Ohio again Kazoku and tamadachi!
What a week it has been! It´s honestly been a bit of a blur, but luckily it is written down in my journal. There are so many stories to share- do any of you have specific questions about the MTC or missionary life that you'd like me to answer?
I feel like I'm living an entirely different life than the one I knew before. We study, and study, and study Japanese. It is so amazing how far my district has come. It feels like I understand about 70% of the Japanese words that I hear around me, but now the speech is coming a little bit slower. I know that it will come though, so I keep my hopes up with the knowledge that I can learn this language with God's help.
As a district, we started to read the Book of Mormon together this week. The words of Nephi in the first chapter felt so much more real to me. I understand what it's like now to leave everything and everyone I love behind. Humble can't even begin to describe it; I truly wouldn't have it any other way. This is such an opportunity to serve the Savior and God's children, and I love it- even when I mess up... This past week, I accidentally asked my investigator if I could call him "S. Church" instead of "Brother S." The word for church is "kyokai," and the word for brother is "kyodai." Now that took a little bit of sorting out!
Anyway, family and friends, it has been a week full of trial and error. I love my two investigators! I had the opportunity to meet W. San (T. Sensei) earlier this week. He was my favorite investigator. When I asked if I could say a prayer before our lesson, he said, "How am I supposed to do that?" And so we pantomimed wonderfully how to fold arms, close eyes, and bow your head. And then he asked a rather interesting question, "How long is your prayer going to take?" I wasn't sure how to say, "as long as you need to to sincerely pray to your Father in Heaven." So my companion took the wheel and estimated that it would take about two minutes.... Well after the prayer was finished, W. San didn't realize that I was finished praying. He continued to have his arms folded (ever so reverently might I add,) until I laughed, "W. San!" to which he promptly looked up and said rather bluntly, "Well that wasn't two minutes!" Like he'd been counting... Seriously, it was the best thing ever. Even though it's just a role-playing scenario, we take the opportunity of teaching investigators in role-playing quite seriously. W. San doesn't speak any English whatsoever, so all of our conversations are in Japanese.
But who are W. San and S. K.? They are people that T. Sensei and A. Sensei actually taught while they were on their missions. They act as best as they can like their former investigators- they pull it off so realistically. W. San is the son of a bread maker, who likes to ride around on his motorcycle selling bread for his family. He is in his twenties, likes basketball, and like me, has just one younger brother. He loves to learn, and even though we are not that great at Japanese yet, he's always patient with us and tries to help by explaining plainly. T. Sensei actually still keeps in touch with his friend W. San over Facebook because they got to be such good friends!
S. K. is an interesting man too. He unfortunately lost his job, and is just looking for help in his life. Anyway, I probably shouldn't reveal many more details than this. If you post this to the blog, can you change the names for the personal safety of our Japanese investigators?
Anyway, I just want you to know that I love you all. I think about my wonderful family and friends all the time, and I hope you're all doing well!
Kokoro Kara,
Watkins Shimai
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