another transfer is almost over. I can't believe my mission is almost
halfway done. Time is going by so fast, I don't know what to do! This
morning I got a call from Egan Kaicho. He told me that I am going to
be senior companion and I'm being transferred out of Nagamine. I got
off the phone with him and immediately started crying. I love this
place so much. It is going to be so hard to leave on Thursday. :( I am
going up to Fukuoka zone to Chikushino. Despite how sad I am to leave
I had an amazing last week in Nagamine. I used to read missionaries
emails and think, man not every single week can be amazing. But
despite the hard things that happen I always feel like at the end of
the week I did my best and I'm so happy to look back over what amazing
miracles I was able to see. It's an amazing feeling knowing you're
putting your whole heart into something. I love it here. This week
started off with us dressing up in kimonos and walking around the most
beautiful park I have ever seen! I'll send pictures at the end :) it
was so fun! It was only 400円 to rent a kimono and get into this park
for all of February, so we're glad we were able to go the last day
even though it ended up being sooo cold and windy. It actually snowed
a little bit that night haha, but it was totally worth the experience.
Tuesday was amazing also. We had our last district meeting of the
transfer, and our zone/district leader Nelson 長老 is going home this
transfer so he gave this amazing meeting on love and how important it
is as we share the gospel. Everything that God does is based on love.
Everything we teach is surrounded by love. 1 John 4:7-8.
"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of
God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through him." God is love
It was an amazing district meeting, and then right after we got to go
visit one of our investigators who I absolutely adore. She is so sweet
and every time we visit her I love her so much more. We were going to
talk about service with her, and decided while we were teaching to
focus on love and showing love to her family. I mentioned that my mom
would always text me sweet messages and it always made me so happy and
through her small act of service to me I knew that she loved me. So we
committed her to try and find ways she can show service by showing her
love for her daughters and her husband. She was a little embarrassed
to do it but she said she would try. I can't wait to hear what she
comes up with to do for them. I really hope we can help her family
become closer and happier together. She is the kindest, most loving
person, but she doesn't know how to show it to her family. I think
that can sometimes be all of us though. Sometimes the people we love
the most, it's the hardest to show love to. We just have to keep
trying!
Wednesday, oh man. Wednesday I was exhausted. We went and did a Mogi
with one of our members Kaneko Shimai. I love Kaneko Shimai. She is an
amazing person. She helps us so much I can't even tell you. She loves
missionary work and missionaries. She served a mission in Sapporo and
so she has crazy dendo fire. Anyway, we went so I could do a lesson
mastery (lesson mastery is where you pass off all the lessons in your
mission language to someone who speaks the language. You do it alone
without your companion and this particular one was supposed to be
30-45 minutes long) and the whole time we were talking, her 2 adorable
kids were running around in absolute chaos. It was so crazy, but
Kaneko Shimai was so amazing and was so patient with them, and focused
on my lesson all at the same time. I don't know how she does it. She
is an amazing mom. I was more tired at the end of the lesson then she
was. She had complete composure. And then we asked her to come visit a
less active with us who lived down the street and so she packed up her
kids and walked with us. We had to take turns trying to make sure her
2 year old little boy wouldn't run into the street. Then at the less
active's house we all wrestled the 1 year old little girl as she tried
to get into anything and everything. But somehow the lesson went
smoothly, and our less active absolutely adored the kids. Everything
went so well and it was so fun but I was extremely exhausted after. I
don't know if it was speaking Japanese for 4 hours straight on top of
running around with high energy kids all afternoon but I was so dead
by the end of the night. Thursday we went to pass a potential
investigator to the 長老たちand then they helped fix my companions bike
which was way nice of them, then we came home and did weekly planning
for the rest of the night. Anyway, Friday was a beautiful day! It was
perfect weather and we got to be outside all day. I was so happy all
day! We ended it by playing volleyball at our sports night we have
every Friday. It was 8 missionaries 4 members and 1 nonmember haha but
it was way fun. We were all pretty tired at the end of it. Oh my gosh,
I totally forgot. Friday as we were outside talking to people, we
knock on this house and this lady comes out and in perfect English
starts telling us off. We were so shocked that she was speaking
English that it didn't click to us that she was not happy we were
there. Haha we just stared at her and then said we were sorry and
left. It's very rare to bump into a Japanese person who speaks perfect
English, at least here in Kumamoto. We bump into gaijins a lot and
that's fine, but not English speaking Nihonjins. It was pretty funny,
but I also gained a lot of respect for those missionaries in their
native language countries. It's hard being told off in your own
language. Ouch. In Japanese it doesn't matter because you barely
understand them anyway, so being yelled at doesn't mean anything
really. But anyway, it was pretty interesting. Saturday was such a
good day! The weather was perfect and I didn't have to wear my coat
outside. We had a relief society activity where we made Tongan food.
Our investigator brought her boyfriend which was so exciting to
finally meet him. We've heard a lot about him. And then we taught a
lesson to another investigator that night. It went really well and he
finally started opening up to us! Sunday was also a way good day. Oh
my gosh I love Fast Sundays! We went to church and were greeting
people when all of a sudden I look up and see Egan Kaicho standing
there with Egan Shimai! I was seriously so surprised. We maybe see
Egan Kaicho once a transfer for trainings or interviews, but he was
just standing there! Completely 吃驚しました. But it was so fun because Egan
Shimai got to come to our lesson with our investigator and to relief
society with us and Egan Kaicho went and did a lesson with the Elders.
It was so much fun being with them. I love them both so much! I think
Egan Kaicho came because it was one of the Elders last Sunday before
he goes home, and he used to be President Egan's assistant up in
Fukuoka. It was really sweet of Egan Kaicho to come visit him.
Monday...Usually transfer Monday's are kind of stressful but yesterday
was a blast. We went over to a Kumamoto members house with the
Kumamoto Shimai and it was so good. We all took turns sharing our
testimony and talking about why we came on missions. It was so good.
So good that we ended up being a little late to our next appointment
which was making waffles with a less active. Haha they had never had
waffles before, and she had somehow gotten her hands on a waffle
maker. It was so fun. Anyway, and that brings us to today. I haven't
written a long detailed email like this in a while, so hopefully
someone read it! We are going to the zoo today which I'm pretty
excited about, it has gotten pretty warm here recently. I'm a little
nervous for what summer has to bring in terms of weather, but I'm sure
it will be an adventure as always. I'm a little bit freaking out about
being senior companion, haha I still feel like I just got here! But
it's going to be so fun :) I'm excited for the amazing things that
will happen these next 6 weeks!! Here are some pictures!
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