Week 4: September 24

Konnichiwa Minasan!  Genki desu ka?  Osashiburi!  (Long time no see!)

 

I'm gonna get right to it this week.  :-)

 

Death by Mosquito Bites:

So, I only have 1 real complaint about Japan.... There are so many freaking mosquitoes.  I swear, I've never been bitten by so many freaking mosquitoes.  :P  The first day here I counted 12 mosquito bites. 5 on one leg, 2 on the other, and 5 on my arms... Now, I've lost count of how many mosquito bites I have.  xD  Oh my gosh my legs never stop itching.  It's ridiculous.  Hahahaha!  Anyway, I just thought a few of you might find that entertaining to imagine... Christine riding kids bike in a skirt trying to figure out a way to scratch at her mosquito bites while riding..... xD   I'm a freak.

 

Thursday's Miracle:

So this week I had a major miracle happen.  I don't know how many of you will really appreciate this outside my parents and my siblings, but just know, I really am not exaggerating about this one... I know I tend to overexaggerate on some things, but this I really am not.

One thing that's slightly bothersome about having a Nihonjin doryo is that her family actually lives around here... It kinda is hard sometimes.  The Nihonjin actually have special permission to go and meet with their nonmember family members and dendo (prostelyte) so this Thursday we went to visit Kuwahara shimai's uncle.  I wasn't too sure about it, but I don't really get a say as the Junior Companion... I kinda just get dragged around.  Well, it turned out to be one of the highlights of my week.  :-)  Her uncle was kinda awkward around me since I'm American and he's never met a gaijin (foreigner) before.  He took us on a tour of his favorite parts of the area.  It was SO beautiful.  I can't even describe it.  I'm gonna try to attach a picture to this so you can get an idea, but a picture really doesn't do it credit.

It was awesome.  :-)  He took us out for about 3 hours or so of bike riding and sight seeing... but I didn't know that's what we'd be doing... so I didn't bring my water bottle.

At around 2:30, I started getting Heat Exhaustion... which led to the beginnings of a migraine.  :/  I didn't have my medicine or any water, and neither of the people I was with would understand the words "Heat Exhaustion" or "Migraine" so I was stuck... I didn't know what to do.  I figured I'd just fight it and pray really really really REALLY hard I'd make it home.  Luckily, I made it back to her uncle's house and then the migraine really struck.  Nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, the whole shibang.  Oh, but the story doesn't end there.

After that, we didn't have time to go to the apartment where my medicine was because we had a fireside we were going to with a less active member that Aoyagi choro (From the quorum of the 70) was in charge of.  Which meant, not only did I have to fight a migraine with no medicine, I had to be social and pretend like there was no problems.  I had to smile and laugh and talk to all the other missionaries and everyone else who was there.

Here's the miracle...

I did it.  :-)

I don't know how I did it.  I felt so sick and I felt so dizzy.  My head was throbbing and I wished I could just fall over dead...

But I made it back to the apartment (at around 9:45pm...) took my medicine and went to sleep.  I slept the whole night (another miracle) and then I woke up on Friday feeling totally fine.  I still had some slight nausea, but my migraine was completely gone and I was totally fine... I can't explain it.  It was a miracle.  :-)  Thank you all for the prayers.  I know that it's because of those prayers I was healed.

Like I said, I don't know how many of you will truly understand why that was a miracle outside my immediate family (and probably a few Space Center peeps), but it was a big part of my week this week.

 

Kyudosha Update!

So far, most of the people who have written me have said "I love to hear about your investigators!".  I see how it is. ;)

I'll try to give you guys a kyudosha update every week, but it's kinda hard.  I talk to so many people right now it's ridiculous, but I'll do my best.  :-D

 

Tamae: There's not a lot to update you on with Tamae.  She's been given all of the lessons and we've extended the baptismal commitment a few times, but she says she still doesn't feel ready.  She doesn't feel like she has enough faith.  The temple really helped and she had a major change after listening to Aoyagi choro speak in Sacrament Meeting last week... but she's still not sure.  We're doing our best, but progression with her is slow.

 

Yoko Saito: AH!  :-)  She's so kinjin. (Golden Investigator!)  We met with her again yesterday.  Normally when we meet we speak English, but yesterday we spoke Japanese the whole lesson, so honestly, I didn't understand hardly anything that was said.  :P  All I know for sure is that we went into that lesson planning on teaching about Sukui no Keikaku (Plan of Salvation), but in Relief Society they'd talked about Chie no Kotoba and she had questions about that.  So we taught her Chie no Kotoba, Junketsu no Rippo, and the 10 commandments.  Talk about a change. :P  We asked her if she'd obey all those commandments and she said "Ganbarimasu." which basically translates to "I'll do my best."  She's awesome.  :-)  Yesterday we had 2 baptisms!  (Not me, the Elders. :P)  I invited Yoko to come see their baptism so she could understand.  I think it was really good for her.  She told us after "Wow... you really are Christians.  This really is Christian!"  x)  It was great.

 

Helen:  We met Helen for the first time this week.  :-)  Helen is Chinese, but she's been studying Japanese.  She's another real kinjin.  I can't understand her very well because her Japanese has a Chinese accent... Japanese is hard enough by itself!  xD  But again, we went into that lesson planning on teaching the Restoration.  We had been practicing all morning because it was going to be the first time that I was REALLY going to participate in a Japanese lesson... that didn't happen. :P  Suddenly we were teaching her Iesu Kirisuto no Fukuin (Gospel of Christ).  I know it's what she needed though.  Although I didn't understand exactly what was being said, I DO know that the spirit was their and I felt it.  I know she felt it too.  I participated a little, but mostly it was her asking a lot of questions and Kuwahara doing her best to answer.  Whenever she didn't know an answer, she'd ask me in English and I'd explain in English, then Kuwahara shimai would translate.  At the end of the lesson we extended the baptismal commitment (Which again was NOT according to plan.  At all.  We specifically were told by the Elders that we should take it slow with her.) and she said "Zehite uketai!" which translates roughly to "by all means I want to receive."  :-)  It was such a good experience.

 

Those are the three big ones right now.  :-) We have a few PI (Potential Investigators) like Meguri, Takemitsu (My Disneyland buddy!), and Sashida but Helen, Yoko, and Tamae are the really big focus ones.  So there's your kyudosha update!

 

With the chorotachi, they're actually getting ready to baptize another one of their kyudosha on Saturday.  His name is Jake, but really... HE'S PETER PAN!!!!! He works at Disneyland and plays Peter Pan!  How cool is that?!  So fyi.  Peter Pan is getting baptized on Saturday.  ;)  So awesome.

 

 

Well, that's really about it for this week... Thank you all for your support and your love!  And again, those of you waiting for responses still... I'm sorry!  I only have 4 hours or so on Pday and 2.5 hours of it is writing emails and shopping!  I'm doing my best!

 

I love you all so much!  Thank you for the prayers and the thoughts! You're amazing and I couldn't do this without your support!

-

Christine

Week 3: September 17

こんにちわ！

How are you all doing?  I hope you're doing well.  It's so weird.  Half of me feels like I just wrote you and the other half of me says "Oh my gosh it's been ages."  Kind of weird to feel both at once. :-)  I don't have a lot to say this week... It was an eventful week, but nothing that really was huge if that makes sense. :P

 

Temple with Tamae:

This week we went to the Tokyo Temple grounds with one of our kyudosha named Tamae. :-D  It was my first time going to the Tokyo Temple.  It was really really fun.  The temple is so different here in Japan.  It's so small and... orange. xD  I asked Kuwahara shimai about it and she said that Japanese people don't like bright rooms so instead of it being completely white like all the temples in Utah it really is orange.  I'm excited to go there again in 2 weeks to actually do a session.

This time though it was all about Tamae and helping her to feel the spirit.  It went really well.  :-)  Here's the basic deal with Tamae... Tamae has been a Progressing Investigator since June, which is a ridiculously long time.  She's received all of the lessons and she attends church every week and reads the Book of Mormon every day... but she won't be baptized.  She doesn't think she has enough faith to be baptized.  We were hoping that we could help her realize the importance of baptism by going to the temple... She was really interested in Endowments, but I'm not sure she understands why baptism is important... It can be slightly frustrating to be honest.  Stupid agency.  ;) 

Anyway, we're hoping to meet with her again this week so we can talk to her more and figure out exactly what the problem is.  Ta-da!

 

Zone Conference:

This week we had a mini zone conference!  It was really fun... I learned a lot... I felt the spirit... xD  Yeah, pretty normal. The fun thing from this was that we rode the trains for about an hour and a half!!  I love trains. Love love love.  I seriously am like a little puppy staring out the windows in awe at how fast we're moving and how pretty Japan is.  :-D  I like trains. (Yes, that was an asdf movie reference. ;D)

 

Yoko:

Last thing for today.  Told you I didn't have a lot... A lot happened, but not a lot worth mentioning. :P

Last week I wrote about meeting Yoko-san.  She's SO awesome.  I didn't get to really go into a lot of detail about her so let me give you a quick description of her background.  She's a Nihonjin, born and raised, but when she turned 26 she moved to Florida to study English for 10 years.  She loves America... or at least Americans.  She's dyed her hair a ridiculously blonde color, she wears contacts to make her eyes really really really blue, and she always stares at me. :P 

Apparently while she was in America her friends told her she should try to find a religion to join.  She said "Well, okay!" And started studying the bible. She LOVES the bible.  Well, she forgot about the whole church thing after a while and then she moved back to Japan.  When she got here she was like "Hey!  I should try to find a church again." (This kinda gives you a glimpse of her personality. :P) So that day, she decided she was going to get dressed up and walk down all the streets in Japan until she found a church to go visit.  There is not a doubt in my mind Heavenly Father guided her to the street our church was on.  When she walked by the church, she saw a lot of people dressed up who looked friendly going in and said "This looks good!"  That's when we met her.

Yesterday, we had our first real lesson with her.  :-)  It was amazing.  Kuwahara shimai and I had 2 lessons scheduled for the same time though so we ended up going on splits.  I went with this rather intimidating lady named Saito-shimai to teach Yoko.  Saito shimai doesn't speak any English though, so I had to do my best to teach in as much Japanese as I could.  I relyed a lot on my English though and Yoko translated anytime I did.  I think that was good though.  I think it helped to make sure she knew what I was talking about, you know?

Anyway, I taught the first lesson, The Restoration.  The whole time she was just smiling and nodding and saying "Ohhh.  Ohhh.  So what you're saying is..."  Then I started explaining the Great Apostasy and how God's church was taken off the Earth.  People became confused and began their own churches.  She said "YEAH!  I want to know that!  I want to know how so many churches believe in 1 book but they all teach different things!"  AH!  I got so excited. x)  I started to talk about Joseph Smith.  I said "Joseph Smith had that same question.  He wanted to know which of all these churches was true."  I told the story of the First Vision.  The spirit was so strong.  After I finished, Yoko-san was fighting off tears.  She just kept saying "This is wonderful.  Amazing... This is wonderful.  It's true, isn't it?"  I told her that I know it's true and she can really know for herself by praying and reading the Book of Mormon.  She said "Of course!  Of course!"  Then came the really scary part.  We have a rule that Tokyo Missionaries always extend the baptism invitation during the first lesson... So I did.

"Of course!!  Of course!  Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes.  Definitely.  This is amazing!"

YAY!!!  So Yoko has commited to baptism on October 28th.  :-D  I'm so happy for her!  It's amazing to me just how willing she is to hear the gospel and just accept it!  She doesn't even question anything, she just says "I know it's true!" She's emailed us every day since last Sunday saying "I love this book!  This book is amazing!  This book is true!  Thank you so much!"  It's been amazing.  Everytime I think of her I just smile. :-D

 

Well, that about sums up my week.  :-)  Other than that, we sang in Sacrament Meeting... We had a small little festival called "Outreach" that I think they do every week for members and nonmembers (OH!  I met this girl there who's almost as obsessed with Disney as I am. xD), and... Oh!  Elder Aoyagi from the Quorum of the 70 came to Sacrament Meeting yesterday... and I taught Primary yesterday.  That was fun too.  Hahahaha!  Like I said.  Lots of things happened, but not a ton that's worth mentioning more than that.

Thank you all for your prayers and your support.  I miss you all a lot, but I know that this is important.  It's amazing to me that I've finished 3 weeks now.  Everyone says it goes faster after your first transfer too.  It won't be long before I'm back home!  Crazy. :-)

 

I love you guys!  I'll write you all again next week!

-

グラスランド姉妹

Week 2: September 10

皆さん！こんにちわ！げんきですか？

Guess what everyone!  I'm in Japan!!!  It's so hard to believe that it's week 2 already. :-)  I still feel like I just got here, you know?  I'm definitely still a newbie, but I feel like I'm starting to finally catch on.

 

So first off, I really want to apologize to everyone.  Last week I was really really down when I emailed everyone.  It had been a long hard week and I was just done.  On Tuesday of last week it hit me that by doing that, I probably made a lot of you (especially family) worry about me and how I was doing.  I want every one of you to know, I'm okay.  Last week was just a down point.  Please don't worry about me and know that Heavenly Father is taking care of me. :-)  Thank you all for the love and support.  I really can feel the power of all of your prayers. :-)

 

NOW!  On to describing this week. :-)

 

Illya kyodai:

So last week I talked about Illya kyodai I'm pretty sure. (Though I think I spelled his name wrong then. :P)  He really is quite the character. I seriously could picture him in a movie.  Super buff and really healthy.  But he's kind of been one of my rocks in the ward. He's been so helpful in helping me be patient with myself.

Every Thursday night he teaches a "Life Class".  Basically he makes this big dinner for anyone who wants to come ("Of only healthy foods. I don't put anything into my body which could harm it.  Everything in front of you will help your body somehow.") and we have some sort of deep discussion on something he chooses beforehand.  This week he brought up this... I don't know how to explain it exactly... Way of thinking? I guess? Anyway, basically there are these 3 kanji in Japanese he wrote on a white board. They meant Reject, Seperate, and Throw Away.  He said that this has become a way of thinking for a lot of people.  When something gets hard they reject it, seperate themselves from it, and throw it away no matter how good it may have turned out.  He specifically mentioned that it was mostly that way in America.  Then we started discussing how we should try to be the opposite.  Instead of Rejecting, Accepting.  Instead of Seperating, bringing together.  And instead of throwing away, gathering.

I really really needed this discussion... I felt like that's what I'd been doing.  This has been hard so I've wanted to reject it, seperate myself from it, and throw away this opportunity.  I need to do the opposite.  Then I got an email from President Budge (My Mission President) who said "a mission is all about attitude. You can choose what to make of your mission.  Choosing to be positive is much more fun, I promise."  So, I decided to try to turn my attitude around.  I feel like I've been fairly successful.  It's amazing the difference.

 

Disneyland:

Like I said last week too, we can see Disneyland from our apartment.  Well, on Friday was my first day really trying that whole "Be positive about this experience" deal.  That night, we got back to our apartment and started planning for Saturday.  All of the sudden there was this boom, boom, boom!  Both Kuwahara shimai and I kind of freaked out. We looked outside and... FIREWORKS!!!  It was the first time we'd been home in time to see the Disneyland Fireworks. I've never actually seen Disneyland Fireworks before so I got REALLY excited.  :-)  I felt like it was Heavenly Father's way of saying "You did good today.  Keep it up."  :-)

 

The Hill:

On Saturday, we went to an appointment with one of the members.  We live right by a HUGE river, so to get to this appointment we had to cross this huge bridge.  There's a hill on this bridge that's REALLY steep and has lots of turns.  Going down it is rather dangerous for me (I'm not exactly the most skilled bike rider. :P) but I made it safely.  Well, on the way back I realized I was going to have to go up this hill... Kuwahara shimai is awesome... but she wasn't going to wait for me.  I was going to have to pedal all the way up this hill and around the steep corners on a bike that's too big for me without crashing. Needless to say, I was really scared. So I immediately started to pray.  I felt weird praying to Heavenly Father about going up a hill... But the hill came and I pedaled... and I pedaled... and somehow I made it around the sharp corners and made it all the way up this hill. I honestly don't know how I did it. I shouldn't have been able to. But I feel like the Lord strengthened me.  :-)

Now here's the moral of that story.  If God was willing to help me with something so silly... Why wouldn't he help me with something hard?

 

Yoko san:

Last thing and I gotta be quick.

Yesterday at church I was having a kind of rough time. It was the primary program and it REALLY made me miss home.  Right when I was feeling the most homesick, a ward member came up to us, said something in Japanese and walked off. Kuwahara shimai stood up and motioned for me to follow her.  It turned out there was a girl there who was interested in the church, but had nobody to sit by.  We had her sit by us. :-)  Long story short, we got a new investigator!  She speaks English fluently and she's really interested in the church.  Like really.  We have an appointment with her next week so hopefully I'll get to tell you more then!

I'm just grateful that the moment that I felt the most homesick was the exact moment Heavenly Father sent me someone else to focus on. :-)  Heavenly Father is taking care of me.  :-)

 

I wish I could tell you more about Yoko-san because she's also... quite the character.  :P But I really need to get going.  Too all of you who I haven't had a chance to write yet (*cough*JoshMirandaPeachDevin*cough*) I'm getting to it!  xD  I need to find time!

 

I love you all!  Thank you so much for everything!  Talk to you all again next week!

 

愛しています！

-

グラスランド姉妹

Week 1: September 3rd

Mina-san!  Konnichiwa!

 

Well, I'm in Japan!  It's so crazy.  I can hardly believe it.  This week has been really hard... Really hard.  I've seriously considered coming home a few times now, but I know it's just because I'm adapting to a brand new surrounding.. It'll get better I'm sure.  Everyone I've talked to about their first transfer says they cried every day the first week or so, so I guess I'm pretty normal.  ;)

Japan is amazing.  It's so beautiful and there are so many people.  It's crazy!

 

DAY ONE:

I've only got 15 minutes so this will be quick.

I arrived at the airport and was hit by this wall of humidity.  It was ridiculous how hot and humid it was, but it turns out that's normal for Japan.  :P  I'm never going to stop being wet.  So we arrived and were met by President and Sister Budge.  They helped us to get some Yen (Japanese money) and we got on a bus and headed to the mission home.  Once we got there we had a quick dinner and then everyone was exhausted so we went to bed.  xD  That was my first day!  ;)

The next day we had breakfast and then we met our new doryo's and got assigned to our first area.  Then off we went.  My new doryo's name is Kuwahara-shimai.  She's a Nihon-jin. She's really sweet, but it's been hard to communicate.  I'm hanging in there.  My first area is called Urayasu.  And get this... DISNEYLAND IS IN MY AREA!!!  AHH!  I can actually see it from my window.  Crazy, ne?  The church is true. ;)  So we took the train to Urayasu and then I actually had my first lesson as soon as we got there. It was fun, but we got rejected. xD  Ah well.  After, we had Eikaiwa (English Class).  Kuwahara shimai looked at me and said "You teach advance."   So I had to teach the advanced English class.  Basically I sat there and spoke English with a bunch of people. Woo.

 

Illiya Kyodai:

So this whole experience would've been impossible if it weren't for our kyudosha... Well, not kyudosha.  I guess techincally they're all members or Potential investigators... Illiya kyodai was baptized in May.  He is seriously like a character from a movie.  He's obsessed with his body.  xD  He cooks dinner for the missionaries every Thursday night.  "I don't make anything that doesn't help your body in some way."  I'll be honest.  It was disgusting.  xP  The nice thing is though, he speaks both English and Japanese fluently, so I could ask him questions and he could translate for me.  I finally was able to understand my doryo. ;)  He's so awesome.  I wish I could tell you more about him but I don't know where to start.

 

Tsuchia-san:

So this is the last thing I'm going to have time to talk about.  On Saturday I went streeting for the first time.  I was so scared.  But my doryo kept coaxing me.  "Just say hello!  English okay!"  -sigh-  So there was this lady with a really cute dog she was walking.  I went up to her and, in Japanese, told her her dog was cute and asked what his name was.  My doryo took over from there.  Well it turns out this lady could actually speak English!  So she and I had a conversation about what we were doing out here and all kinds of things.  We stood there and talked for almost 15 minutes.  At the end we exchanged emails and phone numbers and she said she'd call us sometime soon.  :-)  I really hope she does.  That'd be amazing.

 

Well, I'm out of time.  My doryo needs to use the computer to write her family and friends too.  Just know I love you all.  :-)  You're amazing.  Write me! I could really use it. :-)  I love you guys!

 

-

Christine