T-Minus 45 Hours and Counting

The time is finally here! After nine weeks we're finally being released! We still have two days before we leave, but now it's just one more P-day and one more Sunday. It's actually getting quite sad. Last week we just did regular Training Resource Center and my companion and I taught a super super sweet Nihonjin lady. It was the first 40 minute lesson that we taught (all the others had only been 20) so it was a little bit of a struggle filling up all the time. But we just kept asking Sister Suzuki if she had anything to share or comment on and she was great because she just kept on talking and telling experiences she had had. This past Wednesday we were able to do Skype TRC again and it was quite an interesting experience. We got to our computer and the monitor said we were going to talk to Andy Wilson from Mexico City. We asked the tech people if that was really our person and the guy was just like "I don't know, let's find out!" and he pushes the call button so we throw on our headphones and wait for an answer. A woman answers the call and apparently she speaks Japanese! I have no idea if she was Japanese herself, because the video never ended up working. She was super nice and I still have no idea what her name was because Japanese is difficult to understand, and through a computer it's even more difficult. Overall, it was much better than our last Skype TRC session. This week, we had to say goodbye to all of our investigators. It was pretty depressing. I think I'm going to grow to hate the song "God be with you till we meet again" because we only ever sing it for sad goodbyes. The hardest goodbye was for Toshi. We've been teaching him this entire time pretty much and he was coming along so great! When we told him we were getting "transferred" he was so upset. He just kept asking why and talked about how terrible it must be for missionaries to change areas so often. We were able to have a super great last lesson though and we just asked him where he was with his testimony and what he really believes. He said that he still feels guilty a lot of the time because he thinks he's a bad person. We explained repentance to him more and asked him if he had ever actually asked God for forgiveness. After he thought about it, he said he hadn't really. He only ever said sorry for the bad things he's done. When he said the closing prayer he asked God if he could be forgiven for all the bad things, and it was just the sweetest and most sincere prayer. After he finished, we asked him how he felt and he looked so happy and said that he felt like God had forgiven him a little bit. It was such a cute moment and I'm sad to leave behind these investigators, despite the fact that they weren't actually real. Yesterday, we had in-field training. It's basically when everyone that's leaving this next week goes to a nine hour long ordeal about working with members, finding people, setting goals, and all that jazz. I actually really enjoyed it! It was super weird though because everything was in English haha. We did a few different role play activities and it was quite hard to talk about the gospel in English and I kept on saying words in Japanese accidentally. It was also pretty funny because there were tons of people there that had only been in the MTC like 9 days and they were leaving the same day as us! It's always so amusing to hear the English speakers complain about the food or the schedule and we just sit here like "I'd like to see you try it out for nine weeks" haha. As excited as I am to leave the MTC, I'm also a little sad to see it go. It's truly been such an amazing experience here. I've learned so much more in 2 months than I ever thought possible. Not even just about Japan or Japanese but also so much about the gospel and how it can change lives and also about how to learn to love other people for what they are and what they aren't. I can't wait to get to Japan so that I can start helping real people with struggles in their lives. I know that this gospel can change anyone's life for the better and I'm so excited to share this knowledge with other people. Thank you to everyone truly that has been here to support me! Pray for me as I travel to the foreign land of Japan and pray that I will be able to find the people that need to hear my message. I love and miss you all and I'll see you in 16 months! Ai shite Imasu! Wells Shimai