Ohaiyo Gozaimasu, mina san!
This week has flown by. They always do; however, it's
starting to feel as though we've been here a longggg time - we've seen so many
people come and go, while we just keep on keepin' on. A few days ago, our
devotional speaker was the same one who spoke to us the first week we were
here. To be honest, I didn't even notice (notetaking is still not a strength of
mine) but one of the girls in my district did, and she leaned over to whisper
"you know you've been here too long when they start recycling
speakers." Same with the cafeteria food - there's a pattern to what they
serve, and we've now been able to notice the schedule repeating. Update on my
efforts to eat meat again: I can do small pieces in soups or salads just fine,
and maybe even full pieces of chicken or turkey, but I tried a bite of roast
beef last week and instantly gagged. Oh man it was so gross. I'll have to work
on that before I go to Japan so I don't offend some kindly family.
Hmmm, where to start. All of the Daisempai (6-9 weeks) left
this Monday morning, so we've graduated to Daisempai! It was sad saying goodbye
to them, and terrifying/exciting to think that we'll be the next to leave.
We're 2/3 done.
Sister Dunn and I have been adjusting to our new calling as Sister
Training Leaders. This week we interviewed all of the girls in the branch to
get to know them, and I was surprised how talkative they all were! It was
awesome. In my interviews, I was always like "yeah, yep, doing good, I'm
fine, no I don't have any questions, are we done yet?" But a lot of girls
really liked the opportunity to talk. They're all so sweet. This job forces me
to be more social, which I guess I needed. It's a lot of fun.
Last Tuesday, after I sent my email, my district had our
weekly P-day picnic lunch. We have lots of free time in the afternoons, so we
ended up playing werewolf for like two hours. Today, we're having a little
party with the care package you sent (thank you!! I have the best Mom ever!).
Then on Wednesday, I hosted new missionaries for the first time. Hosting is
mostly standing by the sidewalk, waiting your turn when cars pull up - I was
there for about two hours, but only hosted 2 girls. But it's all good. You help
the new missionaries get their luggage out of their car; say goodbye to their
family; then take them to get their name tags, drop their luggage off in their
room, and grab the books they need before dropping them off in their
classroom. The first girl I hosted actually came here with her twin sister, and
they're both going to Korea! Crazy. She was so sweet, and I had a deja vu
moment when I took her to her classroom and her teacher greeted her in rapid
Korean, never pausing to explain anything in English. I saw the bewildered,
wide-eyed look she gave him and remembered doing the exact same thing to my
Sensei six weeks ago. Another fun fact I learned this week about the MTC: All
of the classrooms and residence halls for English-speaking missionaries are
wayyyyy nicer than ours. Not fair at all. They all have comfy chairs, huge TVs,
decorated walls, etc. and we're in a tiny room with a chalkboard. CHALKboard.
But it's okay.
Friday morning I woke up to find everything wet - I guess
Utah has some storms in the summertime. It rained on and off for the next two
days, and everyone was SO excited about it.
We've had a lot of extra teachers come in recently, for more
opportunities to practice teaching or get individual coaching. It's cool to
listen to each one of their Japanese styles, especially the native ones,
because everyone speaks differently. We were also visited by Brother Mortenson,
an Italian teacher, and he said he knew Marilyn! "Oh yeah, Sister Bradford
is great" is what he said. Which, of course, she is. I love reading her
letters home. We also get more opportunities to teach new people in TRC - this
week, Sister Dunn and I taught the Taguchis, an elderly Japanese couple who
come all the time. Apparently they used to live in Salem for a long time! They
were very nice, and spent almost all of the lesson time explaining the meaning
of the characters in their names and telling us other facts about Japan. They
had a whole binder full of laminated pages covered in maps, pictures, and other
charts - clearly they've been doing this a long time, and have their
presentation perfected.
When we were taking a walk around the temple grounds on
Sunday, we ran into a lady from Tokyo who was very excited to meet us. She took
lots of pictures and talked to us for a long time, constantly bowing and
apologizing for keeping us from dinner but then taking more pictures. She was
so sweet. It was really encouraging that I was able to understand her, even
though I'm sure she was speaking slowly and dumbing down her words for our
benefit.
Oh, I got to play the piano last night for the first time in
what seems like years! It was amazing to see my fingers remember what my brain
couldn't. We had some extra time after class ended before we could go back to
our rooms so we went and found a room with a piano so we could all sing
together. It's amazing how fun stuff like that becomes when you don't have
Netflix or other things to do.
OK, now I have to include one ridiculous story that happened
this week. Venting about things helps me not to feel angry, so I'm considering
this therapeutic. Anyways, Sister Dunn and I offered to send any last-minute
packages that the Daisempai had after they left Monday morning. One girl told
us that she had a couple boxes of things to send home, which she'd leave outside
her door, labeled and ready to go. So when we got there, we were shocked to see
TEN boxes, all of them overflowing with junk, and a few addresses written out
on paper next to them. And I mean BIG boxes - at least three of them were the
kind produce comes in at the grocery store. Nothing was sealed or ready, and
she didn't leave money or anything. Did she really expect us to pay for all
those boxes to be mailed off? It would easily amount to over $100. Anyways, we
weren't sure what to do so we called our branch president (Dad asked about
that, I think - Our branch, about 100 missionaries, has a president and three
counselors) and gave him the girl's mom's phone number so they can figure it
out. They live in Provo, so they'll probably be able to come and pick it up in
person. I don't know. In the meantime, we have to store all of her stuff in our
room. I guess I should have seen it coming - this girl received THIRTY packages
from home during her stay here, so it's safe to say she probably lives a charmed
life. I hope being on her own in Japan isn't too big a shock. Actually, I take
it back. She needs a wake-up call.
Well, time's up! Matta ne!
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