Week Fifty-three.

Hey minna!

Let me start by answering your questions.  Yes one of my companions is Japanese which means yes I speak in Japanese all the time! It is great practice and I am loving it. But I also am not close to fluent yet though and I still cant understand the Sendai Area dialect. I guess that will come with time. Everyone just talks sooo fast!

It has been a hot week. Today it got to 30 C or something like that. It was rainy at all this last week which was nice. We are on bikes all day errday so I sweat a ton and my legs are HUGE now. Ahhh noooo good bye thinness. Oh well.. the things I sacrifice for the Lord :)

We knock on doors sometimes as a finding tool but not really. We are told not to set aside actually "housing" time but that we can do it as a back up plan if an appointment fell through or a less active wasnt home or something. I havent been housing in forever though. Usually we find through talking to people on the streets or at service opportunities.

The people we are teaching.... the only one I have to report on this week is Ryotaro kun. We had our second lesson with him this week and he is actually sincerely learning and listening to our message. He isnt just meeting with us because he wants to learn English or he thinks Americans are cool (well maybe he does think I am pretty cool, I dont know ha ha) but he is keeping commitments and he is okay to meet again! Yeaahhhhhh! We want to meet him twice this week and at our second lesson we are going to invite him to be baptized in the beginning of September.

Please fast for my companion Sister Alcazar, if you can. Her dad is going to have surgery this coming week and we are worried that he might pass away because it is a pretty intense surgery. Me and Sister Alcazar stayed up late talking about it the other night and crying together. She is doing okay, but still really worried.

Mom, your quilting stuff is so cool! What do you do with the quilts when you are done? Do you give them away or keep them and use them and stuff? Also I am so proud of you for doing all that family history work. You are a boss!

ANOTHER temple movie? Didnt they JUST come out with one though? I saw the new one in the MTC but there is an even newer one? Why did they do that?

Keep me updated on all your adventures in Texas and also dads work stuff. I don't even know where Kuwait is on a map but it sounds pretty far ha ha. Oh and thanks for sending those pictures to me of me as a kid! I loved them! I was actually wondering if you could send me some pics of me as a child. These Nihonjin over here love looking at pictures like that. You can just send them over email and I will put them on my USB and print them out. That seems to be faster. Thanks!

We did hand massages this week for tsunami victims and it was so cool to look at their old wrinkled hands. It was like their hands told their whole life story-what kind of person they are, what they have done, etc. It was a very spiritual moment for me actually to see all the calluses and wrinkles. These people here are so amazing and such hard workers and have so much love.

Hmm this last week after Eikaiwa we had a smores party and I burnt all my marshmallows. I havent changed a bit! Still love that burnt mallow taste!

I received a letter from Sister Tuttle this week, my companion in Akita. She said she had a sibling visit the Katy 4th ward and saw my missionary plaque and letter to the ward hanging up so he took a picture and sent it to Sister Tuttle who told me about it! Small world!

We played softball on Saturday and I hit a pretty sick double. I also slide home on one move and I was SAFE but now I have a nice rash and a very sore knee :) Oh well. It was for the game! We have a game coming up versus the Izumi Branch so we are working hard to get good. I love love love playing sports. I am getting better at ping pong!

I gave a talk on Sunday about a missionary experience. I shared the experience about Brother Ichikawa from Aizu. I never met him, but he was an LA that I visited all the time and left notes in him mailbox. After I transferred, he got reactivated all from those tiny notes of love. The best way to dendo is to show love to others. And we can have more love as we learn about and try to be more like Jesus Christ. And that is my personal dendo goal! I want to learn more about love and develop charity and share that love with others. I guess you could say that is my reason for serving a mission too.

This week was all around good. Sometimes I feel a little left out in my 3 some because I feel like the only reason I got transferred was because of the whole member having a crush on me issue in Akita and President just picked a companionship and stuck me on the end. My district is awesome but I often times am just sitting quietly in the background while everyone else talks to each other. Thats okay though. I dont need to be popular or anything, but I just hope I have purpose for being in Ishinomaki. I sure do miss Akita though.

Oh I forgot the highlight of my week! I asked for a priesthood blessing from one of the elders. Lately I have been searching for spiritual healing. I have done an awful lot of learning about and applying repentance on my mission and I just havent really felt that peaceful feeling of forgiveness... But my best friend Rachel Worthinngton sent me a letter that had some way good insights that kinda changed my thinking. She said that God doesnt withhold forgiveness. When we sin, he forgives immediately. We dont have to go through this long process of godly sorry in order to qualify for his forgiveness. When we feel godly sorrow, it is just us healing from the wound. Just like if you were to brake a bone you would go to the doctor and he would fix the problem but then you need to rest and take time healing. I guess that is kinda how I see it. I just needed to give myself time to heal from the wound. I got the blessing from Elder Aono who is Japanese so yes my blessing was in Japanese but it was amazing because I understood everything that God wanted me to know. And guess what... he said I am healed and forgiven from all my mistakes :) I AM HEALED. You have no idea how good it feels to say that! In the blessing it also said a lot about how God wants me to love other people and my companions. Also he said that I am going to have a hard trial before my mission is over but if I rely on Christ and study about him everything will be okay. That kinda worries me but also I feel okay because I guess at least I know it is coming ha ha. It was a really good blessing and I am really happy!

Thats what you get from me this week! Love you all!

Love Miranda

PS Will you send me school information next week? If I go home the transfer before Christmas (which is Dec 18th by the way) I need to know now because that would mean I only have like 5 ish months left and I need to talk to my president. Please get onto my ISU account and find out what classes I have already taken and what classes and pre reqs I need to get into the Dietetics program at these schools- ISU, UW, BYU, BYU-H, Boise St, Utah St. and any others you think would be good. Let me know when the application dates and stuff are for the program. Just let me know everything please!

Week Fifty-two.

I keep hitting all sorts of benchmarks in my mission. Today is 200 days left!

So hello everyone. I feel like I dont have too much to talk about this week so it might be a little bit shorter than usual.

First off, I am starting to like Ishinomaki more and more. Its still not my beloved Akita... but it is still good. I think Akita will always be my favorite area. Ishinomaki is pretty... normal I guess. It is a smaller city and kinda run down. It looks like down town Idaho Falls. Its been raining a lot which is really annoying actually but oh well. Hmm.. what else... the members are AWESOME. In Akita it was hard to do missionary work because the missionaries seriously did it all by themselves. Missionary work is IMPOSSIBLE if the members dont help. Yeah we can search and find and teach all the day long but if the members dont help then our converts will just go inactive anyways and all the work will have been for nothing. We need the members to support and build and love. And on the bright side, Ishinomaki has really figured that out! The members help SO much! They come to all our activities and they call US telling us their schedules when they are free if we need someone to joint or drive us somewhere or to go visit a Less Active or ANYTHING we need! It is so so so so so so nice. It makes dendo so much easier and effective. Hey if you dont already do a lot with the missionaries you should tell them when you are free that week and offer to joint for a lesson or offer to go visit LAs with them. They will really appreciate it.

I dont know when we are getting I Pads. When President Rasmussen was here he said we would get them before the end of the year. When President Smith came he said we would get them sometime between 6 months to a year so I dont really know the truth. But we have training with the APs next week so maybe it will be about I Pads. I am pretty sure we have to buy the I Pad but I dont know all the details yet. I really dont know anything actually.

So recently a NEW PAMPHLET came out by the church!!!!! Ha ha when we learned about it we were all gasping and so excited. It made me laugh because people in the real world are getting all excited about new movies and songs and stuff and us missionaries are all freaking out because a new pamphlet just came out. Funny funny! The new pamphlet is called "who is God" or something like that. It is still in the draft stages I guess but we are supposed to read it and mark it up and then give suggestions for improvement. The pamphlet was made specifically for missions where there isnt a Christian background. Ive read through the pamphlet already and I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so sooooooooooo happy they made it. It will help my mission so much. These people just have no clue at all who or what god is. There is also another pamphlet we are supposed to read called "what to expect when meeting with the missionaries." It also was pretty good and will prove to be really helpful in my mission. Hallelujah!

So we met a nice lady last week named Melody. She is from the Philippines and so so sweet. She is an LA but she cant come to church because her husband is so against it. But she was really happy to have the sisters come by and visit. She gave us delicious watermelon so that was awesome. We also had an appointment last week with one of our investigators named Michiru san. She is the girlfriend of a member in our ward. She was SO cute but she isnt actually interested in changing her life. She just is learning about the church because her boyfriend is a member so she thinks it would be good just to know about it but all she wants to do is listen and learn but not apply. We are trying to build a relationship with her and hopefully her heart will start to change. We also found ANOTHER NEW INVESTIGATOR last week! That is 1 new Q a week!! His name is Ryotaro kun. He is 18 and he loves video games and anime and stuff. His house got destroyed in the tsunami so he lives in temporary housing with his family. Alcazar shimai met him at this hand massage service she was doing for tsunami victims and we finally met him last week and had a short lesson. Yoshi! We also played ping pong with Kimura san our other investigator  this week. Our district leader got mad at me and alcazar shimai because apparently we were talking too much to our investigator. Last I remember talking to your NEW investigator was a good thing. Plus it was his first time in the church and we wanted to make him feel comfortable... geez. But I WAS talking to everyone.. my DL just didnt see it. He only saw me when I was talking to my investigator. I cant believe he got mad at us. And the childish thing about it is if it was really a problem he could have handled it maturely and talked to me and sister alcazar directly but instead he called kanno shimai and told her and didnt say anything to us. hmmm... I was kinda mad a few nights ago but I am okay now. Oh but last night we had a big crab party with some members and some investigators and one of the members got mad at my district leader because he was only talking to one person at the party and wasnt talking to everyone. I had to laugh a little because that was the exact reason my district leader got a little mad at me a few days ago. He he he... anyways, Im okay now though.

I head there have been some crazy floods in Idaho right now. Is that true?

Hey I want to join your big weight loss extravaganza thing! I need to drop some of these kg`s QUICK!

Well thats it I think. Talk to you next week!
Love Miranda

 Me and my doki (the people that came to japan at the same time as me) on our ONE YEAR MARK! The elder that is furthest to the left isnt actually in my doki. I dont know why he is in the picture... but everyone else is. Oh and this isnt everyone in my doki. THis is only the ones that are in the Sendai Zone. We took this picture at zone training meeting.

Crab party!

Week Fifty-one.

Hey y`alllll! Today I have been a missionary for 1 year. On the 17th will be my one year mark since entering the MTC.... whoa. I did it. I made it to one year.

Im just gonna start from the beginning and run through all the important things that happened last week. And... BEGIN!

So before I left Akita we went and visited Natsuko chan`s mom to say goodbye and to say thank you because she donated a watermelon to our fourth of July BBQ. When she opened the door she got the biggest smile on her face and when I told her I was leaving she said stuff like "ahh thats too bad! I wanted you to come over and hang out more!" GUYS. SHE LIKES US. This was a big big moment for me! The reason Natsuko chan cant hear the lessons is because her mom didnt want her to, but now her mom likes us and so maybe the missionaries in Akita now can teach not only Natsuko chan but also her mom! Yippee!

The day before I left Akita we went to the gym to play basketball one last time with everyone. Natsuko chan came and so did Kai kun. It was so fun but I cried... a lot... it was so sad riding my bike away from the gym knowing I would never go back there again. That gym is where I met Kai kun so it is special to me! After playing basketball we rode back to the church and to my surprise there was a Namahage in the parking lot! A namahage is a Japanese monster and they are famous to the Akita area! He was hiding behind a car and when we arrived he jumped out and started chasing me and Sister Luk and one of the other girls that was with us. Scary!!! But after awhile the monster got tired and uncovered himself by taking off his mask... dont worry, it was just Hitoshi san. Ha ha he is the cutest, right? Actually that is one of his jobs... to dress up like a namahage and play the fancy Japanese drums and perform at events like carnivals and weddings. I guess he wanted to put on one last show for me since I am leaving. It was fun! After that EVERYONE went out and ate udon which is a kind of noodle. There were like 15 people that all went. It was so sad to leave all of them. I will always remember the people I met in Akita, Japan. I know that I was called to Japan for THEM, especially Natsuko chan, Kai kun, and Hitoshi san.

Ishinomaki, ne. It is very different from Akita. I remember when I first got to Akita I loved it instantly. It was kinda weird... I just had this strong "at home" feeling- like I was always meant to be there. But when I got to Ishinomaki the first thing I noticed was the smell of poop as I got off the bus. It is a pretty dirty looking town, probably because of the big tsunami. It actually looks kinda like Aizu did. I havent seen anything in particular that I can tell is damaged from the tsunami but I am sure I will have a chance to see that kind of stuff in the future. I could very well end my mission here.

My companions are Sister Alcazar (from Utah but she is Columbian) and Sister Kanno (from Hokkaido). Oh man. I dont know how I am getting so lucky with companions but I LOVE them so much. We have already had so much fun and I think every night we fall asleep crying and laughing. They are so great. The other members in my district are Elder Zane Hill from Auburn Washington, Elder London Simonsen from Utah, Elder Kobayashi from Hokkaido, and Elder Aono from Tokyo. It is a fuuuuuun district, and we are all doing WORK here! I think there are 2 baptism dates set in our district and the elders just had a baptism right before transfers- so like 2 weeks ago. Its awesome.

My second day in Ishinomaki we went out to dinner with a potential investigator that Alcazar Shimai had found a week earlier. When she met him she gave him a Book of Mormon and at dinner he told us that he had already read to 1 Ne. 9! MIRACLE. He is a pretty funny guy. He is 50 something and super rich and likes to talk A LOT. He talked for a long time but I cant understand the Sendai dialect yet so I didnt really understand him. I am too used to the Akita dialect I guess! But anyways, he became a new investigator that night! Woo hooo!!!! My second day in Ishinomaki and we have a NEW INVESTIGATOR! That puts us at 3 investigators. One investigator doesnt have interest. She is just taking the lessons because her boyfriend wants her too and he is a member in our branch. One investigator has been taking the lessons forever but she wont get baptized. She is what we call an eternal investigator. And then there is Kimura san- our new investigator! Hopefully we can see some success with these people and find new people too.

Ishinomaki is way different from Akita but the dendo is kinda the same. They focus on service and activities here. Listen to how great missionary work in Japan is... On Wednesday we play ultimate frisbee from 3-5:30 and eikaiwa like usual, on Thursday we do service at a child center, on Friday we have a ping pong tournament from 7-8:30, on Saturday we give hand massages for service in the morning, play softball at 1:00 then right after softball we play ultimate frisbee at 3-5:30. SO FUN. This last week was so fun playing all those sports. We are going to have a softball tournament against the Izumi branch and their missionaries in the future so we have been practicing! Everyone said I was pretty good at softball. I guess I have Jr High School to thank for that! Ha ha.

The members in Ishinomaki are amazing. They have so much more dendo fire than the Akita members... no offense Akita! I love you! But seriously. They always are calling US saying, "hey can I joint for you! Can I do a mogi with you! I can drive you to visit LAs!" Its so amazing. And the members themselves will go and hand out flyers for eikaiwa and other activities just because they are so awesome. We had a super cool training with a member that used to be the branch president but he just got released but he knows a lot about what kind of missionary work works best in Ishinomaki. He used the bible and we read stories about the things Christ did during his earthly ministry so we are to base our dendo off of that. Our focus here is showing love and doing service. It is taking the time to talk to those around us and help them, because thats what Jesus did. It was a way cool training.

Last but not least, the typhoon and earthquake! Dont worry, we didnt get hit by the typhoon. We were supposed to get it on Friday but I dont even think it rained at all. I guess it missed us after all. And on Saturday I think it was? at 4:30 am I woke up to my apartment shaking. It was an earthquake and it lasted a really long time and it was a little bit stronger than other ones Ive felt. After the earthquake stopped we started hearing sirens and then our district leader called us asking us if we were okay. He told us that we needed to get our emergency food and go to the church because a tsunami was coming. But we didnt need to go until 8 o clock but until then we were to STAY AWAKE. Lots of other members texted us and called us to make sure we were okay. One member called us and told us that on the news it looked like we were going to be okay and the tsunami wasnt a problem anymore. We called our district leader back and he said that we didnt have to go to the church anymore. So we all went back to sleep and woke up at 6:30 again and continued our day like regular. It was kinda scary though! I feel a lot of earthquakes here... maybe 3 or 4 a week.

Thats it! Here are the answers to your questions mom. I am glad I bought winter stuff in Japan because for one thing I didnt have to worry about suitcase weight. When I go home I am probably going to just throw out all my clothes so I wont have to worry about suitcase weight then, either! But when you transfer around it doesnt matter how heavy your suitcase is so I can just stuff it all in there for now. I didnt think it was hard to find winter stuff. I had members that helped me buy boots and a coat and buying tights and socks and scarves is easy. You just have to go to any clothing store.  It is easy to get what you need for cheap if you have members help you. And they are ALWAYS willing to help. As for my release date, I am pretty sure it is going to be February but I dont know. Plus, if I go back to ISU I already have all my pre req`s done to get in to the dietetics program so I wouldnt need to be home for spring semester. I would just start the program in the fall... but if I got to a different school then they might have different requirements so I would have to do spring semester. It just depends on the school I guess. Can you look at the requirements to get into the Dietetics program for these schools- ISU, UW, BYU-I, BYU, Boise St., and any other college you think would be good for me? You can get my siblings all on the hunt if you want.

I love you all so much! Thanks for your prayers!
Love, Miranda

all of us in Akita after basketball

Namahage!!!!!!

My reason.

Dinner with Kimura san

Sister Robertson ran into her first companion.

Week Fifty.

Well, yesterday was the transfer call! And also my 7 months left mark! Today marks my 8th transfer out of 12! 4 more left! Oh yeah... and I AM TRANSFERRING! To Ishinomaki! Ishinomaki is the place that got hit the worst from the big tsunami in 2011. I will be in Sendai Zone. Bye bye Morioka zone! Bye bye my precious Akita! It feels like my time in Akita has been really short but I guess it has been 4 1/2 months. I dont want to transfer at all. I feel like there is still so much work I need to do in Akita and still so many people I need to help and teach. I hope I am not just getting transferred because of the issue that went on with one of the members having a crush on me, but I have a feeling thats why I am leaving which makes me really frustrated. I dont want to have to deal with that kind of stuff, but there is also so much I feel I need to do in Akita so I am having mixed emotions. When we got the call I started to cry because I instantly thought of Hitoshi san, Kai kun, and Natsuko chan. I just cant imagine not seeing them ever again which could happen since they live in Japan and travel is not the easiest or cheapest! I knew I would transfer eventually but I didnt think it would be this soon. I thought I had another transfer here if not more. Ah I love Akita. I dont want to leave.

So the transfer is not the only change happening in the mission! We got a new mission president! President Smith! He is SO DIFFERENT than President Rasmussen. And Sister Smith is SO SO SO DIFFERENT than Sister Rasmussen. I think it will take some warming up to get used to Sister Smith... but I already love President Smith! We had a mini zone conference to meet him and his wife and talked about a lot of really really good stuff. He started by saying he had a dream recently and in this dream he saw a giant tsunami... I instantly started freaking out inside thinking, "oh no! Another natural disaster is coming!" Plus, right before Pres Rasmussen left he felt really impressed to have all the missionaries prepare an emergency backpack in case of a disaster.. but turns out the tsunami was a tsunami of evil, not water. But that is still scary! A big tsunami of evil is sweeping the earth destroying everything in its path and the only thing that can stop it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Us missionaries hold a lot of power. We have the truth and we have a responsibility to teach it to others and save them from the tsunami. When a tsunami comes, the only thing you can do is get to safe ground and go somewhere high. We need to keep our investigators and members and everyone SAFE. We need to get them to high ground. We need to get them to the temple! That is where there is safety! Baptism is an important step, but ultimately we want everyone to go to the temple and be sealed forever and ever with their families.
President Smith also talked about how he loves each one of us. It was cool that he said that because he doesnt even know us but you could really feel his love just from listening to him talk. He also said, "there is nothing so bad that you can do that will ever make me or Heavenly Father stop loving you. There absolutely is nothing. You could be the worst person and I will always love you. Sorry, there is no escaping that!" It was so comforting actually. I think I too often focus on the strict, just side of things. I am always worried about the judgement day because I am just afraid I am going to get a good whippin' or something! But in reality, God is so so so so loving and he wants me to be saved, not punished and damned!
It seems like everything Pres Smith said was exactly what I needed to hear. I truly know that he was called of God and that me and him are both serving at this time for a reason. I am thankful for him.

So the fun thing of the week was the 4th of July! On the actual 4th of July I didn't celebrate at all besides wearing red, white, and blue... but on the 5th of July we had a big American BBQ at a park! It was so fun but also SO STRESSFUL. Lots of members cancelled out on us and we were counting on them to bring food to share and plus lots of people were late and no one seemed to be able to help us so it was pretty difficult getting everything up to the park on our bikes... it was an adventure for sure. But we did it! We had kabobs and salad and yummy apple pie made my Morgan Shimai. I also made a ton of brownies and everyone said they liked them! Woo hoo! We had a water balloon fight and all the American missionaries also put on a Patriotic program. We had everyone hold American flags and wave them around while we sang patriotic songs. It was so fun! I even found an opportunity to sing the 50 states song, YES! I knew memorizing that would come in handy someday! We ended our program with a very emotional rendition of "I'm proud to be an American". You can best believe I threw up a few fist pumps. After the program we did sparklers with everyone! It was so so so so fun, as you can see from the video. I never did get to see that video unfortunately. Was it the one that Ishida took? I will have to see it after my mish I guess since Im leaving Akita.

Thats it! Oh by the way, I am sending a box of stuff home-mostly clothes. I cant fit it in my suitcases for transfers! Since I bought all my winter clothes and boots and coats here in Japan, I am having to throw stuff out so I can pack all that stuff and bring it with me.
Also, did you see the pictures Lita Shimai took of us? Isnt she the greatest! Be sure to thank her and love her for taking care of me. She really is such a special person. I will miss her and everyone else in Akita.

Sayonara. Love ya!
Love, Miranda

Me and Elder Canepari ! He was being so dangerous with the fireworks and trying to light me on fire!