First week in Nagano (Week 56)

Hey everyone!  Hello from Nagano!!

Michelle's new companion Sister Mikami from Aomori, Japan

First off, Nagano only has one computer for us to use, so I don't have a lot of time today..... So, here's just a couple important details!

My new area, Nagano is great!  It's not nearly as rural or mountainous as I was expecting, though!  It's definitely not Nagoya, but there's a lot of buildings and stores, and it's a good sized city.  The mountains are big and beautiful, but not as close as in Shizuoka.  It's definitely not like any other place I've been before!

Finding here is kind of hard....I mean, harder than other areas I've been in.  There's not very many people on the streets around where we live.....especially not at night!  All of my other areas have had streets that are pretty good, pretty close to the apartment, so this will definitely take getting used to!  To prove my point that finding is hard here......the pile of former investigator records in the area book is about half the size of the former investigator records in Meito and Shizuoka.  And that's including FIs from.....10+ years ago.

But that's definitely not going to deter me, because I promised President Yamashita and a member in my last stake (Sister Chikano....she's come to do training for the mission a few times, and she baptized over 100 people on her mission!) that we would have a baptism in Nagano! (:

So, if nothing else, please pray that we will be able to find people here in Nagano who are ready to be baptized and will strengthen the branch!! 

Nagano is also 3 hours away from Nagoya on the express train, and 6 hours on the normal train.  So, I truly feel like I've been banished to the middle of nowhere, haha.

It's way fun, since I've been close to the honbu for a good chunk of my mission (:

Anyways, I'm out of time!

Love you!!

Sister Michelle Papenfuss