Emma's Owls: The modes of transportation this week: bus, train, subway, bike, foot, President E's car

Hello beloved people!

Happy news! I'm staying in Japan for sure! This week we managed to

travel all over the place. Seriously, this week was CRAZY.

Also, got transfer calls! I've been called as a senior companion- to a Japanese companion, S shimai. I'm whitewashing in to Higashiku. [white washing is missionary speak for going to area where both you and your companion are new to the area at the same time] It's been an elders area for quite some time, but they're taking the elders out and putting us in! I'm SUPER nervous.

Fukuoka: We went up to see the doctor. Thanks mom, for mentioning him in an email because he fixed my back. Again. And becomes of him, I'm staying on a mission 💃🏽 We bussed (is that a word?) up and we're planing on taking a bus back. But Shimai and Kaicho [mission president and his wife] offered us a ride back. NOT NORMAL. It's a 2 and a half hour ride and we chatted for all of it. The first little part was an interrogation. Of me and my back and my situation. That was at the beginning of the trip. He didn't make the decision until towards the end. We were just chatting away with Shimai and he interrupts and says "I've made a decision. Sister Bearman, you're staying." I've never felt so relieved in my life. It was really fun, however, to chat casually with the mission president and his wife. For 2 and a half hours. They're such cool people 😁

K san: we met with her 3 times this week and finished up all her lessons. She LOVES the commandments. She understands that commandments are a way to show thanks to God and she wants to say thanks to God as much as she can. When we taught the law of tithing, [practice of giving 1/10th income to the church] she understood the purpose before we even explained it to her! She believes everything we say because she knows we are messengers from God. I can't adequately explain how amazing she is! Well, she was supposed to get baptized this past Sunday but on Friday morning we get a call from her. She had gotten way sick. So we hauled butt out there with the elders on a train and had a crazy adventure. We were able to see her for a short time (she did not look too good) and the elders gave her a blessing. The next day (the day of her baptism interview) we get a text from her and she said she had been hospitalized. So we went out with the elders again to try to find her: checked 2 hospitals and her house and she wasn't there. So we left her some flowers at her house. We haven't heard from her since. It's so sad. And frustrating. She's so close! And Satan had to get in the way. Side note: we taught her a lesson at her house his week and her rice cooker is Pooh Bear. When you push the start button to start cooking rice, it starts singing the Winnie the Pooh theme song. 🎶 Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh 🎶

A and E: 2 sisters from Eikaiwa. They came to church on Sunday and when I asked them after church if they had any questions, they asked if we could teach them more about Jesus. Gladly! We set up an appointment for Monday. They came to dinner at a members house with us on Sunday evening it was a cool experience for them to be in a home filled with the good feelings they've only felt at church. As we talked to them at the dinner (in half English half Japanese) we realized how humble they are. On Monday we had a short and sweet lesson about Jesus. They LOVED Jesus.

Cleaning baptismal font: With bleach! We were preparing for a baptism (which sadly didn't happen but will happen soon (and I won't be here😂)) and the baptismal font was COVERED in really gross yellow mold. We poured so much beach into the font we lost our sense of smell for a while. But it's all sparkly and clean now. It was a fun time though. We sang to LDS.org songs!!

Women's conference: watched it from the comfort of our futons. I really liked Pres Uchtdorf's talk about faith. That's something I learned these past couple transfers. Sometime you can't have faith in an outcome, but if you have faith in Christ, the outcome will be ok.

Bugs in the night: My companion is a hoot. I wake up in the middle of the night to my companion screaming "BUG!!" and then sprinting to my futon and perching there while peering at her bed suspiciously. I went back to sleep because I thought it was a dream. Turns out, it really happened! Found that out the next day. We laughed for 20 minutes straight.

Family Joke

My companions account: it was sometime around 11:30, and I was in the state of mind when I wasn't quite asleep, but I wasn't really awake. Well, I was looking up at the ceiling and in my groggy stupor I thought I saw a large hairy spider on the ceiling above my head. After a second or two, the spider fell from the ceiling and I thought it fell right on my futon! I was not about that. I woke myself up shrieking "It's a BUG!", promptly launched out of my futon and onto my companion's. Sister Bearman awoke from the noise, sat up groggily and found me perched on her futon peering suspiciously at my sheets. She shrugged and went back to sleep, and I, after a few minutes of sitting on her futon in the dark, figured I was willing to risk going back to sleep and climbed back in bed. The funny part is, yesterday after a lesson, she started telling me about weird dreams she had, and started telling me about how I had been screaming about bugs. We had a good laugh when I had to tell her that her dream was actually real.

Wild pork: We went on a drive with a Japanese person (an investigator of the elders who was taking us on a trip) and we went though a pretty forestry area. He's trying to learn English so he was speaking Japanglish to us. We asked if there was any wild animals in the forest and he got really excited and was like "there's wild pork!" We thought it was hilarious. Also, we were slightly confused. We soon realize he meant wild boar. We laughed for a while after that.