Transfer 9 Week 3: July 28, 2013

皆様こんにちは！

I hope you guys are all doing well!  I don't really have much time to write so I'm going to get straight to it. :-)

 

Tuesday:

HANABI TAIKAI! This week was the Summer Firework Festival!  Oh my gosh it was insane.  I hate fireworks, but for some reason I LOVED these fireworks and didn't want to leave! They had it down the ocean and it was SO pretty! :-) We went there to meet with the Eikaiwa students down in Kamakura... Explain why in a second. :-)

 

Wednesday:

So a while ago there was this huge drama that happened with all of the Eikaiwa Coordinators and now there's a lot of Eikaiwa Coordinators who don't really like the missionaries.  One of those coordinators really doesn't like Elders so she specifically requested some Sisters to come teach Eikaiwa in their area, Kamakura.  Problem was, she wanted 2 native speakers, NOT Nihonjin... Well, that meant it was only Sister Ellingson and I who could go, but we're not companions... So short version, there was this drama figuring out who was going to go and how we were going to work this out... Turned out all 4 of us went down there, Sister Imano showed off her English skills, and we got permission for her to come teach too so Sister Ellingson can go to Japanese class.  Desu!

 

Thursday:

We met with Toshiko, one of our new investiagors. She's been meeting with missionaries for 8 years and knows TONS about the LDS church.  Like, she even knows the teachers at the MTC... but she refuses to be baptized.  She asked us a really interesting question.  She said "I know that I have to feel the spirit to know your message is true, but why does that mean it's true?"  We think she just struggles with the concept of "truth" itself.  It was a really interesting lesson. :-)

 

Friday:

We got a call on Thursday night from our other investigator Akiko (who has never called us before) asking if we could meet the next day. :-)  Our amazing Ward Mission Leader cancelled his plans for Friday and came with us to teach her.  I'll be honest, I did not understand pretty much anything that was said in that lesson.  I found out from my companion later that it was because she wasn't actually answering the questions we were asking.  We would ask a question and then she would talk about something completely not relevent making it really hard to follow.  Luckily, my companion is Japanese!  ;)  Please pray for Akiko though to be able to understand the Atonement and the role of Jesus Christ. :-)

 

Saturday:

We didn't have time on Thursday to finish our Weekly Planning so we finished up on Saturday.  Sister Imano got really sick so the Elders came over and gave her a blessing.  That probably was the most exciting thing of the day.  xD  Sister Ellingson, Sister Miwa, and I running around the apartment scrambling to clean up before the Elders got there. xD  Pretty hilarious.

 

Sunday:

Akiko came to church!  And even better than that... when she saw me the first thing she said was "I prayed and it worked!  This whole thing is true isn't it!"  MIRACLE!!!

Then we headed to a members house for a dinner appointment which was way fun.

 

And that was my week!  Way exciting week, but way boring at the same time! :P

 

Thank you all so much for everything!  I love you all so much and miss you so much!  It's weird to think how close I am to coming home now. I'm trying not to think about it.  :-)  I hope you all have a fantastic week!

 

Love,

Christine