On My Knees With the Japanese: Week 5: Salt, Senpai, Suitcoats, and Other Things That Start With S

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, all of you Americans reading this! (Aka anyone who is reading this. I mean, I can pretty safely assume you're American, or at least in America somewhere.)

Anyway.

Here at the MTC, we do not celebrate the 4th or July. Instead, we celebrate the

INTERNATIONAL CELEBRATION OF FREEDOM !!!

During the INTERNATIONAL CELEBRATION OF FREEDOM, we missionaries are encouraged to, and I quote, "reflect and ponder on the events that allowed for the restoration of the Gospel."

In reality, we had a devotional about the history of the restoration starting with William Tynsdale, who I think was the first person to translate the bible? I don't know, clearly I wasn't paying enough attention (I never do.) There was a cheesy slideshow with red, white and blue star transitions, so I'll be honest, I was distracted by all of that patriotism.

More entertaining, however, was the wonderful joke at the beginning of the devotional:

"Elders, you may now take off your suit coats. Or not. It's a free country."

And then after the devotional, we got to go into the parking lot to witness, through the trees and many tall elder's shoulders (now bare of their suit coats), the Stadium of Fire or whatever it's called. Some big firework show with a musical guest. I wouldn't know, I couldn't really see it.

The highlight of the night, however, was definitely the joke about suit coats and freedom.

(Art provided by Sister F. She is actually diagnosed face blind, just kidding.)

The news in District 5c this week is that, sadly, we had to let go of the Crazy Elder. He has moved on to an English speaking district, and he couldn't be happier. He is actually getting reassigned missions, and his call should be coming today! He's probably the only Elder in the MTC who doesn't currently have a mission call. Fancy that!

Here is a photograph of his once-was companion, now a Solo Elder amongst a sea of 7 Sisters. If you look closely, you can see his "Solo" sticker in the bottom right of his name tag, a symbol of his sadness.

One of our mission presidency's wives made the joke that "Now you know what polygamy is like."

Despite the separation, we still keep up with the Crazy Elder. He emails us weekly, and sometimes he even pops his head into our classroom building and yells Japanese phrases at the top of his lungs.

Did I mention he's a little crazy?

Speaking of crazy, our senpai (there's no English word for it other than "piers who are slightly more seasoned than us," but then I'm just like "well, what seasoning did they use?") (I'm not funny, I'll stop.) are leaving on Monday! And then we will take their place as the Dai-senpai (aka big-deal-senpai.)

Which means literally nothing.

This week, our teacher Ole-Fuchino-Katō-Sensei was in a really good mood, after having been married. We made the joke that our investigator, Fuchino-San, got married in the temple. We were so proud!!

Since he was in a good mood, we had a fun day with him.

The progression of that day is as follows:

We are all discussing how one time, he drew a perfect circle. One sister said "oh, drawing perfect circles is easy, I do it all the time."

Being the sassy district that we are, we went in for the kill (have I mentioned we are ruthless? One misspoken word, and we don't forget it the whole day.... We do it out of love. I think...)

After a good three minutes of us going at it, salty comments flying to and fro, our teacher speaks up:

"Man, I didn't get my salt intake this morning, so keep on going!"

The funny thing is, he's the sassiest one in the room!

Then, he finally accepted our wedding gift! The traditional Celebratory Wedding Apple from the MTC Cafeteria (I know, we shouldn't have.)

He washes it, and then takes 5 minutes to split it in half with his bare hands while we just watch. For 5 minutes. And then he just sits there and eats it, and we were all just sitting there.

He is so much fun.

THEN, while we were reviewing grammar and came across a word we don't know, Sister M asked what a word was in English.

His answer: "I'm not going to tell you the answers when you have so many resources."

Her response: "One of those resources is you!"

His reply: "I'm not going to be here forever, Sister M!!"

Finally, it was time to teach our investigator, Katō-San (Aka our teacher)

We get into the lesson, share our message, then ask, "Do you have any questions?" But in Japanese.

Then he says, "Is any question okay?" But in Japanese.

And then we both say, "Yes, of course! Go ahead!" But in Japanese.

And then, HOLDING BACK A SMIRK (and not well, might I add) he asks, "How do I become super wealthy?" But in Japanese.

He did it just to haze us.

How do I know?

We bring it up in class, and the only response we get from our Investerteacher is that same smirk, except this time, it was unimpeded.

He's a fun guy.

And if he were eating mushrooms, he would be a fungi.

But in Japanese.

For my dedicated readership, here are some other things that happened:

WARNING, THIS IS KIND OF GROSS: My companion had been feeling sick from lunch, but was going to stick it out until we taught our lesson. We taught the lesson-- and it went great, we committed a less active member to go to church again--but I find out later that she had, how do I put this lightly, thrown up in her mouth a little, then swallowed it, and just KEPT GOING. Now that is dedication. I could not be more proud. Or more grossed out... Nah, I could probably be more grossed out, it's fine.

Sensible Elder, who, now that he is a Solo Elder, I guess I can just call him The Elder, but I think I will call him Elder Solo aka Elder HAN Solo, ANYWAY, Elder Han looked in the Lost and Found bin outside of our classroom one day to find a small tub of ice cream, untouched, with a spoon to go with it. He was very pleased, though confused, as he enjoyed his tasty treat.

And that's it for this week.

Included at the bottom of this email, you will find some pictures that did not fit in with the events of the email above, but are still relevant to my week.

Aaaaaaaand, bye.

See you next time.

Sister Stewart, signing off!