Emma's Owls: 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.