Late Again...

So sorry!  I get behind so quickly!  I swear I just updated it!  Oh well.  Here are 3 new ones.  :)
We are beginning travel plans to go pick up Christine in December.  We are trying to get the whole family out there.  Hopefully, the funds will come together.  If anyone out there has gone foreign to pick up their kids from their missions, please comment with any advice for us.  We have never left the country before, so this is completely new for us. 
Thank you so much!  We miss Christine!!

Transfer 6 Week 6: May 7, 2013

Well... The transfer is almost over.  本当に信じられない！ This transfer has just FLOWN by.  I can't even tell you.

 

This week was WAY busy.  I've only got about 10 minutes to talk about it all though so I'm going to be fast.

Sister Sasaki and I have been working really hard this week and seing a lot of miracles.  I promised to write about her birthday so I'll be fast.  On her birthday I woke up a little early and snuck into our study room.  I've had this pile of hearts for a heart attack sitting in a secret part of my desk so that she wouldn't find it along with some presents that I bought for her last exchange.  Using those and the message cards I got from everyone in the ward and our district I attacked her desk. :-D  When she saw it she yelled and came running over to me saying "Groslanta came!  Groslanta came!"  xD  She took a video of it so I'll send it to you all later. :-D  After that we had a few lessons and then switched for kokans where Nagamine shimai did SO many different things for her. I seriously owe that girl one. :-)  It was perfect.  Meanwhile, me and my companion went and handed out fliers at the eki where I met a very happy very drunk man.  Super hilarious story that I don't have time to tell. xD

Wednesday morning we saw the biggest miracle of our week.  We had a lesson with Hasegawa shimai.  Last time we met we asked her if she'd ever gotten an answer to her prayers.  She said no.  We asked her "How do you pray?"  She said "I pray while I'm sleeping".  ...  We said "Wow! That's great that your praying!  Heavenly Father is so happy to hear from you... You know what?  Why don't you try a kneeling prayer while you're awake!? See what happens?!" ;)  Well, Wednesday morning when we met with her we followed up on that.  We asked her if she'd tried praying while she was awake and she said she had!  And she got an answer!!!  The answer was that when she comes to church she should make more friends... but the reason that this is such a HUGE miracle: Hasegawa shimai has been an investigator for 5 years and in that time she's made NO progress at all.  Everyone has told the missionaries to give up on her and pretty much everyone did... but Sasaki shimai and I have been really pushing her and really trying to help her gain a testimony and after 5 years she FINALLY took a step!!  She progressed!! AHHH! :-D  She's got SO much farther to go, but Oh my gosh we were so excited.  :-)

Yuki Hitomi is also moving right along to baptism.  We finally set a specific date with her yesterday.  She's going to be baptized on the 25th and then be confirmed on the 26th.  We talked to her this time about the fact that she has to be interviewed and bear her testimony in front of everyone and we were sure she was going to freak out and leave... but She took it really well and is going to try her best! :-D  Please keep praying for her!

Tonight we are meeting with a fairly new investigator named Rina who has a really strong interest in strengthening her family!  She's coming tonight to a dinner appointment with a really strong family in the ward.  I'm really looking forward to it.

 

As for me, this week I caught a pretty bad cold, but the thing is I've learned that although God doesn't take a trial away from us when we have them, He gives us the strength we need to endure and overcome them.  Between lessons I have a REALLY bad cough and a super runny/stuffy nose, and yet somehow as soon as a lesson starts Heavenly Father blesses me with the strength I need to be able to make it through the lesson without so much as having to blow my nose.  Between lessons is miserable though. :P God doesn't take away challenges, but He does help you to get through them. :-)

 

This coming Saturday is Tenkin Happyou's (Transfer Calls) and I'm seriously freaking out.  Next transfer we will be getting 11 new shimai in the mission... Right now only 3 sisters are not training.  Here is my official guess for my future. ;)  I think that I will stay in Kichijoji another transfer, but that Kichijoji will be made into either a 3 Sister area or a 4 Sister area. :-) Either we'll get one new bean or we'll get 2 new beans.  I could totally see Sasaki shimai training by next transfer. Crazy, but possible.  We'll see what happens.  I'm really nervous, I don't want to leave Kichijoji.  I'll go wherever the Lord sends me because I know there are people waiting for me wherever I go, but right now I still feel like there's so much I can do in Kichijoji.  I don't want to leave.  We'll see what happens though.

 

And that's my week!  I'm sick, but getting better!  I love being a missionary!  Life is good!  THank you all for your prayers and your love!  I seriously couldn't do this without all of you.  I know I say it every single week, but it's true every single week. :-)  I LOVE YOU ALL!  Have a great week and an even better Mother's Day!!

 

Love,

Christine

Transfer 6 Week 5: April 29, 2013

皆様こんばんは！

Happy Golden Week!  :-D

This week in Japan is really special.  It's kind of like Japans version of Spring Break basically.  いいね. There are SO many people that it actually makes dendo really hard... We can't really stop people to talk to on the street or people get angry... and nobody is home because they all take trips during Golden Week.  So Housing is out.  Lessons are pretty rare at the moment too because everyone goes back to visit their parents or something! :P  Kinda tough, but that's okay.

I apologize in advance for the use of any Japanese Words with no translations. Two reasons. 1: I don't have time to go write the translations and 2: My companion and I pretty much only speak Japanese or what we like to call "Nihonglish".  xD  English is hard da yo!

This week was super busy, but we didn't really do a ton.  That's an oxymoron for you.  All week we were both super stressed out because we had SO much to do, but our stats this week were way low.  Our goal of 20 lessons didn't happen.  We ended the week with a whole 6 lessons!  Yes. ;)  I'm not extremely upset about it though.  We both tried our very best to get those 20 lessons, but people cancelled or didn't make a next appointment when we talked to them, etc etc.  Shoganai.  Heavenly Father saw how hard we were trying and He'll bless us for it.

Honestly, this week was a little hard for me.  I was way homesick and I really wanted some alone time... which will not happen for another 7ish months.  (AHHH!  Hayai sugiru!!)  I kind of got grumpy this week and although I worked hard, I wasn't really into it you know?  I didn't really feel like the spirit was always there... We had a shokai lesson this week and during that shokai everything just sort of fell apart. This girl who really could've been a kinjin and probably would've committed to be baptized ended up leaving without so much as a phone number.  She said she'd come to Eikaiwa this week.  I really do believe it was because I wasn't really listening to the spirit.  (I know every single one of you out there is saying to yourself "You're being to hard on yourself!", but I promise that's really how it was.)  Afterwards I thought about what had happened and I remember thinking specifically "That girls eternal happiness is at stake. I can't mess around anymore."  I realized just how important it is to have the spirit with you at all times.  The Spirit of Contention is NOT the one I'm talking about either. ;)  It was kind of a rough lesson to learn and I learned it a rather hard way, but that's the way it had to be, right? :-)  I'm glad I learned it.  From here on out, I'm going to work to ALWAYS teach by the Spirit. :-D 

Other than that this week was really rather boring... Next week I will have MUCH more to say.  Tomorrow is Sister Sasaki's birthday and we're going on Exchanges with the Koiwa Sisters... The Koiwa Sisters and I have a secret combination going on figuring out some birthday celebrations for Sister Sasaki.  I've been working all this last week to get everything ready for tomorrow so I'll have to tell you all how it goes.  I'll be sure to get plenty of pictures. :-)

Hitomi is progressing great and we have a new investigator named Rina who is progressing SUPER well too!  She's 19 and she's way kinjin.  We taught her Lesson 1 today and the whole time she was just like "Sugoi! Honto?! Sugoi!"  :-)  She had a really hard time believing Joseph Smith's vision and we said "That's okay.  We don't expect you to believe us." We taught her about prayer and said "Don't belive us. Ask God.  If this is His church let Him tell you."  She seems pretty excited to learn more. :-)

We're also meeting Naoko tonight for an actual lesson so that ought to be fun. More on that next week I suppose!

 

Not a whole lot to say this week. Sorry everyone!  I was not the greatest missionary this last week so I don't have much to say... Except that this week will be MUCH better.  And it will just continue to get better and better from here.

 

Thank you all for the letters, the love, and your prayers. I need them!

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Christine

 

SOTW: Mormon 9:21

Transfer 6 Week 4: April 22, 2013

皆様こんばんは!!!

皆様元気？！ I hope so!

This week has been such a crazy week. :-) We saw some pretty amazing miracles. I'm WAY stoked to write so let's get to it! :-D

Tuesday:

This last Tuesday we went on kokans (Exchanges) with the Sisters in Matsudo. Sister Sasaki went to Matsudo and I stayed here in Kichijoji with a new sister missionary. From my end, kokans were really hard. This new sister is going through a lot of the same experiences I was going through in my first transfer. Her companion is a Nihonjin on transfer 4 exactly like Kuwahara-shimai was for me. Apparently this new sister has been having a lot of struggles with her companion and told me she was "counting down the days to exchanges." Basically I spent the whole day trying to give her advice and just letting her have someone to talk to. I don't know how much I helped her (if at all), but it made me realize (I should start off this sentance by saying, I did NOT learn this from the new missionary... I learned it by sharing with her a ton of the experiences that I had as a bean.) just how terrible of a bean I was for Kuwahara-shimai! This new missionary is trying SO hard to have a good relationship with her companion... I just gave up. :P I was so impressed with this sister who, even though it was hard, was doing her best and trying to stay positive. I told her "Don't even think about going home because I won't let you!" Her response? "Why would I even consider going home?! We're here to grow right? Of course it sucks, but it'll get better." Erai! (Ehhhh... Noble? Here. Google search it. ;D 偉い)

Thursday:

The day of miracles! Sister Sasaki and I had a meeting in Nakano where we got some trainings from President Budge, Sister Budge, the AP's, and the Zone Leaders. Normally paying attention during all of the talks and trainings and lectures is REALLY hard, but something about it this time made it much easier to pay attention to... That was having a Nihonjin companion who doesn't speak much English. After the first training had ended I glanced at my companion who looked... distressed. :P I realized she probably wasn't understanding and asked "Do you want me to translate?" I said it before I really thought about it, but she nodded greatfully so... I translated for her! Although I couldn't translate everything, I surprised myself by being able to get the basic ghist of all of the trainings! The spirit was super strong and I was AMAZED at some of the things I realized I knew how to say. I'm sure most of it was a terrible translation, but Sasaki shimai said afterword that because of my translation she was able to understand the English. She said between the two she understood, so although she didn't always understand what I was saying, because of that she could piece together the English. :-) Yatta, ne! :-D

Well, from the meeting both Sister Sasaki and I were WAY fired up to get back to work. And we got right to it too. As soon as the meeting was over we came back to Kichijoji as fast as we could to have 3 shokai lessons! (Shokai: Introduction... so for Eikaiwa they're all required to have a 30 minute shokai lesson about the chruch. Basically just what we do as missionaries and such. :-D) We tried our best to use the things we learned from the meeting, and of the 3 shokais we had, 2 of them became investigators. :-) Their names are Echo and Rina and they both are really strong PI's. I'm super excited to work with them. Echo even came to church yesterday! YAY!

Saturday:

I wrote last week about the miracle with Yuki(Hitomi... I don't remember which name I used to refer to her. xD) This last Saturday we were able to meet with her. We were able to find a member to come with us to her lesson. When we first walked in, the very first question she asked was "So, in order to be baptized I'm not allowed to drink Green Tea or Black Tea, right? Why is that?" Talk about intimidating. Sister Sasaki and I explained the reason behind it and both shared experiences and bore testimony on the importance of living the Word of Wisdom. The member we brought with us also was able to bear a really strong testimony on how the Word of Wisdom has helped her in her life. After sharing all of that with Yuki she said "Oh. Well, that makes sense. Okay, I'll stop." Just like that. :-) From there we went on to talk about baptism and what exactly it is and such. At the end she said "I want to do my best to be baptized. Please help me." We were able to set a baptismal date with her and we're going to be meeting her 2 times every week from here on out. :-D WAY psyched, but WAY nervous. She speaks really hard Japanese that even Sasaki shimai doesn't understand sometimes. I'm really relying on the Gift of Tongues and doing my best to stay worthy of it. :-)

And that was pretty much my week! There were so many miracles and things are going SO well right now. This week Sister Sasaki and I worked REALLY hard though so both of us are pretty 疲れた (Yes, I left that one in kanji so you can look it up on google translate. :P English is hard. xD). This week we're going to do our best to see even more miracles! We have a goal as a mission to have 20 lessons every week per companionship. This last week we had 8, so it's going to take a miracle to get that up to the Standards of Excellence, but I know it's possible. Miracles happen out here every day and it's only a matter of time, patience, and faith until we see those numbers happening here in Kichijoji.

Thank you all for your prayers for me and my investigators! Please continue to pray for them (and for me of course! :P) and know just how much your prayers truely are being felt. I can't do this without them. I honestly can't. Knowing that I have you all back at home supporting me really does help strengthen me. Every time I find a letter in the black void of a mailbox I smile a little bigger and find I can make it through one more day of dendo. :-) I love you all and I'm SO greatful to each one of you.

Have a great week you guys!

SOTW: Luke 1:37 - 信仰が持っていれば何でもできます！

おやすみなさい！

愛している！

Love,

Christine

Christine and Sis. Sasaki 

Transfer 6 Week 3: April 14, 2013

皆様こんにちは!　皆様は元気？

This week was such a good week.  :-)  We saw an AMAZING miracle this week.  Like one of those miracles that you hear about happening to other people but never seems to happen to you kind of miracles.  ;) 説召します！

Hitomi:

Up until now I'm pretty sure I've said next to nothing about Hitomi姉妹. That probably because up until now we've only had 2 lessons during which she talked to us for roughly 45 minutes. :P  Well, we finally were able to have a real lesson the week before last where we taught her about the Restoration.  We invited her to read the Book of Mormon and to pray to know if Joseph Smith really was a prophet.  However, she kinda rushed us out so we weren't able to invite her to be baptized like we wanted to.  During that lesson we very briefly mentioned baptism, but other than that we said nothing.  On Wednesday after Eikaiwa we got an email from Hitomi that said "I'm interested in learning more about baptism.  What do I need to do to be baptized?"  (Sasaki姉妹 and I freaked. :P)  We emailed her back saying that baptism is a very sacred and special experience in which we make promises to Heavenly Father.  Before we can make those promises there are certain things we have to know and understand.  That's what our job as missionaries is!  She emailed us back and said "I want to be baptized in order to be closer to God and strengthen my heart.  Please teach me." WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!  :-D We're going to meet with her on Saturday to talk more about what she needs to do to be baptized, but she came to General Conference yesterday and said she really liked what was said. (She listened to a good portion of  the Sunday Morning session.)  We're really excited to start working with her.  :-)  She could really use your prayers though.  She's very sick. Like... very sick.  Coming to church and meeting with us is very difficult because of how sick she gets.  Please pray that she will be able to heal enough from this illness to be able to come to church once a week and meet with us! 

On Saturday we plan on talking with her about the Priesthood and asking her if she wants a Priesthood Blessing from the Elders.  Hopefully she will accept and that will help, but your prayers are needed as well!  Please pray for her to be able to be baptized!

General Conference:

The only other really exciting thing that happened this week was General Conference!  I mentioned this during my first transfer I think, but here in Japan all the broadcasts from Utah are broadcasted here a week later.  They have to translate it into Japanese and such so it takes about a week.  But oh my gosh Conference was amazing.  We got a challenge from our District Leader to pray and ponder about a list of questions we wanted answered at conference.  He promised us they would ALL be answered.  He said that when he first heard that he decided to test it out by writing a really weird question. His question was "What color tie should I wear on Friday?"  Then during General Conference.  Elder Perry mentioned something about how he really liked his purple tie! 

Well, I decided to test it out this week if I would actually get answers to my questions.  I prayed and prayed for about 3 weeks before Conference and ended up with a list of 23 questions... All but one were answered.  The one that wasn't was "What kind of Ice Cream should we eat on P-day?" (OH!  About that.  So Sasaki姉妹 and I have been doing "English Day" and "Japanese Day".  We decided that if I could go all of Japanese Day speaking ALL Japanese then we would get Ice Cream for P-day!  I DID IT!) Unfortunately unless they have some kind of tomato Ice Cream I don't think that one was answered.. ;)  However 22 of my questions were answered. And not just answered.  Very specifically answered.  It was seriously like I had just asked one of the apostles that question and they were specifically answering me. :-)  Probably the coolest experience I've had with Conference. :-)

FAMILY:
I mentioned a few weeks ago about how I was SO scared something was going to happen to you all out there while I'm here...  One of my questions was about that.  Then in President Eyrings talk he said "As we give devoted service to Him, He draws closer to those we love in our families... You can depend on the Lord to draw closer t othem as you serve Him in faith... Even as they are attacked by satan and his followers, whose purpose is to destroy families in this life and in eternity... I can promise you that the Savior will draw close to you and bless you and your family with what is best... His arms are outstretched with yours to succor and bless the children of our Heavenly Father, including those in your family."  It was exactly what I needed to hear.  Heavenly Father really does listen to and answer our prayers.  :-)

Overall this week has been really good.  It had a few down days too where I really struggled, but I've definitely felt the Lords hand in my life this week.  It's like they said in Conference. "God doesn't expect us to be perfect all at once.  He let's us grow little by little every day."  It's okay that I'm not perfect, as long as I'm continuing to try to be better.  Keep trying and someday I can be as God as. :-)

Thank you all for your prayers on my behalf and on behalf of my investigators.  They are felt and needed!  Don't stop! :P  I'm sorry to everyone who has written me who I haven't responded to yet. I  have letters sitting on my desk right now from January.......... My goal today is to get at least half of them answered! :-)  I LOVE YOU ALL!

THANK YOU!

Love,

Christine

Transfer 6 Week 2: April 7, 2013

皆様おはいようございます！久しぶり！

This week was a really really exciting week.  Here we go!

 

Tuesday:

I emailed you all last Tuesday because we were on transfer week.  I spent all day Monday and Tuesday in an area called Hibarigaoka with the Hibarigaoka sisters.  All three of us were panicking the whole time because we were about to be made trainers.  Walbeck姉妹 had been a trainer before (she trained someone from my doki! (group of missionaries who came to Japan together)), but she didn't have the greatest experience from it...  It was really hard on her.   So she was NOT excited about having to do it again.  Talk about comforting right?  Well, we spent all day Tuesday saying goodbye to their investigators and members and such while I ran Kichijoji from my phone. x)  Talk about weird.  Finally at 9:45pm we FINALLY got the email telling us what time we needed to be at honbu (Nakano) in order to pick up our new companions.  In order to get there on time, we had to be up at 5:00am. yay...

 

Wednesday:

5:00am : Wake up and get ready to go.  Travel to Nakano.

8:00am : Arrive in Nakano and meet all of the new missionaries.  The whole time we were thinking "which one is mine?!"  Talk about nerve racking.  There was a point when the Hibarigaoka Sisters and I were alone again for a little while and we started talking about which ones we wanted. (I know... terrible right? :P)  That was when it kind of hit me that I might get a Nihonjin companion... So I started praying that I wouldn't.  I remember how hard my first transfers were and I really didn't want to be training someone I couldn't communicate with!  I mean, my Japanese is MUCH better than when I first got here, but still.  I can't speak that well.

11:00am : Training from President Budge.  He gave us all a training on how to treat our new missionaries... Again the whole time I kept praying "Please let her be a gaijin... Please let her be a gaijin..."   While praying, I remember having the thought come to me "Do you trust me enough not to give you a gaijin companion?"  I thought about that a lot, but eventually brushed it off thinking "Well, I'm getting an American so it's okay. Presidant Budge knows I can't do a Nihonjin companion."

1:30pm : We got our new companions.  You guessed correctly.  Her name is Sasaki姉妹.  When President Budge first announced it I was SO shocked and honestly a little disappointed.  I hadn't talked to Sasaki姉妹 at all before her being assigned as my companion, but I'd really gotten to know the other Sisters...  I made a promise to myself before going in to that meeting though that whoever my companion was, I would love her and try to be her friend... Which with Sasaki姉妹 was WAY too easy to do. :-)  I'm about 99.9% convinced we were close friends in the premortal life.  From the moment we started talking we've been best friends!  :-D

 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all filled with visiting investigators and members and introducing Sasaki姉妹 to all of them.  She really is amazing.  SHE SPEAKS JAPANESE!  xD  I don't know why on Earth I was praying to have a gaijin companion!  How would I have survived!?  x)  Sasaki姉妹 is SO amazing though.  She's always smiling and genki.  Everyone who has met her has LOVED her.  She is defnitely here to work too!  She does everything I ask her to and, even when she's completely exhausted continues to help me out. :-)  I don't know how I got so lucky to have her. :)  As for the language barrier.... It's not much of a barrier actually. :-)  Sasaki姉妹 understands a lot of English.  Like a lot of English.  She keeps saying she doesn't, but she does.  She can't really speak very well, but reading and understanding are definitely strong points for her... which is kind of how I feel about Japanese.  So what it's turned into is I speak to her in English and she answers in Japanese.  :-D  We also do English/Japanese days which has been fun.

 

Basically I lucked out because my companion is pretrained and amazing. :-)  There have been 2 lessons I've learned so far this week from this whole experience.

1: GRACE.  I didn't think I'd be able to handle being the real sempai in the area, but somehow Heavenly Father has helped me. Before Sasaki姉妹 came I could not for the life of me wake up at 6:30 every day... but I'm proud to report that I have been able to follow the missionary schedule exactly all week. :-)  Heavenly Father definitely helps those He calls to do the things he has asked.  I couldn't do this without His grace.

2. TRUST.  Like I said, I didn't think I could handle a Nihonjin Bean... but Heavenly Father knew better than that.  "Do you trust me enough not to give you a gaijin companion?"  The fact is whatever Heavenly Father gives us in life will be for our good.  He made us.  He knows what we can do much better than we do.  Although we may not think we can do something, He will always be there to help us.  So if anyone out there reading this is praying for something specific, do you trust Heavenly Father enough not to give it to you?  Do you trust Him enough to say "Thy will be done"?

 

I know that this gospel is true and I"m so greatful for it. I'm so greatful I get this chance to be a trainer and learn so much from my AMAZING companion.  I'm looking forward to an amazing transfer with tons of miracles.  Stay tuned. ;)

I love you all!  Thank you for your prayers and your letters and your love!  I will never be able to express how much they mean to me so thank you!  I love you all!

 

Love,

Christine

 

 

Transfer 6 Week 1: April 2, 2013

皆様こんにちは！皆様元気？私はちょ元気だよ！

This week was actually fairly uninteresting. :P 

求道者Update!

Hasegawa: There hasn't really been a whole lot of progress with Hasegawa.  She's been reading 2 pages out of the Book of Mormon every single day since January and seems to really like it! We've been talking with her a lot about baptism and trying to push her to get baptized... but she's still too afraid to talk to her parents about getting baptized.  Please keep praying that she'll find the courage to talk to them so she can be baptized! :-D

Oikawa: Funny story here.  A few weeks ago at DCS (A meeting all the missionaries go to to talk with the ward leaders about our invesitgators and such.) the Elders were talking about their investigators... then they mentioned that they had a new investigator who just showed up at church one week named Oikawa!  x)  Oikawa has been an investigator for over 2 years, but apparently the Elders had never seen her.  They saw her at church and thought she was new so they introduced themselves and set up a lesson!  xD  It was way funny.  Anyway, we were told by our leaders that we should put a little less focus on Oikawa so there's not really anything happening with her.

Yuka: I LOVE HER!  x)  I love all our investigators! :-)   We've been wanting to get Yuka to read the Book of Mormon on her own, so we read with her the story where Nephi gets tied up on the boat.  She started crying and kept saying "I don't know why I'm crying!"  We tried to help her realize that it was the spirit telling her that it was true.  She agreed and talked about how impressed she was with Nephi.  We told her that she could have those feelings every day by reading the Book of Mormon every day. She said she didn't have time, so we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon for kids. (I don't know what it's called in English... In Japanese it's モルモン書物語. )  We told her she should read it with her 2 sons at night and she agreed.  Last time we met with her, she'd been reading with her kids but she had a lot of concerns.... Like how the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin... and how all the good guys had such hard lives... and how violent it was... :/  But she's still reading it I'm pretty sure... We'll find out for sure this week.

Naoko: Ahhhh!  Naoko!  Seriously, I'm spoiled with the BEST investigators ever.  Two weeks ago, Naoko stopped praying.  We asked her about it and got her praying again. She says she can definitely feel the difference between when she prays and when she doesn't.  Problem is, she's SUPER busy with work so she hardly ever has time to meet with us for an actual lesson... So although she's progressing, it's a really slow process.  This week she watched The Testaments and said she cried.  She also kept saying "I don't know why!  It just came out!"  I love her. :-)

Other than that we have various Potential Investigators and Investigators that aren't keeping commitments but those four are the big ones right now that we're working with.

I've got 5 more minutes for this email so I'm going to hurry and wrap up.

Transfer Calls:

Last week we got our transfer calls!  I'm... still in Kichijoji! :-) Yaaaay!  And my new companion is....

A NEW MISSIONARY!

Right now I don't know who she is.  x) But she's here in Japan now!  As of an hour ago.  That's why this week wasn't extremely exciting   Long姉妹 found out she was transfering so we spent most of the week trying to get everything ready to hand over to me and the new missionary.  We met with all of our investigators to say goodbye and everything. Then yesterday Long姉妹 got all packed and off she went.  Like I said, my new companion just got here today (I'll pick her up tomorrow and go back to Kichijoji) so I for yesterday and all of today I've been running Kichijoji all by myself... In Hibarigaoka (the next area over).  I'm not allowed to be alone so right now I"m in a 3人 with two other sisters who are preparing to train.  One of them is Nagamine姉妹 who came with me out to Japan!  I love her! And Walbeck姉妹. So much.  :-D  Seriously I'm so spoiled right now.

All three of us are super nervous, but super excited. :-) (Family: We keep saying that this must be what it feels like to be pregnant.  xD  Everything is about the Beans.  Getting the room ready, buying little things to give her when she gets here, wondering what she's like, feeling like we are nowhere near qualified to do this... Yup. ;D) I'm sure you all will see a picture of her on the mission blog before I can get one sent out to you!  I know she'll be amazing!

Thank you all for everything!  I'm sorry this email is so short.  We're super busy getting things ready for the new missionaries so I don't really have much time. I love you all though!  Have a great week!

-

グラスランド姉妹より


Teaching English:

Flowers from an investigator:

Out to lunch: