A Visit to Miyajima

So Kuchar Shimai and I went to Miyajima last Monday.  BEST. DAY. EVER.  It was SO fun!!!  It was awesome!  We had to ride a train for like forever and then get on the ferry to get out there, but it was so cool.  We spent like the whole day there.  It was so cool.  We went and hiked around, pet and hugged some tick infested deer (it's fine, we are both still tick free!), saw some of the other missionaries who were there at the same time.  We met the Zone Leaders from the other zone, and then we met up with the Takasu Elders and the Hatsukaichi Sisters.  So much fun.  They are just a good bunch of missionaries.  Kuchar Shimai and I just went and saw all the stuff we wanted to see, and then met up with the others.  I seriously took hundreds of pictures, I think.  So cool!  Today we're going to the Peace Park.

In other news from the week, Ling san (our Chinese investigator...in Chinese it's Ling, Rin is the Japanese pronunciation) is doing SUPER good!  I LOVE her!  She is so cute!  We had another lesson with her on Wednesday.  She gave us a bit of a scare.  We went in and started talking to her, and she was like, "I don't really know if I can do this."  She was kind of beating around the bush, but eventually she said she could study what we were teaching but she couldn't do it for real.  We were SO sad.  But I felt like I needed to ask her exactly what she meant.  So I did.  She told us she couldn't be like us...a missionary!  What a relief!  So we explained to her that she didn't have to and told her that some of the people she had already met were members and they are just normal people doing normal things.  After that we all kind of laughed, and continued with the lesson.  So she's good now.  We talked a lot about The Book of Mormon.  She's praying and reading The Book of Mormon right now.  She is SUPER busy!  But she came to a branch activity on Friday night.  She had a ton of fun and met a bunch of the members.  She was swapping phone numbers with people and they were planning things to do together.  The branch just fellowshipped her SO well.  I was SO excited!  She already loves the members and fits right in.  We are planning to take her to Takasu sometime to show her a regular chapel and so we can show her the baptismal font.  We're pretty excited.  I just LOVE her though!  She is adorable.  We all get along really well, so it makes teaching better.

Other than that, we found another girl who seemed really golden, but then she got sick and the appointment fell through, but we're hoping we will be able to meet with her sometime soon.  We still have her phone number and stuff, so we'll be in contact with her.  The branch is super great!  I love them!  We have a ton of support from the members.  They are so cute.  They want to be a ward and get a "real" chapel built here.  I am so in for that!

We met with a less active sister.  Her name is A.  She is 15 and super cute.  She got baptized a few years ago, but she was the only one in her family that did.  Her family didn't get baptized with her.  She is way cute and we're going to try to get her reactivated.  She is super strong I think.  I think it's hard because she doesn't really have support from her family.  They are not against the Church, but they just don't really care, so they are just not supportive.  But we got to know her a little bit, and she might come to Eikaiwa (English class).  That would be good.  There are a couple of girls from the branch that come to Eikaiwa every week, so it would be good if they could be her friends. 

Other than that, it's been kind of rainy, and hot.  I'm getting tan!  I am going to have an awesome watch tan line by the end of the summer!  It's already looking pretty good!  And because of all the mountains here, maybe I'll get skinny!  :)

Love you all!  Have a great week!  Next week it will already be JUNE!!  Time is FLYING!!!

Miyajima floating gate

 

Petting the deer at Miyajima

MTC friends:  Kuchar, Babcock, & Nagamine Shimaitachi

Miyajima

First week in Yasufuruichi

This week was CRAZY!!!  What a great week!  Kuchar Shimai and I are just having a blast!  We are having so much fun and still getting stuff done!  We saw a couple of sweet miracles this week!  So we are going to a place called A City.  It is like 12 miles away up a HUGE hill.  It's this super long hill.  It's probably like 2 miles long.  It is BRUTAL!  I am literally going to look like Lance Armstrong when I get home!  It's great!  There are lots of hills here, so maybe I'll get skinny!  :)  But anyways, Kaicho (President) wants us to work a lot in A City because there are a lot of families there.  We went up there 3 times this week.  So, of course, the place we need to focus on would be up a giant hill (more like a mountain, really!)...But on the way up there, we met a lady and talked to her.  She is friends with a member of our branch who also lives in A City.  She didn't seem super interested but we got a call from the member the next day.  She told us that her friend had called to tell her that she had met us, and we could have a lesson at the member's house the next day.  So we went over the next day and had a lesson with the member, the lady, and a less active member.  It was crazy!  I don't know if the lady is really interested but we will probably be able to meet with her again sometime.


But the really awesome thing happed at Eikaiwa (our English class) on Wednesday.  So, a new student came for the first time.  Her name is Rin san.  She is going to school here, but she is actually Chinese.  She is 23 and just SO cute!  We asked her after Eikaiwa if we could talk to her about our church.  She said, "yes".  Just like that!  So, we are like...great!  Can you meet with us sometime this week?  She thought about it for a minute and said, "Today.  How about right now?" Aaaaahhhh!!!  We were SO happy!  We went into a room in the church, and taught her the entire first lesson.  It was great!  She is fluent in Japanese, so we were able to teach her in Japanese, but get this...Kuchar Shimai just happened to have a copy of The Book of Mormon in Chinese!!!  She said she would start reading it!  She prayed at the end of the lesson.  It was SO CRAZY!  What a miracle, right?  Wow!  We're going to meet with her again before Eikaiwa this week and a girl from the branch is going to join us!  I am so excited!  She is great!  She is just nice and normal!  She says she really wants to know the truth!  It was just so amazing!

Other than that, it was just a normal week of dendo (work).  We went and visited some people.  We are getting to know the members of the branch and our area.

We had ZTM (zone training meeting).  I got to see some old friends!  Nagamine Shimai (from her district at the MTC), Kuroki Shimai (a previous companion), and Wood Choro (and Lacee's mom can't remember where she knew him...maybe the MTC...I'm just getting old and forgetful!).  And I made some new friends.  I love this zone!  They had just split the zone here, too, so our zone is small now, but the missionaries are the best ever! So many funny people!  :)  I LOVE Hiroshima!  I am just so happy I could pop!  It is so great here!  I am excited to see more miracles and bring more people to Christ!

Thanks for all your prayers and love!  You're the best!

Yasufuruichi

Being photo-bombed!  Babcock Shimai, Nagamine Shimai, Kuchar Shimai

Yasufuruichi!

Alrighty!  Well, we made it to our new area.  It's already been an adventure, for sure!  Saying good-bye to everyone in Fujisaki was really hard.  There are so many great people there!  But I already LOVE Yasufuruichi, too!  Kuchar Shimai and I rode the bus for like 4 hours or so to Hiroshima City.  The ride on the Shinkansen (bullet train) is only like an hour.  But the bus is less expensive, so...the bus it was!  But it was super fun because Kuchar and I got to catch up.  We literally talked the whole bus ride, I think.  PLUS...driving through beautiful Japan was fun too!

Our travel plans were a little different, so actually getting to Yasufuruichi was a little bit of an adventure.  We had no phone, a TON of luggage and stuff, and different instructions.  When we got to the Hiroshima Station, we got off, but then we didn't know exactly where we were supposed to go.  We got on the trolley thingy and went where we thought we were supposed to go.  At that point, all bets were off!  :)  When we got to the other station, we really didn't know.  Our instructions were different from each other's, so we did the only thing we could think of....make an educated decision, pray about it, and get on a train!  We ended up getting here all in one piece and without getting really lost....go us!!!

Now Yasufuruichi...It's great!  We have a branch, not a ward.  On Sunday, there were maybe 40 people there, including 6 missionaries!  But the people are great!  The Shibu Kaicho (Branch President) is the coolest!  He is truly amazing!  The church is a renovated apartment above a mechanic's shop.  It is way cool.  The door says (in English) House of the Lord.  I love it!  It's been the church here for 30 years.  There haven't been sister missionaries in this area for more than 5 years, at least that's what most people are saying.  So everyone is super excited to have us here!  And 6 missionaries in this area is the most they have ever had.

We've already met lots of nice people.  We met a funny less-active member lady.  We went to her house, and she showed us probably a hundred kimonos.  It was so funny.  She would run upstairs to get another kimono and we would have to stand up and stretch because our knees and legs hurt from kneeling so long.  Ha!  It was funny!

But best of all, this week I got to talk to my family!!!!  Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  Thanks for being the best mom in the whole wide world!!  I love you, and it was SO great talking to you!!!  Best. Day. Ever. [and mom agrees...it was WONDERFUL to hear her voice and her laugh, and her Japanese sounds amazing!]

Things are going super great here.  I love the elders, too.  We all get along really well, and we all have the same vision for our area.  All the elders are way cool, and it has been super fun to work with them already. 

I LOVE Kuchar Shimai!  We have so much fun.  This is going to be hard, starting from scratch, but we're having fun and we will just work our tails off!!!

Love you all and hope you have a GREAT week!

Door to our Church

The District Leaders using chopsticks they made from a tree branch!

Yasufuruichi

Fruit is super expensive... a $30 mango!

The Americans Are Coming!

Well, I am TRANSFERRING!!! I am going to Hiroshima!  I will be opening an area that is new to sister missionaries!  It's an area called Yasufuruichi.  And you will never guess with whom.....KUCHAR SHIMAI!!!!  AAAAHHHH!!!! I am SO excited! [For those of you who may not recognize the name, Kuchar Shimai was Lacee's roomie, but not her companion, in the MTC and in Okinawa.  She was also in Lacee's zone in Fukuoka until they split the zone.  She is a sister that Lacee loves dearly!]  I think it will be an adventure, especially with Kuchar Shimai!  It will probably also be just the two of us.  So, I will finally get to experience  two-woman living.  It has always been four or five of us in an apartment.  BUT...because of that I don't know about the call for Mother's Day yet.  We don't have a phone yet or know when Church is or anything like that.  (I don't know when I will be able to let you know, Mom, but I PROMISE I'll get it figured out as soon as possible and send you an email!)

Other than that, this week was really good!  We had a fun BBQ with the ward.  This ward is so much fun!  I am going to miss them all SO much!

Also we just got back from this Fire House here.  It was awesome!  We got to put out this fake fire thing and experience high speed winds, and go through all this smoke stuff, but the coolest thing was we got to experience what a 7.0 magnitude earthquake felt like.  It was INSANE!!  I can't even imagine how scary that would be for real!  And the 3/11 earthquake here in Japan was a 9.0!!!  Seriously I can't even imagine that!  But it was a cool experience.

Other than that, this was just kind of a normal week.  I am sorry this is short, but I don't have much time since our calls came late.  I am excited to go to Yasufuruichi!  It will be a great new adventure!

Lots of love from Fujisaki!