I swear it rains every day in Japan! Actually I'm pretty sure this week it did rain every day! On one of the day's the wind was blowing so hard we were struggling to ride at a snail pace into it and we had to go for like 5 Kms into the wind to get to the apartment!!! I want Australian weather back! "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got till its gone!" But still Japan is amazing! So much fun! Every day is completely different from the one before after we leave the apartment.
On Tuesday we had zone conference, i really wasn't looking forward to it, i thought it was going to be a wasted day. I was thinking about how we could be down in Tateyama teaching Takashi, finding new investigators and preparing the Takanashi's for going to the temple instead of wasting our time with a bunch of other missionaries but oh how wrong I was! I received so much inspiration for our investigators! And it really humbled me to see I don't know everything, God knows what is going to benefit his work and I just need to do my best to allow him to work through me. For the the entire zone conference. I could feel the spirit so strongly I felt like I was going to burst. My heart was swelling to the point that it felt like my ribs were getting pushed out. I was at the point of bursting into tears all day. Not because I was sad, but because there was this joy and happiness inside me my physical body could not contain.this incredible experience to me was a small taste of eternal life and the joy we will receive.
On Wednesday..... Yeah Wednesday..... Hmmm.... It rained and rained and rained and when it was finished raining it rained some more..... Welcome to Japan! Haha. The roads turned into rivers I turned into a sponge! When we were riding I slammed my brakes on and skidded my bike sideways for like at least 6 meters! The path was so slippery!!! And so fun!!!! We made cookies for the Kurihara family! Taught them a lesson and as usual the wife grabs all this food out of the cupboards and gives it to us to eat then when we leave gives us more food to take with us! She is incredibly nice!!! She is incredible! Then at English class we had a good lesson before and an awesome lesson afterwards to a less active. The less active is so cool! He swims 1 km every day in less than 30 mins just for exercise.
The Shimaitachi (sisters) had a bit of a rough day on Wednesday.... They both crashed their bikes! Hirschi Shimai crashed it going up a curb sideways.... She tried to go up the curb while riding parallel with it and went flying! Sister Richards tried to ride up a metal ramp someone had on the curb for the base of their driveway and cause it was raining she slipped and has done something to her leg we are hoping it's just really bad bruising and swelling cause it's insane how much it's swollen and how much it has bruised!!! Not to mention they both had one popped tyre each this week. They weren't having a good week for bike riding this week hahaha.
The half American girls made me bracelets!!! They are so cool! They are adorable!!! One of the types of bracelets they gave me were the same ones Tabitha used to make for me and I nearly cried! I've become so much more emotional on my mission haha. We met this really cool guy at Tateyama, he is studying English so he is now going to the English class in Tokyo cause that's where he lives and gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so excited about it! So hopefully he reads it and we can meet up with him some time! He comes to our area on weekends! On the way home we ran into one of the sisters investigators so had an hour long train ride back to Kisarazu with her. She hasn't been able to come to church yet but when we were teaching her on the train she figured out she can make it to the next three Sunday's!!! And probably a few after that! Cause she works on Sunday she couldn't come but now she can! That was a miracle, if we didn't meet her on that train at that time she wouldn't of known that church is from 10-1 and that she could make it!!!! So yay!!!
On Sunday she came to church! It was such a great miracle! The sisters shared a scripture with her and she felt the spirit so strong and broke into tears! I think this is going to be the turning point in her conversion! :,) all the little miracles add up! There is no coincidences! Us meeting her on the train wasn't a coincidence the sisters sharing that particular scripture wasn't a coincidence her being able to come to church wasn't a coincidence!
On Friday I went on splits with elder Hebert. We taught an investigator who comes to church nearly every week and has a speech problem. He is awesome! He really reminds me of some of the people dad used to work with. He was so great to teach, he is like a spiritual thermometer, if he is feeling the spirit you can see it irradiating from him, in his smile and in everything :). At the end of the lesson we got him to pray and even though it took him over a minute to say "ai suru ten otosama, Kono hi ni kanshashimasu" and the prayer probably went 7 minutes and there was only a few sentences in it. It was a spiritual highlight of my week! When he was praying I could feel gods love for everyone! I felt gods love for him and knew for a surety that God loves every single one of his children. This was a great testimony builder and an amazing experience!
Saturday was sushi day! Today we went out with the kurihara family for lunch and had sushi! It's official I hate sushi!!!! They spent over $150 on lunch! All of the sushi didn't even taste like fish! Well it did a bit but it all had some sort of sauce in it that was disgusting! I ate like half of everything then the gag reflexs started happening!!!! I was like trying so hard to just eat it and keep it down! I can eat Australian sushi and sushi from Malaysia but japanese sushi is completely different!!! I had to eat everything otherwise it is sooo super duper impolite! After that we went to tateyama with Meyasaki kyodai. On the way there I got in the car and fell asleep instantly! I was so tired! On the way back I was awake and it was very scary! He can not drive in a straight line! He was all over the road and i thought we were going to die no exaggeration!
We also had thanksgiving this week.... I don't understand American holidays so I decided I would just try and make as many people say thank you as possible so I brought sister hirschi her favorite drink and slipped it in her purse with out her knowing . I also made everyone hot chocolates. And done everything I could to help everyone I saw so they would say thank you.... It actually made it a really fun day... But really I don't understand thanksgiving #aussieproblems the other elders brought KFC for dinner. I didn't want KFC cause I always feel terrible after eating that much oil!
On Sunday we had 11 investigators at church! 11 that is massive! Especially when there is usually only like 25 members!!! Then after church we done some fishing dendo! Haha yeah I did! I found this place where there are heaps of fishermen so I learnt how to say is anything biting? Caught anything? What are you aiming for? Have you fished here before? Where do you normally fish? What do you normally catch there? hahahaha and we found 2 potential investigators! We taught them the atonement and about Christmas's true meaning and invited them to English class cause they are really keen to learn English! But being around all the fishermen and smelling the ocean made me feel way trunky (trunky- a term used to describe wanting to pack your bags)hahahah :) who knew that fishing would be a good finding tool? Haha
I was talking with my companion, and the church that was started after Joseph smiths death which his son became the prophet of. Yeah well.... Thier prophet just got baptized into our church apparently.....
It was a great week :) hope everyone is well and enjoying life! And if your not.... Come to Japan it's fun not having a clue what people are saying and not being able to read any of the signs or even be able to go shopping and know what your buying, it's really just a game of pictionary haha. It's weird going to do a basic task like shopping and you get the checkout they say do you want a bag or do you have a discount card and you have no idea what is going on and are just like mmhm mmhm just keep nodding your head hahaha.
Love you all and hope you are all well :)
愛してるよ
On Tuesday we had zone conference, i really wasn't looking forward to it, i thought it was going to be a wasted day. I was thinking about how we could be down in Tateyama teaching Takashi, finding new investigators and preparing the Takanashi's for going to the temple instead of wasting our time with a bunch of other missionaries but oh how wrong I was! I received so much inspiration for our investigators! And it really humbled me to see I don't know everything, God knows what is going to benefit his work and I just need to do my best to allow him to work through me. For the the entire zone conference. I could feel the spirit so strongly I felt like I was going to burst. My heart was swelling to the point that it felt like my ribs were getting pushed out. I was at the point of bursting into tears all day. Not because I was sad, but because there was this joy and happiness inside me my physical body could not contain.this incredible experience to me was a small taste of eternal life and the joy we will receive.
On Wednesday..... Yeah Wednesday..... Hmmm.... It rained and rained and rained and when it was finished raining it rained some more..... Welcome to Japan! Haha. The roads turned into rivers I turned into a sponge! When we were riding I slammed my brakes on and skidded my bike sideways for like at least 6 meters! The path was so slippery!!! And so fun!!!! We made cookies for the Kurihara family! Taught them a lesson and as usual the wife grabs all this food out of the cupboards and gives it to us to eat then when we leave gives us more food to take with us! She is incredibly nice!!! She is incredible! Then at English class we had a good lesson before and an awesome lesson afterwards to a less active. The less active is so cool! He swims 1 km every day in less than 30 mins just for exercise.
The Shimaitachi (sisters) had a bit of a rough day on Wednesday.... They both crashed their bikes! Hirschi Shimai crashed it going up a curb sideways.... She tried to go up the curb while riding parallel with it and went flying! Sister Richards tried to ride up a metal ramp someone had on the curb for the base of their driveway and cause it was raining she slipped and has done something to her leg we are hoping it's just really bad bruising and swelling cause it's insane how much it's swollen and how much it has bruised!!! Not to mention they both had one popped tyre each this week. They weren't having a good week for bike riding this week hahaha.
The half American girls made me bracelets!!! They are so cool! They are adorable!!! One of the types of bracelets they gave me were the same ones Tabitha used to make for me and I nearly cried! I've become so much more emotional on my mission haha. We met this really cool guy at Tateyama, he is studying English so he is now going to the English class in Tokyo cause that's where he lives and gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so excited about it! So hopefully he reads it and we can meet up with him some time! He comes to our area on weekends! On the way home we ran into one of the sisters investigators so had an hour long train ride back to Kisarazu with her. She hasn't been able to come to church yet but when we were teaching her on the train she figured out she can make it to the next three Sunday's!!! And probably a few after that! Cause she works on Sunday she couldn't come but now she can! That was a miracle, if we didn't meet her on that train at that time she wouldn't of known that church is from 10-1 and that she could make it!!!! So yay!!!
On Sunday she came to church! It was such a great miracle! The sisters shared a scripture with her and she felt the spirit so strong and broke into tears! I think this is going to be the turning point in her conversion! :,) all the little miracles add up! There is no coincidences! Us meeting her on the train wasn't a coincidence the sisters sharing that particular scripture wasn't a coincidence her being able to come to church wasn't a coincidence!
On Friday I went on splits with elder Hebert. We taught an investigator who comes to church nearly every week and has a speech problem. He is awesome! He really reminds me of some of the people dad used to work with. He was so great to teach, he is like a spiritual thermometer, if he is feeling the spirit you can see it irradiating from him, in his smile and in everything :). At the end of the lesson we got him to pray and even though it took him over a minute to say "ai suru ten otosama, Kono hi ni kanshashimasu" and the prayer probably went 7 minutes and there was only a few sentences in it. It was a spiritual highlight of my week! When he was praying I could feel gods love for everyone! I felt gods love for him and knew for a surety that God loves every single one of his children. This was a great testimony builder and an amazing experience!
Saturday was sushi day! Today we went out with the kurihara family for lunch and had sushi! It's official I hate sushi!!!! They spent over $150 on lunch! All of the sushi didn't even taste like fish! Well it did a bit but it all had some sort of sauce in it that was disgusting! I ate like half of everything then the gag reflexs started happening!!!! I was like trying so hard to just eat it and keep it down! I can eat Australian sushi and sushi from Malaysia but japanese sushi is completely different!!! I had to eat everything otherwise it is sooo super duper impolite! After that we went to tateyama with Meyasaki kyodai. On the way there I got in the car and fell asleep instantly! I was so tired! On the way back I was awake and it was very scary! He can not drive in a straight line! He was all over the road and i thought we were going to die no exaggeration!
We also had thanksgiving this week.... I don't understand American holidays so I decided I would just try and make as many people say thank you as possible so I brought sister hirschi her favorite drink and slipped it in her purse with out her knowing . I also made everyone hot chocolates. And done everything I could to help everyone I saw so they would say thank you.... It actually made it a really fun day... But really I don't understand thanksgiving #aussieproblems the other elders brought KFC for dinner. I didn't want KFC cause I always feel terrible after eating that much oil!
On Sunday we had 11 investigators at church! 11 that is massive! Especially when there is usually only like 25 members!!! Then after church we done some fishing dendo! Haha yeah I did! I found this place where there are heaps of fishermen so I learnt how to say is anything biting? Caught anything? What are you aiming for? Have you fished here before? Where do you normally fish? What do you normally catch there? hahahaha and we found 2 potential investigators! We taught them the atonement and about Christmas's true meaning and invited them to English class cause they are really keen to learn English! But being around all the fishermen and smelling the ocean made me feel way trunky (trunky- a term used to describe wanting to pack your bags)hahahah :) who knew that fishing would be a good finding tool? Haha
I was talking with my companion, and the church that was started after Joseph smiths death which his son became the prophet of. Yeah well.... Thier prophet just got baptized into our church apparently.....
It was a great week :) hope everyone is well and enjoying life! And if your not.... Come to Japan it's fun not having a clue what people are saying and not being able to read any of the signs or even be able to go shopping and know what your buying, it's really just a game of pictionary haha. It's weird going to do a basic task like shopping and you get the checkout they say do you want a bag or do you have a discount card and you have no idea what is going on and are just like mmhm mmhm just keep nodding your head hahaha.
Love you all and hope you are all well :)
愛してるよ