Sometime between now and next week I reach my half way point, but each time I do the math, there is this missing week, so sometime soon I'll be over the hump.
Mon
We went with the elders and a member to a couple of shrines and ice cream. It was very hot. Apparently it got up to 40 degrees Celcius which is above 100 in Farenheit. The member made some side trips to show us where his non-member family members live so we could go "visit" them, but I'm not sure I can remember where they are just from driving past them. Then we had a member FHE. They gave us grapes as refreshments. Sister Vincent and I proceeded to pop the whole thing in our mouths and the members looked suprised and said "you eat the skins in America?" Apparently in Japan they always peel their grapes. We came home with purple fingers.
Tue
We had a member unexpectedly call us up and say come over for dinner, so we planned our day so that we would work up in that area. We visited a bunch of less actives and found one lady who talked with us for fifteen or twenty minutes. She is a practicer of light life, a religion that is focused on meditation and chi and mental waves and stuff (as far as I understood). She accepted a pamphlet though. Hopefully she'll read it.
Wed
Zone Conference! I unfortunately read the train times wrong so we got there a little late. I was very embarrased to walk in during the opening hymn. But all's well that ends well. We heard from the area medical advisor and the area counselor. They both had very good presentations, although the medical advisor had some gross pictures of ingrown toenails. Yamashita Kaicho asked us to do a 40 day fast in our areas. What it means is that one person or one family fasts for one day and then passes the buck to the next person to fast for the next day. This has had great results in other missions according to him. Hopefully the ward will buy in. Sister Yamashita made us real brownies. Not Japanese style brownies, but like Hersheys brownies with walnuts and chocolate chunks. I wish that I could have saved it for another day to savor it more, but all good things end in their own time. That good thing was gone in about 30 seconds.
Thu
Three member apointments in one day! One member gave us asian pears. Yum yum.
Fri
Sister Vincent's tires weren't flat, but they were low, so we borrowed the elder's pump and got them filled up again. She said that the days before it felt like her legs were going to drop off and then it was so easy to ride. Yup. Keep your tires filled. We visited a less active and talked about her friend who is having a hard time. Next Wednesday we are going with her to her friend's house because the less active member wants the missionaries to talk to her. I hope that this will help the LA to become active and help her friend to feel some comfort (and get baptised). Then we biked 9.5 miles to our recent convert's house and taught a big lesson because we haven't been able to meet with them for a while. They had a hard time wrapping their minds around a couple of topics so we assigned a chapter of the Book of Mormon for homework and said we'd talk about it next time. One of them had their first experience with persecution of a sort. He was talking with one of his customers about religion and she asked him some questions that he didn't know the answer to, but he said that he did get baptized and she was like "why would you do something like that without studying it out before? Are you crazy? You need to read the Bible!" He felt like maybe she might have something against Mormons. I said that everyone has experiences like that and I met some when I was in school. I just hope his faith gets stronger from these experiences.
Sat
I got the three wool skirts that Mom made me tailored because they were literally falling off of me. At the end of this transfer I plan on chucking out any other clothes that are eating me alive. We went housing around the tailor shop and met a man who gave us about six goyas, which are like cucumbers but bitter. Then we rang the door at one house (most of Japan's door bells are more like intercoms) and said we share a message about strenghthening families and have you ever thought about that kind of thing. There was a big sigh from the other side and then she said she didn't want to talk about it. I guess she needs some family strengthening. A recently re-activated member, a recent convert and us went to a member's house for dinner. It was SOOO DELICIOUS. We had tempura and soba and watermelon and some juice that I don't know what it was made from but it was highly drinkable.
Sun
We put our trash can out on our balcony because there were a bunch of fruit flies in it and they would swarm out whenever we opened it. It was pretty gross in there. Thankfully Monday is trash day. One member told us during church that on the news they said don't go out and exercise or work today because it's so hot. About 20 people have died this summer because of the heat. So we went out to visit two PI's that live up an enormous hill in the heat. Yay. One was home and one said they didn't have time right then. Ah well.
Love
Leah
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