Konnichiwa!! Genki desu ka?! (Hello! How are you?)
Well this week was a loooong week! But it was week one of the transfer and those always feel long, at least thats what I've been told. A lot of our plans got ditched for the week because I got a cold! But I'm feeling much better now! But now poor Iwasa shimai has a cold! Probably my fault. But other than that we are all doing pretty well and just enjoying the mission life!
Monday Sept 15: P-day! I don't really remember much of what happened. I think we just ran errands haha. Nothing exciting really.
Tuesday Sept 16: It has started to cool down way a lot! Which I am so grateful for! But apparently there is a typhoon on its way... but I don't know. I mean honestly people tell us all of the time there is a typhoon coming and most of the time it never comes! So who knows! Tuesday was a pretty futsu (normal) day, we just did some housing which is always an adventure... We gave this one grandpa a Book of Mormon and he was like "oh wow!! arigato gozaimasu! Choto matte kudasai." (which means thanks!! wait a second please!) and he ran in his house and tried to pay us 20 bucks! haha. It got really awkward because he was really insistent, but Iwasa shimai worked her Nihonjin (Japanese) magic and it all turned out okay haha. Then we knocked on this one door and this grandma answers, she was so tiny! She was bascially 5 apples tall! (Iwasa shimai and I say that about little grandmas haha, I'm not really sure why that started... I think it has to do something with Hello Kitty being 5 apples tall, wakaranai! (I don't know!)) Anyways, she answers the door and all we say is hi! we are missionaries and then she talks at us for 20 minutes about her life... starting from when she was 4 haha. Basically she thought she was god and she started doing all these weird prayer chant things... it was interesting haha.
Wednesday Sept 17: So we had a lesson with Kiyomi-san! It was seriously amazing! We taught her all about the restoration and about the Book of Mormon and she was amazed! She just kept saying how it all made sense and then she asked us to share with her how we found out for ourselves the Book of Mormon is true... well that was a challenge in Japanese... so I mostly just ended up telling Iwasa shimai in eigo (English) and she tsuyaku shimashita (translated!). It was a way good lesson! And this Sunday, her and her husband are going to come to church! We are so excited! This family is so ready for the gospel! We also had Eikaiwa (English class)! Eikaiwa is always fun! There is this way cute girl, Kana-chan, oh man! Shes 15 and about 5 apples tall too! haha. But she brought this book to show me of her favorite band. She is the best!
Thusday Sept 18: We had zone training meeting! It was fun. We meet with our whole zone and the zone leaders gave us a training and things to focus on as a zone this transfer! Then afterwards we went to this sushi restaurant! My first time eating sushi in Japan! It was so great! I ate Natto and got some serious Nihonjin (Japanese) points haha. We also had a lesson with Seiguchi shimai. She is a recent convert. She is so cute! Shes 66 years old and wears the craziest outfits! And her face just lights up whenever she sees us haha its the best! She always brightens my day! But lately she has been struggling with coming to church. We are really trying to help her, but pray for her please! We need all the help we can get!
Friday Sept 19: The start of my cold! But it was okay. Iwasa shimai and I made dinner for a member in the ward who has been sick and delivered it to her. It seriously made her day! They are a really great family!
Saturday Sept 20: The worst day of my cold! We had a lesson with Murakami-san at our bishops house. Well bishop has 4 wanpaku (wild) kids! and Murakami has 3 kids the same ageish... so it was chaos! And the lesson was just really crazy and she didn't understand what we were teaching probably because there were 7 kids running around like crazy and I was just dying in the corner haha.... but it's all good, we are gonna meet with her again, so hopefully we can meet in a better environment. Iwasa shimai made me sleep pretty much all day so I could get better. Which was nice of her!
Sunday Sept 21: Well the day started at 5 am.... there was this ridiculously long parade happening literally outside of my window. It was CRAZY! There were a million people all over the place all day! This parade/festival started at 5 am and ended at 8pm! So we got to listen to it at church too haha. It was an interesting day. We taught Zaitsu-san during relief society and sunday school. Tashiro choro (Elder Tashiro) came to help us! He's an area seventy! Like I hope one day Zaitsu-san realizes how awesome it was to have an area seventy as a joint for so many of her lessons! haha. Anyways, it was a really interesting lesson. Zaitsu is our investigator with a baptismal date in like 2 weeks. But after the lesson yesterday we came to the conclusion that she isn't ready. And we don't think she will be for a long time. Iwasa shimai and I talked about it and decided to keep teaching her though. We think her and her kids are gonna be taught for a LONG time by A LOT of different missionaries before they get baptized. But their time will come! Then we taught the Kozakis... oh my gosh! those two can talk! We were there for 2 hours... and Iwasa shimai told me the first hour was horrible haha... Like they were just talking about random stuff! And it didn't matter how hard she tried to direct the conversation haha... But the last half hour was good! They asked a lot of real questions about repentance and they told us how they want to become better people! so YES! we are making progress with them! They are really great people! They have changed so much in the short time we have been meeting with them! Its been awesome to see!
Things are going really great here! Japan is wonderful! There really are so many miracles to see everyday! I love you all! And hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for your prayers! Aishiteimasu!
Well this week was a loooong week! But it was week one of the transfer and those always feel long, at least thats what I've been told. A lot of our plans got ditched for the week because I got a cold! But I'm feeling much better now! But now poor Iwasa shimai has a cold! Probably my fault. But other than that we are all doing pretty well and just enjoying the mission life!
Monday Sept 15: P-day! I don't really remember much of what happened. I think we just ran errands haha. Nothing exciting really.
Tuesday Sept 16: It has started to cool down way a lot! Which I am so grateful for! But apparently there is a typhoon on its way... but I don't know. I mean honestly people tell us all of the time there is a typhoon coming and most of the time it never comes! So who knows! Tuesday was a pretty futsu (normal) day, we just did some housing which is always an adventure... We gave this one grandpa a Book of Mormon and he was like "oh wow!! arigato gozaimasu! Choto matte kudasai." (which means thanks!! wait a second please!) and he ran in his house and tried to pay us 20 bucks! haha. It got really awkward because he was really insistent, but Iwasa shimai worked her Nihonjin (Japanese) magic and it all turned out okay haha. Then we knocked on this one door and this grandma answers, she was so tiny! She was bascially 5 apples tall! (Iwasa shimai and I say that about little grandmas haha, I'm not really sure why that started... I think it has to do something with Hello Kitty being 5 apples tall, wakaranai! (I don't know!)) Anyways, she answers the door and all we say is hi! we are missionaries and then she talks at us for 20 minutes about her life... starting from when she was 4 haha. Basically she thought she was god and she started doing all these weird prayer chant things... it was interesting haha.
Wednesday Sept 17: So we had a lesson with Kiyomi-san! It was seriously amazing! We taught her all about the restoration and about the Book of Mormon and she was amazed! She just kept saying how it all made sense and then she asked us to share with her how we found out for ourselves the Book of Mormon is true... well that was a challenge in Japanese... so I mostly just ended up telling Iwasa shimai in eigo (English) and she tsuyaku shimashita (translated!). It was a way good lesson! And this Sunday, her and her husband are going to come to church! We are so excited! This family is so ready for the gospel! We also had Eikaiwa (English class)! Eikaiwa is always fun! There is this way cute girl, Kana-chan, oh man! Shes 15 and about 5 apples tall too! haha. But she brought this book to show me of her favorite band. She is the best!
Thusday Sept 18: We had zone training meeting! It was fun. We meet with our whole zone and the zone leaders gave us a training and things to focus on as a zone this transfer! Then afterwards we went to this sushi restaurant! My first time eating sushi in Japan! It was so great! I ate Natto and got some serious Nihonjin (Japanese) points haha. We also had a lesson with Seiguchi shimai. She is a recent convert. She is so cute! Shes 66 years old and wears the craziest outfits! And her face just lights up whenever she sees us haha its the best! She always brightens my day! But lately she has been struggling with coming to church. We are really trying to help her, but pray for her please! We need all the help we can get!
Friday Sept 19: The start of my cold! But it was okay. Iwasa shimai and I made dinner for a member in the ward who has been sick and delivered it to her. It seriously made her day! They are a really great family!
Saturday Sept 20: The worst day of my cold! We had a lesson with Murakami-san at our bishops house. Well bishop has 4 wanpaku (wild) kids! and Murakami has 3 kids the same ageish... so it was chaos! And the lesson was just really crazy and she didn't understand what we were teaching probably because there were 7 kids running around like crazy and I was just dying in the corner haha.... but it's all good, we are gonna meet with her again, so hopefully we can meet in a better environment. Iwasa shimai made me sleep pretty much all day so I could get better. Which was nice of her!
Sunday Sept 21: Well the day started at 5 am.... there was this ridiculously long parade happening literally outside of my window. It was CRAZY! There were a million people all over the place all day! This parade/festival started at 5 am and ended at 8pm! So we got to listen to it at church too haha. It was an interesting day. We taught Zaitsu-san during relief society and sunday school. Tashiro choro (Elder Tashiro) came to help us! He's an area seventy! Like I hope one day Zaitsu-san realizes how awesome it was to have an area seventy as a joint for so many of her lessons! haha. Anyways, it was a really interesting lesson. Zaitsu is our investigator with a baptismal date in like 2 weeks. But after the lesson yesterday we came to the conclusion that she isn't ready. And we don't think she will be for a long time. Iwasa shimai and I talked about it and decided to keep teaching her though. We think her and her kids are gonna be taught for a LONG time by A LOT of different missionaries before they get baptized. But their time will come! Then we taught the Kozakis... oh my gosh! those two can talk! We were there for 2 hours... and Iwasa shimai told me the first hour was horrible haha... Like they were just talking about random stuff! And it didn't matter how hard she tried to direct the conversation haha... But the last half hour was good! They asked a lot of real questions about repentance and they told us how they want to become better people! so YES! we are making progress with them! They are really great people! They have changed so much in the short time we have been meeting with them! Its been awesome to see!
Things are going really great here! Japan is wonderful! There really are so many miracles to see everyday! I love you all! And hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for your prayers! Aishiteimasu!