Hi everyone! It's been a very very hot week here. Oh my goodness, I feel like I'm melting everyday. But it's actually been such an amazing week!! We visited a lot of members this week trying to get to know the ones we don't know very well and that has actually been so fun! There was a member who told us that she joined the church when she was 21 and then started going to institute and during one of her classes her teacher challenged them to think about what kind of person they wanted to marry and she decided that she wanted to get married on April 6 and she prayed for 10 years to get married on that day, and 10 years later she did! Haha the stories they tell sometimes are way funny and way cute. I love our members. Especially the older ones. We also had a lot of return appointments that we got to go to and one of them was amazing! His name is Katsuyoshi, and he is so cool. He absorbed everything we told him and told us he would study the Book of Mormon and take all of our lessons. He thought it was cool that we are sharing our message with everyone. We also got return appointments with 2 of his neighbors too! It was such a great night. I love teaching lessons so much! We haven't been able to teach Haruka Chan lately, she keeps saying she is too busy :( but she promised she would come to church tomorrow! So I am so excited! Also today we got to go to the temple! Ah I missed it. I can't believe it has been so long since I went last! It was so great, and then after we went to the zoo which is right next to the temple! It's been such a fun day! Tonight we are going over to teach a members daughter a lesson because she is getting baptized in September and her mom wants to to have all the lessons before she gets baptized. I just love it here. I've almost been here 5 months which is so long to stay in one area but I'm way grateful! Anyway, I hope you all have a good week! Love ya Sister White
I can't believe it's already p day again! We had a barbeque today at a members house, so we are starting p day a little late today. Not much to write about because this week was a ton of cleaning and fixing things in the apartment that have sorely been neglected. Also, sister burnside came into the apartment. We lived together when I was in Nagamine for 3 transfers and now we get to live together again! I'm way excited! Sunday was definitely a highlight this week. I love our members so so much. We had a dendo fireside to try and help the dendo fire in our ward. We all took part in it, and me and Mckenzie Shimai did a skit of what missionaries do in a day and how to prepare for lessons with members present, and I think it went really well. We gave members banana bread that we made and they loved it! They all hung around and talked to us after (even though it was basically an extra hour of church). It was so awesome. Then one of our members invited all the missionaries over to a surprise going away party for one of the BYU students who taught English here for the past three months. So we went there and there were a lot of nonmembers that we got to talk to. It was so fun. But the best was getting to their house. Their house is like 45 minutes uphill in the most complex area ever, and our map doesn't really help when it came to it so we were super lost. We finally we asked a lady that was walking if she knew how to get to their area and she pulled it up on her phone and then walked us all the way to their front door! She was so so kind, and we became such good friends in like 15 minutes. She hugged us afterward and wanted to add us on Facebook! I invited her to come to Eikaiwa. I love people here. I love that I get to become friends with the most random people on the street. I love having long conversations about the gospel in Japanese. I just love it here. I am tired allll the time. But it's so worth it. God really does help shape us to be the person he wants us to be. We just have to be flexible and willing to be shaped. I'm learning so much each and everyday. Sometimes I feel like I am overwhelmed with all that I learn, but I think we learn better that way sometimes. Not everything sticks, but the most important things do. Love you all!!
Hello! Transfer week! Me and Mckenzie Shimai are staying another transfer in Chikushino. Woot woot!! Anyway, this week I actually went to go see a doctor about my back. It's been hurting pretty bad lately so I wanted to see what was up. Apparently it's nothing and I'm just over working it. So he gave me a back brace and told me to wear it whenever I am biking and/or walking for a long time. (So all day everyday!) on another note, I love the hospitals here! You go to the hospital for every thing in Japan, there aren't like doctors offices. So it's very organized. I really liked it. While we were waiting at the hospital a nurse came up and was like "sisters, where are you from?" Which just doesn't happen. Nobody calls us sisters in Japan. (Except the members). But we found out that she was a member from another ward in our stake. It is really rare to bump into members so it was pretty cool. Also, have I mentioned how hot it is lately? Oh my goodness. It is just crazy. They have these things call sweat towels that I just thought were kind of weird, but now I completely understand. I carry mine around with me everywhere. You're just always dripping sweat. Also the bugs are out too. It is big spider, worms, mosquito, gnat season. Oh man, I was talking to someone on their voice box yesterday ( it's like.. A thing they have here so they can answer the door without having to come to the door.) when I noticed this huge gecko underneath it and kind of gasped in the middle of my sentence but just kind of moved away from it a little bit, and then throughout this contact I had a bug on my right arm that I swat away, and then right after a mosquito came and landed on my left arm, and then a spider crawled up my leg. It was all within 30 seconds that this happened. I was so glad that it was over a voice box and the guy wasn't watching me dance around trying to get all these bugs off of me. It was super gross. Oh man. Bugs are the worst. 🙄😒 We had one day where literally everyone we talked to just slammed the door in our faces and didn't even let us get more than a few words out. It was rough, but we really wanted to hand out a Book of Mormon so badly. We knocked on this house and nobody was answering and I was a little downhearted so my companion and I decided to pray to be able to hand out a Book of Mormon right there on her doorstep. Right after we told Heavenly Father that we wanted to hand out this Book of Mormon we hear footsteps running to the door. We closed prayer really fast and talked to this younger lady, and she immediately took the Book of Mormon. I have had so many experiences like that on my mission with Heavenly Father answering my prayers immediately. All we have to do is pray. Most times it does take a while to receive an answer, but we have to exercise our faith. I love having experiences like that. It just reminds me how much Heavenly Father is aware of us. Anyway! Love you all! Have a good week! White Shimai
Happy Fourth of July to those in America. If anyone is wondering (and yes it has actually been asked out here..not by me FYI) they do not celebrate the Fourth of July in Japan. We did get invited over to a members house for a barbecue last Saturday though so we basically celebrated it. Just no fireworks. This week went by ridiculously fast. So many things happened. Last p day we went and rode a Ferris wheel in Fujisaki for McKenzie Shimai's birthday (which was actually this last Friday but we ended up celebrating it the whole week) Tuesday we and junkai in Fujisaki with the STL's and that actually ended up being almost 2 days out of our week. It was a little frustrating that it took so much time. But Wednesday after we finally got home from Fujisaki we had a lesson with our less active Ashian Shimai. We talked about the atonement and the spirit was really strong. Usually I feel like she just doesn't understand any concept of what we teach her, but we really tried to use a lot of examples from her life to relate to the atonement, and I think she finally understood a little bit. It felt like a huge break through. Then after Ashian's lesson we had Eikaiwa. I love our eikaiwa students. We have so many good people that come. We have a ton of potential in Chikushino. A lot of our Eikaiwa students gave Mckenzie Shimai cute presents for her birthday, it was so nice. Thursday we weekly planned and got to help out with another kids eikaiwa that a member puts on with a BYU student who is staying over here. Friday was Mckenzie Shimai's birthday, so we went on got hamburgers at the only place you can't et them at here and went and put our feet in a river nearby. It was way fun and also a miracle that it wasn't raining because seriously, rainy season in Japan is no joke. This week has been so wet. Saturday we went to visit a couple referrals and to a return appointment and the whole time it was raining like crazy. I felt like I had just jumped into a pool fully clothed. It was hard to see biking because of the mini typhoon , so we decided to go home and change for the barbecue we had that night. I love members so much. The member who invited us over for the barbecue didn't want us to bike in the rain so she picked us up and drove us to her house. Then we had the funnest time there. They do this thing in Japan, it's kind of like a pinata.. But with a watermelon. They put the watermelon on the ground, put a blindfold on a person, give them a stick and spin them around ten times. Then you just try to break the watermelon open. Haha it was so fun. The husband was just a little kid, he was having so much fun pranking the elders. I love love love members, they are amazing. Yesterday was so good. We set up a lot of appointments with members this week to get to know the shyer ones. So hopefully we will be able to get to know them too and can help them out.
Anyway, this week I have really been studying and focusing on the atonement. Alma 7:11-13 is such a powerful scripture on the atonement and I love sharing it with people. He really does know us perfectly and know how to help us. We just have to be willing to use what has already been given to us.
I hope everyone had an amazing week! Love you all!
This week we bumped into a lot of foreigners. I feel like I can talk to them forever! Although teaching in English is a little bit uncomfortable and awkward. I end up translating from Japanese to English in my head and it always sounds funny. Last night we bumped into a lady from Cameroon. She was so kind! She is catholic but when we told her we were missionaries she asked is if we could come over and do bible study with her. We are so excited! I have really been studying the bible a lot lately and I'm excited to talk about it with her. I love the bible! And definitely introducing the Book of Mormon to her when we go over. The other lady we bumped into is half Japanese but grew up in Croatia and lived in America. Her family is all Buddhist but she is like hardcore Hindu. She was telling us all about her life, and she served in a nunnery type place for a while (but for Hindu) so she said she could relate to what we do. I love the different types of people I get to meet out here. It's such an amazing experience. On Saturday we got to go down to Kumamoto to help clean up after the earthquake! There is still so much damage there! We went to help clean up this one old ojisans house, and I was asking him how the earthquake was and he told me that he literally thought he was going to die. He said it was so strong and so scary. Later I found out that his house was right next to the epicenter. He asked us if we could go help clean up his parents graves because the earthquake hit the graveyard so badly and when we went there.. It was just unbelievable. This graveyard was in the middle of the forest, with tons of huge hit trees surrounding it. It was absolutely beautiful, but then when you looked at all the tombstones (and Japanese tombstones are huge and amazing) they were all toppled over and cracked. These tombstones are crazy heavy too. He asked if we could help try to push this tombstone away so he could get his parents urns, and there were ten of us and it wouldn't even budge. It had to have weighed at least a thousand pounds. I wish I had gotten a picture of the area. It was so beautiful, but completely destroyed. He showed us an area where it had actually cracked the ground. There was this huge crack in the dirt maybe about half a kilometer long. The houses next to the graveyard where all deemed unsafe, everyone had to move out of them, including this older guy we were helping. A lot of people lost their homes and are still living in shelters 2 months later. It's way sad. I'm glad we got to go help them for a day. We really cleaned up a lot of his yard. He had a couple of sheds that were completely destroyed that we helped clear out. All this stuff had been sitting there for 2 months and through rain and the humidity so there were so many bugs and maggots on the wood and rotting food. It was so so bad. We got just one area all cleaned up, but didn't really make a huge dent in what needed to be done. I hope we can go back and help. Although we didn't actually get home until around 10 Saturday night so we were pretty dang exhausted yesterday. Also, it is so so hot lately. We are always just covered in sweat and sunblock haha. Last night we were biking to an area when this downpour started out of nowhere so we ran and got cover, but it was still so stinking hot, even with the downpour of rain! So last night it was a mixture of rain and sweat haha. Oh man I love Japan. It was a way good week. I'm so excited for this next one too. I just love it here so much. My companion is amazing, my area is the best area, and I just love the people so much. I am so so so happy I am here. Anyway, that's all for today :) hope you all have a crazy fun week!
We had transfer called last Tuesday! We were on the train headed to the beach when the assistant to the President calls us.. It's super super rude in Japan to talk on the phone when your on a train. But we were not going to just sit and wait.. So.. We answered it. We assumed we could get away with it since we're American. Haha anyway, everyone was staying in Chikushino except for my companion Bearman Shimai. She went near my old area in Kumamoto! Way exciting. And I got McKenzie Shimai. She is from Australia and I absolutely love her! She's only been in Japan for a few months and so I've been the one doing all the talking in Japanese. It's just so fun to feel like I actually know this language after having struggled with it for so long. It's definitely shown me that patience really is a virtue, and it really does pay off haha. God can't give everything to us as soon as we want it. We have to struggle and pray and work hard and do everything we can, and then you can look back and realize that God was there the whole time helping you through it. I absolutely love it. I am so so so grateful to be on a mission. I feel like I could go on and on about it forever. I have learned so much in this past year. For p day last Tuesday we went to the beach, and it was so fun! We got ice cream played frisbee and volleyball. It was nice to just hang out. Yesterday for Sunday dinner we were invited over to a ward members house. The 5 year old little girl prayed over the dinner and she prayed for the missionaries and that she was grateful that we were there. She even prayed for our dendo! Children's prayers are by far the best prayers I've heard on my mission. They are so full of love and always so grateful for the littlest things. She even thanked Heavenly Father for her doll. I want to be more like that. More thankful instead of always just asking for things, even if they are good things. Lately I feel like some of my favorite principles to study have been agency and repentance. I love both of those topics so much. Happiness really is a choice. And if we aren't happy, then something needs to change. That's what repentance is. It's changing, becoming better and recognizing that we aren't perfect and that we need God in all aspects of our life. When we rely upon God, I think that is when we can truly be happy. I would encourage anyone who reads my emails to study those two topics. It really has changed the way I view my life and happiness.
