Bringing back the Portuguese

I hope everyone is adjusting to real life once again after the super fun holiday season, I know it was a little hard for me. Because New Year's is huge in Japan and it's super hard to dendō we had 3 days where we weren't supposed to do dendō. You might remember that last week on Sunday we read the Book of Mormon then Monday was normal p-day. Tuesday was our big cleaning day and we were supposed to basically deep clean the whole apartment, but we also had two meals with members that day, so we cleaned the best we could with the limited time. It was really fun! (Even though we basically only finished the kitchen and beating the futons which was way fun.) We listened to Vocal Point and Nashville Tribute Band and cleaned everything super well.

Tuesday was also our last day of regular member meals. The Urayasu Ward members have been so nice it's been crazy! They fed us so much food and it's been hard readjusting to normal food again. Our very last meal was with the Yamagatas and they fed us traditional Japanese New Years food including white miso soup, mochi, and other fun things. It was a good experience, and I'm glad I got to try it all. There were some really different foods in there though, haha!

Baking cookies

On Wednesday we didn't get to do much dendō either because we were baking cookies all day as thank you gifts for the members, investigators, and less actives that we teach/that invited us to their homes during this holiday season. It was so nice of them to open their homes to us, feed us some delicious Japanese food, and let us be a part of their family for a while. We figured out how to use our microwave as an oven but it's so small that we could only bake cookies in batches of 4! Ahhhhh! It took all day, but Heavenly Father blessed us, because that night at Eikaiwa we got a new student, Shihomi! She is so cute and she loved learning English with us. Hopefully she comes again next week!

Gloves I borrowed from Sister Griffen

Thursday, we were in Koiwa on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. I was with Sister Griffen and we had a great day. We were able to talk about the importance of keeping the Sabbath with Mei, a Chinese investigator, and it made me so pumped to teach more people about the blessings of church attendance. Many of our investigators haven't been able to meet with us recently because of Shogatsu (New Year's) so I have not really been able to teach. I miss it! We also did some house contacting which I haven't done much of since Oizumi. We found some people interested in English. It just felt good to get out and share this happy message with people even if they didn't want to talk further.

Dinner with members

Then on Friday we were able to see Bernadette for the first time in several weeks. She was able to get her visa extension so she gets to stay in Japan for 3 more months. We are really focused on helping her talk now so that in 3 months she can apply for and receive a student visa and start school here. She is so smart though, I know she can do it!

We also had Mission School twice this week. If you can remember, we used to have Mission School every Friday for 3 hours at night where we taught English, Spanish, guitar, piano, etc. Now, the Bishop wants Mission School to be on Saturdays so for this first month we are doing Friday and Saturday as a transition period.

Friday, not many people came, but I was able to teach my first Spanish class. It was just Makoto, but she really enjoyed it. She loves learning languages and she always has super good questions. On Saturday, Sister Bede and I taught the Kodomo Eikaiwa class (Kids English class). We taught two kids and it was so fun. We were doing directions so we put out a bunch of chairs and they had to guide one person through the maze using only their words. It was super fun! Usually the Elders teach Kodomo Eikaiwa, but maybe we will start teaching too because it was way fun! Haha, at night one of our new Eikaiwa students came and I taught him English.

Eikaiwa

His name is Alexander and he is Brazilian! Two weeks ago he saw the Eikaiwa poster outside the church and called the number. He talked to the Elders and ended up showing up to Eikaiwa that night. It was the first time I'd spoken Portuguese since Oizumi, but I did an okay job and by the end of the night he was a lot happier. Luckily his Japanese and English are also pretty good, so even if I accidentally said something in one of those languages, he still understood. Anyway, he came to Mission School for the first time this week and I did some English tutoring using the Restoration pamphlets in English and Portuguese. It was funny because I would ask him if he understood and although I meant "Do you understand the English?" He thought I meant the gospel doctrines so he would say yes then go on a tangent talking about the doctrine, not that that's a bad thing at all. We had a super good discussion about God and how we can be happy when we follow him.

Jam Session

He stayed for the last part of Mission a School too when we had a Jam Session. We brought out the guitar and drums that we have at the church and some members came with their guitars and everyone just played and it was super fun! Another newer Eikaiwa student, Kazumi, came too and she was rocking it on the guitar.

I'm so happy this Saturday Mission School was a hit. A lot of our regular people came and it was a big success. We still have a lot of work to do to build it up, but it is a really good start!

Yesterday, we weren't able to meet with Aoi San because she was sick, but we did have a really good lesson with Kei Shimai. She basically talked for 2 hours straight and we figured out her needs a lot better. She isn't able to come to church because of her job, but she told us all about her dreams/life plan and how she doesn't understand the Book of Mormon very well. From all of our conversation, we were able to learn her needs a lot better and now we have a plan to meet and study the Book of Mormon together every week! I'm so excited! She has so much potential and I'm happy that I get to be here to help her!

Today is P-day and it has been super fun. I got a much needed hair cut! The person cut way more than I was expecting, but it's all good. It looks a lot healthier now and it hopefully won't get as tangled. Wow, my hair got so long. The lady was sweeping up my hair and there was a grandma next to me and they were just like "So much hair! It's like a fluffy dog! That must be so hard to wash" haha it was funny. Sister Bede also got some acupuncture then we went to Sky Tree!!!

The Pokemon store

It was so pretty! We saw all of Tokyo all lit up at night and it was beautiful. We were also able to do a little bit of shopping and it was just really fun. It was such a cute little adventure! I loved going into Tokyo a bit and seeing some of the sights!

Lastly, today was also a holiday here in Japan called Coming of Age day. All the young people who are turning 20 this year dress up in traditional Japanese clothes (kimonos for girls) and go to the temple and get advice. 20 is the age of adulthood here so this is a big deal. Sadly, even though I'm turning 20 this year (that's scary) I don't get to be in the ceremony because I'm a missionary. I hope I get to see some people dressed up though! Kimonos are beautiful! I think it's so amazing how the Japanese celebrate becoming an adult though. It's a very serious, traditional celebration and it marks becoming an adult. Japan has the most amazing traditions. I love it! I'm excited to see and participate in more traditions coming soon!

Next week is transfer calls, so we will see what happens to Sister Bede and I! Ahhhhh!!!!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

Tokyo at night