HOLY COW THIS IS THE BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD.

but honestly, i love the MTC soooo much. i don't even know where to begin? 

I was escorted to my room by this really nice sister who's going to korea and GRUNDVIG SHIMAI IS IN MY DISTRICT AND IN MY ROOM!!!!!!!! WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!?!?! besides learning japanese, not calling Grundvig Shimai "Ariana" is the HARDEST thing in the MTC. hahahah but actually. I don't know how many times I've called her ari in the last couple of days, but it's been a ton. she's not my comp, but VIOLETTE SHIMAI (that mitch met at BYU and told me to look out for) IS. she's wayyyyyyyyyyyy cool and i absolutely love her with all my heart. She's 6'1" so she sticks out/will stick out a lot. and she's drop dead gorgeous. And just super nice and sweet and radiates with the spirit. the choro tachi (elders) drool all over her. She's 21! and went to Jerusalem this past summer so that's probably the most legit thing ever. 

BUT ARIANA IS IN MY ROOOOOOM! and her comp is kendall shimai and she's the kindest, sweetest person i know in my whole life. and she offered everything she has to all of us. She grew up in a japanese speaking home sooo i'm slightly jealous. actually, about half of my district did. (or just studied japanese in high school) so that's been both a blessing and also humbling. One of the biggest things that i need to remember as i'm here is how fresh i am to speaking japanese so i can't be too hard on myself. we taught our first lesson in japanese yesterday?? sooo. that was definitely an interesting experience. My comp. missed a lot of class because she's in the woman's chorus that will sing in the relief society general broadcast  and she doesn't know any japanese so i did about 94% of the speaking. which is interesting cause i'd only known how to say some sentences in japanese for about 20 hours of class. IT WAS SO DIFFICULT. there were so many things that I wanted to say and i felt sooo restricted and it was really challenging. i could definitely feel the spirit, but there were times when super heavy doubts popped into my head as i was trying to translate a english-structured sentence into a backwards japanese-structured sentence and i'm pretty sure i threw some spanish structure in there, and i thought a couple times that I wasn't assigned the correct mission because everything that i was trying to remember kept coming to me in spanish, but i just had to keep reminding myself that I was called by God to serve in Kobe and that He knows that I have the capability to do this, otherwise He wouldn't have called me here. It's super humbling which is really good for me. ALSO, one of the branch presidency members here that I have was the mission president in Sapporo, Japan (DAD) and his last name is DANIELS. AND HE HAS A DAUGHTER NAMED MEGAN HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN THIS WORLD IS CRAZY. so that was fun discovering. I love him-- he's so helpful. I had an interview with him and he just built my confidence a ton. I expressed my baby concern for learning japanese and he just told me that this experience will humble me so that I can be more receptive to the Spirit, which is crucial for teaching. Really that's all that teaches. we are just the communicators. 

I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH. we've had so many wonderful spiritual experiences and i just want to stay here forever. You always hear about how the MTC's teachers speak the language on the first day, right? Well i thought, "nahhh, this is the lowest level of japanese that they can teach-- surely our teacher will speak english to us?? at least a little bit?" i've never been more wrong. so that was good. ii desu ne. She has not spoken a word of english to us. but she is the SWEETEST. she gave me the biggest hug and just smiles at me and makes me believe i can actually do this hahahahhahahahahaa. but she sounds really awesome so that's motivating. I can't wait until i'm fluent. or until i can understand her hahahhaha. after yesterday afternoon i can probably understand 40% of what she says? maybe that's a little high. but things are looking up!!!! sometimes i just laugh. but I know the Lord will help me.

Iesu Kirisuto wa watashi o ai shite imasu. Kare wa kanzen desu. To Iesu Kirisuto wa watashi o tasukemasu to shitte imasu. Iesu Kirisuto no mina ni yotte o-inori shimasu, amen." maybe that's right. It's supposed to say "Jesus loves me. He is perfect. And I believe that Jesus Christ will help me. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."  

hopefully next week i'll be able to use legit sentence structure and a few more vocab words. (;

I miss you all!!! I love you all! I'm still working on letters.