of these young men and woman who are purely serving the Lord and everyone is just so bright and filled with love. Having a companion is truly a blessing. Learning Japanese (however frustrating it can be!) is truly a blessing. I quite honestly thank the Lord for this wonderful opprotunity.

 

One thing I was surprised that I needed more of were t-shirts! I only brought 3, not counting the fact that we excercise every day and having a t-shirt for each day would be helpful. Just a thought! The everyday miracles in the MTC are amazing. Just the fact that you can have a ton of girls and boys together in the prime of their flirting and scoping out the opposite sex season and have hardly none of that going on. Sure, sure, there is flirting (that's unavoidable) but it's not normal flirting. It's restrained flirting and it's kind of hilarious. We have "handshakes of victories" instead of high fives because any contact with the opposite is inappropriate. We often forget and high five each other, haha, but we've been correcting ourselves! Also, you don't realize how much you say "dude" and "man" until you reach the MTC where you aren't suppose to call each other "dude" and "man" and "guys."

 

Book is blue, the church is true!

 

Cheers!

 

Clark Shimai

 

 Picture explainations:

1) Me and my goofy friends before getting set apart

2) My parents dropping me off

 

 

PS) I'm doing this via e-mail, so I don't know if it's going to post the pictures in that order. See you next week! (figuratively)

 

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