Sunday, October 26, 2014

Week 3: The Haunting

This week was fairly uneventful, days are passing by crazy fast now. By the next p-day we'll be almost half way done with our MTC stay. 

However, this week we got new Kouhai (a new district) and our dai-sempai (oldest district) was sent out to Japan. There was lots of crying, and hugging and giving away free stuff and eating. It was sad and I can't believe they are already gone. Plus our sempai (district that came right before us) will be leaving next week. They arrived a week early just like our Kouhai and we arrived on time. So I guess we will be top dogs here for about a month. This week our district also got a bit of a scolding for being behind on our Japanese. And it seems now we have more of a vigor to try hard to speak the language which is good. And to be honest it is exactly what I needed to hear. Also while we were in choir our director was telling a story about Joseph Smith and he went into medium detail about the operation he had to go through when he was 8 years old. And it might've been because we had to hold some pretty longs notes while singing accompanied by the story, but a girl passed out. And I have never seen an elderly woman run up stairs so fast in my life. We also had a devotional from Elder Godoy, the man who spoke in Portuguese at conference. He is seriously just the most hilarious guy ever. The devotionals at the MTC are just so spiritual and great, they pick awesome speakers we also heard from the pro football player Chad Lewis who was just so funny and real with us about being a missionary and missionary work. We also taught a great lesson on prayer and was FINALLY able to get someone to commit to praying if the Book of Mormon is true or not. We've only gotten to this point with two "investigators" but the first time we taught it we challenged him three times to pray about the book of mormon, but he was confused every time we asked if he had done it. I don't think he really understood the concept of prayer all that much. But this time we just focused on prayer only, and it seems he understood pretty well and said he would pray about it, but I guess we won't know officially until next week.

Also I know with a surety that service is the best way to feel Christ's love. Last week my doryo (companion) found out that her dad had cancerous lesions on his skin and, of course, she was feeling really sad and scared. I tried to comfort her best I could. Then we had interviews with our teacher and he talked to me about how she was doing. And I told him I wasn't sure how involved I should get, because I didn't understand what she was going through even if I wanted to comfort her. However, my teacher challenged me to go out of my way to do something for her. Didn't have to be a big thing, but any little thing would've done. So, of course, I decided to do something big. My companion knows that I love sticky notes, so I went around to each of the sisters rooms in our zone and asked them to write something nice on all these sticky notes. Then I asked one of the sisters to go into our room after we left for class and stick them all over her dresser, bed, and stuff. One even made her a flower out of balloons. Then later that day I did personal study in a different room, and she was feeling a bit irritated about that and then I tried to brush it off like it was no big deal and she was even more irritated. However, I knew what was going on behind the scenes so I thought it was a bit funny. And when we got home she just cried. I knew she had been having hard time and was trying to keep her mind off of it the best she could, but it was still hard for her. And we hugged and took pictures and such. And during the whole day I could just not stop smiling. That's because true happiness comes from bringing happiness to others. And that is the pure love of Christ in action. During the whole experience I felt like I was the one who was being served because Christ was giving me a big hug for helping one of his children in need.

On a whole other note our room is haunted. This week we were sitting on the bunk bed and we saw a sticky note sticking out of the top mattress. It was upside down, but when I ready it I could make out "Please help..." So I was freaking out and when I grabbed and read it, it actually said, "Please help me with my Japanese." Then it had it written in Japanese. So I don't know what the troubled spirit wanted from us, or how it wanted us to help it with Japanese, but I will be finding a way from now on. Another thing that had happened was on p-day eve my doryo and I were staying up late having a bit of a party and we were on the top bunks, which isn't where we sleep because they are high and have railings only on one side. And while we were sitting there we looked up and faintly written on the ceiling (in blood, jk it was lip gloss) were the words, "100% obedience". So, now it's the legend of room 309. There once was a missionary who didn't try her best at the MTC she wasn't 100% obedient or tried her best to learn Japanese.... so, she died. And now she warns missionaries to try their best or end up like her. Trapped in the MTC for all eternity. There is also a tiny bedroom attached to a bathroom where they put a missionary who went crazy and she died there, now if you use her bathroom she attaches to you and can follow you outside of your bathroom. We know because my doryo went to the bathroom in there, and while we were doing language learning on the computer, it was going haywire. And that's how we know. 

Anyways, having a super great time. Love receiving letters from you people, sorry if it takes me long to write back. But don't worry, it's worth the wait.
Love you lots!

Johnson Shimai

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