Week at a glance

Wow Mom, you're really not diligent on this whole writing your favorite missionary thing are you? Ha ha, I guess I can't complain.  (Editor's note:  The Mom is on a road trip to Colorado with her sister Karen so she gets a bye on not writing this week.)

My companion hasn't talked to her mom since she left on her mission.  She writes her a postcard every week, but she never gets anything back. She emails her sister every week, and according to her sister, her mom is doing well.

BTW, I haven't gotten the toothbrushes yet. From the mission office things take about a day, as long as I live on Kyushu, and about 2 if I'm on Honshu Island or Okinawa Island. So I expect them tomorrow, maybe.

So you've both begged me for what a typical day is like for me. Well, there is no typical day. Every day is different, but here is a week at a glance.

Last Monday

For P-day we went shopping for food, I power washed my clothes. My whites aren't exactly white any more. But we found some really awesome color bleach stuff that is magic if you soak the clothes in it for 2 hours. ha ha. The power! P-day ends at 6 so we visited Sagara Kyodai, who is a less active that was baptized about 7 years ago. His day off on work changed from Sunday to Monday, so he can't come to church anymore. He would like to go to a church activity if there was one on Monday, but since the single adults here in Sendai Branch are few and far between, there is no YSA (Young Single Adult) Family Home Evening. Then we visited Isshiki-san. She got married about a year ago. She works at a beauty salon and teaches people how to wear make-up and such. I thought she was kinda a make-up freak and told me my face was so red it looked like it hurt. Yeah, I don't really like her much. Ha ha. Japanese concept of beautiful is all white, with no blush or anything. Well, if you do wear blush, it is basically white.

As for my make-up, that pretty much died during the summer when I would sweat it off in about 20 seconds after putting it on. Now that I don't sweat the moment I put it on, I've been known to do a little for church and stuff. Anyway, Takahama Shimai likes Isshiki-san so we have an appointment with her tomorrow. Maybe then we can actually teach her something, instead of just listening to her talk and talk about how her friends and her get drunk and do silly things.

Tuesday

District Meeting. That means all the missionaries in Kagoshima, Taniyama, and Sendai (me!) get together and have a weekly training, and eat lunch together. Since we're so far away, we leave the apartment at 7:30am, to get to the train station train by 8am. It's crowded with all kinds of school kids. If we get there early enough we can sit down. There are commuters that come from Sendai to Kagoshima for work everyday. It's about an hour train ride, and it's way bumpy. I mean there is no part of Japan that is flat, I think.  At least not on Kyushu.

So if we come a little late, then we just have to stand for the whole hour. About 3/4 of the way through the train ride all the school kids leave for the school, but then more commuters appear, so if you want a seat you have to be really aggressive. Luckily, I'm American so I have no problem with that. At least it's not packed like the trains in Tokyo, where they have hired people with white gloves that shove you into the train like sardines.

Yeah, that would really stink. So we get to Kagoshima and transfer trains to go to the Taniyama Church building. Remember, the Kagoshima Church building is on top of the Hill of Faith, so the meeting is at the Taniyama church building. So, there are 10 missionaries. We talk about how to be better missionaries, then the senior couple feeds us (this is the best food) and drive us to the train station in Kagoshima to save us some time and money. Then we take the hour train ride back. Phew. But this week was companion exchanges, so the sisters in Taniyama came to Sendai! With Endo Shimai we visited some old PIs (potential investigators), and found an interesting house. In Japan, all the houses have the name posted outside are really cool looking plaques. We saw日日which is an really interesting name. It means Sun Sun, or whatever. (Editor's note:  According to Babblefish it means everyday life.)

So Endo Shimai and I knocked on the door and did our contact. She wasn't interested but Endo Shimai asked her for her name. See, Japanese characters can be pronounced many ways - especially the common ones like Sun. It was Hibi-san. Ha ha.

Wednesday

I worked with the other Japanese sister, Yoha Shimai. We came to Japanese together and I remember talking to her in the MTC (Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT).  Well, trying to.

We decided to take the bikes to a really far away place. It probably took and hour, and it was slightly uphill the whole way. Well, the map in Sendai is a little difficult. We have a really big map of Kagoshima-ken (the whole prefecture or state), and a really detailed map of Sendai-shi, but not any in between map. The really detailed map is about 16,000 yen (US$160.00), and it can't leave the apartment, so we have a photocopied book and we take the parts of the map we need with us.

But I realized Sendai is so pretty! Really it is! And really country. The rice is being harvested. Then when they are done, they burn their fields. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe it's because they want to fertilize the soil? I really have no idea. So there was smoke in the air. It smelled like camping. Ha ha. We couldn't find the less active member, but we found her mom, and she talked to us for a while. Then the Taniyama Shimai left to go back to Taniyama. All it all it was way fun.

Thursday

I pretty much died. I was so exhausted from the bike ride on Wednesday we both ended up taking a 3 hour nap. My body was just worn out. One thing I've learned is that a sister missionary's body is not an Elder's body. We can't just do whatever. Today I read 1 Nephi 17:2 about how the wives of the Lehites were made strong. Yeah, I'm still waiting for that. Thursday night was Eikaiwa. We tried to teach Morio-san, one of the students, but he ended up giving back the Book of Mormon to us, telling us that it's too hard to understand.

Well, there goes that potential investigator.

Friday

Weekly Planning Session. We planned all of this week. It was intense. It took about 5 hours. That night we visited Kamezawa san (see below)

Saturday

Nagatoshi Dendo. We found a new neighborhood that isn't on our maps, so we housed it.

Sunday

We sang in church! During practice it was really bad, but isn't that what church is all about - bad musical numbers? Ha ha, anyway, during sacrament meeting it wasn't too bad. And we made some of the more sensitive ward members cry. That's how you know it's good.

Anyway, I'm running out of time, but I wanted to talk about Kamezawa san. I mentioned him before. He has lung cancer, and will probably die this year. He studies the Book of Mormon for like 3 hours everyday, but he hasn't be progressing. But this week he said he's thinking about it. He is really old, like Grandpa old. And stubborn too. His pace of learning is that of a snail. I will try to learn more patience.

Anyway, there are no pictures this week, because I didn't take any, but this Friday is the Halloween party, so I'll have pictures.

Hope you are doing well!

Your favorite daughter.