Time Flies When You Are A Missionary

Hola!

This was the last week of the transfer! Can you believe I have already been in Japan for 6 weeks? I can't. A new batch of missionaries arrive this week from the MTC, and it's so crazy to think that that was me 6 weeks ago.

It has been a crazy week though, full of miracles.

First miracle was Juliyn. Sister Pourre and I went and visited her in Tatebayashi (20-30 min train ride from Oizumi) after District P-day last week. We had the most amazing crepes and we were able to teach her for the first time in person. Because she lives far away and she lives the busy life of a teenager in Japan (it is 100x crazier than an American teenager) we can only call her, but this week we were able to see her in person! We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was so excited, she wanted to share scriptures with her siblings. Towards the end of our time with her, some of her friends passed and we were able to give out Eikaiwa flyers. They want to get a whole group of friends to go with them every week. We're so excited!

Anyways, fast forward to Saturday, the next time we called her. Not only did she read the Book of Mormon and believe it is true, she even had a favorite scripture to share with us! It was so amazing and such a miracle, especially since we are really working on helping our investigators understand how important it is to read the Book of Mormon. She is such a sweet girl and we are so excited to continue teaching her!

This is the intersection we pass at least five times a day

Another miracle was that on Saturday we found 5 new investigators!This whole week we tried to find new investigators but we couldn't find anyone, then the one time that we weren't trying to find (we were going to appointments) we found 5! Crazy!

Miracle #3, a former investigator saw the sign outside our church building advertising Eikaiwa and she called the Elders. She came to Eikaiwa (English class) on Thursday and we were able to set an appointment to teach her. She came to us and it was so amazing! Along with that miracle,Eikaiwa on Thursday was amazing. We had so many people and it made Eikaiwa so fun. We played "Do you love your neighbor?" And it was chaotic with so many people running around. Ah, we are trying to make every Eikaiwa like that!

The view out of our house featuring my bike

This was also an interesting week because the Elders were gone for most of it. Monday and Tuesday they were in Kumagaya for Exchanges and they didn't make it back in time for Ping Pong, so we ran Ping Pong by ourselves. The two regulars, Vivi ad Fabricio, came and it was super fun. My ping pong skills are getting better, but Fabricio literally kills me every time. I've also started saying "Oi" all the time and so everyone was laughing at me. Haha, it was a good time!

Our beds.  Left is mine.

Then on Sunday, the Elders were in Abiko (Elder Miller's previous area) for a baptism so they couldn't make it to Eikaiwa so we taught that ourselves as well. Tanaka-San is so funny. He wants to learn English and Portuguese so we taught him a little of both. He's pretty old, but his mind is really quick and he picks up on languages really well. It's an inspiration to me to see him learning 2 languages, it gives me more hope that I can learn 2 languages too!

On Thursday, we had our final District Meeting for the transfer and we were able to go out to District Lunch at a really good burger place.The burgers were huge and so good and almost all of us got dulce deleche stuffed churros as well. Also, the place where we got the burgers also has a little Brazilian store attached. It's probably the only place in Japan that sells American toothpaste and deodorant, we were so excited until we found out it was almost $12 for a tiny stick of deodorant. Ahh!

Sunday was also good, Leia came to church! It was so nice to see her there! We are really working to prepare her for baptism and it is so exciting. I love helping people come unto Christ through baptism. She has such strong and amazing faith, and her testimony about prayer is rock solid.

Funny story about Sunday though. So on P-day, at the grocery store, I decided that we needed to try some new foods, so I grabbed a frozen dinner of some sort. Well, we finally made that frozen dinner for lunch on Sunday and it was really good. Basically, the dinner provides the meat and the sauce and you add your own vegetables, so we wanted to add some potatoes. Sister Pourre didn't believe me when I said I could just cook the potatoes in the frying pan, so of course I had to prove myself. Well, after several minutes, I noticed the potatoes weren't cooking as fast as I wanted so I thought back to the many cooking shows I watched before the mission and I decided to pour some water in the pan and put a lid on top. It worked!!! So everyone, I am now an Iron Chef. Ta da! It was really good though, and we are trying another one this week.

Now for the real highlight of the week, on Wednesday we had Follow-up Training in Tokyo with everyone from my doki (the other missionaries that came from the MTC at the same time as me). WHICH MEANS I GOT TO SEE SISTER HILL AND SISTER BARTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We made plans to got to lunch before training with some of the sisters and the moment Sister Hill and I saw each other we just ran to each other and gave each other the biggest hug! Ah she's doing so well and she's amazing! I love my MTC doryo. (Sister Barton too!!!!!)

Anyways, training was really good. We talked about obedience and how important 12 week is. Most importantly though, we did mogis. These mogis were extra special though because Sister Pourre and I were able to mogi with Elder GeLinas who actually served in Oizumi for a few months and knows Portuguese. This was the first time we got to mogi in Portuguese and it was so helpful! Yay!

My desk on the left

Also, there was a little earthquake during training. No one else freaked out, but in my mind I had a little freak out like "is this an earthquake? Why is everything moving? What is going on!!" But on the outside I was cool because no one else was freaking out. My first earthquake though!

Training was so good though and it was so amazing to see everyone (except for Titel Choro because he is in Nagaoka which is really far from Tokyo so he couldn't come). I love my MTC district and all the other amazing missionaries. They all love their areas and the work they are doing and it really helped to reenergize me.

Last bit of news. Today was transfer call day! So the first Monday of every new transfer the leaders call you to tell you if you are staying in your area or moving. Sister Pourre and I weren't quite sure what was going to happen, but guess what? We are both staying in Oizumi for another transfer! That's good because we have a lot of work to do still.

The crazy news though? About an hour later Elder Miller called us. We thought he was going to say that he was getting transferred (he's been in Oizumi for 4 transfers now, almost 6 months) but he didn't. He had different news for us. Oizumi is now it's own district and he is our District Leader! Ah! This basically means that the Elders and us can now sit down and talk about Oizumi and plan how to help it. This is so nice because Oizumi is really different from everywhere else in the mission because it isn't Japanese and the culture is really different.This makes it hard to apply some of the things from District and Zone meetings because the things we learn there are more focused on problems that Japanese areas face. We are so excited to work together as a District and help Oizumi reach it's full potential.

Thank you all for all of your support and love throughout the last 6 weeks! On to the next transfer!!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai