Konnichiwa, kazoku!
Where has August even gone?!? I swear this past month has flown by. Sorry I am not the best with replying specifically to all the details of your letter - just know that I love hearing about everything you are doing - your week sounds like it was great!
Yes, the main change for us this transfer was that our previous district leader became our zone leader, our new district leader was his companion so we already know him pretty well. And his new companion is Elder Tolman, who is on his 3rd transfer, so we overlapped in the MTC for about 3 weeks.
Alright, I just have a bunch of random thoughts to fire at you, so bear with me please ;D
1. Funny Japanese mistakes - sometimes when you try to speak Japanese, you make some really interesting mistakes. Here are a few that I have made in the past few weeks: I was telling a ward member that my cousin would be moving to Miyazaki, but instead of saying `Watashi no itoko` (my cousin) I accidently said `Watashi no otoko` (my man) - they started laughing pretty hard, and suffice it to say, I will always remember the difference between those two words from now on!
Next story - We went to visit a less active member but she wasn`t there, so when that happens we always leave a little note saying we are sorry to have missed them and we will come by again. I got the lucky assignment to write the whole note. It took a little while but I was pleased with the overall note once I was done. My companion looked over it to make sure it was correct and such then she burst out laughing at one point - which worried me a smidge. Instead of saying `Aitta kata`(we wanted to see you) I had accidently written `itta kata` (it hurt). Jaa, fun Japanese adventures. Dont you fret - I will continue to work on those!
2. Ironic food story - I have come to the realization that I am fairly fearless when it comes to trying food that is well... unique to my taste buds (aka random octopus, varying kinds of sushi, raw eggs, etc) but the one fear I have not yet conquered is, yes, that is right - shrimp. But let me defend myself - that is mostly because here when you are offered shrimp, oftentimes it looks nothing like it does in America. It has a million little legs/tentacle things and beady little eyes, that tend to stare into your soul a little. I just can`t bring myself to eat it. Mostly it is the eyes that get me.
3. It rained all day yesterday, it is raining a ton right now, and apparently will continue to rain a lot all week because...da da da... it is a beautiful typhoon rollin on in! Miyazaki just is getting the rain from the typhoon, whereas some of our other areas nearby are taking the beating. Taniyama, where our zone leaders are, had church cancelled yesterday because it was so windy, rainy, stormy, and dangerous to even be outside of their apartments. Crazy! Good thing I love rain - and have an awesome rain suit!
4. I made banana bread last week. And baking powder biscuits. It was quite an exciting accomplishment. That is all.
5. There is a family in our ward who has 5 adorable children. Seriously, their youngest daughter is the cutest child I have ever seen in my entire life. They made Suzuki shimai and I a photo album with pictures of us with them and other ward members in Miyazaki and they gave it to us in case we were getting transferred - then when we discovered we were not transferring, they told us to keep it and continue to put Miyazaki pictures inside. It makes me so happy :D AND Yuiko shimai gave me the yukatta (kimono ish dress) that I wore when we went to the summer festival fireworks - SO NICE.
6. Last random thought - we have a skype meeting with all of the missionaries in our zone and our district president every fastsunday after church, and it is awesome. Well I guess I should technically call it a google hangout meeting, because that is what it is. Our district president is awesome - super genki and excited about missionary work so we are always able to learn a lot from those.
Okay, now that I have all the random stuff outta the way - the important news of the week! N-chan is the greatest. I love her! I also love that we are able to see her grow every week. This is such a wonderful opportunity that we have! Her parents are still pretty iffy on giving permission for her to be baptized, but we are having dinner with them this week with another family too so hopefully we will be able to explain a few things a little bit better. We will see how it goes. We were also able to teach Ori-san this week (the super sweet grandmother lady that I have mentioned before) and it was great to be able to teach her, but she is still right in the middle of all the Buddhist funeral rites for her husband who recently passed away, so she is not super interested in meeting with us very often right now.
Surprise of all surprises - this week was pretty rough for me in the sense of feeling a little on the hopeless side with Japanese. Ha, I know you haven:t heard that one before! But really, I had a few days that were REALLY hard. It is easy to get really down on myself for different things that I feel like I should know, or should have done. I know that everything happens for a reason though, and that the Lord really is there to guide us through. He is always there to reach a hand out and lift us up. I have definitely seen that in the past few months, but last week especially. I guess one thing I am really having a hard time with right now is confidence in myself and my missionary and Japanese abilities. I am trying to work on it everyday, and slowly I am sure things are improving but it is pretty hard. Mom and dad - funny thing it just made me think of. Remember when I was like 6 yrs old ish and I worried about everything, so you gave me a worry stone to rub? That is totally how I feel right now. I just keep stressing about everything and I guess I just need to remember that worry stone! Yeah, so sorry about the debbie downer ness of that, but things really are better now. Last week was a little hard with that, but things are improving. Slowly but surely, we are plugging along.
Last thought (truly, this time) - I have a hymn that I love. It is `I have work enough to do` - the lyrics are awesome! One of our MTC senseis told us about it, and to tell you the truth before he mentioned it I really did not even know the song. But it is awesome - it has become a total favorite of mine. That is one thing that really helps me when things get discouraging; I find it quite calming to pray, then read through lyrics of hymns and reading through scriptures. I am always discovering things that apply exactly to what I need to hear at that moment, which is an incredible testimony of Heavenly Father:s love. Anyway, I highly recommend looking through the lyrics of that song this week - I promise you will not be sorry! Anywho, sorry for the abruptness/randomness of the letter and such, but I hope you know that I love you all, I know this church is true, I love Japan, and I love this missionary opportunity (even though it is hard, it is also so rewarding) :D
Ai shite imasu!
-Flake Shimai
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