夷険一節＊一期一会: Transfer 7( Week 39)

Dear friends and family,

(I realized that I start every email the same way and I wanted to change it up)

This week was the beginning of my 7th transfer--the same transfer number that my trainer was on!! I can't believe it. I have less than half of my mission left and still so much ground to catch up to where Sister Vincent was when I was companions with her. (I've been blessed with so many good companions!)

Well, I guess complaining about how little time I have left it isn't going to do anything (; I just go into shock and denial every time I think about it....haha.

Ok, well.....this week..... Where to start.....

I will miss you, Thompson Shimai

Last Shinkannsen with Thompson Shimai

Tuesday was transfer day which was really sad, and I miss Sister Thompson so much! Oh well, I'm sure she's doing great in Gokiso. I'm just jealous because Sister Thompson is now in the same district as Sister Samowitz (my bean-chan) and Nakamura (my doki), and a bunch of other friends!

Anyways.....Tuesday evening we had a lesson with Reika-chan about missionary work--we want to finish all of lesson 5, just in case her father gives her permission to get baptized soon (: Well, Reika-chan was disinterested, the mother (she's a member) was sick, and the father was in a weird mood, so it was just a really awkward lesson.

After the lesson, the father started asking me all these questions about what I would do if someone proved that Joseph Smith was a liar, if there was a better church.....and so on. It was really awkward, and that's all I have to say about that. hahaha.....

Wednesday was quite possibly the rainiest day of my mission and also maybe the worst rainy day of my mission, because my Kappa (rain coat and pants) was......well, not rainproof, to say the least. To top the rain it was super windy, which made biking kind of miserable.....not to mention that we spent the whole day about 10km away from home. Oh dear, I'm just glad that Wednesday is over!

Something that made that day bearable, was that we encountered the Elders in the middle of nowhere, just as soaking wet and tired and miserable as we were, and we couldn't help but laugh (: (It's probably just funny for me, haha....)

That evening, we also had a lesson with Tsukika-chan about mercy (she chose the topic), and we read in "True to the Faith", where it explains that every blessing that we receive is an act of mercy from God. We then went around the room and talked about all of the blessings that we had, and both Tsukika-chan and her grandma (she has a strong testimony but is less active right now) bore their testimonies about how important the gospel is in their lives and the blessings that the gospel has brought to them. It was really amazing.

Tsukika-chan is so good! She really just needs to get baptized (:

On Thursday, Urling shimai OYMed to two Russians, Anna and Laura, who want friends, want to learn Japanese (we don't know about the gospel yet....haha), and THEY SPEAK GERMAN!!!

Anna speaks better German than English, so when she found out that I speak a little bit of German, she started talking to me in German--and I understood everything! Granted, she spoke really clean, slow German, and I could hardly get a word out because my brain is not used to having to spit out German words with proper German grammar......but it was exciting nonetheless. Hopefully they will be able to meet us again soon! And listen to the gospel!

(I've been trying to show some faith by practicing gospel terms in German.....who knows, maybe they will want to listen??)

On Friday we met with a bunch of less active members, but the most exciting thing that we did, was go to Tsukika's middle school choir competition!! She is on her last year in middle school (freshman in high school, in American terms), so it was a pretty big deal for her. We were really hoping to meet her mom there, but sadly neither of her parents came...... Horiguchi shimai (Tsukika's less active grandma) came, though, so at least we got to talk to her some more (:

Tsukika's class actually won first place, and she seemed really happy to see us there, so I'm glad we went (: Going to the competition made me really nostalgic, thinking about when I was in middle school in Yamagata, and when my class won first place in our choir competition......good times (:

On Saturday, we beat my record of biking 46 km in 1 day, by biking 53 km! I'm still tired from Saturday, actually....haha. So, in the morning we had a Stake Undokai (field day?), where we had a bunch of races and fun games, and above all, we got to talk to a lot of the Young Women and YSA! (--which is really good, because they're all really quiet/don't really talk to the missionaries usually) Reika (our investigator) even came, and it seemed like she had a lot of fun and made friends with a young woman from a different ward (: Yay!!

Later that day we went to Jessica's and met with her for the first time in a while.....she's doing well, but still busy and really tired. I just hope that we'll be able to meet and teach her again soon.