Week Twenty-two.

PART ONE.

 

(Miranda wrote this email kinda weird she sent it in two different ones, one to Mom and one to Dad part one is the one to mom and part two is to dad.)

Hello Mom, Dad, Family, and everyone,

Every Sunday I write in my planner all the main points that I want to talk about in my email home but I forgot my planner today so I cant remember everything so this might be a short email. Plus, I will be talking to you soon so I suppose thats okay.

This week we had the Christmas Party on Saturday and it was so crazy. Pretty much the reason we havent had time to go out searching for people to teach is because these branches out here dont have activities committees so they pin all that stuff on the missionaries even if it isnt our responsibility. So we spend all our time shopping for decorations, sitting in planning meetings, and setting up chairs and tables at the church. It has been quite crazy this last week with planning. All of the Christmas stuff is almost over and then we have New Years which is 1000x more big than Christmas. This Holiday season has been quite crazy!

Right now our only strong investigators are the Arai Family. We have been teaching them for quite awhile now but it is hard to tell if they are progressing or not because not all the family members are in the lessons each time so it is hard to follow up with them. They keep inviting us back so I think that is a good sign! I feel like I am running out of English to teach though! Later today Sister Tui and I are going shopping with one of the Arai girls named Yuria. Shes 15 and just moved back to Japan from Ukraine. (Shes been living in Ukraine with her mother for awhile) I figured she probably doesnt have many friends right now so I invited her to go shopping with us today and she seemed really excited about that. So that will be some good dendo time!

We had a potential investigator come to our Christmas Party and to church to listen to my talk. His name is Hashimoto san and he actually spends a lot of time at the church because right now we are getting an elevator built and Hashimoto san is the main guy. Kinda like the boss of it all. Hes so cool and nice! And speaks some english! He told me that he understood 90% of my talk which means it wasnt all terrible. Im not very good at translating English into Japanese yet ha ha. Oh dad, I used the letter that you sent me about Christmas and the sequence of holidays in my talk. It took forever to translate your words into the best Japanese that I could to share with everyone. I dont know if that part of my talk made much sense.

Anyways, I will think of cool stories and such to tell you when we talk this week.

Here are the instructions for phone calls:

1. Dial 011 (international call number)

2. 81 (country code number)

3. The rest of the cell phone number (the first zero is dropped from the 080)

 

So dial THIS--> 011-81-80-9354-4091

Since you will be in Wyoming on Christmas I think it is 4:00 pm 12/25 there when it is 8:00 am 12/26 in Japan. I think. You might have to check on that... but I will just be expecting a call at 8 am on the 26th.

 

Thanks for your prayers, mom. I appreciate that my family is trying to help my Japanese by sending that lady to me... I would teach her but I am not allowed to. She is friends with someone on the danger list that has tried to like injure missionaries before and she specifially told me she wants nothing to do with the church... I dont want to risk my life really. But I appreciate so much your prayers and that God has been answering your prayers!

I have been able to tell that my Japanese is getting better but I still just cant understand a lick of anything! And thats the annoying part!

 

I will talk to you this week!

Oh and I did receive the Christmas package but no handwritten letter yet...

I have been trying to wait until Christmas but I have been opening one present every day.. I just couldnt wait!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love, Miranda

 

PART TWO.

Finally after a week in a half my ear isnt plugged anymore! I am pretty much healed but now I have this weird dry skin issue. Maybe it is an allergic reaction to something? Under my eyes is so swollen and dry. I dont know whats up but it makes me look like a grandma and it hurts ha ha.

Christmas here is focused on presents and food and not the Savior. Most people dont understand the real meaning of Christmas because they are mostly Buddhist or dont have a religion. Christmas here is a time to each chicken and cake!

New Years is a way bigger holiday. They have traditions to go to a buddhist shrine and throw a coin and say a prayer. Pres R asked us to do that with an investigator or member so we can get a feel for the culture here and have a cool experience. We dont get the day off on Christmas, but we do kinda get the day off on new years. We have an assignment to deep clean our apartments all day. So we will still be working, just in a cleaning kind of way.

Love you!