Week 10 in Okinawa

Now don't get me wrong here, I love this area so so much. It is seriously amazing, and I love everyone I meet. But here is possibly one of the biggest problems I encounter every day here. 

I don't eat enough Japanese food. It's a real problem. We get fed by Americans.. American food, we get groceries from the Americans, so we even make our own American food. We go out to eat on base... American food. But the problem is.. is that I live in Japan, and I am obsessed with Japanese food. Members here are like, what American food do you want that you just never get anymore?? And we are like, oh you can just make whatever you want, we love anything. And then.. ..they make enchiladas. Again don't get me wrong here, enchiladas are my actual favorite food. And at first I was so happy I almost cried when I ate my first enchilada here. But then one week we got fed enchiladas 4 meals in a row. Again, I still loved it, I probably could eat enchiladas the rest my life. But I was seriously deprived of Japanese food. So I've decided a remedy for that is to every chance I get eat as much Japanese food as I can. So for breakfast I've started eating nato and rice (for those of you who don't know what nato is.. it is fermented soybeans.) and no, I'm not actually a big fan of it, but I want to like it really bad, so I eat it everyday. Something we have been told here before was "if you don't like it.. like it!" So I'm gonna like nato if it kills me. I eat onigiri 🍙and bentos 🍱 and ramen🍜 and sushi 🍣 (yes they even have emojis for those because Japan 🇯🇵 actually controls all the internet.) for any meals that I have any power over. Also trying oden this week, which I'm super excited about. ( a variety of different weird Japanese foods, fried tofu... other things I don't know what they are), And I still don't feel like I get enough. I love Japanese food way too much. Enough to spend half of my email time writing about it. So that is what is going on with me lately.. haha no just kidding, I'll talk a little more about my week.

So this week.... has been kind of sad. Almost every single one of our lessons fell through, all of our return appointments stood us up, and we didn't have any member meals :( but it's okay, because even during sad weeks it was still a really good week. Because we didn't have a lot going on, we were able to dendo... a lot!! And we got to talk to so many people! We made a ton of return appointments for this next week. This week is so packed, we started having to do return appointments during our study time because we don't have any other time to do it! So still got to see so many miracles. Also, you know that obachan I talked about a couple weeks ago. The one who is so funny during Sunday school and she always makes the best comments and agrees with everything? Well we got to go visit her this week and I got a picture with her!! As we were leaving so walked down with us to our bikes, we put our helmets on and she said "I want to take a picture of you and your bikes!!" And.. she didn't have anything with her and we pointed out she didn't have a phone or camera and so she said "oh.. can I use your iPad?" Haha so she made me teach her how to take a picture on my iPad and she got it. She has a lot of energy for how old she is. Haha I love her so much. We call her grandmother willow.Other than that we had a Halloween party on Saturday at a chapel on Kadena Air Force base. Let's just say, I like our churches a lot better! There is definitely a different feeling, and you can feel it when you walk in. It's still a great place though, it was interesting to see all the differences of our church vs their church. And it was way nice of them to let us use it for our Halloween party. (Our church was booked for a different wards Halloween party). 

We learned a lot about missionary work in church yesterday. I obviously know all about that, but it was still really good to hear from a members side of things. Like what makes it difficult to share the gospel with others. It makes me really want to work hard at missionary work when I get home. Even just making sure your doing your visiting teaching and home teaching is missionary work. Missionary work is sharing the gospel to whomever you come in contact with, whether that be a non member, a less active, a member you visit teach or even just your family. We as church members do missionary work every week as we go to church and participate and share our testimonies. It's just getting out there and doing a little more that you already are doing that's just a little bit harder. My branch president. Made a comment that I really loved he said that even if you don't have a desire to do missionary work, pray for the desire to do missionary work and your just one step closer and doing more than you did the day before. Missionary work doesn't have to be hard. It's just loving your neighbor, and when you love someone, you want them to be happy, and by wanting that it automatically makes you want to share what makes you happy. And for most of us it is simply the gospel of Jesus Christ! So I'm challenging you all, if you don't have a desire to do missionary work, pray for the desire. If you do have the desire, pray for opportunity. If you have the opportunity, then act!! 

Hope you all have a great week! Love you! 

ホワイトです

Ps- going to an aquarium today and I am just crazy excited!