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Heaton Shimai my awesome comp

my district

Twins?

Heaton Shimai

The sisters

our zone leaders

party time!

6-22-13 Week 6 MTC

Sorry--Mom and Dad the blog updaters were cruising around Alaska but this should get us up to date.

KONNICHIWA!!!

Okay, it sounds like you had an amazing time on your cruise! Thanks for still emailing me even though you were only on land for a little while :) I got the package last week about an hour after I sent that email. It was saiko (aka supreme)!!! Thank you so so so much for everything you sent, it was perfect. So here's a rundown of our MTC adventures for the week:

On Sunday, we had a great devotional (as always) and afterwards we watched the Testaments in Japanese. Fun fact - there are almost 200 missionaries going to Japan in the MTC right now. There are three Japanese branches. Aka one of the reasons it is so crazy is because as of last fall, there were 7. YOSH. Almost all of those missionaries were crammed into a room watching it and there wasn't any spare space but huzzah for bonding time, I guess. The ironic part was that in the room next door, it was being shown in Spanish and there were only 20 missionaries in there. Interesting...... :) On Tuesday, we walked to the Marriott Center again for devotional and let me tell you, it is such a great experience. Always. Our district has been singing in the MTC choir (along with almost all the missionaries at the MTC) and it's alot of fun. It's nice to sing in a choir. Oh also on Tuesday orWednesday Heaton Shimai and I went to the BYU Health Center to go pick something up, and when we walked in I heard someone yell "Alyssa?!?" Looked up and saw it was Karynn, Scott Bingham's fiance. It was awesome seeing her, she's the best. We talked to her for a second then I heard someone else start talking to Karynn, looked up and saw Daniel Christofferson, who threw in his own "Alyssa? I mean Sister Flake?" Anywho, fun stuff. Small world! I forget that the BYU world/life I used to live is just down the road. The MTC really is it's own little world sometimes. I sometimes feel like all I do is eat, study, eat and study but it is fantastic. In case I haven't mentioned it recently, I love Japanese! The language is absolutely beautiful. Gah I love it so much. On a different subject, I've ran into President Mills a few times and that has been great as well. He usually teaches us a new phrase or word that's great to know - fun stuff. Basically another weird thing is that this is our 6th week here. We're veterans of the MTC these days. As in by next week, we will officially be the oldest at the MTC. Weird. But great. I'll be in Japan in less than a month. Terrifying! But exciting. So, like always, I of course have to mention that my companion, district, and senseis are awesome as always. I feel like I learn and grow by leaps and bounds every day. OH and another great thing - today was just about the best P-day we've had so far. The mission president seminar started today so we are not allowed in 1M at all (the building the cafeteria is in) so they'll be feeding us in the gym for the next few days. I walked outside of our building and smelled barbecue for the first time in awhile, but didn't want to get my hopes up (I figured some familes nearby were cooking or something - but that was not the case!) We walked up to the gym and they had fresh burgers hot off the grill. It was glorious. And of course the temple today was amazing. I love the peace that it brings!

Another great thing for the week - our most recent lessons with Watabesan and Kuaharasan were wonderful. Wow it was incredible. We were teaching Kuaharasan (Anderson Sensei) and at the end of the lesson when we were saying our goodbyes and telling him thanks and about to leave he said "Time -out u. Can I be Anderson Sensei for a minute?" We were kind of confused, but agreed. "Sisters, what happened? That was incredible! I mean the lessons are great, but today blew me away. Your grammar was near perfect, you were putting together complex sentances, and I completely felt the love you had for Kuahara Kyodai and your message. Wonderful job. I am so proud." Basically he said  something along those lines and it was fantastic. We had a similar experience the next day with Watabe Kyodai. Seeing them come closer to Christ is the most incredible feeling.  I love the opportunity to teach our progressing investigators every day. I wish I could fully express how much I love these investigators. And my district. And our senseis. And Heaton Shimai. Everything is fantastic. It is hard - and I feel like there are so many things that I still need to do before Japan but I love it all so much!!!!!!!

Family, thanks again for everything. I love you all so much!

Ai shitemasu!!! :D

-Flake Shimai

6-15-13Week 5 MTC

Hello!

It sounds like things are going great at home. I'm glad everyone is having such an awesome summer - your activities and such sound like so much fun :) Mom, thanks for sending my package and taking care of all those odds and ends that I didn't bring. I haven't received the package yet but hopefully soon. I forgot that you were going on your cruise this week. I'm so happy for you! That'll be so much fun. Party time. I'll be expecting all the details on that count. It was awesome running into Kelly and Jen Mills in the cafeteria; they're the greatest. I'm not sick of the food yet - it's pretty good considering how many people they feed. The one thing is I sometimes just feel so gross because all I do all day is sit in the classroom for 10+ hours with 3 breaks for food. Kinda weird. And the other bummer is that our dinner is at 4:10. And we're in our classroom till 9:30 every night. But it's all good - I've adjusted to that schedule. One thing that's nice is about every other Saturday or so when we go to the temple in the afternoon we eat lunch at the temple cafeteria and the food is heavenly. :) Seriously though, it's great. So I saw Marni this morning at breakfast and she said she's leaving tomorrow. Crazy! Fun thing though - today is our exact halfway mark! 1 month ago I entered this lovely place. And I depart in one month. It's been 4 1/2 weeks. It seems like longer in some ways, but shorter as well. Basically my sense of time these days is completely distorted. Ah well. And everytime I see Connor he still yells HEY ALYSSA. It's weird but makes me laugh at the same time.

Cool thing of the week - I was able to meet Heaton Shimai's family because her dad was the speaker in our Sunday night devotional/fireside thing. Our whole district had seats front and center. It was an awesome talk, and it was really cool meeting all of them. I know I basically have said this a thousand times, but I have been so blessed to have her as a companion. It's the greatest. We have so much fun together (fun in a totally missionary kind of way, of course :) Japanese is still hard. But I still love it so much. It is such a beautiful language. I can't believe I'm halfway done with the MTC. Next thing I know, we'll be leaving for Japan. CRAZY.

So on Tuesday I was able to be a part of history. Aka we had our devotional at the Marriott Center (the first ever) and it was such an awesome experience. As we were walking across the parking lot, I looked both directions and saw so many missionaries. It really hit me - we are God's army!! We are here to do his work and share these truths that we know to be true with all of our brothers and sisters. This is an incredible opportunity!

Anyway, so Heaton Shimai and I have been doing the MTC choir and it is the greatest. This past Tuesday devotional had almost 2,000 missionaries in the choir - over half of the MTC. We sang an awesome version of Called to Serve and I definitely got goosebumps. I love being here. The speaker at the devotional was Elder Arnold, of the quorum of the 70. He had so much passion for missionary work and gave a powerful talk. Crazy story of that night is as follows: We went back to our classroom to discuss favorite points from the talk, and so on. One of the boys in our class was talking about it and said "This is so incredible to me. I  love my savior Jesus Christ" and right as he said that, our door swung open and someone came marching in saying "So do I!" It was Elder Arnold. He came to our classroom and shook hands with all of us and thanked us for doing the Lord's work. Heaton  Shimai's dad has some great connections, that's for sure. Oh and the funniest part was as he was shaking all of our hands, Elder McClane (one of the elders in my district) vigorously shook his hand and said "Thank you! Um.. who are you?" He looked at him and said "My name is Elder Arnold." Elder McClane went beet red. We were all dying of laughter, it was hilarious.

I don't know if I've told you how our sacrament meetings work or not but it's pretty cool. Our branch president served in Japan, so the ward business and opening stuff is always all in Japanese. We sing all the hymns in Japanese, the sacrament prayers are in Japanese, and each of us prepares a talk every week (in, wait for it....Japanese!). President Johnson calls 3 missionaries up each week and they give their talks, then usually he or one of the counselors finish up with a spiritual thought. I love it so much. It's beautiful!

Another fun thing for the week -- to help us with our Nihongo, we've begun to SYL (speak your language) like nobody's business. As in if we're just talking during the day and say a word in English that we know in Japanese, whoever slips up gets a tally mark. At the end of the day, each tally mark is 10 seconds of a wallsit that we have to do that night. The idea is basically we're doing better with SYLing and working out at the same time. Fun stuff. I know I basically say it all the time but I LOVE my companion, district, and senseis. I've learned SO MUCH from all of them. I am continually growing and learning more. Don't get me wrong, this is hard. But I learn more every day! We've still been teaching Kuaharasan and Watabesan, our progressing investigators. I love them so much and love the experiences we've had with teaching them. Oh and another story - last week the TRC was awesome. We taught the sweetest lady and the experience was super powerful. I love it here so much. Well I know I probably will remember a thousand other things to tell you as soon as I finish this, but I guess they'll be saved for next week. I love you all so much, thank you for everything!!!

Ai shiteimasu!!!

-Flake Shimai

6-8-13 Week 4 MTC

6-8-13

Konnichiwa, kazoku!!!

Summer is most definitely treating you well! Okay so one thing about the MTC is the concept of time is consistently boggling my mind. For reals. I feel like I've been here forever in some ways, but in other ways it feels like I just got here yesterday. Crazy stuff. So yeah - we're officially senpai now. Weird. But awesome. The kohai are really nice, but kind of funny. We always roll out of bed at 6:30 (the elders in our district get up before we do, at 6. Funny how that works) and hurry and get ready then go to breakfast at6:45, then class. The kohai are basically up an hour or so before 6:30, doing perfect hair and makeup. They will learn soon. Haha, I hope anyway. They really are great though. It's just crazy that our friends (our dai senpai) are already in Japan. Crazy stuff!!! I can't believe it's already June. I saw Connor a couple days ago, it was hilarious because I was just walking down a hallway and heard someone yell "HEY ALYSSA," which I didn't even respond to till my companion pointed out that someone was waving at me. I also have ran into Marni a few times and she screamed and ran over to me to give me a big hug. It was great seeing both of them.

Please tell Uncle Wade thank you for the cookies - they were SUPER deliciouis. And my district enjoyed them as well :) Dallin has braces now? What the what? How is he even old enough for that? Just kidding Dal - I know you're going to be like a foot taller than me when I get back. That's insane but just know that I feel your pain :)

Okee dokee. Sorry if I am super repetitive in these letters - I kind of feel like I tell you the same thing every week because I do the same thing every day. My schedule is essentially this: Eat, study, class, eat, study, class, eat, study, plan for the next day. Yep. That's about all. But I love it, and I feel like there's not enough time in the day to study all that I want to study! On Sunday, for our "movie hour" after the devotional (which was super great, as always) we watched Legacy in JAPANESE. It was the greatest. "Josefu, Josefu, tasukete kudasai!! (Joseph, Joseph, help please) -- just for the record, when you type it it is not quite as hilarious. But it really was great. Also it was basically most of the missionaries going to Japan (fun fact, there is now 3 branches of Japanese missionaries, almost 200. It's awesome). Best part was when the sappy scene happened and the main guy kissed the girl and all the elders yelled "NO WAY, we're senkyoshi (missionaries) now -- eew gross, etc." It was kinda funny.

We're teaching Watabesan and Kuaharasan right now and our lessons this week have been awesome. We're growing so much every time. One sad thing for the week though is Heaton Shimai has been sick so we've gone to the clinic and such but she's doing alot better. Which is great.

I love singing the hymns in Japanese. It's beautiful. Sundays are so great. Also another scary thing about being senpai is the likeliness of speaking in church gets higher every week because we have to prepare a talk each week in Nihongo and they just call a few missionaries up each week to share. Kind of scary, but it is awesome.

Okay terrifying experience of the week -- last Saturday night was our first TRC. Everyone we talked to said it would be super chill and really fun. We would be teaching a twenty minute lesson to a member as themselves, helping them come closer to Christ. Thing is, it was our P-day and our class was at 5 so we figured we'd prepare something at the beginning of class then go to TRC like an hour later and things would be fine. We got to class at 5 and they told us there was a mix up with the schedule so we were needed at the TRC as asap as possible (Devin -- that was for you. and your roommates. You're welcome). So we ran on over there and they put each companionship in a different room with the people we were teaching. The room we went into had the sweetest little Japanese lady- she was awesome. Before we began, our sensei told us he'd just be observing us so he came in as well. I didn't think much of it till we started teaching her, and a couple of minutes into the lesson we discovered she was not a member. So, essentially we had no notes, and I could hardly understand a word that came out of her mouth (partially because at this moment in time the Japanese I know is all of the church vocabulary kind). But she was SO NICE. I loved her and that experience was great, even though it was kinda terrifying. Luckily there were only a few moments where we didn't know what was going on, and our sensei stepped in to help out. It was scary, but awesome. I am so excited to serve the wonderful people of Japan but at the same time I am very glad that I have 6 more weeks to learn everything I can while here. I LOVE JAPANESE. I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be - Heavenly Father knows each of us so well. I already love my companion, district and senseis so much but every day I learn more and more from each of them and grow to love everyone so much. This is the most incredible experience of my life, and I'm only 3 1/2 weeks in. Essentially, I guess it'll suffice for me to say that I know this gospel is true! Heavenly Father loves us and will guide us in this journey here on earth as we do everything we can to return to him.
Ai shitteimasu, kazoku!!!!!

-Flake Shimai

6-1- 2013 Week 3 MTC

Konnichiwa!!! (I really should figure out how to spell that right in Romaji. My bad)

This week was great. They're all great though, I guess -- missions are just about the greatest. True story. Wow. I know I sound repetitive but I honestly can't even believe all the things I have learned. When I think about the fact that I've only been here for 2 1/2 weeks and that I've only known Heaton Shimai for that long it blows my mind. In a good way, of course :) Tell Sister Caldwell that Carra's doing great, I've run into her a few times. It's crazy how Berlyn is already gone -- I'm here for 7 more weeks, oh yeah! Last Saturday was a crazy day. INSANE. Laundry took forever because there were a bajillion missionaries doing it at the time we were there, then we were at the temple for 4 hours because there were a ton of people there -- basically the fact that we found time to email was a blessing. But don't worry, I  learned from that experience and we will be good about more effective time management from here on out!

Branding sounds like a party, as always. It's fun hearing all of the things going on at home. I hope summer is treating you well :)

I feel like I'll be saying this same thing every week for my whole mission, so sorry about the repetition. But Japanese is amazing!! Hard. But I love it. It was most definitely a triumph last Sunday to be able to sing the hymns because we can read Hiragana! Japanese also sounds beautiful. I love it because even though I have SO FAR to go still with learning, I feel like I can understand so much of what my teachers and our investigators say in Japanese. That is most definitely exciting. Taylor Sensei and Anderson Sensei are really the best. We've learned so much from them. I can't even explain it. We finished teaching our first investigator, Shibatasan last week. We taught him 5 times. We are currently teaching Kuaharasan and Watabesan and we've taught each of them once or twice. We're doing TRC for the first time tonight -- scary! But exciting. I guess the biggest complex for me with the language is this -- Japanese is hard but it makes so much more sense than English. Crazy. More exciting news for the week -- I was freezing up for the first few lessons and it was hard for me to teach because I was so focused on the language. But, once I started improving with focusing on what I knew and the love I had for the person we were teaching I was able to say more of what needed to be said. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and every one of us so much. He is there to help us in everything we're going through!

Favorite things about the MTC:

1. Our secret computer lab (Heaton Shimai's dad is an administrative director here so he tells us all the great secrets, such as a huge computer lab with comfy chairs that nobody knows about in the basement of one of the buildings. It's the greatest).

2. The devotionals/firesides. They blow my mind every Sunday and Tuesday. The speakers are incredible and it is always exactly what I need to hear. Incredible!

3. Cafeteria creations. The greatest. Such as one time there were fajitas that were pretty decent, but we went over to the wrap bar after getting them to add guacamole and salsa. Or on Wednesdays (ice cream days) you can go get a bowl of hot fudge and a bowl of straberries from the other line = chocolate dipped strawberries. Or like last sunday, we got cookies and cream ice cream and put it in a glass, mixed it with chocolate milk and made the best milkshake I've had for a while. I feel like we are learning some great sneaky tricks. It's the best.

4. There are so many missionaries going to Japan right now. It's insane. In an awesome kind of way. Our dai senpai are leaving this week (the ones 6 weeks ahead of us, the zone leaders and such) which blows my mind.

Anywho, that's about it for now. I'm going to try to send a few pictures so we'll see how that goes. I hope you have an amazing week! I love hearing about how things are going at home. Thanks for everything, I love you all so much!

Love, Flake Shimai