Week 2

Wow, another week has passed, but it feels like a month, crazy things are happening here at the MTC. I actually shared dads comment about the tent with the other missionaries, and they thought it was great. They all think i am super funny, which is actually pretty entertaining to me.. yes i did find the letter, I meant to thank you for that last week, it made me cry. I forgot to mention a lot of stuff last week, just cause i think i wasn't used to emailing so fast, and i am used to having already told you everything. What i've heard about the bikes at the end of the mission is that they are normally pretty beat up by the end of the mission, so lots of people just leave them, though i have heard of some people not having beat up bikes and selling them or shipping them home, we will just have to see what kind of condition my bike is in when i get back. I'm sorry to hear that about your sweet lady, I will keep her and her family in my prayers, I can't imagine how hard that would be. I'm glad danielle was able to have a good time in Logan, and that the accident didn't result in another totaled car for her, that would've been bad. Tell the sunshine ladies that I miss them, I have always enjoyed talking with them as well. I;m glad that the garden is doing so well, though i wish i was there to enjoy it. I hope miranda is able to find a place soon, and that things go well for her. Glad to hear that Joseph and family are doing well, is nicolas doing better this week, or is he still kind of sick? Some of my teachers also hiked to stewart falls this past week, though i can't remember if it was monday, but they all live in provo area, so i'm sure they weren't in the same group. I'm glad that you found my card. I was slightly worried that you wouldn't find it, but i planned on telling you about it this week if it wasn't found. I hoped dad enjoyed it. Lots of the sisters in my district forgot about father's day until they didn't have time to send a card so that it would arrive in time. I'm glad I just made sure that was taken care of before i left. I really liked what L. TomÂ
Perry said, because it is so true, and so important. I hope that Jane and Pam continue to recover well, and that everyone in the ward is doing well, for the most part. It is sad to hear the news about Cody's family, but i hope that everyhting will work out, not much else i can say on the subject.I also forgot to tell you how much i miss you and dad last week, but i do i really do, I love you, and I'm so glad that you are my parents. It is such a blessing to have you as my parents. I enjoyed wills emails, short as usual, but still great. This week has been crazy. The MTC is different, because all of the new mission presidents (130) are here as well as the apostles and the first presidency. Some of the apostles aren't here, since they are struggling with their health, but i am told the rest are here, though i haven't seen them. We have a longer p-day today, cause we are meeting with some of the new mission presidents, and they will be teaching us, in english. It is possible that an apostle will also come into our classroom, and that would be awesome, but we don't know for sure if that is going to happen or not. We should be hearing from them at our sunday devotional though, which should be awesome. Tuesday evening we heard from elder marcus nash of the seventy. It was so great! one thing i really liked was how he said there is no such thing as a hard to baptize mission or zone. The problem is that missionaries go in there with the mind set that it is hard to baptize there, and so it is. If missionaries go in thinking the are goign to baptize, and work for that, they will baptize. He shared a story about president monson when he was a mission president. There was a zone that was apparently impossible to get baptisms in, and no missionaries wanted to go there. So he closed it. After about a year and a half, once all the old missionaries were gone, and the zone had lost its reputation, he announced he was opening a new area in which brigham young ( i think it was him) had once baptized 45 people in one month. It was the same zone. Of course everyone wanted to go there, and he was bombarded with people asking to be sent there. They had great success in that zone when it was reopened. It wasn't the people who had changed, it was the attitude of the missionaries. It probably helped that he had the fact about brigham young- true fact by the way. I can't remember which mission it was, but it was an amazing story. I have joined the MTC choir, which is an amazing experience, whether you are good at singin or not. There are probably about 1000 missionaries in the choir, crazy right? but it sounds so amazing. We sang precious savior dear redeemer, an arrangement of it, at the tuesday night devotional, and it gave me chills, seriously gave me chills. It was so amazing, i was sitting in the front of the choir, so i could feel the power as we entered the ending part of the song. so as we sang curb, we sang with a sort of desperation, almost shouting it. The men had sung the line before but the ascended instead of descending, and it made it so much more powerful. If you look at the verses of that song, each verse is talking about a different part of the atonement. In order, the repentance part, the enabling part, and the protecting part. I love how the choir director gives us the background behind the songs we are singing. One thing he said that i really loved was "the lord is never disappointed in the person who is repenting. HE said that after talking about the prodigal son in a way i had never thought of before, which was just incredible. Look up the story of w.w. Phelps, the author of praise to the man, it is really an inspiring story, and shows that no matter how much you have done, you are never to far away to be welcomed back into the fold. Nash also told a story of a young man named william in equador that he met, and asked if he was preparing to go on a mission, when the young man said no. Nash told him that he would never feel complete if he did not finish the mission that he had prepared for in the premortal life. He then again asked him if he would prepare to serve a mission and he said yes ( though this conversation was all in spanish) The young man just finished serving his mission in mexico. This made me think of will, for obvious reasons. I have four teachers, and they are great. They have taught me so much, and are so entertaining. I found out that brother Crandall will look at me to gauge how well the class is doing something. Because apparently my facial expressions give away how well i have understood, and he can use that to know if he needs to repeat something or not. The rest of the classes facial expressions tend to be bare, so he can't figure it out from them. I thought that was hilarious. Glad my face can be of service.. :) Brother Sheehan, i have a hard time not thinking of him as Koki ( cause he was our first investigator), is so hilarious. He always has a smile on his face, and his way of telling stories is so entertaining. Found out is first name is william, I seem to be hearing a lot about people named william lately. Thanks for forwarding wills emails. I appreciate knowing the cool things he is doing. Also, could you send pictures of all of the family? through mail would be best, cause i can't print very much here at the mtc. Everyone wants to see pics of the crazy family that they have heard about, but i didnt bring any pictures. I especially want the picture of you, dad, and me when you dropped me off.Â

Thanks a ton.

Love, Sister Makin

First Week

I'm glad to here that things are going well, and that you have a quieter house most of the time now.  I figured you weren't worried about me being safe, but since i was given the opportunity to write, i wasn't going to waste it, even though I only had five minutes. Japanese is so hard, but i already love it, and for me the most important thing is to use it as much as i can. It helps me a lot. I'm glad to hear that you have got to spend time recently with almost all of your grandchildren. Thanks for letting me know that Joe and Alicia got the house they wanted, and that all is going well for them. I had already figured that Jennie would get the job, but it is nice to know that it is for sure now. I hope she enjoys working there. I'm glad that stake conference was so good, but im not sorry i missed out, because i have been having so much fun here, though it is hard at times. I don't know if you noticed, but my host's name was sister hamgarde. I didnt really get to know here very well though, because as soon as i left you at the curb it was go, go, go. I had to go to a few buildings, get a bunch of stuff, including my name tag, and all of my study supplies. I didnt have time to unpack at  first. I got put into a room about half the size of our living room with 6 of the sisters from my district, but we just got moved today into a bigger room, closer to the size of our living room. Still 6 sisters, but it is so much nicer. The word i say almost constantly in Japanese is Shimai (sheemy), which means sister. There are so many sisters in my zone, and you address them as last name Shimai, so it is said a lot, all throughout the zone. My companion is Sister Smith. She is 3/4 Japanese, but was raised in the US< so she isn't entirely fluent in Japanese, though she is really good at understanding what they are saying, which is super helpful with teaching our lessons, because often our investigator will say something, which is totally over my head, but she will get the jist of it. Are investigator speaks super fast, and he 'supposedly' doesn't understand Japanese, but occasionally he'll take pity on us, and let us know he understands words like happy in english. I find i have to write in my journal super fast at night, because i dont have all that much time, and there have been a few days when i have had to finish up last night's entry in the morning or during the day when i have a moment. The food here is pretty good, most of it is pretty similar to what I am used to, but i do miss your cooking mom. Cause you food is so much better. Some sisters are complaining about the food, but i don't mind it. A sister in my district, Sister Welte, gets at least two packages and two dearelder.com letters from her mom and family daily. I guess they really miss her, but i think this is just over doing it. She now has so many treats, that she doesnt know what to do with them, and so freely shares them with the class. They are good, but you can only have so many sweets. I find that I wish i had two towels, cause i think one gets pretty gross showering almost daily, but I'm fine for now. I might check the store to see if they have one i like, and if not, then i might ask you to send one. They have so much stuff in the store, and it can be really handy, but stuff is super expensive there, though we do get a missionary discount, so that helps. I am going to probably need more toothpaste at some point, though i wouldn't send that til closer to the end of my stay, because apparently Japan does not have very nice toothpaste, so it would be smart tyo have about a year's supply. My Branch President, who i report to weekly's name is President Stevenson. You may know one of his counselors. I don't know his first name, but he is Brother Adamson, and he is the guy who stopped by about three years or so ago to check out the shed that dad had just built. I found that out, because he was driving past our house some time this past week, remembered Makins lived there, and since i had told him the area where i had lived, he put two and two together. Teaching investigators in just japanese already is so hard. I often find that i know exactly what i want to say in english, but have no clue how to say it in English. I got an email about a bike procedure change, i don't know if you got it, but basically i now buy the bike, it's my property, i have to pay for repairs, and i also have to buy a bike bag for transportation purposes. I can forward that to you next week if you didn't get it. Saturdays we have service assignments extra early in the morning, which makes it super hard to get up the next day, cause i'm extra tired, but so far i have been able to get up on time fairly easily, so that's good. I struggle with falling asleep though. Our branch president taught us some sleeping techniques, those of us that were struggling with falling asleep fast, but so far it hasn't worked, because i get only so far and then a song pops into my head, and i have to stop and start over again. I love my sister training leaders (which is what sierra was during her time at the MTC... they work with the sisters to help them specifically, so it's different than Zone Leaders), I knew one of them in highschool, and the other two are so much fun to be around, its hilarious. My district sometimes has time focusing, because we are already such great friends, that we get sidetracked, and often it'[s just laughing so hard at something funny that people said. Often me. They have said that our family should have our own reality TV show, because when we were talking about our families on monday night, mine was so big and crazy that apparently it needs it's own tv show. Which is just hilarious in my opinion. there are quite a few sick bugs floating around at the moment, including strep and the flu. I am just hoping that i dont get sick, though sister fonua in my room was sick yesterday, so we will just see. I would appreciate your prayers for the sick missionaries, and that no one else will get sick. Moving this morning was hard, but now I am all done, and shouldn't have to move this frequently ever again in my mission. Ai Shitemasu (i, stay-mas, I love you)! and mom, don't start sending millions of packages even if dad would let you, I dont have the space for so many treats... ( though i wouldn't mind some candy or something like that once in a while.. ;) )

I'm here, and I'm safe

Hey mama, and Papa. I have been allowed to quickly email home, just to let you know that I am ok, and that I made it safe. P-days for me are on Thursdays, so i will not be able to write again until then. I am already loving it here, and can now pray, and sort of bear my testimony in Japanese. Today i teach my first investigator in Japanese! exciting, right? wish me luck... :) I love you very much and miss you! And will tell you all about my adventures when i have more time.