Life is an Adventure

The MTC (like life in general, and probably the rest of my mission) is a roller coaster. Some days I feel like a whole lot and some days I feel like I've learned nothing. Some days I know Nihongo and others I don't. But during my darkest times this past week, the quote by President Hinckley's Father has been bombarding my thoughts: 

 

Forget yourself and go to work.

 

That is not a very easy principle. There's a lot of things that can hurt your pride. I know mine was a few times. But now I am better  :) I also think of Majorie Hinckley's quote (I'm on a Hinckley high. It's kinda like drugs, but with the Spirit. And you don't die.) "You can either get through life laughing or crying. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.

So that language is musakashi, but I suppose...that's rather the point. If it was easy, then why would I need the Lord to get through this? I think of Nephi's faith: "If the Lord has done all of this, then why can't He help me to build a ship?" (Something like that. Molen Shimai New Translated version) And a ship is built on piece at a time.

 

Because the work-others we want to serve- is really all that truly matters, isn't it? That's what the Savior did- not mope about things. He Just Acted.

 

As a class we were teaching one of our sensei, and he at the front fo the class, doing well acting as one of his kyudosha (investigator). And I thought he was asking about why Christ had to die, so I found 2 Nephi 2:6-7 in the Eigo Morumon Sho, half-way shoved it at Dansie Shimai and said, "Look it up for me." So she did, and I looked at him and asked, "Utamawa, do you wonder why Iesu Kirisuto had to die?" And he paused and said, "Yes. I was wondering." So I gave it to Him. Half way through reading it his ears got really red. Like, it was crazy. I thought he felt like crying. Because I was feeling it, Dansie Shimai was feeling it. The class was feeling it, until he looked up with a red face and started spurting off all of this Nihongo I didn't understand. So I tried, and stared, and tried and stared, and that went on for a while until a choro kicked in. Utamawa also said the word, "sad" and I knew that one! I just learned it! Unfortunately, no one else had learned it, so everyone was flipping through this dictionaries. Moe choro was sharing something very inspiring about Jesus Christ loving us and how we can be happy from it. At that moment, his companion, Iordachescu choro (Your-da-kes-ku), looked up from his dictionary and practically yelled "It's sad!" At that point our teacher absolutely lost it. 

 

So what REALLY happened was the Kyudosha asked about commandments and if killing was one, and we flipped to 1 Nephi 1:6-7. So that was confusing. And then he said Moe Choro was really helping him until Iorachescu..(honestly, I don't even know how to spell it, but he's cool) yelled in the middle of class. SO that was the adventure lesson of the week. To be frank, it was pretty hilarious. 

 

Now is the time to make mistakes, take chances, and get messy! And, frankly, most of them are quite fun.

 

Our district is all a little stressed, so if you help pray for all of us that would be great. We are getting to the point where those who took classes before hand are started to get into new territory and those who had no formally training are entirely lost all together. But the discussion I had with Meyers Shimai about verbs has really helped me. So I will bake her a hypothetical cake as a big thank you.

This is real. Jesus Christ is real and wants to listen. Even, no, especially to people who feel like they have messed up or fallen off the wagon. Because He cares about them and can make them happy. He has made me happy. Watashi was Kono Kyokai ga shinjitsu da to shitte imasu. 

Continuing on this absolutely wonderful adventure,

Molen Shimai