Is it only week 4? / I can't believe it's already week 4)

You have asked if time flows fast or slow here.  Well, it's weird
because the days feel like a week and the weeks feel like a day.  I
get to the end of the day and think, "How could I possibly summarize
everything in my journal?"  But then P-day rolls around again and I
think, "wow, I can't believe it's P-day again".  It's super weird.
The Senpai (the older Japanese Group - the word literally means
"senior" - I'm a kohai or "junior") have warned us that before we know
it we'll be Senpai and there will be a new kohai group, and a new
Nihonjin (Japanese native) group, then we'll be in Japan.  I think
they're worried because they leave in a week and some of them still
can't hold their own in a conversation with a Nihonjin.  Japan will be
a nasty shock.

In other news, I had an Eigo (English) Danjiki (Fast) two days this
week - Saturday and Monday.  I know our family isn't very good at
fasting, so can you imagine NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH FOR A WHOLE DAY?
It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.  And I
thought food fasting was hard!  But I've learned so much Japanese.  I
realize now that I know enough to hold my own in a conversation with a
Nihonjin.  I talked to this one shimai (sister).  I explained to her
that I've only been studying Japanese for 4 weeks.  She misunderstood
and thought I only have 4 weeks left.  I pointed at myself and said,
"Watashiwa kohai desu" or in other words, "I'm a junior".  "Nani?"
(What?!)  I repeated what I said.  "Sugoi" (Awesome) and she continued
to say how awesome I was for about a minute.  But being a good
Japanese missionary, I refused the compliment.  No Japanese person
accepts a compliment, even though the compliment giver keeps saying
how awesome you are.  Haha, I'll be so weird when I come back.
Especially since my English is getting progressively worse everyday.
Everyone needs to learn Japanese by the time I get back.  Okay?
Thanks.  :)

Also, one other thing I don't think I've mentioned.  All of our
textbooks are named.  1st is the Ninja.  This is technically called
the "grammar supplement" book.  It's produced by the church, and it
has church phrases you can look up by the lesson.  It's called a
ninja, because if you don't know what to say in a lesson, or a sunday
talk, you just pull it out fast like a ninja and read from it.  The
church made one for each language at the MTC, so all the languages
have it.  And they don't like that we call it "ninja" but there's no
stopping it now.  I have one teacher (who's brand new) and refuses to
call it a ninja. He'll break sooner or later.  Next is a yellow
grammar book that is really intense.  It's got red lettering, so
naturally we call it Pikachu.  "Get out your Pikachu and look it up"
is one of our favorite phrases.  Next is a big book that helps us
learn all the kanji to read the Book of Mormon (or Morumon sho) in
Japanese.  Learning Kanji is all on our own.  We call this book Sumo.
Last are our handy dictionaries.  The awesome Japanese -> English
dictionary is called Panda.  It's white.  Then we have another
dictionary that's for English -> Japanese and it's called Squirtel.
It's blue.  The Nihonjin think it's funny we named our textbooks after
Pokemon.  :)  I don't think they realize how Pokemon is still kinda
big in America.  I think they still show the cartoon on Saturday
Mornings.

You can never send me too much mail or too often. I just can't
promise how quickly I'll respond. :)

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