18 Sept 2015 - Young Ron & Harry Letter

Familia!  Wrong Language - Kazoku!

I'm glad people like my letters.  I asked and I think all the movies we watch are strictly MTC movies.  So I don't know if you will be able to find the Bednar Choro talk.  Ultimate [frisbee] is not allowed, and no co-ed soccer.  Which is a bummer.  As to the camera question, I have it in my bag all the time.  But taking pictures of what I normally do (Umm - study 24/7) isn't that exciting.  I'll try harder.  I dunno if we'll go to conference.  I'll keep an dear out.  Don't worry - I'll let you know whenI find out.  . . . . I know how to pray for others to verb now in Japanese!  I'm glad you cam around to Dear Hank & John [podcast that Emma loves].  . . . .I've crashed into RB two times.  She's helping with landscaping.  Also, I think mild pranks are outlawed in the white handbook [book of rules for missionaries. mild pranks were my suggestion to relieve stress].  I can't remember though.  I think I answered all your questions (in a sporadic manner).  Excuse my spelling.  Camille, HAVE YOU SWITCHED EARRINGS?!?  I did.  What a pro.  . . . . I teach Relief Society this Sunday.  [class for women at church].  6 people.  What a breeze compared to Derwood [our congregation has many more women in Relief Society class].

Love Bearman Shimai

Week 3: lowercase chopsticks

hello devoted readers,

the shift bar is being temperamental so i'm not going to struggle to make it work again. deal with my all lower case letters. it looks terrible; it's causing me pain buuuuuuuuut does it really matter? (dad feel free to fix it)  [I fixed most of it from here on out].

[My companion was not feeling well] all this week. that meant that Friday through Sunday she was sleeping in bed all day and I studied in bed all day. So sorry for the lack of exciting news this time around. Don't worry, my doyro's [companion] fine now (thank goodness). But it was a rough 3 days when I was stuck in my room all day. 

Friday: I went to many doctor appointments to figure out what was wrong with my doryo. and i studied a lot in bed. I planned several lessons (most of them I didn't end up teaching because my doryo was still bedridden). so that was Friday...

Saturday: was a little better.   Another girl in our zone was sick so we stuck the 2 sickos together and I went to class with HM and C shimai. HM shimai is really (in all caps) good at nihongo (japanese) so she helped me syl (speak your language) a lot. Being around her all day really helped my nihongo. It was weird to be without my doryo though. As nice as HM  and C shimai are (i love them), they're not quite the same as my H shimai. I was grateful to be with her again in the evening. 

Sunday: I missed all the morning meetings but the doryo's . . .  was feeling better come lunch. It was the last time we saw our sempai [training leader sisters whose time in the MTC finished up and they are off to Japan]:( I'll miss them but i'm glad I'm not getting shipped off to nihon [Japan] yet. I don't know enough. Our devotional was by Lloyd Newall (music and the spoken word guy). We had an MTC and the spoken word and it was a great experience. We sang some of my favorite songs and he talked about them. we sang how firm a foundation (my second favorite hymn of all time). I really loved the 3rd and 7th verse. We also sang Redeemer of Israel, High on a Mountain Top, Let us All Press On, and We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet. It was a night full of the spirit. It was so fun to sing all those great songs.

Monday: my doryo was feeling good enough to go to everything from here on out. . . .  In addition to our sempai [sister training leaders] leaving at 3 in the morning, our Fijian roomates left at 2 in the afternoon. I'll miss them. they were such a good example to me of sharing God's love. I knew them for 3 weeks and they loved my like i'd known them since birth. As sad as i was for them to leave, I was a little happy because they stayed up late and got up early then slept during class time. This meant they kept me up late and got me up early. I didn't get to sleep during class though so I was very sleep deprived. added on the the stress of learning nihongo, I was feeling pretty lousy. Monday night was the first good nights sleep I'd had in 3 week and it was glorious. 

Now about what actually happened on Monday. We went to class for the first time in a long while and we were soooooo behind. muzucashi to overwhelming desu (it was hard and overwhelming). I guess it was another Miracle Monday. We had TRC (teaching a member) and the first person we taught was an RM of 6 weeks [return missionary from Japan, finished his mission 6 weeks ago]. He was really encouraging and made us feel like we were doing ok. He even helped us understand what he was saying by rephrasing things. At one point we asked him to share an experience of when he had felt the spirit. and he said something. I didn't understand the whole sentence but he said 2 vocab words that I had studied that day. "koko" (here) and "ima" (now). I about cried. It was something I really needed to hear. When teaching in nihongo, it's hard to know whether you've invited the spirit because 99% of your brain is focused on the language. I was trying in all my lessons to invite the spirit but I just couldn't tell. Having him tell me IN JAPANESE that he felt the spirit though my very broken, very poor nihongo changed my life. yes, learning nihongo is important, but the spirit is way more important. Also, he's a way better teacher than I am (and way better at nihongo). Also the fact that that the 2 words I needed to understand from his reply were 2 words I had studied earlier just shows that miracles do happen. somewhere in scripture that I read recently, a prophet asked the people "have miracles ceased?" I will testify as loudly as he did in response to that: NO! miracles have not ceased. miracles still happen! and if they can happen to a random 19 year old girl who is struggling with a language- they can happen to anyone, anywhere, in any way. kiseki wa subarachii desu (miracles are awesome). 

Tuesday: more tender mercies from the Lord (also, tender mercies is a great conference talk [Every six months we have a church conference where the church leaders speak to everyone, next one is Oct 3-4th]  . Bednar Choro. Read it.) i went to get ice cream form the vending machines after a long day and there was graham canyon ice cream. No spoons. But who needs a spoon? (the weak of heart). our devotional  was by cardon choro. it was a bit confusing to follow but still good. We sang Behold a Royal Army. i never really liked that song before but its a wonderful one. And it describes what i'm doing so well!

Wednesday: i got the package (in all caps)!!!!!!! I gave the disposable ones [chopsticks] to the people in my district and we played with them for an hour. It totally counts as language study. It was practically Christmas. Also, dad, I tried to be better at taking more pictures of random things. I think I did better this week. For our goodnight hymn with our district we sang As Sisters in Zion. we shimaitachi (sisters) suggested it as a joke but the chorotachi (elders) were all for it. It was pretty funny. They even wanted to sing all the verses. 

and now it's p-day. We played zone beach volleyball, ate real food at the temple, went to the temple, played 4 square, and ran. A nice break from the MTC. Even though i thought nothing happened this week, this turned out to be a long letter. have fun with the no caps :)

Ai shite imasu♥

Emma's Crazy Weekly Schedule!

bearman shimai

Week 2 and the MTC has yet to kill me (9-17-2015)

I'm not gonna lie, it's probably come pretty close to killing me. We went to the temple early this morning and after ate breakfast in the cafeteria. It was heaven. REAL FOOD. I was ready to die right then and there; my omelet and bacon was sooooo good. I also ironed a shirt this week- probably for the first time in my life. It was a fairly satisfying experience. This morning I walked out the door and tried to read the sign (in hiragana) on my door and I can finally read it! Such good stuff.

Friday: We got our second teacher today. Our "investigator" Rikako-san! Her real name is M.S. She's really sweet. My doryo [companion] didn't feel well, so while she slept, I studied in my bed. Probably not the most productive day but my doryo felt way better after that nap. We have 2 new investigators: J and M (both played by our sensei). During personal study time, both my and my doryo decided on the same lesson plan (separately). Gotta love the Spirit. 

Missionaries in District going to Fukuoka

Saturday in the MTC does NOT feel like a real Saturday. All that really happened was class in the morning, then class in the after noon, and studying all the other times. Which is pretty much what happens every other day so nothing special.

Sunday was rough. And SOOOOO long. I had to prepare a 3 minute talk in Japanese (mine was maybe a minute and a half). Then some missionaries were randomly selected to talk. thank heavens it wasn't me this time. This makes sacrament meeting really stressful. I'm thinking I won't have to talk until my sempai [leader or mentor] leave (the 8 weekers). I went to choir today and loved it. The choir director is amazing. He tells all sorts of church history stories that relate to missionary work and the songs we sing. Anywho, Sunday was so busy that by the end I was fairly ready to go home. I was exhausted and discouraged because it had been a rough week language wise. I pretty much told God in my prayer that I needed a good reason to keep trying with my Japanese because I was trying so hard and getting nothing out of it. This leads to my Monday of Miracles.

Miracle Monday: I got a letter from D. that directly answered my demands to God the previous night. There were several good reasons to keep trying in that letter. God clearly knew what I needed to hear. So the day started off on a good note. I was ready to give Japanese my all. I started AND finished learning Katakana that day. In the matter of 4 hours. It took me over a week to learn hiragana and I managed katakana in one day. There is no way the spirit wasn't involved. I think it was God showing me what could happen if I had faith in Him. Then in my lesson later, I went off script several times and said things in Japanese that I didn't know I knew how to say. The gift of tongues is real. And I am ever so grateful for it. On a funnier note we had TRC (teaching a member) and she asked something and we thought she asked "is it time for you guys to switch and teach your 2nd person now?" and we said yes. So she stood up and left. Like for good. She was still needed for another hour or so and we had told her that it was ok for HER to leave. Our sensei couldn't stop laughing at us. We were a volunteer short for the rest of the night because we told her to go home. Gotta love Japanese.

Random Elders who are friends

Tuesday: Our Devotional speaker was your head honcho mama!! Rosemary Wixom. [Dana is in charge of the Primary  - Children 18 months to 11 at church for the 8 church congregations in our area] She was an amazing speaker. She talked about God and Christ and their amazing love for us. I sang in the choir. During the devotional I kept thinking of one of the reasons I'm on a mission: to give thanks to God for all my blessings. But I realized in that meeting that now that I'm serving Him, I get even more blessings. I am so in debt to God and He doesn't mind. He just wants me to love Him and follow His son. How amazing. We sang "Armies of Helaman" for the closing song and it made me cry. One of the lines was changed to "and we are NOW the Lords missionaries to bring the world His truth". What an amazing reminder of my purpose for being out here.

Emma's District

Wednesday: 

I started to read the Japanese BoM [Book of Mormon]. I have no idea what it's saying and it takes me 5 minutes to read one verse but it helps with my reading a lot. I had a


random prompting to do it and that it would help me learn Japanese and I'm not questioning God. I'll just do as He says. He knows what's up. Today we taught our second new investigator: J. He was rough. He was uninterested and seemed bored the whole time we taught. He even cut us off and told us to leave. It was not our best lesson Japanese wise either. We were pretty frustrated after but both received the thought to teach about prayer. He wants to know if God is real but won't listen to us. So we'll tell him to pray about it. At the end of the lesson I tried to ask "when may we visit again?" and I accidentally said "May we release you from jail?" So funny. Perks of learning a language; you never run out of funny stories. I feel like my life is a funny story at the moment. Another shimai in my district accidentally told and investigator that God is Jesus's older sister. Another started a prayer with "we are God". It definitely keeps us laughing. 

Sister Training Leaders

Sorry for the long emails; I just know my dad wants to know everything. . . . . Love all of you♥

Bearman Shimai

Answers to questions by Owl

Kazoku (family)!!!                                                                                                     Sept 11, 2015

I don't want to wait until P-Day to answer some of Dad's questions.  Please tell me what you think of Bednar Churu's [Elder Bednar's] devotional.  (The character of Christ).  Its superb.  My first prayer was just in front of my district (10 people).  Then my relief society (6 people).  No big groups yet.  There are 4 zones of about 80 Japanese senkyoshi (missionaries) each.  You do the math, there's a lot of us.  As for the temple pictures - the one with 4 of us - the extra sisters are the STL [Sister Training Leaders].  The big group of girls are most of the older girls in my zone.  They've been here for 7 weeks.  P-Day was great.  We had enough time for everything.  I had to wait a bit for an empty washing machine.  We napped too.  Our roomies (are great) but stay up later and get up early for various reasons because they're STL's.  They're fairly loud so we've been having trouble getting a good nights sleep.  So nap time on P-Day.  Next week we plan on playing volleyball or 4 square or soccer.  Only problem with soccer is Elders and Sisters can't play together and I can't find sisters who want to play.  Alas, Earwax.  [I think that is a Dumbledore reference].  Totally send me 100 copsticks.  I am game.  [She asked for chopsticks, I told her I would send her a 100 and she would have to share].  And of course I won't forget Camille's birthday.  She is my favorite sister.  Evan, your Akron Ohio message cracked me up.  People in the computer lab looked at me funny.  . . . . Have fun in seminary . . . the stuff you learn in seminary will be useful come MTC time.  . . .

Ai Shitte Imasu (Google it)

Bearman Shimai

I made it through week one!

Konichiwa (hello),

Evan told me off for not giving translations after Japanese words. Evan, you have google. Get it together. . . . . I just got back from the temple with my doryo (companion). I can't really remember what exactly I told you in my letter so forgive me if I repeat. 

First off, the 1st Japanese class I had was the most stressful 4 hours of my life. I was pretty much ready to pack up and go home because I understood maybe one word the entire time. My Sensei (teacher) refuses to speak Eigo (English) to us. I'm pretty sure my eyes were as big a frisbees the whole time. 

I'll start with Friday: We had our first lesson IN JAPANESE that day. Lemme tell you, I was crying when I got out of it. Partially because it was so bad and partially because it was so hard and partially because it was pretty funny. We read straight from one of our books that was written in romaji. I think I looked at her once I was so nervous. Our lesson was supposed to be 20 minutes but I think we lasted 10 before we ran out of things to say. The hardest thing about teaching is that we can't use scriptures. Even if we could read them we wouldn't be able to find them because JAPANESE CHARACTERS. Also, our STL (sister training leaders) showed us a tree that smelled like cream soda after out lesson so that made us feel better :)

Saturday: We had our second lesson. It went way better than the first even though we still didn't really know what we were saying. We actually looked at her face and like acknowledged her presence. We even asked some questions but who knows how she answered. At one point she asked a question (the sentence ended in ka) and we had no idea what she had said so we just shrugged. She laughed at that. The weather here is still nice and warm so me and my doryo have been spending all out study time outside (we study, like all the time). Also, I get away with not wearing shoes everywhere except in class. P. . . . Sensei always has to tell me to put my shoes back on in class. also, my district has noticed that I match my sock to my outfit (thanks sis ralston for those colorful socks!) Since we didn't have pday [preparation day for letters and laundry, etc] last week, I started to run out of socks and they stopped matching. The Churu's (Elders) in my district were so disappointed in me. 

Speaking of my district, they're FANTASTIC. We have SO much fun together. I feel like I've known them forever and it's been like 7 days. One Churu is really talented at making a realistic fart sound with his hands and convinced another churu that he had gastrointestinal problems. It was a HOOT and a nice break from all the Japanese. That same churu got sick and infected our entire district. It's only a cold and only had a sore throat and stuffy nose for like a day. all is well. 

My doryo (companion), H. . . . Shimai (sister) is awesome. She's like a mixture of Allie King and good old Aunt Robin (to Josh). We work super well together. Shes's from . . . Utah and is addicted to airheads. 

My sensei (teacher), is also phenomenal. He's really funny even though we don't know what he's saying half the time. But though his gestures and facial expressions we get the gist of it. 

On to Sunday: I was told if I could make it to Sunday I would survive the MTC. well, I made it! and the days seem to go a lot faster now. Sunday was a nice break from Japanese 24/7 but we still had sacrament meeting in Nihongo (japanese). Fortunately it was fast Sunday so most of the testimonies were Eigo (english). Next week I wont be so lucky. Although, I know hiragana now so I can sing hymns :)  That night we watched a movie. It was The Character of Christ by Bednar Churu. It was life changing. He talked about how one of the characteristics of Christ is that he turns out, not in. I'm trying harder to turn out, to serve others more than to bemoan how hard Nihongo is, but it's hard. I have a life time to change though. 

Monday: 3rd time teaching rikako-san (you can keep her name because it's fake). This time we actually understood some of what we were saying. I realized I know a lot more Nihongo than I give myself credit for. At one point she just started laughing at us and it's probably because we said something super wrong. We laughed too because you, might as well laugh instead of get upset.

Tuesday was Devotional day. I said my first public Japanese prayer. It was probably the equivalent of a 4 year old speaking but who cares! I did it! The devotional was given by the french guy in the presiding bishopric . . . . [Bishop Gérald Caussé 

]. What is the presiding bishopric do anyway? [https://www.lds.org/church/leaders/presiding-bishopric?lang=eng].  Well, he was an amazing speaker and introduced me to my new favorite Bible chapter. 1 Corinthians 2 . READ IT. I relate to it so much- especially as I'm trying to teach in Japanese. Anywho, at the end he played Come come ye saints on the piano and I felt the spirit so strong. 

Wednesday: MY WEEK MARK! Also, a bunch of newbies came. Newbies=BYU ice cream. We taught our 4th lesson to Rikako-san and at the end we asked if she wanted to be baptized. We forgot that we hadn't taught her about baptism... Well, we hand't planned on that so though VERY broken Nihongo and lots and lots of gestures we told her baptism brings us closer to Christ and that we'd tell her more about it tomorrow. It's moments like this that I wish that I was going English speaking. But then I think "Nah, Japan and Japanese are way cooler."

So many words! Dad, I expect you to edit, as always [lots of editing has occurred]. My English is totally going down hill since I started learning Japanese. All well. Thanks for the watch, now I don't have to rely on my doryo who can't tell time to tell me what time it is.  Mom, I miss your food. I'm living off ice cream, cereal, and wraps. Sometimes curly fries. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Bearman shimai (sister Bearman (Emma))

P.S. I'll try to send pictures today. If I can figure out how... This is what happened when you give me technology.

Inspirational Wall Quotes

 

Sent with a Dobby Stamp instead of by Owl

[Emma sent us a handwritten letter on 9/4]

Konichiwa!

I'm having a blast!  So much has happened.  My doryo [companion] is so sweet.  We work really well together and she helps me stay in line.  I've learned so much Nihongo [Japanese] but I still feel like I'm drowning.  SO much info that I don't understand.  I taught my 1st lession IN Nihongo today.  It was so scary and so hard that I cried after.  Well, cried and laughed.  We teach again tomorrow morning and we have a better lesson planned (I hope).  On Thurs my doryo and I got up an hour early without realizing it.  So we were an hour ahead of schedule until after breakfast when we found our district and asked them where they'd been.  They said they were going to breakfast and we realized!  We thought it was so funny . . . My district [group of missionaries learning Japanese together] is great.  4 shimai [sister missionaries] and 6 churu [Elders or male missionaries].  We're like family, especially after that lesson in Japanese.  My roomates (all 4) are from Tahiti and are going to Fuiji.  They're a hoot and they've been here for 4 weeks and have 2 more weeks to go.  More about my doryo.  She's from Vernal, UT . . . . and she eats ice cream before dinner with me.  We have both got in trouble for taking off our shoes in class.  She can ride a unicycle.  She's going to Fukuoka . . . . .  Yesterday 2 elders learning English (from Korea and Taiwan) came up to us and bore their testimony, it brought me to tears.  It showed me how important the spirit is because He'll make up the difference.  It gives me hope for my Japanese. . . . This morning for exercise we played Frisbee.  Before we threw we had to say a word in Japanese.  It was fun.  WE also ran and did lunges to keep our biking muscles in shape.  Dad, Dear Elder does work.  Use it more!  Put my district leader to work because he has to pick up everyone's mail . . . The spirit here is amazing.  I'm constantly overflowing.  The food is eh.  But today we had Papa John's pizza!  Totally necessary because my brain felt like it had been run over 1000 times.  I'll email Thursday but hopefully this gets there 1st.  Love yall.  Almost out of space.  READ YOUR SCRIPTURES!  They're life changing.  Love Love Love Bearman Shamai

[on the outside of the envelope]

Dobby is a free elf!

P.S. [she is looking for some headbands she packed]
P.S.S  Just taught my 2nd lesson in Japanese.  It went a lot better.  I even said a sentence from memory!  Kamisama wa watashitachi o ai shite imas.  God loves us.

Emma's First Letter

HIIIIIIIII!!!!

We don't have a p day ["p day" or "Preparation Day" is the one day of the week Missionaries can write letters, do laundry, and other fun stuff] this week so they're letting us send a quick email so you know I'm alive. I'm alive. My p day is Thursday. And having soooooooo much fun. The MTC is the best place I've been in my entire life, Japanese is hard. The first day of lag was hard because our sensei only spoke japanese. I undersood nothing for a whole 4 hours. Great fun. I know a bunch though, it's amazing i tell you- the gift of tongues. my doryo [companion or partner] is amazing.  We get along really well. Haslem shamai is her name . . . . I love her to death. I'll write more next week! I promise. 

Love you to death,

Bearman shamai ♥♥

aka Emma

[Bracketed commentary comes from Mike Bearman, not Emma]