Week 5!

I hope that you can fix the memory card soon! If needs be, take it into a professional instead of making the tangled knot of digital information worse. Everyone looks beautiful.

Mon

The old lady that we found in the woods working in her garden dropped us. I'm not sure what more we could have done. Perhaps we prepared her for the spirit world a little. We watched the Testiments with a recent convert. I felt the spirit testify of Christ's divinity, of his relationship with the Father.

Tue

We went to the honbu (Headquarters) for Trainer's Training. All of the people who are currently training and all the people who are getting bean-chans were there. We heard from President Baird, the APs, and such on how to be better missionaries. On the train there, I talked to a lady who I think works in a spa. She gave us "healthy juice" and told us to come visit her spa. Unfortunately it isn't in our area, so we're going to check who's area she is in and give them a referral. I'm not sure what's in the juice, but it doesn't seem like it would be anything bad.

Wed

The cello that one of the families is renting came! I played for the first time in 4 years. It came back really quickly, but I am still full of mistakes. In our English class, I asked my students to ask each other if they were happy and why. One of my students asked me why I was happy and I said because the church members are awesome and there are alot of people to teach. We then had a 15-20 min conversation about missionaries. I aksed him after class if he would like to hear more about missionaries and he said no, but he really respects what us missionaries are doing. We are sowing, ever sowing.... A new missionary came! One of my MTC kohai in fact. His name is Elder Moretti and he is from Brazil. We really need someone who can speak Portugese here because there is a huge population of Brazilians in Japan, especially in this area because it's very industrial. He has the typical "I'm lost and I'm confused" new missionary face.

Thu

We have a talent show on the 23rd (in which I am playing the cello) and so we handed out flyers like crazy. We stopped a lady walking her dog and had a nice conversation. All the time the dog was fine. As soon as I started moving on my bike (not Sis Rogers, mind you, but me) the dog started barking like crazy. Weird. We played blind man's ping pong with a less active blind man and his wife. What you do is you try and whack the ball underneath the net and stop it before it hits your side. I was a little hesitant about this because I wasn't sure how we could turn this appointment into missionary work, but it turned out that one of their friends was also there and so we talked about what missionaries do and about the church. We gave her a pamphlet and we'll see where that goes. We went to a member's house to talk about missionary work. She came out of her kitchen with what looked like hot chocolate. I took one sip and said, "This is delicioius, but it's coffee." Sister Rogers kept chugging it down and I was like "have you never tasted coffee before? This is very obviously not hot chocolate." I was torn because I didn't want to offend this woman by not drinking what she gave us, but I didn't want to break the Word of Wisdom. I thought to myself, does one get absolved of these kinds of things? If I said I wouldn't drink it, it could be a chance to bear my testimony. I was trying to figure out how to bring up the Word of Wisdom when she brought it up herself. She said she kept it. I was like "I think you missed a part" in my head. Then she turned to me and asked, "Aren't you going to drink?" I said "What is it? It is delicious, but what is it?" It turns out it wasn't coffee at all. It has no coffee in it and no caffine and it is apparantly drunk by many members in Japan and Australia. I felt thoroughly relieved and drank the rest of it.

Fri

At district meeting, our District Leader said something profound I think. He said that we often forget that the Holy Ghost is a person. He is a he, not an it. When we become Christlike, develop Christlike attributes, we are becoming friends with the Holy Ghost. Birds of a feather flock together. We went out to dinner with a convert of about a year because she was moving to a different town. I figured out how to eat tofu with chopsticks by watching her. I haven't gotten it down pat, but I'll get there.

Sat

Udaka-san (-san is a suffix that you put on people's names that means Mr. or Mrs. In this case it's Mr.) accepted all of the commandments without a blink of an eye! We thought for sure there would be something that would hold him back, but nope. He just said, yeah I'll do that. Afterward, we went to Baskin and Robins as a small triumph. I had pear ice cream. I got probably a 3/4 cup serving size and I was suprised that I was satisfied with that. Usually at home it's as big as the scoop can get, but I guess being in the land of non-super sugary desserts makes you sensitive to super sugary things like ice cream. Sis Rogers and I played for a Relief Society activity. I messed up but things seemed to turn out fine in the end. The Bishop gave a little talk and told the sisters there that I was related to Hyrum Smith. I was sitting at the back of the room and everyone turned around in suprise. It was classic!

Sun

In order to practice the cello and violin with the Relief Society for the Ward conference next week, one of the members dropped by our apt to drive the cello there so that we wouldn't have to walk it there. We raced the car to the chapel and won. One of my English class students came to sacrament meeting! She left right afterward and we had an investigator to teach as well, so I just said thanks for coming, I'm glad you came, but I hope that it was a good experience for her. An 8 yr old in the ward got baptized. I hope that this starts a string of baptizms.

Mon

We went to a curry restaraunt for lunch. YUM. When we came out of the shopping center, our bikes' kickstands were all wonky so our bikes lean over more. I don't know who or what happened, but I think we"ll have to take our bikes in to a shop to get them adjusted. I'm just glad they didn't get stolen.