Okay to start off, I cannot figure out this keyboard, its killing me. the punctuation is all in different areas. Anyway oh my goodness! Im in Japan!! So traveling here was a little crazy. Our flight to colorado was 2 hours late which meant we missed our flight to tokyo and had to spend the night in colorado. It was pretty stressful but thankfully we were able to get it figured out for the 25 people we had in our group and we all made it! Finally! We flew out to Tokyo the next afternoon and I was told to help jet lag not to sleep the entire plane ride and just to sleep when I got there. So that is what I did, I didnt sleep at all the entire flight (two flights one to tokyo and one to fukuoka) and then we finally got there and I was so excited to sleep! And then President Egan told us that since we missed an entire day that we had to do training until about 1-2 in the morning!! I was soooooo tired! So we ended up staying up until about 230 am and then we got up at 530 the next morning to go to our area! My first area is Miyakonojo! (Ill talk more about that in a second) anyway so it was a 4 hour bus ride, and thankfully there was another elder that was being transferred to my district also so he helped me out a lot. I sat next to this sweet Japanese lady the whole ride and I tried to have a couple conversations with her that ended up being like: `Nihon is very pretty.` then she would say something and I would just say `i:m sorry my japanese is very bad i don`t understand` haha and then I would try again. It was really sad haha but I tried! Then I finally got the Miyakonojo and met my new companion! Her name is Sister Mills and she is super cute. This is her first time training and she is really excited to train. She has been so great and so helpful. Also very encouraging of my japanese which is just horrible haha. I don`t understand anything! Japanese people speak so fast! That first day we went to get my bike and we did a lot of planning. We met someone named Kimura at the bike store and he was the sweetest! He saw that we were American and so he tried to speak english to us (He didnt speak english at all haha) but he tried so hard! I was so grateful. People in America just expect everyone to speak English in america but everywhere else everyone tries to help you out! Especially Japanese people. Everyone comes up to me when they find out that I dont know any Japanese and will say any words they know in English and then try to help me with my Japanese. I love them! So that night we got my bike and then we did some planning which took a while.. and I didn`t go to bed until 10:30 so if you want to count that up, I only slept about 3 hours in 50 hours. (I wrote in my journal that night `I am so tired right now I think I might die.`) So this area is very country side. Not a lot of people outside so we have to house (door contacting) to find anyone. Right now we only have a couple of investigators. One is Kodama San! He is like super legit. He used to be in the Yakuza!! (Japanese Mafia) haha so he is pretty hardcore. but he is also like 65 years old so he`s just super funny. Japanese people.. man they are so interesting. They keep to themselves and are very quiet. When you talk to them they don`t say anything unless you ask them a question and then they just say oh i don`t know haha you really have to pry to get them to talk. I`ve only met a couple that were super genki (like.. outgoing?) and even then they weren`t like americans are. I just feel like these people need to be loved SO much. I want to love them so badly but I dont know how to say anything to them! So I literally just smile at them. When my companion is talking I just smile like so big at them and hope that they can feel how much I want to love them haha. It sounds cheesy but it`s the only thing I can do right now! Yesterday it rained like crazy!! We were out housing and we got soaked. It was actually so much fun haha. Japanese people think we are crazy Americans. I absolutely love it. OH! So I said we went housing yesterday and we knocked on so many doors and nobody was interested and then we knocked on a door and this cute adorable little girl answered and we asked if her parents were home and her grandma came out. Her grandma talked to us for like 45 minutes about so many things! I didnt get most of it but they were talking about dancing and how we dont drink alcohol and just a ton of different things it was super funny! and APPARENTLY her son is serving a mission (!!!!!!) in Kobe! But she isn`t a member and doesnt really know anything about our church (WHAT!!!) It was crazy and so she told us that she wasn`t super interested in the church but that she loved us and so she would come to eikaiwa class! woohoo! So I hope she will come. Anyway, so something I thought a lot about yesterday and today that I want to share really quick. I had a moment yesterday where I was thinking about everything that happened that day and i felt so overwhelmed and just didnt know if I could do it. This was after church and before we went housing. I was so overwhelmed but then when we went housing, it starting raining so hard on us and I just had an even better feeling of peace and happiness. It was so amazing. It just helped me remember that we gain blessings after the trial of our faith. No matter what hard thing we are going through as long as we push through it and keep going we will see those blessings that God has in store for us. He will bless us! We just have to keep fighting to get them!! Okay I should go but I love you all!!! I`ll try to figure out how to send pictures :)
Love,
White Shimai
EW. These bugs make this crazy sound. But thank you little bug for dying on our steps so i could take a picture of how disgusting you are!
Okay, this was so gross. I thought that brown stuff was going to be like sweet and the balls were going to be like jello.. but nooo. The brown stuff was like.. I dont even know, tart? almost like sand. and the balls were like those small squishy bouncy balls that are made of rubber. Thats what it tasted like anyway. Apparently a lot of people eat this haha
Right before I tried it.
This is my bed. you think it would be uncomfortable but after working all day and biking all day it is seriously the most exciting thing all day to get into bed.
This is our kitchen table haha
Okay I`m sorry for how bad I look. This picture is a lot of things in 1: first, this is right after I got home from housing all day in the rain, second this is how I eat at the table, third I am using chopsticks (not even japanese chopsticks.. korean chopsticks cuz theyre pretty legit) and the last thing- that bottle on the table is what everyone drinks here. Its super good actually. Its like water and lemonade combined but it doesn`t taste like watered down lemonade haha.
pictures from before we left the MTC. I love this people!!
The morning in the Hombu (mission home in Fukuoka) this was at like 6 am haha super tired!
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