Sister Crofts-Called to Serve

May 28, 2013- Second Letter

Hey my family!!!!!!!!!

So tomorrow makes two weeks in the MTC. I cannot believe it! They really mean it when 1. they say the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days & 2. They say the MTC is like drinking from a fire hose. I have honestly felt like that since the moment I got here. Thank you SO SO SO SO much for the package, it honestly made my day so awesome. I was feeling so much love. It was an awesome day. Each of my roomies gave me sweet cards, they decorated our class chalkboard AND our room/door, I got an awesome package from Sean, an awesome package from you, a card from Grandma, was sung a million happy birthdays, a birthday gift from my japanese sensei and then the Eichers were SO SWEET and sent me a cake. That night we came home after a long day of working hard and they sung happy birthday and we "blew out teh candles." The Eichers sent me candles, but due to our limited resources we had no matches. So Sister Micky (I call her that because her name is so long) had these fake candles that you turn the switch off/on and we put those on the cake too. It was absolutely hilarious. We were singing happy birthday and then two of the girls flipped teh switches off as I "blew out the candles." We were laughing so hard. We then continued to eat the cake with the candles because we didn't have forks. So basically.... We are slobs. But it was SO FUN!!! I felt so much love! So thanks for everything! I am so happy that I have more pictures of our family to put up on my wall. It totally keeps me motivated. My roomies were like- "seriously Amy? Your family is perfect. Your parents look like they would be mission presidents or something." Hahahahaha basically, I love the pics and my district did too! They were all so jealous of my incoming letters/packages throughout the day. Everyone loved the "hi chews you sent me" Basically the ENTIRE branch of Japanese people ate them. Hahaha.

HAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I was crying from laughter imagining Kristy with her wisdom teeth. Thank you for that glorious image. It is so weird that she is graduated.

It is honestly UNREAL how much the Lord has blessed me since I've been down here. I have been praying nonstop for patience and the gift of tongues. We all kind of expect to just immediately receive it, which is totally not the case. I am working so hard to be the best missionary I can. Yesterday, all of the sisters (in our district) were fasting. We have all been super discouraged by the language and we felt like we needed all the help we can get. So Sunday night some guy who is in the quorum of the 70 ... forgot his name... came and spoke for devotional! He started off by saying how he felt inspired to change his lesson earlier that morning. He said so many things that we needed to hear. He said "simply finish the race" "don't compare, don't run away from the challenge. Stand up to it." & then he said "I know, it's not easy to learn JAPANESE." We all just looked at each other and were like... SERIOUSLY? What are the ODDS that he decided to say Japanese? I was just speechless. We NEEDED to hear that. This language is so hard and we are all beating ourselves up for not picking it up more quickly. God answers prayers. Holy cow he does. I swear that entire talk was directed to us. All I can do is try my hardest and rely on the Lord for strength. As far as patience goes.. As I mentioned it was really hard to deal with 2 companions. They switch off every 3 weeks for us for who is senior comp, so I was just assigned to be it first.

We have Japanese natives here!!!!!!!!!! It is only making me realize even further how little Japanese I know. I honestly only know how to say "how are you?" and where are you from? I need to brush up on my conversational terms. I only know the gospel. THere are two of tehse sisters going to Nagoya and they are so cute. We had a testimony meeting and one of them was so afraid to bear hers... I guess it is part of their culture? When they were all here the Aussie in my district was like "it only just clicked to me how tall you are." So it's like the joke of our district. I am Willy Wonka and all the sisters are my oompa loompas? Hahaha. I DID NOT THINK I WAS THAAAAAAAT TALL. Sis Grant is from price and Sis Cox is from hurricane. THe other girls are from Riverside California area.

Our "investigators" are our senseis, so to say that freaks us out is an understatement. Our japanese sensei wants us to not use our books at all, so we are like SERIOUSLY WE DON"T KNOW JAPANESE?!?!!? hahahahaha. We are so stressed about it. One of the elders from our district went home, so that definitely bummed us all out because he was one of our favs. So we now only ahve 10 in our district, but it is crazy how many people are going to Japan. There were only 4 sisters going to Japan in the mtc before the mtc and now there are over 50. It's so cool to be apart of a revolution in missionary work. I am so stressed out and I wish I could be to the point where I already know Japanese. I came across this quote that is so true in my life right now. "God never bestows upon his people, or upon an individual, superior blessings without a severe trial to prove them." Learning this language has been so hard and I can't emphasize that enough. I keep reminding myself: Trent totally warned me. I love the spirit of missionary work and I am so blessed! It's hard, but it has definitely been a test to find out what I am really made of. I love the girls I am with and I totally need to get a better system for sending e-mails so i can get everything I want to say before time is up. I LOVE YOU FAM!!! THe gospel is true:)

Love,

Crofts Shimai

Celebrating Sister Crofts 20th Birthday