皆様こんばんは！
信じあらない！！今週は「Week ５」です！やばい！ (I can't believe it! This week is week 5! *Insert slang word for AHHHH!*)
I
seriously can't believe that my 5th transfer is almost over. This
Wednesday marks my halfway mark as a missionary!! :-( It's going so
fast! I love Japan so much. There are so many things here that I used
to think were SO weird, but now I find totally normal. Long姉妹 and I
were talking about that yesterday. Apparently her aunt told her that
she needs to write down everything that she thinks is weird about Japan
because someday it will be completely normal. She didn't do it and she
says she regrets it because now she can't remember what America was
like! xD I actually kind of agree with her... There are certain things
that I keep trying to remember about America and I just forget! Like
what it was like to have big streets... or being able to read all of the
signs... or people understanding you when you speak English! (Oh my
gosh I'm going to be in SO much trouble when that starts happening
again. I've gotten into this REALLY bad habit of whenever I don't want
someone to know what I'm saying, saying it in English because nobody
understands but my companion. :P)
Family: This week was kind of a hard week on
me. A lot of little things happened every single day this week that
made me really homesick, all of which culminated on Sunday. Luckily I
had a nice little crying session and got over it. I never really
realized before my mission just how much a good cry helps... It really
gets out SO much stress. :-) (I know you guys are all thinking "Poor
thing", but I swear it was a good thing. It was like "Okay. I've
gotten it out. Back to work." kind of thing so it was good.)
This week was really depressing in that we had exactly 4 lessons as
opposed to our 11 we had last week... We tried really hard, but nobody
was able to really meet! Soooo.. that was kind of depressing. However,
because of that we spent most of the week out FINDING! Finding is one
of my favorite things to do as a missionary. I love just wandering
around and talking to people. xD My favorite is handing out fliers at
the train station, but this week I discovered a new type of finding that
is almost better... Park dendo.
On Saturday, (Happy birthday Sara!) we went to a
really famous park here in Kichijoji called Inokashira Park. It's
famous for it's Sakura Tree's. (Cherry Blossoms! There a big deal out
here in Japan. It's something I've wanted to see practically my whole
life.) The Sakura don't bloom though until the end of March... however there
was 1 tree that decided it would start blooming a little bit early! I
freaked. I was SO excited. We took a picture there that I've attached
to this email! :-) Enjoy!
The reason I like park dendo so much though is that nobody in parks
are in a hurry. It's not nearly as rude to stop a person walking their
dog through a park. We talked to SO many people that day, just because
we were wandering throught his gorgeous park in amazing weather saying
hello to everyone. Does it get better than that? This particular time
of park dendo was SO fun. We met so many interesting people. For
example. While we were walking next to this track-like thing there was a
(kind of scary looking) lady standing in the middle of the track
yelling "Douzo(Go ahead)!" Over and over again. Suddenly Long姉妹 stopped
in her tracks and says "Oh my gosh. That guy has a Falcon!"
Sure enough there were 5 people standing in the middle of the track
holding rather large scary birds. I noticed that the lady yelling
"Douzo" had one of those falcon trainer arm band things on... but no
bird. I looked up and there was a falcon right above our heads! It was
awesome!! We wanted to talk to them, but we both chickened out... They
had giant birds that could eat us. :P I can just imagine... "Hello!
We're representitives of The Church-" "SICK 'EM!!!" :P
Another fun finding moment we had was while handing out fliers!
There was a guy dressed like a wizard!! I swear. He was on his way to
Diagon Alley... best part? He took a flier for Eikaiwa. ;)
Other than that, we only had 2 really exciting things happen. 1: Neighbor funness and 2: Chinese Sand.
Neighbor Funness!
So there is this lady that lives next
door to us who is... probably in her 80's or 90's. Every now and then
when we're leaving or coming back she'll talk to us, but she always says
the same thing. "I bought some mikan (Little oranges) for you, but you
weren't home! Have a nice day!" This week we had that same
conversation with her and then went into the apartment just like usual.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. I went and opened it and that
lady pokes her head around the door with her finger on her lips.
"Shhhhh! My child doesn't know I'm here! Here!" She handed me this bag
of treats and starts closing the door saying "Shhhhhhhhhh! Don't tell my
child!" After the door closed, we both laughed a little bit... but it
doesn't end there. After that we had our Weekly Planning Session. It
was really nice weather so we opened up the back screen door for some
air flow. A little bit into our planning we heard a voice saying "Is
anyone there?" Long姉妹 went to see and it was the same lady. She said
"SHHHH! I just bought this for you. Don't tell my child!" She secretly
slid some tofu to us across the balcony. It was hilarious. :-) We
want to do something for her later to pay her back, but we're not sure
what to do... xD
Chinese Sand!
So after church on Sunday we were getting
ready to leave when we noticed it had gotten REALLY dark outside.
Everyone was in the foyer pointing at the sky and taking pictures and
stuff. Long姉妹 and I looked at each other and decided to go figure out
what was going on. It turns out there was a GIANT sandstorm. The wind
blew a ton of sand from China. Apparently it happens in Japan a lot,
but it's really dangerous when it does. They were saying that people
get really sick from being out in it too long. We were like "Well... we
have to get back to the apartment at the very least." So the ward
members gave us a couple of masks (It was a miracle they had 2 random
extras) to help us breath better, and told us not to leave the apartment
until this cleared up. We got on our bikes and off we went. It was
bad... I felt like I was riding my bike with my eyes closed the whole
way. Anytime I opened my eyes I got what felt like a handful of sand
thrown in them. They were right about barely being able to breath too.
Even with the mask I was struggling a bit not to breath in too much
sand. We got back to the apartment safely, but we both were sandy and
gross. My blue bike had streaks of orange sand. Neither of us wanted to
be outside any longer than we had to so sorry, I didn't get any good
pictures of us or my bike, but I did take a quick picture of the sky. I
know you guys haven't seen what it looks like normally so this may not
seem weird to you, but also keep in mind that this was taken at around
2:30pm. That was definitely the scariest part of the week. I know that
Heavenly Father definitely protected us and helped us make it home
safely. :-)
And that was my week! :-) A lot of really little
things happened, but nothing super huge this week. Just a lot of little
stuff. Today I went to the Ghibli Museum which was EPIC! (Yeah, I
know. I'm such a missionary. I think museums are epic.) That was about
it! :-) I hope you guys all had an amazing week! And I hope this next
week is EVEN BETTER! I wanted to give a quick shoutout thank you to
Shauna and everyone from the ward who contributed to that AMAZING
Valentines Day present. I read it and just about died. It gave me that
extra little boost I needed this week, so THANK YOU! Family:
Thank you guys for your amazing Valentines Day Presents too! I've
already eaten all of the fruit gushers.. xD and your hug is sitting on
my desk! :-) THANK YOU!! I'm so lucky to have all of you
amazing people back at home supporting me and praying for me. I miss
you guys! Keep praying for me! I love you all!
Love,
Christine
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