Just keep biking, just keep biking

Hola!

This week was literally insane! Because I have my own bike now, we can bike to some of the investigators and less actives that are far away. We can also visit way more people. We taught so many lessons this week, it was crazy.

At the beginning of the week, we biked to Isabelle's house. She is a recent convert that lives decently far away. She is so sweet though! We had such a good lesson with her. After the lesson, we didn't really know how to get back, so we just started biking. We biked halfway to the next city before realizing we went the wrong way. Whoops! At least we passed some beautiful rice fields. :)

The first few days of this week were kind of a blur, to be honest. We taught a lot of lessons and we found a lot of new investigators. Then on Thursday, I had my first District Meeting! The District Leader and the Sisters from Kumagaya were both pretty late because the bus schedule changed, so we had some time to do personal study. During the meeting though we talked about mogis and practicing our lessons. In the MTC, mogis completely changed my lessons, so I'm really glad they talked about it. Sister Pourre and I have been doing role plays every day, and it is so helpful.

With Sister Parker and Sister Wadsworth

After District Meeting, we went to lunch with the Kumagaya Sisters, Sister Parker and Sister Wadsworth. They were amazing! They are actually going home this Friday, so this was their last District Meeting. We went to go eat some hamburgers (so good) and on the way, they found some Nihongen kids to give Eikaiwa flyers to. They were so bold, it was great. I learned a lot of great things from them, most importantly patience. Becoming bold and becoming good at a language take time, but as long as you stick with it and push forward, great things can happen.

Also, turns out that Sister Parker is from the same stake as Sister Hill (my MTC companion) so we talked about her and how great she is! <3

So the first part of the week was amazing, but the second part of the week was really rough (still good, but rough). Right now is a big holiday in Japan, called Obon. It's a really cool Japanese holiday where every one goes to their hometowns and celebrates their ancestors for a week. In Oizumi though, it's a little different. Obon is huge in Japanese culture, but many Brazilians just use it as a holiday. Therefore, no one is home. So many of our appointments fell though, so we did a lot of housing and finding, but even then, not many people were home. It's all good though, because the lessons we did have were amazing.

Leia

We taught a new investigator named Marcileia about the Restoration. She was so prepared! She loved it. You should have seen how carefully she held the pamphlet after the lesson. I'm really looking forward to our next lesson with her.

We've also been teaching Leia more. She has a baptismal date now and she is so excited to go to the temple soon! We are so excited for her! She wasn't able to make it to church this week, but she has a clear schedule from now on to come to church!

All of the people here have the cutest families and I love teaching them. Kennya has two kids who are so cute! The last time we saw them they just got a new kitten and they were playing with it and it was so cute. Kennya is such an amazing investigator as well. I tried to share a message last time we visited her (in Portuguese of course) and she was so patient with me.

Kennya and her family

Which leads me to Portuguese. It is still hard, but I am learning! Last week we found the Portuguese version of the Ninja (basically a Preach my Gospel phrase book in Portuguese) and so I've been using that to learn sentences to use when teaching. I can now teach about half of the Restoration very simply, but it's a start. I'm also really working on staying focused and actively listening to investigators during our lessons. I might not understand what they are saying, but I can pick out words. I'm also working on speaking up sometimes and sharing my testimony or asking questions. I know that as I put in effort to speak, my language learning will improve so quickly.

Now for some funny moments...kind of funny.

On Saturday night, Sister Pourre found a huge cockroach in our bedroom and she freaked out, except that I couldn't find it to kill it. Therefore, we had to sleep in the study room that night. Haha, we still can't find it, but we think it's dead or gone, so it's all good.

Black Thunder Ice Cream!!!!

I found Black Thunder Ice Cream!!!!!!! And it is sooooooooo good! Just as good as the candy! It was the best day! I found it at 7/11 after a long day of canceled appointments and not being able to find anyone, so it made the day a little bit better. Also, for those of you who don't know, 7/11 in Asia (especially in Japan) is super huge. They sell prepared food and they are literally everywhere. We probably go into a 7/11 at least once a day. They are great!

Vivi, another of our investigators, noticed how sweaty we get when we bike so she got all 4 of us missionaries little sweat towels! It's so nice, especially since I sweat a lot. I got to Japan in the hottest time of year and since we bike all day, I just sweat constantly. The towel is nice so that I don't look as gross when I go to other people's houses. Such a nice gift.

Haha, also everyone found out that I can play the piano, so not only do I play in sacrament meeting and at church, I also play at District Meetings and I will be playing at Zone meeting this week. Don't worry mom, I'm still putting those years of piano lesson to good use!

Lastly, there is CK. She is Filipino and a recent convert and she is so great! We talk about all sorts of things with her. This week we gave her a Book of Mormon with our testimony in it and a few of our favorite scriptures marked and she was so excited. She wants to take it to school to read! She also fed us a huge Filipino feast! She has all these different Filipino snacks and treats, it was so good. We also started talking about different fruits from the Phillipines and they have a lot of similar ones to Thailand. Sister Pourre hasn't tried many of them, so today when I spotted a dragonfruit I had to get it. She's going to try it tomorrow. I'm so excited! Other fruits we talked about were mangosteens and rambutans (look them up on the Internet, they look kind of funny, but they are so good).

Oizumi

This week was really good. I have a lot more confidence than I did last week. I'm trying to talk more and I even took the lead when speaking to Nihongens. I still feel more comfortable in Nihongo, but as I learn more Portuguese, it is getting harder to remember Nihongo. Luckily we are going on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders tomorrow, so I will have a whole day of Nihongo!

I just want to leave you with a little thought. This week I've been reading a talk about the "4th Missionary." Basically there are 4 kinds of missionaries, the first two go home early because they aren't obedient, the 3rd is obedient because it's what is expected of him and he doesn't get much out of the mission. The 4th missionary completely submits his will to the Lord and comes away from the mission changed. There is so much more to the talk and it is so good, but I only have a little bit of time. I just want you all to know that I am really trying to be the 4th missionary. I want to come away changed, I want to help others, I want to spread the gospel, but I can only do that if I let the Lord guide me. That's hard for me to do since I always want to do what I want to do, but I've been trying this week to really focus on what the Lord wants me to do. There have been times when I feel prompted that we need to go visit someone on the other side of town. My body doesn't want to do it because it's a lot of biking, but I know that it's what the Lord wants. We have been so blessed this week to teach many people and find new people to teach. We may have biked over 10km a day, but it is worth it.

Thank you so much for your love and support!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai