#7 "Just Around the River Bend"

So this week has brought a lot of change. Hansen Shimai's foot was not getting any better, and she decided it was best to go home, heal and then come back. She left just Friday morning and since then I've been placed in a new district to be companions with Bickmore Shimai.

My new district is a tad bit louder than my old district. Haha although they may not focus as hard as my old district does, they're super loving and I feel like even after only spending a day with them I'm part of their family.

Bickmore Shimai is great! She's very open, and very funny too. Although we're pretty opposite, I think we're going to get along pretty well. We are already very fond of each other and found something in common that we love: Disney!!

Speaking of...

This week's Disney reference is going to have to be Pocahontas, and more specifically, her song "Just Around the River Bend".

"What I love most about rivers is you can't step in the same river twice.The water is always changing always flowing." Being on a mission is FULL of change. We overheard a new missionary say that they hate change, and all we could do was laugh and wish them luck. While it may feel like the strict schedule will never change, every day is different and new. Especially after this week, with a new companion and a new district, I feel like I'm never stepping in the same river twice. I just have to wake up and pray to know what to do differently each day.

"But people can't always live like that, we all must pay a price.To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing what's around the river bend, waiting just around the river bend." To not be a missionary is to lose the chance of ever knowing what's around the river bend that the Lord has in store for you. I can't always be a missionary. Sometimes I wish, but unfortunately I can only live like this for a year and a half. I can only wear His name on my badge and forget myself completely in this work for a year and a half.

"I look once more just around the river bend." But I still have so much ahead of me. I'm sitting here at the MTC, embracing the change because I know who is taking care of me. I know that there will always be something around the river bend if I embrace the changes ahead of me.

Hope everything is great back home!

Your missionary,

Johnson Shimai

A Few Images from the MTC (October, 2013)

Sister Johnson with Sister Rowley (10/2013)

Sisters in the MTC District, October 2013

The District on the way to the temple... (10/2013)

Sister Hansen (L) and Sister Johnson (R), MTC Companions

Mia confesses... "Utah is beautiful!"  Provo temple (10/2013)

 

#6 "The Bear Necessities"

I'm really sure that was NOT a week, but it's Saturday once more and so I guess I'll write again. It's crazy how fast time flies here. Again I feel like not much has happened this week, but I'll share two new things and a Disney reference.

Cool new thing #1; Elder Oaks came to talk to us. I have to just let you all know right now, in case you were not previously informed, that I am a dork. So as he enters the room and every one stands I started smiling so big. I couldn't stop smiling - there was an apostle of Christ in the same room as me!! Every one else seemed to think it was cool too, but they seemed much more relaxed compared with the exclamations in my head of "Holy crap! There's an apostle!! He's here! In this room! An apostle! He came to talk to ME. An APOSTLE!!". Needless to say it was a really cool devotional...

Not-so-cool new thing #2; Sister Hansen(my companion)'s foot has been bothering her these past couple weeks. We've gone to so many doctors to find out that she has a bone spur in her heel, digging into her achilles tendon. She's been doing physical therapy, but it's not helping and so now she might have to have surgery and return home to recover before she can return to the field. I have to say I think she's very brave, I don't think I could go home to recover and then come back. As a roommate of mine so interestingly puts it, "I ain't coming home unless I've completed my mission or I'm in a casket! If you miss me so much, sucks to be you." Hahahaha she's really fun.

As for my Disney reference this week, I think I'm going to have to go with the Jungle Book. I've learned that while I'm here, I need to just look for the "bare necessities, those simple bare necessities". I've been so caught up in learning Japanese and at the same time learning the doctrine of Christ that I need to just "forget about [my] worries and [my] strife". Yes, "I mean the bare necessities", like relying on prayer and the Spirit. To put my worried missionary self "at ease", I need to just rely on these "simple bare necessities of life".

Hope you all are fine and healthy!

Your missionary,

Sister Johnson

#5 "You Can Fly"

I'm not gonna lie, this week went by super fast. I'm not entirely sure what to write about, not much happened! I guess time flies when you're working hard.

Japanese is coming along alright. It's still very hard, but I work on learning new words every day. Grammar is still way over my head, but I think I'll get it eventually. As for the lessons, my companion and I have decided to go without reading from a piece of paper. I think this is the scariest thing I've done yet. Instead of writing out sentences in Japanese to read, now I write down a list of scriptures I think we'll need and a list of vocab that I think we'll need. Seeings as this is about the fourth week that I've been studying Japanese, I need a lot more than just that. I've learned that the Book of Mormon can really answer any question. It's where I turn when the investigator asks a question and I have no idea how to answer it in Japanese. I look up a scripture and then ask them to read it in Japanese (it's my little way of cheating this ever-so difficult language). I've really come to know that this book really does contain a fullness of Christ's gospel - it has everything you need!

I apologize for this post being so short, but I think I'm going to jump ahead to the Disney reference;

This weeks reference is to Peter Pan. The song "You Can Fly!" got stuck in my head the other day, and I realized just how true the lyrics are for me right now.

"When there's a smile in your heart, there's no better time to start. Think of all the joy you'll find, when you leave the world behind and bid your fears good-bye. You can fly! You can fly! You can fly!"

I always keep my grandma's advice to smile close to heart, and as I've left the world and fears behind me and truly focused on learning while I'm here at the MTC, I feel like I'm flying. I learn so much every day, and I feel as though I can do anything.

Well that's all I got to say for this week. Hope everyone back home is doing great!

Your missionary,

Sister Johnson

#4 "I Can Tell This Is Gonna Be Good"

So as you all may know, this weekend is General Conference. It makes things somewhat difficult as it lands right on my P-day, so I did laundry at 5am and now I have 15 minutes to write a post for my blog! At the same time, I think this is the best weekend yet. I have never before watched conference with such attention as I am right now. And heeeeeere's the Disney reference;

In Finding Nemo, as Marlin and Dori are on their way to Sydney they run into a bunch of turtles. When asked to tell his story, all the turtles huddle in closer and Dori says "I can tell this is gonna be good!". This line ALWAYS gets me. I love Dori and all her forgetfulness, but even more I love her genuine love. Right now I feel like Dori, as I sit in front of the apostles that I have known all my life and hear them speak I feel as if I am hearing the gospel for the first time. And "I can tell this is gonna be good!"

There is nothing like the spirit of the MTC. I keep looking around and my jaw just drops - I have never seen so many LDS before! It's truly wonderful. I'm making such incredible friends. We can goof off one minute, and then start reading the scriptures together the next. I don't get it, but I sure do love it.

Japanese is pretty tough, and I'm pretty sure I keep telling our "investigators" some pretty interesting things about this gospel with all the mistakes I make, but they keep letting us come back! Haha maybe it's because they have to, seeing as they also are our teachers, but they do let us know that as long as we feel the Spirit we're on the right track. And heeeeeere's the quote from Bingham sensei;

"I am not a perfect teacher, but this is a perfect gospel."

I LOVE that. It's so true! My Japanese is awful! and sometimes the scriptures I read to the "investigators" don't make any sense. But I do know that this church is true, and that they can feel the Light of Christ in their lives if I can teach them where to go to find it.

As by popular demand, I will tell you all what a typical day in the life of Sister Johnson is like;

I usually wake up at 6am, bright and early. I turn on the lights and tell the other sisters in the room good morning. I get dressed, make my bed, pack up my back and I'm out the door by 6:45 for breakfast. After breakfast we have personal study until Japanese class (where they don't teach Japanese, they just teach the gospel in Japanese. Muzukashii desune?). Class starts at 8:10 and right up until lunch, 11:10. After lunch, we have gym time, gospel study time, and TALL (some computer program) time until dinner. Dinner is nice and EARLY, at 4:10. After dinner, we have class from 4:55 until 7:55. We then have language study, where we study independently until 9. At 9, we sit down with our companions and discuss the events for the next day and how we should best use our time. By 9:30, we're allowed back in the residence halls and by 10:30 I am OUT. It's a pretty busy schedule but at the same time I wouldn't change a thing - I've already been learning so much.

Well, I'm out of time. Next time I promise I'll try to write more!

Love from your missionary,

Sister Johnson

#3 "Disneyland is Second"

On the very first day, one of the people who spoke to the new missionaries during orientation said that this is the happiest place on earth. My instant thought was "no...that's Disneyland". As if she had read my thoughts she then said "Disneyland is second".

I thought this must be blasphemy.

It turns out she was right. Who knew? I love it here. I love the people, the atmosphere, and especially the feeling. I've realized that not a moment goes by when I don't have the Holy Ghost by my side. Every one is so loving here; every time we say good-bye to anyone, "aishiteimasu" soon follows. I really feel it too.

I used to think that the MTC was just like a factory for turning out missionaries as soon as possible to teach the memorized lessons of the textbooks we use here, but I've realized it's something else completely. Every day I learn new things about who I am and where I'm going and what I'm supposed to do, and I love every bit of it. Just to share what the MTC is really like, I'll quote Bingham sensei;

"Don't teach a lesson, teach a person."

He is truly an amazing teacher and I'm so grateful to have him as my sensei. He says amazing quotes like the above, so many I'll just collect them and share them with you in my posts. Here's another just before I move on;

"You are called to serve as a missionary of Christ. For a year and a half you get to live as Christ lived. I would give anything to serve another mission."

Like I said, he's incredible. He changes my perspective and I see things so much clearer every day.

Continuing on with our "investigator", Sister Hansen and I got to meet with him about four more times this week. Although we can't say much without first writing everything out, we prayed a lot, and every time we went to meet him, I could feel the Spirit and I knew the message we were bringing was the one he needed to hear.

After teaching a great lesson on the Atonement of Christ, Sister Hansen and I both agreed that we would ask him the very next lesson if he would consider baptism. Unfortunately, our teacher told us the next day that the lesson we just gave was the last one we would give to this "investigator". We all were so devastated by this news. This experience had really taught us to teach the person, and not the lesson. We all asked our teacher if there was any way we could see him one last time, but he said he didn't think so.

Later that day, as we returned to class, we all were so excited to meet our new teacher. We had heard he was going to start teaching us that evening, but as we came into the classroom there was our "investigator"!! It turns out he is our new teacher. Also it turns out he lived in Tokyo as well. He went to ASIJ, and I don't know his first name but his last name is Murray. It was really cool getting to know the real him, but also learning that the "investigator" he played was a real investigator of his.

It's something really cool that I love about the MTC. All of the teachers that act as "investigators" remember a real person from their own mission and become that person. It's something that they're trying to teach us to do - to see the gospel through the eyes of those we teach. I try my best to, and I've really seen the improvement. I teach people, not lessons.
Before I sign off here, I thought I would tell my dad "challenge accepted". For those of you who don't know, I am a Disney nut. I love Disney! My dad thought it was a little funny, especially with all the Disney music I buy, so he challenged me to reference Disney in every talk. While I don't think that is too appropriate at the pulpit, I think I'll try it here. So, without further ado, here is my Disney reference for last week's post;

As I was flying to Salt Lake City, I remembered the scene in Tangled where Rapunzel leaves her tower for the first time. That, was me. From "this is it! I'm finally getting out of here!" to "I don't want to leave..." to "this is the best day ever!" to "what the heck am I doing?!" to "I can't wait until I get to the MTC!" to "...I can wait." my thoughts were going crazy. Needless to say, I was "a little at war with [myself]". But I'm determined to go see the floating lanterns (or in other words, determined to "live my dream").

I also should post one reference for today, and that would be from Mulan.

I've been sick all week, I've had this awful cold that just took over me. I wasn't able to focus well in class and had to rely on my companion and district a lot to stay caught up. Now that I'm feeling much better, as I sit in class the song "I'll Make a Man Out Of You" gets stuck in my head. It's time to "get down to business", to learn this crazy Japanese language here. Not that the Lord is trying to make a man out of me, but He certainly is helping to refine me to be a better missionary. "Time is racing toward us", and I'm already onto my 3rd week here. It's crazy how the time flies so I really need to crack down on my Japanese. So far I can only introduce myself, talk about basic gospel principles, bear a simple testimony and say a simple prayer. "Let's get down to business!"

Ha Dad. I win.

Much love from your missionary,

Sister Johnson