July 2,2013

KONNICHIWA WATASHI NO KAZOKU!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a CRAZY BUSY week. THe time is flying by and I am now at the final threshold before I get to Japan. I GET MY FLIGHT PLANS THIS WEEK!!!!!  I'm pretty sure it is July 15th that I leave. I will be able to call you from the airport.... So I will let you know more about the exact time to be ready to answer my call?:) This morning we got another shipment of Japanese sisters and all I can say is "how are you" "Because of the MTC food, we are becoming fat" (which is not literally the case) "what are your hobbies" "japanese is reallllly hard" "how old are you" and "where are you from/what mission are you serving in?" They were really sweet and kind, but as always it made me realize that I have a longgggggg way to go before I am semi-comfortable in Japanese. SO BASICALLY............... Totally freaking out about the fact that in less than two weeks I will be in Japan, knowing absolutely NOTHING. Of course I am excited, but I can't help but feel ill prepared. We received a letter from President Baird talking about how we will get off of the plane and then IMMEDIATELY start proselyting. IS THAT NOT COMPLETELY ABSURD?!?!?!?! I am starting to think about what I would say in my little Japanese "What is faith? Do you believe in God? Jesus Christ is your Savior. Through prayer you can talk to God? God knows you?" DANG. I just honestly don't know what I am going to do! So I am trying not to explode from fear of how hard this is going to be. All I can do is have faith in the Lord. I can't be the first Sister to serve feeling like they don't know any of the language..... I have been working so hard and it's coming, just unbelievably slow. I took a Japanese grammar test yesterday and I scored 46%.... Hahaha so if that tells you anything...?

I LOVED the package you sent me! Thank you so much! I got the yen as well, soooooooo cool. I got some yummy cookies as well, there was no return address or name and they were through the bookstore... So were those the cookies from Doris you were talking about? Please let her know how grateful I am for them! The every flavor beans came in great use for my lesson on Sunday. We were teaching our district and I started out with a visual. So I had picked out all of the nasty flavors and passed them out to each of the people in my district. They ate them... And I was honestly crying with laughter. The two funniest elders got the rotten egg and vomit flavor. Hahaha it was complete bliss to my heart. So I was talking to them about how these jelly beans have the same general appearance as the other jelly beans, but when you taste them they're bad and yet you slowly get more comfortable with the flavor. (SIN) Then I got the yummy jelly beans and had them eat them and talked to them about how it helps to cleanse away the taste of nasty jelly beans (sin), but if you don't continue to eat them, the flavor dies down and you no longer feel what it tastes like (repentance). So it ultimately led for a really awesome visual in my lesson about repentance and some good laughs had by our district. Every time I would try to eat a GOOD FLAVOR jelly bean, it ended up being disgusting. I kept trying to have Cox Shimai eat one, but all of hers were delicious. So as always I have some bad luck! hahha I loved the pictures from Florida and it looks like you are having such an amazing time!

鎮

 Please continue to keep me posted on mission calls, engagements, general world updates! I am in my own little world here. We aren't sure if it's a culture thing or what... BUt our Japanese sensei's are.. pretty blunt. They say things like "how can you expect to receive the gift of tongues if you aren't speaking your language?" & they have said several other things of equivalent nature that guilt trip you to the core. So the other day there was a sign on our chalk board that said. "As of today NOBODY will be allowed to speak any English unless you are planning a lesson. If you must speak in English you have to ask in Japanese to use Jeego (japanese/english). So it has led ot a great deal of stress in our district because we are all like.. How are we supposed to say anything?!?! We don't know enough Japanese to say very much! So we have this game called "Tanakasan" where each night our sensei picks somebody who can only speak Japanese all day and at the end of the day we guess who it is. Then if we guess right we get a point and if someone guesses right they get a point, so everyone is trying to SYL all day long. It's really hard, but it's helping a lot. That doesn't change how little I know! Hahahaha

This gospel is so true. I know it with every fiber of my being. I love being a missionary! Every morning I have a moment where I am just like "wow. I am a missionary." And I am smiling all day because of it. It's exhausting and I am not used to getting so little sleep all the time. As STL's, we always have sick girls we have to take care of so there have been several nights where we don't get into bed until midnight. However, it is the most gratifying and worthwhile thing I have ever experienced. I am loving every moment! It's hard, but it's so good. I can't wait for the day where I can actually speak in Japanese.. It'll come. Each day pray for strength and read the  BOM. It will make all the difference in your day. Forget yourself and serve. I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Crofts Shimai

Our new Japanese sisters!

Sister Cox's zone=explosion zone. She leaves her trail. 

The Stevensons. 

Our sensei and first official "investigator." (Mai san)