Spiritual Bootcamp Week One!

Konnichiwa!!! O-genki desu ka?! Genki desu! Subarashii!!

MTC life is great! We are in class by 7:00 am and don't get back to our room till 9:30pm. It's hard work but it will be so worth it when I get to Japan! Japanese is hard. You basically take everything you learned in English and do the exact opposite. Everyone in my district took Japanese in high school so I'm pretty far behind. It was pretty discouraging the first few days but I had to remind myself they've taken Japanese for years and I've been taking it for 3 days. If God believes I can learn Japanese than I know I will. I'll get back to you in 9 weeks :)

I'm in a trio with Watabe Shimai from Ohio and Lafaele Shimai from New Zealand! We get along great! We are the only Shimai (sisters) in our district with 5 Chorōs (elders) from Virginia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Idaho and Utah. I love them already. There are 6 of us are going to Sapporo and the other two are going to Tokyo. Ōtamugi to Hoshikusa is our catchphrase. It's amazing the things that become fun when you're a missionary.

Our second day here we taught our first lesson to our investigator, Ōta San. I didn't understand a word but I love Ōta San!! We taught him about God's love for him and how to pray. We've taught him 3 more lessons since then and I'm starting to be able to understand some words! Teaching him is the best part of the day! I love, love, love Ōta San. We spend a lot of time with the native Japanese missionaries and my love has grown sooooo much for the Japanese people just in the last week! They are the BEST.

Sunday night we had a devotional where they played "The Character of Christ", by Elder Bednard. When it was over Elder Bednar himself walked in IN REAL LIFE and we had an hour long Q&A with an Apostle of the Lord. No big deal. Just another day in the MTC. SO COOL!!!!! If you get a chance watch "The Character of Christ" because it's amazing. It's all about learning to turn outwards with charity, like Christ, rather than inward with selfishness like we all want to do when things don't go our way.

I love being a missionary and I can't wait to invite the people of Japan to come unto Christ and help them receive the joy of the restored gospel! (Hopefully in Japanese)

Ai shite masu! (shite is pronounced stay, be careful with that)

Rigby Shimai

"The Lord never asks the impossible. Often the difficult, but never the impossible." -David B Haight

OTA SAN

My dirstrict aka the people I spent 15 hours a day with.

Japanese Zone Selfie courtesy of Womack Shimai

My district

Out for a walk.

The Cafeteria

My badge

I had a native write "Rigby" in Kanji.  It means "prettier than the shining blue"

All the fish in the sea in Kanji

I get to see Warner!