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!