Pictures!

Week Six, MTC 8/27/13

Konnichiwa Everyone,

As always thank you for all the love and letters, I apologize for being a brat last week, you all just really do spoil me so very much. Thank you. :) 

It's been another fast flying week here at the MTC, but it's been really good. The biggest news is that I'm getting two new teachers this week. Pehrson Sensei is starting school so he had to change his entire schedule around, which I guess a lot of the teachers are doing right now. So as a result they're just changing it all around, which we all think is really sad. I really do think we had the two very best ones here at the MTC, hopefully they'll pop in every once in awhile. Fingers crossed. In addition to that all of the Daisenpai (oldest missionaries) left for Japan! Our sweet Nihonjin roommates left with them too, I'll include some pictures. In a week or so we'll be getting our new Nihonjin, and they'll be the ones that leave with us. I'm excited to get to have some claim on the next missionaries that come. Also, one of the sister daisenpai had to stay behind for a few more weeks, so we're no longer a trio. It's Soderquist and I now and the other two, it's weird to not have three people and I miss having Miller Shimai around a lot, but we all notice a big difference in how much easier everything is when it's just two. There's a reason you usually only have one companion, ha. I've asked Soderquist Shimai to try and talk more Nihongo to me too, so I think that'll be really good for me. I'm excited to see how my last few weeks in the MTC are going to go. 

I think I've learned some new things about the language too, at least I hope I have. It's hard to see how much progress you make right now. I accepted a challenge from Pehrson Sensei to not write down what I'm going to say, but instead just words I need and construct the sentences while I'm in there. I'm honestly really terrified about this, so it's a good thing I gave him my promise that I would. It's going to be really good for me, I think. (I also think it's really good that Soderquist Shimai knows how to make a lot more sense in Japanese so our lessons don't just explode or something). Being a missionary is the best. 

We're going to try and host this week, meaning we welcome in the new missionaries and show them where their rooms and classrooms are. If we don't get to do it this week, we will the next one for sure. Oh, speaking of new missionaries, I bumped into Sister Knapp in the post office a few days ago. I only talked to her for a second, but she seems really great. Seeing people is the best.

I'm almost out of time this week and I wanted to attach some pictures, so I'm going to go. Sorry this was sort of short, I kind of originally thought I had a lot to say. I really love you all so much. Thanks for the awesome package yesterday. Best one ever! Love you and miss you.

Love,

Megan

Hug Sophie for me, please. 

Week Five, MTC 8/20/13

Konnichiwa.

Okay, what is going on? I am going to make a big deal out of this, because it is a big deal! It's like you all started school or something and got really busy and had no time to write me! (very much, from you, mom) I'm sure you'll be better next week, right? :) Thank you Kylie, Nana and Momo for the letters, really though. Each one made my day. 

I still love you, everyone else. It's okay. I hope you all had successful weeks and that all like your new students/new teachers. Tell me all about it when you get a chance! I can hardly believe that Jack is in Jr. High and Josh is in freaking High School  (I'm not sure I can say freaking...sorry). I hope all of the kids were really nice to my brothers. 

So as you know I went to the temple last week for the first time, and it was so great. I'm really excited to go again. While we were waiting to go in I opened up to D&C 112, it's become one my favorite sections in the D&C. Look it up if you'd like. :) Going to the temple though, is one of the best things of the MTC. I'm so excited that they're building one in Sapporo, (even though I probably won't see finished while I'm there) it'll be so neat to be able to talk about it with people in Nihon. I think that it'll be a great way to get 

conversation started with new people as well.

Last Sunday in RS we had an awesome lesson about how we are blessed to work side by side with the priesthood and how we must learn to respect it, (even when men are just ridiculous sometimes) because it is God's power. One of my favorite lessons so far. After the lesson they had someone come take our picture with all of us together. I think they might put it up in the MTC or do something exciting with it, which is so neat. I'll always be a part of this great surge of sister missionaries. :) I am in the very last row, so I'll always know where I am in it! 

We had an old BYU football player come talk to us on Sunday. His name is Vai Sikahema, he was pretty cool. I don't know if you know him or not, Dad. He talked about how his mission was the the best thing of his life, even though he's played all these cool football games. I think the Elders all really enjoyed it the most, ha.

Also, Elder Scott came to talk to us! It was so great! Look that up too, ha ha. When he was going to leave we all just stood there quietly watching him go, he turned around and looked at us and yelled, "be good!". We all just stood there and started waving at him and he continued to turn around a few more times and wave at us. No one wanted him to leave! 

Everyone always asks how the language is coming, and it's alright. One of our teachers were telling us some common phrases in Japan, and one was (in english) "Even the monkey falls out of the tree, sometimes" I think that relates to learning Nihongo. (Somehow..) It is all okay though, every day I learn a little more. 

Something really neat happened this week too, we had two Nihonjin Shimai (Japanese Sisters from Japan) come stay in our room. They are two of the sweetest people I've ever met. They're so patient with us and our horrible Japanese, and sometimes they surprise us with some English, ha. It makes me so excited finally get to Japan and meet those wonderful people. 

My Doryotachi and I are the new missionary portal trainers, we basically teach the new Kohai how to use the labs and email and stuff. I guess it's not extremely exciting news, but I think it'll be fun. It's so crazy to think that I'm more than half way done here in the MTC. I feel brand new still, but I'm almost DaiSenpai! (last three weeks) 

That's all for this week, it was a pretty great one here at the MTC. I hope you all are so good and safe. I also need to see some pictures of Sophie on her first day of school. Thank you for everything, love you all.

Love, 

Megan

PS. don't forget to hug Sophie for me. You know I miss my bug. 

Week Four, MTC 8/13/13

Hello everyone,

What to say, what to say... The weeks are just running together! First of all, I'm doing great. Thanks for all the prayers and for the letters, it's just the best thing ever. Japanese is still hard, ha, but it's do-able. I'm so excited for the day when it's just there in my head and I don't have to work so hard to think of a basic sentence (and still use all the wrong particles!) I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing good too, even if school does start this week. I'm sure you're all sick of summer anyway. What are you doing these last few days? 

I know I already wrote a real letter to you about cleaning the temple, but it was such an amazing thing to do. It's so neat to think that whenever I go in I'll be able to look at the pretty crystal lights and be able to say that I got to clean them. We're actually going to the Provo temple later today, for the first time since June. I will write you about it later tonight but I just can't wait to finally go again. Oh, I bumped into one of the Elders from the Manti Temple earlier today- it's such a small world. It was funny that he remembered me, I should have said something first since he's new and I'm not! I also got to talk to a girl I used to work with too, it's so nice seeing people from before. We're getting more people tomorrow too, so maybe I'll find more.   

Class is good, we just do a mixture of Japanese and learning about teaching for six hours a day. Sometimes it feels more like 60, ha. Oh, how I love it here. My favorite in class though is when we take a break from the language and just read 1 Nephi as a district. Speaking of my district, did I already send a picture of us all together? I probably won't today since I don't have any new ones, but I will next week if I haven't yet. We really are just all getting so close though, they're a great bunch of people. We've gotten to the point where we do pretty much everything together. We're still all playing volleyball too, I'm sort of surprised the Elders are still putting up with my awesome skills. But really, I'm so bad. We've decided to do it twice a week so we don't get burned out on it. 

Tomorrow we're getting two new roommates! We had been just the three of us, (so much lovely extra room) but it's all good because we're getting the Japanese Sisters! It's going to be interesting trying to talk to them, but I'm sure we'll get by. It's going to be really a great experience for all of us. I'll write you all about it next week, I'm sure. Also for my letter for next week, look for who came to our devotional tonight. Next week is going to be a good letter, since this one is mostly just telling you all about how I'm excited for all these things! Anyway, we did choir last Sunday and they told us that this fireside they were going to broadcast to all of the MTCs around the world.. so we're probably getting someone big! If you want, you can look for it online and maybe you'll see me (hopefully not hear me...) sing. Could be cool. esp for Sophie. 

It sounds like she had a good birthday, and I'm so glad she got the package, it wasn't very much to send. So no big deal. I wish I could have made it more exciting but I worked with what I had, ha. Cheetos and cookies. :)

My last companion is in Japan, so you probably did see her on the fb page, mom. She's so sweet, I'm sure she's doing great. I'll look for the other sister too.

The food is the same, not terrible, but I'm tired of it. Everyone keeps telling me that my mission has the best food in Japan, so you know I'm really excited for that. Hopefully I'll be able to get some recipes and make them when I get home.

We taught the lesson last Sunday for our weekly district meeting. It was about Christ's Atonement and it was one of my most loved experiences here. The spirit was so strong in the room, and I am so grateful for it. I feel like I've just scratched the surface on so many gospel topics, but there is nothing like that spirit that just testifies that what you're saying or hearing is true. It makes my lack of knowledge a lot less important. I shared Alma 7 : 11-13 when it was my turn, I'd love it if you'd take a minute to read it sometime. They've quickly become some of my favorite scriptures ever. I really am just so happy here, there is nothing better or harder than a mission to me. Have a good week and send me lots of letters. Love you all.

Love,

Megan 

Week Three, MTC 8/6/13

Hello everyone,

Is it really Tuesday already? I have a hard time coming to terms with that- the time is just flying by! I'm doing really great though, I love it more and more every week. It sounds like everyone is doing really well too and it's Sophie's birthday this week! How is that even possible..? What plans do you have for Sophie's birthday? I've made a little package to send to her (nothing really exciting, the bookstore only has so much...) but keep your eyes out for it. This P Day has been pretty nice too, we did laundry and went to the book store, the usual. We also had our 'P Day Donut' for 'P Day Donut Day'. Did I already tell you about that? We've been taking pictures of every donut we eat on our P days, I guess that's all I can say about it, but we really look forward to it, ha. (we're super healthy here) That's pretty much all for today. Tonight we have a devotional and those are always really neat.

I'm so glad everyone got the letters I sent. Nana is so cute, ha ha. I'm excited to be able to write some real letters later today. Oh, about President Butler, he's in a branch presidency here at the MTC for another branch, I usually bump into him every Sunday since that's when they all come by. He's such a nice man! I was so happy that he said he would send you that picture. It's really good to see someone from before coming here.

Alright, I guess I'll try to remember what I actually did this week, it's hard to remember. It was our first full week as a trio, and it's going really good for the most part. I really like the method we've been using for our progressing investigators (they're our teachers, ha) We all tackle a subject that relates and take turns sharing what we prepared. There is a lot of trying to keep up on my part, Soderquist Shimai is pretty pro and sometimes I have no idea what they're talking about, but I love teaching the lessons. I'm even a lot less terrified of them than I was. (As I'm sure you all can imagine, I was pretty scared of them at first) We saw our first investigator walking around the other day and it freaked me out so much that I just stood there staring at him, you know me, if the situation isn't already awkward, I'll do my best to make it so. It's all good though. :) In our lessons we've had a really great spirit in there with us, and it makes it all so much more comfortable. I've started to really see how much you can love those you teach, even when it's just mogi.

We've also spent quite a bit of time this last week going over some things we covered before in class, which is so great. There is just so, so much to learn, memorize and remember. I've been feeling better in class since then. We've also spent a lot more time looking at gospel topics and teaching techniques. It is so refreshing to take a break from the language and just focus on what it is we're actually going to be doing. One of our teachers made a point to tell us that we're not here to learn Japanese, but instead to teach the people of Japan. Japanese is just the method we're using. Also, we talked about how it's a blessing to learn a new language so we're forced to talk in the most simple way. The spirit doesn't need a large vocabulary to get its point across.

Whenever we're not learning, which isn't often, we're all just together. My district is so great, I seriously just love them all so much. They're all going to make the best missionaries ever, and I can't wait to see them again after this is all over to hear about their success. We've been going out to field a lot to play volleyball together, and it's a lot of fun. I mean, I'm horrible, but we don't keep score or anything. We mostly are just laughing the whole time, which is good, since I'm not getting any real exercise other than that when we go. But really my district is the best, our last district leader started a thing where we go around every morning and say something we like about the chosen companionship of the day. (pretty much humble chair) we just got through everyone yesterday and it's been such a good experience for us all. And now not to brag, but I also have really great companions, every night we all sit together and share stories, it's like a sleep over every night. It's so interesting to listen to what the stories and experiences they've had and to be able to share mine.

Alright, I'm done bragging. I really do love it here though. Sundays are the best too, we had a really good mission conference and then a great fast and testimony meeting. All of our olders missionaries left for Japan this week, it's been really empty here until we get a new batch on tomorrow. (no lines for showers.. :) ) But we're really excited to get some new people, and not just because we won't be the newbies anymore! Johnson Shimai went with the others when they left too, I'm sure she's going to be so great, and I can't wait to see here when we get to go to Sapporo. I'm so excited to get out there, only 6 more weeks.

I guess that's all I've got since I'm out of time. There is nothing better than serving a mission, seriously. I hope you all have a great week and that you write me! Ha. Thank you all for the love and prayers. I miss you all very much, but I'll see you all soon.

Love,

Megan

PS Tell Sophie Happy Birthday for me!