Am I At The MTC or EFY?

First coming to the MTC felt a little like EFY. You go to some rooms, they give you some papers, a name tag and show you the ropes. Then you go get a large bag full of 30 pounds of books. Then you walk into a classroom with a bunch of blank stares listening to some man up front speak words that don't make any sense to you. And because I have a last name at the end of the alphabet, I was, of course, the very last person to enter the room. So I get to go sit in the broken slanted desk where all my books fall into my lap at frequent intervals. Welcome to the MTC.

My companion is Babcock Shimai (Sister in Japanese) and she is from some tiny town in Nevada. We get along just dandy! She went to a year at BYU studying Exercise Science. She plays tons of sports and is super athletic. Exercise time usually consists of her sprinting laps around the rest of us while we jog slowly. She has a really fun personality and we work really well together so far. We had our first companion inventory yesterday which is basically when you just tell your companion what they're doing that's driving you crazy, but we only had good comments and positive feedback, so that was encouraging. Of course it has only been 3 days haha.

My district is subarashii! (Wonderful) We have a really good flow between all of us and the Choro (elders) in our district are all very nice. There's also a sister in my district named Nagamine Shimai and she danced with Zoey Gibbons at UVU. Small world around here. I thought that because people can serve at a younger age there would be a whole lot of immature teenage boys here, but not so. Everyone is very focused and hard working. We haven't seen any real issues yet for which I am grateful. Although there's a TON of elders that do this stupid snappy thing with their fingers everywhere they go and it is driving Babcock Shimai and me cray cray. Everywhere you go you see people waving their hands and making snapping noises. We even saw some sisters doing it yesterday.

Our schedule consists of sleeping, classes, exercise, study, and eating. We eat dinner at 4:00 in the afternoon and by bedtime are already starving with nothing to eat. It's practically child abuse. But I think my body is slowly adjusting to my eating schedule because I wasn't as hungry last night as I was the night before.

In my room, there's 4 sisters and 6 bunks. Because I got there last, the other 3 Shimai are on the bottom bunks and I'm on the top. Remind me to marry someone with a last name that starts with A, so my children do not have to suffer as I have. The residence halls are old, and smell a little bit funky. And the only vending machines are on the elder's floor below us which we are never allowed to go to.

We taught our first lesson in Nihongo (Japanese) yesterday. Haha what a joke. Throw two missionaries with a vocabulary that could fit on a sticky note into a room with an "investigator" who won't speak any english. Let's just say there were a lot of awkward pauses and hand gestures and confused faces. And Yoki, the investigator just kept daying saying wakarimasen, wakarimasen! (I don't understand, I don't understand!)  But we certainly learned a lot! We have to teach again today so hopefully God will bless us with the igen no tanamono (gift of tongues) within the next 6 hours.

I really am loving it here. They keep us plenty busy so I haven't even had the time to get homesick. Thanks everyone for the emails and letters! It's fun to hear about things back home. Keep in touch!

Ja Mata! (see you later)