My goodness, where to begin? Wasn't Conference wonderful?!? I think it's the first time I have actually stayed awake during all of the sessions and what an edifying and great experience it was! I especially loved Presidents Uchtdorf's talk Sat morning and during the same session the talk by a member of the Sunday School presidency on teaching! It was amazing to be listening to conference in the MTC, everyone is so excited about it and also it was a welcome relief of not having classes on Saturday! During the time when the Elders had Priesthood, the sisters got to watch the Relief Society broadcast which aired the Saturday before, but they saved for conference center so the elders and sisters could be doing things at the same time! I love President Monson and his talk during the relief society broadcast, how quick are we to judge others, when we ourselves have the same faults.
Well this week, so much has happened! First off I have been blessed with a cold (more like cursed but I'm trying to stay positive here!) I woke up one morning with my voice completely and totally gone, not a good thing when you're trying to learn a new language and speaking it is the best thing to do. Thankfully, Heavenly Father knew what I needed and my voice came back rather quickly. I'm not quite over it, but I feel much better!
Also I had my first TRC this week! My companions and I first had to contact in Japanese and then teach the first lesson to a volunteer investigator! It was hard, but I think it went pretty well! We got our "investigator" to commit to coming to a session of conference, so that was fun!
Japanese is going okay, I struggle with it, especially since I'm used to things coming relatively easy to me. I just have to keep telling myself that I've only been here two weeks and it's amazing all that I've learned already. The main thing I struggle with is getting the sentence structure, I always mix up the subject and object which conveys a completely different message. I know the Lord is with me though and over time and with much study I will get it down. I think maybe He wants me to struggle a bit, to know that blessings come only with effort and work.
Yesterday the Japanese missionaries came to the MTC (the missionaries from Japan who are going to be serving in Japan). They only have to be here 3 weeks since they know the language...same as English speaking missionaries. It's cool to meet them, I realized I REALLY will be tall in Japan and also that I know very little of the language, it was disheartening, but has only strengthened my resolve to study harder!
I love learning more about this gospel and how to teach it, those by far are my favorite times of the classes. I've come to realize how much I just want people to know the happiness knowing Christ and our Father can bring them. Whenever we finish teaching a lesson, I realized I always have a big smile on my face, because I've gotten to share something so precious to me.
Fun things: Saturday night, my companion roommates and I decided we just needed to chill: one thing led to another, and it was fantastic...I'll demonstrate quickly. It started off with sister lynch finding a dime! (yeah I know haha, it's an inside joke, but she really did find a dime), me looking for a screwdriver to fix my alarm clock because the light goes on but it doesn't make a sound (i never found one small enough...) wanting to make a clubhouse out of our bunkbeds (which we didn't do, but did attempt to move the beds, we found out we can :) ) which in turn led us to have an arm wrestling contest that didn't last very long because of a FIRE ALARM!!!!!!! yeah, someone on the third floor burnt popcorn in the microwave..... it was great! and then the attack of a giant green leaf bug, and finishing off with us thinking it was daylight savings time, realizing it wasn't and right after realizing it wasn't the overhead speaker, saying (30 minutes after lights out) attention daylight savings time is not tonight, like he had heard us! creepy... haha! we found out the next day that elders in our zone had paged in right before asking if it was, so it was just complete coincidence!
Thank you for all your letters! I love hearing from you, getting mail/ dear elders is a definite highlight of the day!!!!
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! I've come to realize how much you all mean to me these past couple weeks and pray for you every day!
Love you!
Erin
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