Awesome Week!!!

So this week was super awesome!  We did "bean" dendo (work) in Fukuoka on Wednesday.  SO MUCH FUN!!!  My bean was absolutely the cutest!  I LOVE her!  She was a natural.

Baba san came to church yesterday, and she was able to stay for the whole thing!  Then after church, we had a great lesson with her.  We went over baptism some more and went over the baptismal interview questions.  She did SO GOOD!!!  I really, really think she will be getting baptized on April 18th (What a cool birthday gift for Lacee!!).  I cannot wait!  She is so great!  We also have 3 more appointments scheduled for this week, so that will be way cool!

We also met with one of the new investigators that we found!  She came to her return appointment which is a miracle in and of itself!  But then we had a way good lesson with her!  She asked a bunch of questions, and she was just super cool about everything.  She was going to come to church yesterday, but something came up last minute so she couldn't.  But she said she's coming to Eikaiwa (English class) this week, so we'll see her there and hopefully be able to set up another appointment!

Then Wednesday we have another appointment with a girl we found when we were streeting.  She was super cool, and I really have hope that she will show up to her return appointment.

We also had a couple of less active members at church on Sunday.  So things have been going really good!  The weather is also starting to warm up, and the sakura (cherry blossoms) are SUPER beautiful!  They're everywhere!

Hirata Shimai and I are doing super awesome.  Everything is just going great.  I love it!  Missions are the best!
Love you all!
Have a great week!

Sakura (Cherry Blossoms)

Fujisaki...Take 5

Well, we got our calls.  I am staying in Fujisaki....again. 

This week was pretty cool.  Baba san has a baptismal date!!! Yay!  I hope she can make it this time.  She just needs to stay healthy.

We also found a few new investigators that are looking pretty good.  We had a lesson with one of them yesterday.  She is the Chinese lady we met, so we taught her in English!!  Woot!  She is super awesome!  She has lots of questions and really wants to know the truth.  I am jus super excited about her!

We also met another girl that hopefully we will be able to meet with next week.

On the light side, I FINALLY found a basketball hoop!  It's kind of far away, but it's the only one in a public place in all of Fukuoka I'm pretty sure!  So I went and played for a while today.  The first time in a really really long time.  It was superbly fun!!!

I LOVE the people of Japan!

Taikai

Well, this week was pretty good.  We had Zone Taikai (meeting)!  Yay!  I got to see all my doki/friends!  I also passed off my Lesson Mastery, so I am now the proud owner/wearer of the coveted Lesson Mastery pin!!!  Woot woot!  I had to miss the first part of Taikai, though, because the mission nurse made me go back to the hospital to get more antibiotics.  I still wasn't better and I had finished the antibiotics.  so we went back to the hospital, to the same doctor.  They can't just give you more medicine.  You have to go see a doctor again, so I walked in and he asked how my throat was.  Man, I told him like three times before that my throat didn't hurt.  So I told him again that my throat didn't hurt, but my face, ears, and nose hurt.  So he looked in my nose and ears and stuff and was like, yup, still infected.  I was also terrified the man was going to shove tubes up my nose again.  Luckily that did not happen!  :)  So I just asked him to give me more medicine.  So he prescribed it and ... blah, blah, blah...Basically it took forever, though, so we were late for Taikai.  So we kind of sneak in, and I just grabbed a chair and sat in the back.  Kaicho (President Gustafson) was talking but after I sat down, he stopped and said, "Let's make some room so Sister Babcock can sit at the table."  SO embarrassing!  So then everyone is staring at me and instead of making room for me where I was, they made room WAY on the other side of the room!  I had to pick up all my stuff and my chair and tried not to trip and fall in front of everyone!  But then Taikai was super good!  I LOVE Kaicho!  He is seriously amazing!  I learned so much.  It's also always super great to see my friends too!  Merrill Choro, Willis Choro, Jameson Choro, Kuchar Shimai, and I all got our Lesson Mastery finished!  That was super awesome!

Shimai Gustafson came and apologized to me that Kaicho had yelled at me last week.  She is seriously an angel!  She is amazing.  I just adore her.  But I told her that I probably loved Kaicho even more after he got mad at me...haha!  She felt so bad.

Also this week, we had 2 people at church!  Yay!  It was definitely a miracle!  Baba san, true to her word, was there!  Then an Eikaiwa (English class) student came too!  We have a lesson with Baba san on Thursday, so I am super excited for that!  Hopefully, we'll be able to set another baptismal date for her!  The less active sister I told you about was also back at church, so that's super awesome!  I think she's going to be good!  Both our other reactivated people are doing well too. 

We also went on a little adventure this week.  We got sort of lost, and found all these beautiful pond/lake things.  There were like 4 of them!  It was super cool!

I also watched The Testaments in Japanese like 4 times this week.  It's great!  Some of the stuff is funny in Japanese!  We were working in the hail this week!  It HURT!  It was terrible!  It was freezing cold and raining all day, then it just started to hail!  The hailstones weren't all that big, but it hurt!  So that was another adventure this week!

I am super proud of my "bean"!  She is doing really well.  She has a TON of potential.  I really think she's going to be a really, really good missionary.  I have learned so much from her.

Next week is transfers, so I will be emailing on TUESDAY instead of Monday.

I love you all!

Knocking the very last door of a danchi (apartment complex).
I have literally knocked on every single door in this complex!

Proud to  wear our Lesson Mastery pins!

Short and Sweet

Sunday, March 9th

Sorry this is going to be short!  I don't know where all the time went!
This week was pretty weird.  I feel like that happens a lot though, so maybe this week was normal??...

Either way, I found out that I have a sinus infection and an ear infection.  Super fun.  They stuck three really long giant tubes up my nose and jammed them into my sinuses!  It hurt a lot!  But then to make matters worse, they vacuumed (yes...VACUUMED!) out my sinuses.  It was horrible!  They didn't even give me a heads up.  They just shoved things up my nose!  Terrible, but a great story!  It's kinda funny now.  I'm actually kinda laughing about it, but it was not fun at the time!

Then I got in trouble from Kaicho (President) for working when I was sick.  Oooops!  I felt super bad about that.  Really.  I love him and would never ever want to do anything to disappoint him or make him upset.  So, anyways, I had to spend a couple of days inside.  I called a lot of people from the area book, and updated it, and stuff.  It's torture!!!  I think updating the area book is worse than being sick!  Ha!  OK, probably not, it's a great tool, and it's super important to use it and keep it current.

But since Nigh Shimai was still sick and stuck inside for another week, the other three of us have been doing weird splits so that no one gets stuck in the apartment for the whole day.

A couple of miracles, though!  Baba san called!  Guess what?! She was like, "Hey Babcock Shimai, sorry I can't go to church with you this week because I'm going to visit a shrine with my dad, but I'll be at church next week.  But I'm healthy again, so I'll be there!"  (but this conversation was in Japanese!)  But WHAAA???  I was freaking out!  It was like a normal conversation and like she hadn't been sick for the last three months!  So she'll be at church next week for sure.  She ALWAYS keeps her commitments!  I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

The less active sister that we went to Fukuoka with came to church again this week!  I think she's going to keep coming.  She is going to be active again..I know it!

I'm doing good.  The work is awesome!  This Church is true!  I LOVE The Book of Mormon!  That book is amazing, let me tell you!  Everything hinges on it.  And it's true!  I love this work, my mission, the Gospel!  I love you all!  Thanks for everything!  You are all the best!!!

At English classes...
Still got my "boxing out" skills from basketball!
I knew they would come in handy in the real world!

Playing CATCH-UP!

Lacee's mom is slacking!  Actually we were at Spring Training and visiting with family in Phoenix for the past 10 days and the wi-fi connection was incredibly bad, so I decided to just wait until we got home and update all of you!  Thanks for your patience!

Sunday March 2nd

Well, first off, my "bean" has decided to stay.  So that is GOOD!  It's been going pretty good, I think.  We have been working a lot with a less active member.  She loves me.  I don't know why, but she seriously does.  She finally told me what happened that made her stop going to church!  So, we're getting it worked out.  She wanted to talk to Gustafson Shimai (the mission mom) about it, so I got an appointment and we went to Fukuoka with her.  Nigh Shimai and I went along to help translate (because Gustafson Shimai doesn't speak a lot of Japanese).  We ended up not needing to do much translating because another sister that works at the Honbu (mission office) helped, but it was super good!  Gustafson Shimai is one of the most amazing people in the entire world!  She made this less active sister feel SO much better about things, and now they are just getting better and better.  I am pretty sure she will be back to full activity this month!  She told me that she should be able to come to church starting next week, and that she would try to come every week!  I'm way excited!  She's so ready to come back to church!

Also, we did a volunteer activity for a lady in the ward.  It went really well, but the best part was that we met a super awesome Chinese lady!!!  She is way cute and speaks better English than Japanese, so we were speaking in English!  YAY!  She doesn't have really any religious background since she is from China, but she said that she is interested in religion.  Woohoo!  So I told her what we were doing and that we would love to teach her about our church.  And guess what??!!  She said she would love to learn and to meet with us!  She's busy looking for a house and a job right now, but later in the month she said she could meet with us.  We have her phone number and her email address, so it's totally going to happen!  :)

Other than that, I have been kinda sick.  I'm taking like five different kinds of medication right now.  Ya, but that's pretty neat, huh?  I just wear a mask and "dendo" (work) anyway.  Suckin' it up!  The mission nurse is not super excited about that one, but there's not much she can do!  :)

Baba san is slowly getting better, so we hope to meet with her again soon, and she can start coming back to church.  We also have another family that we hope to meet with this week too!

Hopefully we'll be able to find some of those prepared people who are just waiting to hear the Gospel!  I love Japan!  I love the Gospel!  I love this work!  Have a great week!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Sick sisters and their meds!