Nihonjin are here!

Shout out to Kaynor: of course you can read my blog. It's for
everyone! But I didn't have time to write you a letter today, maybe
next week.

Yes I can read the Book of Mormon (AKA Morumon Sho in Japanese).  I am studying
the alphabet language, and that book is full of it.  The complicated
Kanji characters have what's called "furigana" to the right of them,
that tell you how to read that Kanji.  That way I don't have to
actually know any Kanji.  The Book of Mormon has furigana for all the
Kanji (except the numbers 1-10, which you learn practically when
you're born).  We've been told by one of our sensei's that by the time
we get to the end of Mosiah, we'll pretty much understand everything
we're reading.  I'm going to hold him to that.  That's about 1/3 of
the way through about, so that's pretty good.

Okay, so about this volcanic ash.  I read mom's letter first and she
talked about volcanic ash.  I was like, "what volcanic ash?"  You
can't just write me a letter expecting me to know what's going on
around the world.  My class and I speculated that Mt. Fuji exploded.
Then I read dad's letter and he at least mentioned that it was in
Iceland.  With that much information I talked to one of the senior missionary
couples about the news of the outside, and they said a volcano in
Iceland is spewing volcanic ash and it is grounding all the planes in
London.  Yep, I had no idea.  We don't just call the MTC a bubble for
anything.  The senior couple we were talking to are assigned to the
International Office here at the MTC, and said all the missionaries
coming from London are delayed a week.  That just really messes
things up over here.  But because I'll be flying over the Pacific
Ocean I will be fine.  Unless Mt. Fuji explodes.  So if you ever give
me news about the world, please give me _all_ the news, and not just a
teaser.  Haha.

So the reason I was at the International Office was because the
NIHONJIN (NATIVES) ARE HERE!  WooWoo!  There was a few sisters that
arrived (later than expected due to some crazy airplanes things that
should be expected) and none of them knew English, so they needed some
Sisters to show them to their room.  In our excitment to see them we
forgot our jishyo (dictionary).  So we were stumbling over some things
but it was still fun.  We tried to explain to them that the room we
were showing them too are temporary rooms until Wednesday.  Yeah, I
definitely didn't know the word for temporary.  But as all good
Asians, they had an electronic dictionary.  Good thing too, because it
would have been a pain for them if they unpacked, then had to repack.
These Nihonjin are also great like the last set 4 weeks (ish) ago, but
they don't seem to be as short.  Maybe I won't be tall in Japan.  Then
again, I only saw 5 of them, and there are going to be 13 shimai
(sister) nihonjin.  That's almost half!  For me, that is unheard of.
Last time we have 40 something nihonjin and only 11 shimai.  Now we're
getting 28 and 13 are shimai.  That's great practice for me.  I really
do try - it's just easier with my jishyo.