Week Twenty

Dear Family and Friends,
(Dad I got your email)
So yes, yesterday we got the transfer call! And... Im staying in Aizu! But, Sister Johnson is getting transferred! So my new companion will be Sister Tuikolovatu. She is from California and she was actually Sister Johnsons companion in the MTC so thats cool. Everyone says she is going to be a really fun companion. I am excited for sure. I kinda wanted to get transferred because we have a Christmas party coming up and things and I didnt want to have to deal with it ha ha... for some reason the missionaries are in charge of planning all the ward and branch activities here. We spend a lot of dendo time in meetings planning. Like a lot of time. Also, I am now the leader for awhile until Sister Tui gets more acquainted with Aizu but remember how I am terrible at directions? Yeah. That is still a challenge for me. I know how to get to the church, post office, and library. Also, I dont want to be the lead when it comes to our investigators. Unfortunately I dont really know that much about our investigators because I cant understand them so it is going to be hard teaching them according to their needs... Sister Johnson did a great job at talking and understanding Japanese! So I am really nervous about that.
So I learned something about me this week. I am really stressed! At Zone Conference Pres and Sis Rasmussen did a training on this new booklet out by the church called Adjusting to Missionary Life. Its an awesome book! You can take a self assessment to see how stressed you are and then the book gives specific instructions and advice on how to help. I took the self assessment and checked almost every box... Then during personal study I started from the beginning and started picking a few suggestions to work on to see if it will help. Well, I ended up getting more stressed because I got overwhelmed with all of the things I needed to do in that book! So I ended up just closing it, taking some deep breaths, and clipping my fingernails. I dont know but for some reason clipping my fingernails is so relaxing and helpful. Maybe because I have complete control over how my nails look and I know exactly what I am doing and how to do it. Seems like a weird thing, right? But it works for me! I have awesome nails right now just so you know.
I do want to try those suggestions though but everytime I think about it my throat gets tight and I feel a heavy weight. I dont know what has happened to me, but lately I have been having these tiny stress emergencies a lot. I got one after the transfer call too. And I always get them when we plan for lessons and especially on the ride to the investigators homes. I dont know how to explain it but I just get really freaked out and I just feel like I dont know what to do. After one of these stress emergencies the feelings kind of linger for awhile so it is hard to snap out of it sometimes. There are times when I am not stressed though, like when we are at the apartment at the end of the day and all us girls are being girls talking about boys and the other elders and whatnot (yes, we are still young girls. We need to talk about boys sometimes.) I am glad I have friends here because it isnt so bad when I am with my friends but when I am dendoing, it is pretty rough. I want to be excited about dendo but I cant control my feelings! I immediately feel nervous and scared always. Ive also noticed some physical symptoms. Usually I am a pig and eat a lot of food, but my appetite is going down and I am not sleeping well. I also have trouble waking up in the morning. I have trouble getting motivated to exercise and lately I have been having stomach pain and sometimes headaches. Any clue as to what this is? Is this a serious problem? The next transfer we have interviews with Kaicho (president) so I will definitely talk to him about it. I have been thinking about talking with the dendo therapist, too. Sometimes it is difficult for me to talk about how I feel to the people around me because I really dont want to bring them down. It is easier for me to talk to other people that I am not in close quarters with. It just gets tough because I hold in so much that sometimes it makes the situation worse, ya know?
Anyways, enough of that for now. Zone Conference was awesome! It was so fun. It was surely a surprise when I received some Christmas letters from my family! I bawled like a baby. Paige, your girls are so big now! Brooke and Leslies hair is SO long I cant believe it! I was so happy to hear from so many people- mom, dad, paige, bailey, abby, and grandma flash- thank you!
It was a good week for letters because I received quite a few more throughout the week! Best week ever! I got some letters from Grandma Flash and the Robertson side of the family! Oh thank you so much. It was so nice to hear from my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It really lifted my spirits. I also received letters from the Idaho Falls North Stake Young Womens presidency, the Katy TX Stake (I love receiving these letters every month!!!), and my lovely friend Rachel W. Thank you to all who sent letters and emails! I love you!
As for our investigators, it was quite an interesting week. We taught Urasawa san and Nobuko san again... well we tried to. Nobuko san doesnt like Mormons at all. She asked us how many people were members of our church and when we told her she said, Really? Why? I dont believe it. Then she proceeded to damn us. (I dont think that is swearing, but I dont know how else to put it, sorry!) She reaaaaally doesnt like Mormons. Urasawa san doesnt have a lick of interest in the gospel either. We probably are going to stop lessons, maybe. I dont really know yet. I will have to ask my new companion what she thinks when she gets here tomorrow. We also taught a lesson to our investigator Hirano san! She too isnt at all interested in the gospel. Whenever we ask her to do something as a commitment she changes the subject and gets us on a tangent until we run out of time. She just wants to learn English. We are going to keep working on her though. We also taught the Arai Family a couple times. We had a pretty good lesson with Arai san (the dad) and talked a bit about baptism and the Word of Wisdom. He has desires to follow the Word of Wisdom which is awesome! We asked him to pray to know if our message is true and from God. The next time we taught that family he was too busy with work so we only taught the kids and we didnt get to follow up with him. The kids are pretty cute! We taught them about baptism and they said that they really want to get baptized! But we told them they need permission from their parents first and when they asked them Arai san said they already got baptized. So now we will have that issue to deal with next time we teach... and I will be leading the conversation... and now I am getting nervous thinking about it... ah!
In other news, I went on a split with Morita Shimai! I love her a lot. She is a great missionary. We were able to spend some time helping some members in the branch. We made Christmas invitations for the party coming up. It was good dendo and nice relax time. I was able to talk with them a little about how I have been feeling and I was able to thank them for their help. Mom, check our FB inbox. One of the members in my branch sent you a picture of me. The message is probably in your ``other`` inbox. Also, please accept her request! She will be able to keep you updated on me and she will send you pictures too. Her name is Maria Takahashi. Shes so awesome.
Oh, bad news! My camera broke. I am so sorry! Dont worry about buying another one, I broke it so I should buy another with my own money. I hope it is my money you have been putting in my bank account by the way! How much money do I have anyways?
I dont know when I will buy a new camera... I can still take pictures, I just cant see them on my screen. Maybe I will take pictures and send my card home so you can see the pictures and copy them all onto the computer then send the card back? I have two SD cards so while you have one, I can still take pictures with my other one! Maybe I will do that. I hate spending money so I dont know.
Anyways, thanks for your prayers and encouragement. It is so helpful! I am really really really really trying to be happy and a hard worker. Some days are better than others but I guess I will just keep on keepin on... do my best and try to stay calm!
Love, Miranda