18 Months in the Land of the Rising Sun: Happy Independence Day!

Hey!

Happy 4th of July!

So this week was pretty good! We weren't able to have a lesson with Ling this week because she got really busy, but we'll have one this week.

The lady we found housing wasn't interested. We went back and taught a little lesson about families and the Book of Mormon, but she said she wasn't interested and please don't come back. But it was still good. Planting seeds! :)

Other than that, we went on our first junkai this week. It was way good! The sister I went with is 10 years older than me, Japanese, and doesn't speak English, so I was a little bit scared! But it turned out being really good. We were able to go visit a couple members and just dendo. She opened up to me and told me a lot of stuff. So that was good too. We can try to help people if we know what the problem is! But both that sister and her companion are Japanese and don't speak any English, so we went to visit an American family in their ward because I can talk to them. :) It was SO fun! It was weird to speak English to members! But it was super fun! I just chatted with them and got to know them a little bit. They don't speak any Japanese, so it was funny. I was translating for them and my Japanese companion. So the Japanese sister shared a message and bore her testimony, and I translated it for the family. It was a really neat experience! So the junkai wasn't as bad as I expected! And I learned so much! We're going to Saijo on Friday and Saturday for junkai again, so that should be fun!

What else? Oh a couple weeks ago we got mooned by a little boy. I don't think I wrote about that. It was a little weird. Crazy kids haha

And we found 2 cockroaches in our apartment in 2 days. NOT COOL!!! The first one I saw it and jumped up in my chair. Ew. I HATE cockroaches. Then we found another one in the room we sleep in the next day. We sleep. on. the. floor. We cannot have a cockroach problem. Spiders and other things aren't fun, but cockroaches are NOT acceptable. The second time neither one of us could see because our contacts were out and we didn't have glasses on. So we saw it and we were both freaking out because we can't really see and we don't have anything to kill it with. So Kuchar picked up Kevin (my basketball) and starts just smashing it. There were guts everywhere haha It was disgusting and hilarious. We have also been fighting mosquitoes. They are EVERYWHERE. Our legs are covered in bites. We have both slapped each other in the face killing mosquitoes for each other.

Tuesday was Zone Taikai. It was SUPER good! Kaicho and Shimai and the AP's always do such a great job! We have the BEST Mission President and Mission Mom in the world here in the Japan Fukuoka Mission!!! We have new standards. We are doing really well as a mission right now, but we are trying to get a last push to try to get to the 210 baptisms this year. That was our goal. We're not quite halfway yet, so we're going to give it our all here for the last stretch! It was lots of fun. We got to visit with Kaicho and Shimai and our missionary friends. It's always a good time! Our mission has the highest rate of bike accidents in Japan though. Whoops! So we watched a bike safety video that was a little graphic. Needless to say, we are all now being SUPER safe on our bikes! We had a testimony meeting for the last little bit. It was way neat! The missionaries here are the best. We have so many amazing people in this mission. I feel so lucky and honored to be able to serve with and learn from them!

Kuchar Shimai decided to set a really specific goal about what kind of new investigator we were going to find. The AP's talked about it in Taikai, so we did it. We decided Yasufuruichi needs a young family. A mom, a dad, and a couple little kids. The older kid would be like 9 and probably a little boy. And then a little sister. So we went up to A City all day Saturday. We left and 12 and came back at 9. We just went up there and dendoed the entire day. We knew we were going to find this family! So we talked to a TON of people and found a couple of families that fit our description, but they weren't interested. By the end of the day, when we had walked in our door at 8:59, we had found nobody. Not one person was really interested. I admit I was frustrated. We had made a good, specific plan, had expectations, and a TON of faith, but we didn't get anything out of it. But we did. We were able to actually talk and share our message with lots of people. Usually people just kekko us and don't listen, but a LOT of people listened. So it was a good day. And we didn't have any regrets. Zero disappointment in ourselves because we literally did all we could do. Like it says in PMG, you might be disappointed because people don't listen, but you won't be disappointed in yourself. That's what we felt. We did what we could, and we were planting seeds, and preparing those people for a later harvest! :)

This morning our water heater was broken. We showered in freezing cold water. Haha it's always an adventure! The things we do to be clean! Kuchar said it was like repentance. Being clean is worth the pain! :)

Anyways, it was a great week! Love you all lots! This Church is true!!!

Babcock Shimai