Konnichiwa!!!

Hey all! Konnichiwa!!

So this week was better, but it was still SOOOO hard! Everyone was right, after Sunday it does get better! Everything's a little more comfortable, and you just accept the fact that you don't understand anything the sensei says. So the worst week of the week: Pinzon Shimai left us :( She was fast tracked so now she leaves for Japan in 2 weeks!! So now, it's just me and Cook Shimai in a room that was made for six, so it's nice and spacious. 

So a little about my doryo tachi (companions) Pinzon Shimai is from Tennessee, but was born in Colombia and didn't move to America until she was 15, she lived in Japan for like 4 months, so that's why she knew so much and left us. She's 26. Cook Shimai is from St. George! She's 21, and she's really fun. We laugh a LOT which helps with all of the class, but I think we laugh a lot because we're sitting for like 16 hours a day and are kind of going crazy haha. 

My district is great!! We have 3 other companionship's, 2 from Utah, one from Guatemala, one from Arizona, Hawaii, and one from Vegas, he went to some weird online high school, but played from Sunrise Mountain football! So he's been to the fair, and always just calls me "Logandale" 

So you asked about a normal day. It usually goes as follows: Wake up at 6, or if we feel behind we will wake up at 5 and do some additional language study. Then we go to breakfast, have some personal study time in our class, have a 3 hour class, eat lunch, do some online language study, then have PMG study time, then another 3 hour class, followed by language study, and then companionship study, and then we plan for our next day! Oh, and we have gym time or personal exercise time everyday, and our personal study is usually like 2 hours long, our PMG is usually 2 hours long, but there is still so much that I want to study while i'm here. We committed Yamaguchi-San to baptism! But we will never teach him again, and SURPRISE he's our second sensei. So we have Sheehan sensei who has been our sensei since the beginning, and Taylor sensei who played as Yamaguchi-san. So in class we always call him "Yamaguc---uhhh Taylor sensei" haha it's hard to remember! 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR PRAYERS! They have helped SO MUCH! and I can't believe I've made it to my second p-day. Please still pray for me! I'm praying for you :)

I got to see Sister Mecham the day she came in! She gave me like the best hug ever ( I don't get to hug much here..our sensei's hug our Elders, and can only shake our hands so that stinks.) But her hug was so tight, and she said this is from your mom and dad! It was sad, you could tell she wanted to cry, but was trying to be strong. I could relate to her, I told her it would get better, and and think she was just happy to see a familiar face, I know I was! I FINALLY GOT TO SEE ELDER TERRIL! I ran into him at lunch, he's already doing in-field orientation and gets to leave Wednesday! So we scheduled a meet up at dinner so we could bring our cameras and take a picture! He's DL! I've seen Elder Sullivan a couple times and I always get so happy when I see him. I see Elder Roemer all the time! Like 3 times a day! Taylor sensei was actually Josh Roemer's companion!! 

You  asked about what classes I like best, I have 2, 3 hour classes a day, and their the same thing, so I guess those. Sheehan Sensei can tell really good stories that bring the spirit SO MUCH it's insane, so I like it when he talks English :) 

We just did laundry, the hugest laundromat i've ever seen. Hopefully we can take a nap, then eat lunch and then go do an endowment session at the temple! Then we have dinner and more class :( Well I don't know what else really happened this week, I forgot my journal again :( next week i'll remember so I can tell you what really happened this week. haha  Have a great week! Thank you for your prayers, they help SO MUCH. I hope Moapa beat VV on Friday! Thank you for your DearElders, they mean the world to me when I get them! I'm only allowed to write letters on P-days, so even thought I don't reply really fast they make my day go by SO MUCH better, so please keep sending letters and DearElders, seriously they make my day!! I love you so much, and miss you tons!! Ai shitte imasu!

Where Messer Shimai is headed in a few weeks!

With Sister Pamela Mecham 

With Elder Shane Terril and Cook Shimai (her companion)

Messer, Cook and Pinzon Shimais

Messer Shimai entered the Missionary Training Center!

Hello Everybody!! Wow, what a stressful couple of days!! After you dropped me off, my host led me around campus picking up piles of books and then I dropped my stuff of in my room. Then I went straight to class where my sen sei talked in ONLY Nihango (Japanese)!!! I was SO stressed because my companion, Pinzon Shimai already knows Japanese and my other companion, (yes I have 2) can pick stuff up like nobody's business! She already understands our investigator! So After class we went to a freshman orientation where I saw Elder Terril, Elder Sullivan AND Elder Roemer (It's SO FUN to see familiar faces! I see Matthew Roemer every meal! I guess the Albanian and Nihongo missionaries follow the same schedule. I haven't seen Shane Terril since then, but I ran into Elder Sullivan in the bookstore, and it made my day SO MUCH BETTER!! I was so happy!!!!! But after the orientation we went to dinner, and then we taught these investigators in a big room with about 50 missionaries, one was a guy from Guatemala and there was a guy missing a leg, and the last one was a volleyball player from Stanford, this big Tongan guy who cried at the end cause the spirit was so strong :) I forgot my schedule from the first day, so i can't really remember what happened, so much has happened since! Oh, and mom to answer your question there were 600 missionaries total, not just sisters :) So
Thursday, we got up at 6 had breakfast, and then personal study (which is in our classroom) and then we had a Preach My Gospel workshop, I love workshops in English, but sadly that was our last one we have. Then we had "personal physical exercise" translation: do situps while reading your vocab. YES we had a whole page of vocab the very first day. Then we had an "MTC orientation" where a teacher came to our class and explained some online programs we get to do, it's call TALL it's just learning Nihongo online. Then we had class, (which is 3 hours everytime) and then dinner. I pretty much just eat salad for almost every meal. The meals aren't bad here, the salads are just fancy salads so I like them. Then review language time, and then we met with the Branch President, he's super cool. Yesterday was pretty much the same, except we had two three hour classes, but the first one we taught our first investigator. YES we taught him on Friday, it was all in Nihongo and thank goodness Pinzon Shimai knows Nihongo, he would ask questions and she would answer. He asked me how many people were in my family, I said three sisters, so then he was like 3 total? and then I got lost and had no idea what he was saying. I just held up my hand in a 5 and Cook Shimai said it in Nihongo. We got to go to the gym yesterday too, and we get 2 hours to study PMG. Today we just had some personal study time, lunch, temple with the churro tachi (elders) Dinner's next, and then class. I'm scared! Class scares me!! But we teach our investigator again on Monday. We do three times a week. I am so jealous of those English speaking missionaries!! Tibi, she's got it good. So I got my first dearelder from Mom, Dad, Aus, and Tibi!! And then the Barlows sent me a Halloween package! I was SO happy to get it!! It was the only Halloween thing I got besides that letter you sent up with me, mom. Our district leader gets the mail twice a day, so it's always a little sad when I don't get anything, so go ahead, send two letters a day :) It's so weird here, by the end of the day my mind is exhausted and I can't even think! It's weird always being with someone, like even if one of my companions is in the bathroom, or showering, the other one is in the room. So my only alone time is my shower in the morning. Oh blessed showers! Oh, AUS to answer your question, we don't have a tub in our bathroom, idk what you're talking about. Plus, our showers go all the way up to the ceiling so I don't have to worry about making awkward eye contact with another tall person. Oh, didn't you say you lived in 17M? That's where the Mandarin speaking sisters live, they're just a floor under us during classroom study. So I was so close to being in 17M! Our room has 3 bunk beds, so 6 beds in all, and there are only three of us. We all sleep on the bottom of a different bed, although I think I might sleep on the top sometime, cause top bunks are the best kind of bunks. Well, I am going to try to email you some pictures. See if it works, I have to borrow Cook Shimai's camera cord because They don't have memory card slots Aii shite imasu!!! I love you!!! Messer Shimai