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| Hansen Shimai and I with our SYL babies |
Well I'm over the
hill! I'm more than half way done which is way nice! The days before me are
more than the days I have left until I go to Japan. SUPER excited about that!
To start off...last
Tuesday for our devotional we had Elder Vaughn Featherstone. He is an emeritus
General Authority. He just gave a lot of good advice to us missionaries. He
talked about how a significant portion of our success is based on our attitude.
I really want to work on having a more cheerful and uplifting attitude while
here. Sometimes it can be easy to mutter under your breath about the food or
how long we are in the classroom. But that is not the attitude I should have.
I'm basically doing the coolest thing anyone in this world can do! I just need
to focus on being more cheerful! :)
Wednesday and
Thursday were about the same. Nothing new to report. We taught, studied, and
ate....
Friday was our 1/2
way mark! Sister Hansen and I celebrated by making and then singing songs for
each of the activities we do throughout the day. At first our Elders had no
idea what we were doing. Some were mildly impressed, but for the others we
just reaffirmed their belief that we are a little bit weird...Who cares? My companion
and I had a lot of fun while doing it.
On Sunday I found out
that we are getting 29 new missionaries on Wednesday! 4 of those are Shimai.
I'm so excited to get to know them. Everyone says that once they get here the
time goes by so much faster. I'm ready for that to happen!
Well...kind of. Don't
get me wrong I am excited beyond belief to go to Japan. But we are getting a
new investigator who is from Japan. And even though he is a teacher here, and
knows perfect English, we only hear him speak Japanese. We were watching a
movie of him introducing himself to us....Yah. I understood 3 words out of the
2 minute clip. I realized that the Japanese I'm learning is not what I am going
to be hearing in less than 5 weeks. I'm kind of in trouble....
For Relief Society we
had a Sister Porter speak to us. Her husband was the mission president for New
Zealand. They just got home about a year ago. But I really enjoyed her talk!
She talked about learning about, accessing, and using the atonement in our
lives not only as missionaries but for the rest of our lives as well. Through
the atonement we can be healed from ALL sicknesses and pain. It will give us
the power to accomplish things that we would not have been able to do so by
ourselves. I have noticed how true that is, even over these few short weeks.
The power of the atonement is more powerful than we could comprehend. I'm
excited to learn more about it and then continue to use it in my life on a
daily basis.
For our Sunday night
Fireside we had Elder Steven Allen who is currently serving as an Area 70 in
the Salt Lake area. He talked about the power of Hymns which was actually very
powerful. He had us listen and sing "Come, Come Ye Saints" with the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir. And while yes, it is a pioneer song, he helped me realize how
much of a missionary song it is too. This might become one of my new favorite
hymns! He said that we should be constantly thinking about or singing hymns. He
talked about how knowledge can be learned through them, and there is one to
sing, regardless your mood. And it will always lift your spirits. I'm going to
try to work on that.
Sad story time...One
of my roommates here, Farnsworth Shimai, since almost day 1 here has had a lot
of issues with her knee. It's been really hard for her as she has been in a lot
of pain. Long story short...5am this morning she left for the airport. She is
going to go home for a few months and try to fix everything. Once she's better,
she's going to try and come back out and she'll finish these last 5 weeks here
at the MTC and then go to Japan. Hopefully she can recover quickly. Now her
poor companion has become a "solo" sister. She has a sticker on her
name tag that even says so. She is allowed to be with 2 Elders instead of a
companion. But she is going to kind of turn into a trio with me and my
companion. She'll be with us on p-days, Sundays, gym, meals, etc. She'll just
stay in her district. It's not a burden for us at all. We love her a lot, it
just would be weird no longer having a companion.
Well lots and lots of
love!
-Dobson Shimai
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| When the Shimai get bored! |
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| When the Choros get bored! |
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