The Life of a Kohai

We've almost been here three weeks! We get new Japanese missionaries every 3 weeks, which means that we'll be getting new Kohai this Wednesday! When you first come, you're a Kohai, after three weeks, you're a Sempai, and then your final three weeks you become Daisempai. Our Daisempai are leaving on Monday morning which is so weird! I still feel like we just barely got here, but at the same time I feels like my life before the MTC was ages ago. I'm a little sad to be promoted though. Being the babies was fun because everyone tries to be nice to you and doesn't expect you to know anything yet :) This week was really good. We got two new "investigators" to teach. It has now become obvious that our first investigator was really easy on us, because these new investigators speak much more quickly, and ask much harder questions. Like "What can I expect when I pray?" and "God appeared to Joseph Smith, will he appear to me too?" and "I'm already happy, why should I do what you say?" These questions are hard enough to answer in English, now just try and figure out an explanation in Japanese! That is, if you can even figure out what they are asking in the first place. We usually have to say "moichido kudasai (once again please)" about 3 or 4 times before we even understand the question. The "investigators" now are actually our teachers. So every once in a while they come in to class and tell us funny things that we said wrong. Like heian, is peace and haien is pneumonia. Two of the sisters in our district told one of the investigators that if they prayed and read the book of mormon, they would recieve pneumonia. And one of the Choro (Elders) in my district was asking his investigator about his work, and the investigator told him that he got fired from work. Apparently Merrill Choro didn't understand the word fired, and assumed he meant retired, and said "Oh that's wonderful!" Another one that has happened more than once, because of the weird sentence structure here is us telling our investigators that they love us. Instead of telling them that we love them. We just leave the room trying to say "We love you, Takehiro-San!", but instead say "Takehiro-San loves us!" We have some pretty funny moments learning a new language. There was one lesson this week that we taught that has really made me realize why I'm here. It was our second lesson with Toshii, and our first lesson was really discouraging because Toshii just kept falling asleep and acting really uninterested. We went into the second lesson with low expectations, but also with a desire to do better than before. We taught Toshi about the restoration and had him read the first vision in the Nihongo PGP. After he read it, he just paused for a minute and stared at the words that he had read. Then he looked up at us with a smile and said "That's awesome." And in my mind I just thought, oh my goodness, it really is. We continued the lesson with testifying of the truthfulness of this gospel and how we can know for ourselves whether or not it is true. Toshi asked us why we were missionaries, and we both just tried to explain with terrible grammar and simple words, that this gospel brings us happiness, and we want other people to have what we have. And he just said "Wow. Ii Senkyoshi desu." (You're good missionaries) We had Toshi say the closing prayer and it was the most simple, yet beautiful prayer I had ever heard. At some point during that lesson, I think the reality of what I'm doing really set in. This wasn't Cook Sensei anymore. This was Toshi. And this was the first time he had EVER prayed to God. My Doryo and I came out of the lesson with smiles on our faces and tears on our cheeks. Times like that make me remember exactly why I'm here. And times like that make me realize that it doesn't really matter what clothes I wear, or how many letters I'm getting, or how hard it is to learn Japanese. Because I believe that what I am doing, is what God wants me to be doing. And that's all that matters in the end. As it says in the second word of the missionary purpose, we are to bring OTHERS unto Christ. It's not about us at all. Of course, not every lesson is at all like that. And the next day when we taught him, we were going to commit him to come to church and we experienced disappointment in learning that he works every Sunday. But roadblocks like that are just preparing us for the real thing when we reach it in 6 more weeks. Even though our investigators aren't real, they teach us that we need to pray for them, and figure out their needs and focus on them completely during our studies. I think it helps us be a lot better prepared during our lessons. I've heard a lot of people say how much they don't like the MTC, but I have yet to experience that thought. In fact, I'm concerned to go out into the field because I'm just not convinced that I could like it out there as much as I love it here. All of the people in my district are my best friends and all of the sisters that I'm so fortunate to be acquainted with make every day so fun. We sometimes talk about how God must have given us wonderful people to work with because He gave us such an immensely hard language to learn. I think my favorite time of the day is when the four of us sisters that sleep in my room come to the residence hall at night and have an hour before bed. We laugh SO much during those 45 minutes before quiet time. Whether it be about funny moments in our lessons, during class, fun times back home, or dreams about marrying the Sensei, we end up on the floor laughing almost every single night. I feel like these girls are my best friends, and we've known each other since birth, even though its only been a couple of weeks. Hope everyone back home is doing well! I love hearing from anyone so keep me updated and keep me in your prayers because I'm going to need it with this Language! Ai Shitte Masu! Ja Mata!