And it was cold rain. You only stay dry so long when your outside all day. At least it's not snow!
Tuesday: we had a relief society activity. There was probably 50 women there, most over the age of 75. We sat with the young-ins (which was everyone aged 50ish or younger). I don't really know what happened but there was an activity that was pretty funny. We wrote our name on cute paper and then passed it around the group we were sitting in and the other people write nice things about you. It sounds all well and good. But it was in Japanese! Not only another language but another alphabet! It took me forever (although my writing skills have
definitely improved). It was actually pretty fun even though I wrote variations of the 5 compliments I know. When I got mine back there was 2 in English (missionaries), one in half English/half hiragana (the nihonjin missionary), and the rest in kanji [pictographs]. Which I can't read. So hopefully they wrote nice things. Anyway, the whole activity was fairly impressive. From what I understand, they set tons of goals as a relief society (and not wimpy ones either. Like finish the BoM and New Testament, and go to the temple up on mainland Japan, and joint for the missionaries, etc). It was super inspiring. They have rewards at certain check points to motivate them. So if you're feeling to lazy set goal remember the 70 year old Japanese women who shave set 1001 goals and will probably accomplish them by the end of February. If that isn't motivational, I don't know what is.
Old lady's and a HUGE rice cooker
Wednesday: eikaiwa [English Class] I don't really know what else. But eikaiwa was fun, as alway. I hit the jack pot and get to teach the advanced people funny sayings and jokes. We taught them "what's cooking good looking". We also made cinnamon rolls that turned out like real cinnamon rolls. They taste amazing.
2 of my favorite nihonjin: T shimai (returned missionary who's fluent in Japanese on left) and K shimai (she's the cutest)
Thursday: Kaicho (I guess you don't know who that is, the mission president) came down for interviews. It was so good. He and Shimai (his wife) are so wonderful. They acted like mom/dad. Just lots of hugs and encouraging words and when you looked in their eyes you could just tell how much they loved you. It was so good. And a great confidence boost. Kaicho told me to work on having every prayer entirely Japanese. It's way hard. But really helping my language. Kaicho knows best! He also talked about how to be way specific with our prayers. I don't know about you but I didn't think you were like, allowed to do that. I knew we could ask God for things but I did t realize how specific we can get. We can ask to meet a 15-25 year old college student who wants to learn more about Christ. The more specific we are, the most specifically He answers our questions. I've been working on that this week. And some cool things have happened because of it. So I challenge you to make your prayers a little more specific as well. Because as it says in Moroni 10:6 (I think), if we ask for good things, the Lord will give them to us. Man, God is the best.
These girls were just walking around like this casually
Friday: we meet with a member that we eat dinner with every week. M shimai and her 5 year old Y. Y found out I liked Star Wars last week so this week he wore a Star Wars shirt and had all of his Star Wars toys for our for us to play with. We're like bfffffs.
Saturday: I made a legit phone call. By myself. In Japanese. When the member answered and found out it was me, she laughed. Also, we met with S again. After not talking to us for a week she decided she still wants to be baptized this coming Sunday. Which we're so excited about but means we'll have a busy week! We only meet her 2 weeks ago!! What a miracle!
Sunday: well, church. It was yesterday but I don't remember what I did. Dendo in the rain.
Well, I'm tired of writing about last week. Hopefully that was sufficient. Tomorrow and Wednesday I get to bean dendo again! [do missionary work with another brand new missionary] Except in Okinawa this time. Hopefully I survive!!
Love love love
ベアマン姉妹
Sent from my iPad
Hi Emma! I love reading your posts. I wanted to share my experience yesterday after I read your post. I am in charge of the family history committee in my ward and I was getting ready to head over to help a sister with her family tree on familysearch.org. I read your post about making our prayers specific and I decided to take the challenge. I prayed that we would be able to help her find at least one family name to take to the temple. I think God thought I was too timid in my request because He helped us find 12 names for her to take to the temple! God is so aware of us and our needs. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteLove you.
Debbie