皆様おはいおございます！
This week was rather eventful... I'm just going to go through day by day! There wasn't a single day this week that something big didn't happen. First thing you all have to know though is that I've been really sick this week. It's just a cold, but it zapped all my energy and made this week really hard on me. I'm just greatful for my amazingly awesome companion. :-)
Tuesday:
Tuesday was techincally P-day... but we only got a couple of hours of P-day time in. xD We were invited by a ward member to have Lunch with them at their house! When we got there we discovered that they wanted to introduce all of us American missionaries to the way that the Japanese celebrate New Years! Basically they have a REALLY big meal together, but they eat certain foods for New Years that they don't eat at any other time in the year... Probably for good reason. ;) One of the things they serve is Mochi! I really like mochi! But they way they serve it for New Years is they mix it with different kinds of Miso soup. It was really interesting. They also have these bento (You'll have to look up pictures of Bento's on google or something. xP) boxes with stuff to eat on New Years that will bring you good luck for the year! Most people go to their parents houses and celebrate with their families and play. Here's the best part of Japanese New Years... They all take a WEEK off work! :-) School finally started again today (1/7/2013). They've been out of school since right after Christmas. Ta-dam! That's New Years in Japan.
Wednesday:
We spent the day with one of our investigators who I don't think I've written about in an email before... Her name is Kaori and she is FANTASTIC! I love her so much! She invited us to come over to her house to meet her family since they'd all be over for New Years! Before we went, Sister Lundy and I set a goal to give Kaori a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World". When we got there we were able to meet Kaori's 3 kids (ages 14, 10, and 8), her husband, her little sister, and her two nieces (ages 7 and 5). It was so fun! The littlest ones and I played most of the time. xD At the end when we were about to leave, Sister Lundy turned to me and said "We can't just give a proclamation to Kaori and not give one to her sister now..." I said "You're right... What do we do?" It took us all of last week to find just one proclamation and that was totally by chance that we discovered it. Then Sister Lundy said "Wait a second..." and went over to her backpack. Next thing I knew, she pulled out two copies of the proclamation and gave one to Yoshimi and one to Kaori. :-) Both of them were so excited to get it!
I asked Sister Lundy where the other one came from later and she said that she'd accidently bought 2 of them while she was in the MTC. When we left the apartment she didn't remember that. She just grabbed the proclamation. Then she remembered having two in the MTC. When she went to look in her backpack, sure enough there were two! Bread and fish anyone? ;) This really was a testimony builder for me. Heavenly Father knew that we would be meeting Kaori and her sister. He has been preparing us for them and them for us! He really does know everything from beginning to end. There is no other possible way to explain how we had two right when we needed them. :-)
Thursday:
This is when the cold started to really hit. I decided to ask the Elders serving here in Urayasu to give me a blessing. It also turned out that Elder Petersen (he was my first Zone Leader and came to Urayasu at the same time as me. He finished up his mission this last transfer) came to visit Urayasu! I asked him to join too. So Thursday night I got a blessing to help me recover quickly from this illness. :-) It helped me a lot. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through Friday, but I know that the blessing was the only reason I was able to.
Friday:
Was miserable... We went to a Zone Meeting first thing that morning and I felt SO sick. I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor and just lay there. After Zone Meeting the Dendo Shunin (Ward Mission Leader) wanted to take all of us out for sushi! After Zone Meeting I said a little prayer and asked for the energy to make it through lunch with him. Heavenly Father definitely answered my prayer. In the Sushi store I actually met a family and started talking with them. It turned out they lived really closeby and they had an interest in Eikaiwa! I was able to give them a chirashi (flyer) for Eikaiwa and they really seemed like they wanted to come! Yay!!
After that we went back to the apartment and Sister Lundy forced me to go lay down for 3 hours.
Then it was time for us to go meet with Rosalin who I wrote about last time...
Her birthday party turned out to be outside our area so we had to get permission to go over there. It was in this REALLY fancy hotel. Like seriously. It was like something out of a movie... Sister Lundy and I felt SO lucky that as missionaries we're always dressed up... But even with what we were wearing we felt extremely out of place... Then we met everyone else that Roslalin invited to her party. 4 of them were missionaries from other churches. After a little while of being there, they started ignoring us and wouldn't talk to us. Then Rosalin came. She was wearing this incrediably fancy gown that was rather immodest... She went to entertain all of her guests and we ended up keeping her two kids (5 and 3) entertained. My life is so hard. ;) Then towards the end, they pulled out the champane. The spirit was just... gone. However, we were able to build a good relationship with her kids and she really wants us to come over again! So although it was really rough on both Sister Lundy and I we were able to get a lot of good things out of it.
Saturday:
We were able to meet with another Less Active member named Maria. We had a really nice lesson with her and the spirit was there really strong. Other than that we took the day really slowly.
Sunday:
Maria came to church!!!!!!!!! She bore her testimony and cried a lot saying that she wants to come to church more often and she's so greatful to everyone who has been helping her the last year through all her trials. Then she said "The sisters shared a scripture with me yesterday that really helped me." She shared that scripture and bore her testimony on it. It was SO good. :-)
Although most of our stats for the last month have been nothing but zeros, I feel like we're still getting a lot of work done. I just have to keep reminding myself that although the work I'm doing isn't being recorded here on Earth, it's definitely being recorded in Heaven and in the end that's all that matters. :-)
And that was my week! Thank you guys all for your prayers and everything! I love hearing from you so please keep writing me! Also, any members of the ward that may be reading this: THANK YOU! The letters I got for Christmas from all the primary kids really brightened my day. You all are amazing and I'm SO blessed to come from such an amazing ward. :-)
Write you all again next week! Have a great week! :-D
-
Christine
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