Hey everyone, are you genki??
So I am gonna take this day by day! Here we goooo!
Tuesday- We visited a less active grandma that has pretty strong faith actually but her body condition is just so bad that she cant make it to church. We sang hymns with her and cleaned her nasty tiny apartment. It was pretty gross... but it always feels good to serve. After that appointment, Matsumoto Shimai was sick so we went home and she ended up sleeping from like 3 until the next day. I dont know how she did it... I spent my time reading old letters and studying the bible a little. What do you guys know about Nathan the prophet? Grandma sent me a letter once that had an experience that Grandpa Flash wrote down saying he felt like "Nathan of old". I am assuming he means Nathan the prophet but I really dont know that much about him and I couldnt find too much... hmm.
Wednesday- We had a practice lesson with Furuuchi Shimai, an active member. She gave some really good feedback on how we could improve our lesson which I was grateful for. Do you guys do practice lessons with the missionaries at all? I bet it would really help them to practice! Of course in Japan we use it to practice Japanese, but it has other purposes too. They are to practice using the Book of Mormon, practice teaching the principles correctly, and practice using the spirit. We also use our practice lessons to help the members have a spiritual experience so they will want to share the gospel with others. If we have them pretend to be one of their non member friends, it helps them understand maybe what their friend needs and sometimes we can get referrals from them. We also use the practice lesson excuse to have english students help us or less actives to help us because every Japanese person likes to help people, especially Americans! Its a great tool. We also taught english on Wed, like usual. I taught the intermediate class and everyone was pretty good at English. It was fun. We have an instruction manual about what to teach and how to teach so we arent just making up our own lesson plans or anything. We go over correct pronunciation, vocabulary about the theme for that week, and I always give question prompts to start conversation in the class. If we have time we always play a fun game too.
Thursday- We went to Tendou, a nearby area, to visit some people. We visited a member named Otake Shimai and she is like 94 years old or something. We did a practice lesson with her then spent the next hour in a half doing origami. She LOOOVES her origami! I learned how to make a penguin, dog, and little box thing. Thursday night we had DCS which is our meeting with the ward mission leader where we talk about the progress record. I realized during the meeting that I understood EVERYTHING that the ward mission leader said and I was so amazed... one year ago I couldnt understand ANY Japanese... This is seriously such a miracle. I can understand Japanese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After DCS we had a special practice lesson party! Some priesthood leaders from the ward came and for the next hour we did 15 min practice lessons and then switch people. It was so scary, but so so helpful. I became such a better teacher! Yeah!
Friday- We had zone training meeting! We learned about making goals and having purpose in everything we do. For example if you have the purpose of getting to know someone then you will probably ask questions about their hobbies and favorite food and stuff. But if you have the purpose of wanting to know about what kind of person they want to be, then the questions you ask will probably be a lot different. We were challenged to have a purpose in everything we do and have our purposes be effective and something that will help the work move forward. We also had a lesson with our investigator Eiko san on this day. It was my first time meeting her and she is AMAZING! She is the wife of a less active but her mother in law is a strong member. We taught her about prayer and she has real interest!!!! She had tons of questions about what to say when you pray and when you pray and how you do it and stuff. We asked her to say the closing prayer and she said yes so we all waited with our eyes closed for her to start but she never said anything, so Sister Matsumoto said, "first you start with Heavenly Father..." and she said, "oh, out loud??" It just goes to show that the Japanese people really dont have any clue when it comes to God being our father and christianity and prayer and how it works and stuff. They only thing they know is clapping twice at a shrine and making a wish. I love this culture and I love teaching people and seeing them understand these simple things of the gospel. We also had a lesson with Kirari chan, our 17 yr old investigator. It was really short and it was about the Book of Mormon. She has been praying regularly and she really likes this church! I bet she will for sure get baptized :) We also had FHE that night and we played this like lazer tag game with everyone using dart guns. It was so fun, yo!
Saturday- we hiked the mountain that you can see from our apartment! It was fun. We went with a member. When we got back down the mountain, we went with Elder Drenk and Canepari from my district and ate McDonalds and it was SO GOOD. I havent eaten mcdonalds in forever. Then we went back to our apartment but we accidentally locked ourselves out of our apartment so we had to go to the church for general conference in our hiking clothes.... but when we got there the other sisters were there so we grabbed their key and hurried home to change then rode back and just ended up being late for conference. I like conference though! I havent seen all of it in English yet though. Tonight I will watch the session with Holland in English. One of the members said I could borrow the DVD and watch it in our apartment, so thats nice!
Sunday- General Conference! I really loved President Monsons talk about being Christlike. Just like Christ is indistinguishable from the Father, I want to be indistinguishable from them too. That is the goal of my life!
Now its Monday... and yes a typhoon is coming! We are instructed to stay inside our apartment from 6 o clock on tonight and tomorrow we are not allowed to ride our bikes if it is raining which SUCKS because we live so far from everything. It takes 20 or 30 min by bike to get anywhere. But hey I havent felt any earthquakes... I dont think Yamagata gets them too much. I bet if I was still in Ishinomaki I would be feeling them though.
So I got my trunky letter this week... It is a letter that pretty much tells you not to get trunky and that the Lord wants finishers. It was weird getting it because that means I am close to being done, but it still feels like I have 18 months left. Im not trunky at all. But I need to get some information from you guys... I need the name and address of my Bishop and Stake President and the name of the ward I will be going home too... and since our ward just split what do I write? Can you please tell me that information next week because I need to send in my returning home information ASAP.
oh btw I looooooove my companion sister matsumoto. She is a second generation member. she is from tottori prefecture. we speak japanese all the time, sometimes i still cant express myself and when i tell experiences or stories i dont exactly tell them smoothly but she understands my short choppy sentences so thats good. i think that is my biggest challenge right now.. telling personal experiences smoothly and so all my thoughts connect.
i havent practiced and sign language. I dont know how really. we have an appt with our deaf investigator this week. I will just write her notes.
Also... I have a package request! Deodorant, toothpaste, and gummy worms! Thanks!
Love ya! Miranda
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