Thank you for your fun-filled letter! It really has been a wonderful week. I honestly can't even tell you, though, how scared I am to go back home and not be able to speak English and be filled with culture shock - I've received a few emails from my freshman friends that have gotten home in the last few months and said the same. Glad to know that will be normal :) As long as we're on that topic - our mission is really going to be taking a hit the transfer I go home and the transfer right after. There are a lot of elders and sisters in those december and january groups. Our mission is officially huge. There are roughly 250 missionaries - they keep splitting zones so we now have 11. New areas are being created all of the time. Transfer news - haven't gotten the call yet (probably will in a few hours) but Willes shimai is going to be training up a little bean! She is opening an area for sisters - Beppu, which is down by Kumamoto but off on the coast. We are pretty sad that we won't be companions anymore, but this is going to be an awesome opportunity. Beppu is the only other place in our mission that is really similar to Saijo. It wasn't even an elder area when we first came to the mission. It is a little group - only a handful of members, not even a branch yet, and it is next to a big international university. I really am so excited for her and excited to be staying here in Saijo, but I am sad to see her go. I'll find out in a bit who my next companion will be - stay tuned for next week!
Our week was great - but had some interesting moments to be sure. We received the call from the APs on Friday that Willes would be training (they call if you have never trained before) so she had to head down to Fukuoka on monday. Crazy part was this - They normally take the shinkanzen (bullet train) for meetings like that, about a 2 hour train ride, but they decided to have her take the bus instead so she had to leave Sunday afternoon - take a 45 minute train into Hiroshima, city tram to the bus station, then 4 1/2 hour bus ride to fukuoka and stayed the night in my old apartment. I basically went on splits with the other sisters here for a day and a half. Fun times!
Biggest miracle of the week - we taught Tomikosan the law of tithing, with a Japanese member, and it went really well. She has been worried about money since day one, because she had a pretty awful experience with a church and money in the past. Her faith hasn't been quite up to where it needed to be until now to teach it, which has been why we've been holding off a bit. She really understood it and said she will pray about it and try her best. We know The Lord was helping us through that whole lesson.
Takedasan - we finished up teaching the plan of salvation and it was really powerful. Her mom passed away a few years ago - it was such a happy, hopeful lesson to be able to tell her that this life is not the end - that she can be with her mother again. I love this gospel so much! I feel so lucky to be able to go out every day and spread this happy, joyous message. In Japanese, the word for gospel, fukuin, is literally translated as good news, or happy news. I love that, because it is so true.
We visited a lot of less actives this past week, but most of them were pretty set on telling us they were Buddhist and had never been Christian before in their life. That was a little hard, but we are praying for their hearts to be softened. I have seen so many miracles from The Lord every day here on my mission. I know he can and will accomplish his will in his own timing.
We had an open house this past week - our mission president gave us training on this in zone conference and asked us to put it on in each of our areas. We did a big introduction to our church kind of meeting saturday afternoon and invited everyone we knew. We talked about what programs we have in our church, that we do a free english class, a bit about what we do as missionaries - then had a big meal and talked and played games. It was a lot of fun.
As far as your questions - yes, we teach our english class twice a week, wednesday night and saturday night. It is a wonderful opportunity as a missionary here. Everyone wants to learn english, and we have 9 native speakers teaching a free english class. When we tell that to people on the street, a lot are really surprised and ask why we would be doing that when we could be getting good money for it - it usually leads in to a pretty good discussion about what we do as missionaries :) We have regular students, and are always looking for more. Sometimes they are interested in learning more about the gospel, sometimes not, but it is always a good time. I love it. I just sometimes feel bad because I feel like my English is really going downhill the longer I'm here - I think I was a much better Eikaiwa teacher as a bean :)
Like always, I have way more things that I want to say but no time. I hope you know how much I love each and everyone of you and am so grateful for your support. I hope you know that we can feel those prayers, and see the blessings from them every day. This gospel is so true - we are so blessed to know these truths! Thanks for everything, and I hope you have a good week!
Ai shite imasu!
Flake Shimai
No comments:
Post a Comment