Hello all!
It's been another good week here at the MTC, although I will
admit that the days are starting to seem a little longer. We graduated from
Cohai (0-3 weeks) to Sempai (3-6 weeks). All of the Daisempai (6-9 weeks) have
major cabin fever, and I know that'll be me soon. Also, I'm not sure if Cohai,
Sempai and Daisempai are actual Japanese terms or if they were just made up
here.
I'm trying really hard to remember all your questions. Dad
asked about what we do in class, I think. I have six hours of structured
classroom time each day, 3 hours each with a different teacher. The 3-hour
block is usually broken up into 3 1-hour parts, one for language instruction,
one for practicing teaching the "investigator" played by our teacher,
and one for learning different teaching methods or gospel topics. It varies
though, and sometimes we'll have discussions or watch videos or something else.
Besides structured class time, we also have about an hour each every day for
personal study, language study, and TALL (technology-assisted language
learning) on the computer.
My favorite parts of the day are definitely mealtimes and
gym time, because it's time when we can just have fun as a district and take a
break from Japanese. We also have an hour every night after classes are done
for "additional study and planning," during which we sometimes go out
and do something fun. At one point, when we were all in choir, we went and
found a piano to practice our songs. Now that we mostly all dropped out of
choir, we just sing for fun. We also had two parties this week, one for Sister
Willden's birthday and one for Canada Day yesterday. We found some picnic
tables on the edge of campus and the Elders brought tons of food. Apparently
they all get care packages full of junk food like every day and their rooms are
overflowing with it.
For the Birthday party, we learned how to sing Happy
Birthday in Japanese and there was even a cake! I guess Sister Willden had
a relative in the area who knew someone who worked here, and they delivered it
to her room! It was really fun. She turned 21. Sister Dunn is turning 21 in
about a month too - most of the girls in my district are around 20 it seems.
I'm the youngest, but I'm older than all of the boys by a few months. On Canada
Day, we tried all kinds of Canadian packaged foods (ketchup-flavored Lays,
maple cookies, candy bars that aren't in the states, and other things) that
Elder Keith's family sent him from home in Ottawa. He loves his Canadian
heritage, and encouraged us all to wear red that day. We ate on Canadian flag
plates and napkins, and tried to follow along as he belted out Canada's
national anthem. Funny kid. I'll try to attach a picture. It made me
really excited for the 4th (I've heard we get to watch the Stadium of Fire
fireworks!), and we've decided as a district to try to throw as many themed
parties as possible. If anyone wants to send me a French-themed package for
Bastille Day (isn't it the 14th?), I wouldn't object.
Besides our picnics, gym time is definitely the most fun
part of the day. The Shimaitachi have continued to play soccer pretty regularly,
which always leaves me winded and dripping with sweat. It is soooo hot here.
And since we usually only play 4 on 4, a lot of running is required. It's
always nice when other girls join in. We played basketball yesterday too, which
was way fun even though it involves lots of getting hit in the face. We can
only play half-court, so it feels like you're constantly switching directions
and running around in circles. Oh yeah, plus I'm really bad at basketball and
have no idea what I'm doing. I almost won a game of Bump yesterday though! If
I'm not one of the first three out, it's a good game for me. So getting second
felt like winning an Olympic medal. Foursquare is also a really good time. It
reminds me of fifth grade.
Sundays are definitely the best days of the week. No class!
And because Relief Society is combined with all of the girls in the MTC, we
always get really cool speakers. I'm usually not a fan of female speakers in
general conference and the overly sweet tones of voice they all seem to have,
but we've gotten to hear from such pretty amazing women. Last Sunday we heard
from Sheri Dew! For those of you who don't know, she's a big deal to Mormon
women. What an incredible lady. And our devotional speaker last week was Janice
Kapp Perry, who writes a lot of music for the church. Her talk involved lots of
singing and funny stories. Her husband was there with her, and she talked about
how they first met. They were in the same music class a long time ago in
college, and right before she was about to give her final performance on the
clarinet, he leaned over and spoke the very first words he ever said to her:
"those lips look like they were meant for better things than
clarinet." Obviously, his line worked. When she told the story, her
husband walked over and gave her a huge, loud kiss that got a standing ovation
and lots of whooping. It was great. She also played a really funny song that
she'd written for her whole extended family. It sounds like there's a lot of
talent in that bloodline.
Another fun thing about Sundays is that you don't know who's
speaking until our Branch President announces it 2 minutes beforehand. There
are about 80-ish missionaries in our branch, I think. So, we all have to
prepare short talks on an assigned subject beforehand. It's always fun watching
people's reactions, except of course when that person is you. When I heard him
say my name I'm pretty sure my eyes grew 10x bigger. Usually though, giving a
talk really isn't a big deal at all. All of the speakers in the past have used
lots of English, made tons of mistakes and laughed it off, and only went for
like 2 or 3 minutes. But the dude who went before me is one of the ones who
actually studied Japanese in high school and takes it very seriously. His talk
was honestly like 10 minutes long, much of it unscripted, and flawless. Not a
single English word. So I made sure to compensate for all of his perfection by
messing up my conjugation and only speaking for about 90 seconds. Silver
lining: I know I won't get called on twice so now I don't have to write any
more talks.
Speaking of music, I miss it so much. Leaving behind
Facebook and TV and all that was pretty easy, but not having my ipod is really
hard sometimes. We get to sing here a lot, but Japanese hymns that I barely
understand just aren't the same. Like, someone is currently playing Yankee
Doodle on the piano in the room next door to me and I'm enjoying it
so much because it's something different. I have to refrain from dancing. I've
started to compensate for my lack of music by writing stupid songs about our
district to the tunes of Disney songs or Christmas carols or whatever I can
think of. A few days ago, I wrote a 12 Days of Christmas- inspired song about
our district because there's 12 of us, and each day was something unique about
one of us. For example, it started off with 12 pairs of shoes, which is how
many Sister Dunn currently has. 12! And Dad thought I was being frivolous with
5 or 6. I wish I could shop here. Actually, there's a small store above the
bookstore from which I bought a skirt. But that's all, no more clothes. Even
though I might need some new underwear because I accidentally dyed some of mine
pink in the laundry today. I thought that only happened in sitcoms! Anyways, my
songs are totally dumb and silly but people seem to enjoy them. I think some
performances have actually been recorded and hopefully never resurface.
We went to the TRC for the first time this week, and I'm not
actually sure what that stands for. Training... something... center? Anyways,
it's where volunteers come and let us teach them short lessons to practice.
It's mostly returned missionaries from Japan who live in Provo or go to BYU,
but there was this one really old Japanese couple who I guess were really funny
and a little confused about the fact that we are supposed to be teaching them,
and not the other way around. I was a little nervous beforehand, but everyone
was really nice. Although sometimes they speak a little fast and I just sit
there, smiling and nodding, hoping that whatever they just said wasn't a
question.
We're getting two more districts of Nihonjin next week! I'm
so excited. There are 20 of them, about half-girls, half-boys.
Overheard at the MTC this week:
"Recycling is actually really bad for the
environment"
"Having a catheter would be so fun!"
Love, Anna
Anna's MTC district celebrates Canada Day |
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