(Hello! Is everyone doing good?)
This week flewwwwww by. It started out with us heading to our investigator Tagami sans home with a member. We had plans to just give her a Christmas present and then leave because she is way busy right now, but we caught her at just the right time and she invited us in and we were able to do a surprise lesson with her! Since it was Christmas time we just taught a short message on the Savior and His birth. I still dont know about her though... she doesnt seem very interested and she is way busy these days... we need new investigators!
Then.. Christmas Eve! It was just a normal day for me. We had district meeting in the afternoon though and we did a white elephant gift exchange. I had my district leader, Elder Reynolds, and I made him a Christmas rap! I think this whole Christmas rap thing is becoming a tradition for me... I am pretty sure lots of videos were taken of the rap but I didnt get one on my camera. Sorry. Elder Reynolds had me for his white elephant person and he gave me a collage of pictures of himself ha ha and a regifted Christmas card! He whited out the parts that had his name and his relatives names on it and put my name and his name on it instead! How cheap! Ha ha it was hilarious though.
We had our English Class that night and surprisingly lots of people came. Me and lil` Bullock taught about Time in the Kids Class. They did pretty good too! We finished it off strong with a round of duck, duck, goose. I joined in too and let me tell ya, those kids are QUICK! After class we had a big pot luck eating party. Me and Sister Bullock made pasta and it mostly got eaten so I hope that means it was good. It was fun chatting with everyone. I tried to make some relationships with some of the people there but it seems like the people coming to English Class right now just want to learn English. Which makes sense ha ha... but I wanna teach someone! I wish we could talk about the gospel during class, but we cant. Its a rule. But I guess in the meantime I will just be happy doing a service to other people by teaching them English! I will totally take up any opportunity to keep my baptismal covenants!
And then... Christmas! Me and Sister Bullock opened presents in the morning. Thanks for the lucky charms and necklace and stuff, mom! We also opened presents from the ward which was mostly just snacks and candy. Sister Bullock didnt get anything from home, so I made sure to buy her something when she wasnt looking. She said she was really happy.
We went and taught a lesson to a recent convert- Sister Oikawa- about the word of wisdom. I love Sister Oikawa but she has severe Alzheimer so she literally forgets everything. Every time we come to the door she asks if we have met and we always reintroduce ourselves and then she invites us in and then we have the same exact conversations every single time. Its really sad, and kind of difficult to teach her because she just forgets everything right after you say it. But she is way cute, and just seeing her face and her badly cut bangs makes me happy. We teach her twice a week and are her "babysitters" at church. Hmm... she is so pure and honestly I feel like she probably didnt need to get baptized, but some missionaries along the way wanted a baptism and now the Kamisugi members have a lot to deal with. Thats one thing you have to remember that missionaries come and go, but the members are there for good. Sister Oikawa cant take care of her own money or food or anything so the members do ALL of it. They pay her rent for her and do her food and money and all that stuff. And they will have to keep doing it forever until she dies... and she is only like in her 60s.
We also had a Christmas dinner with some of the single ladies in our ward and all the missionaries. Usually on Christmas you eat fried chicken and cake, but we ate sushi and fruit for some reason ha ha. It was way good! I guess it wasnt technically sushi though because most of the food was cooked, so it was more like onigiri (a ball of rice covered in seaweed with tuna or fish or something in it). It tasted like onigiri but it didnt look like it. I dont really know how to explain it... all I know is it was good and we got the leftovers too! Yippee!
And then the highlight of the week... the next day I got to talk to all of you guys on skype! It was so so awesome to see everyone! I cant believe how big the babies are and how skinny everyone is and how happy everyone is. It was so great. Its weird to think that I will be seeing you in person in a little less than 6 weeks... you should be getting travel plans at any time now I think! My 1 month left mark is in one week, so I expect it the plans to come sometime around then.
Did you find out if I could go to Idaho shortly after I get home from my mission? I have friends that want to know.
Lets see... so after I talked to you guys on skype, we did some study and then in the afternoon we went to a retirement home and sang songs for them. It was kinda stressful for me because I had to get everything organized and pick the songs and play the piano and be the MC and yeah I can speak Japanese but it isnt like fluent or perfect or anything so I was kinda stressed. And the elders ALWAYS complain about singing and doing the actions to the songs and stuff. Oh geez boys... just DO IT! This is service! Be happy! But it ended up being a pretty good show. One of the oldies even get really involved and started singing really loud too. One of the workers said that wasnt normal for her so they were really grateful for our performance.
On Saturday we handed out fliers as a district to advertise our English Class. It was so so cold... I couldnt feel my hands. I talked to a few people about the church, but Japanese people have such a bad image of religion that the second they see the name tag they run away. It is frustrating. I am a good person, I promise! Anyways, maybe we will get some new students next week. Hope so!
Saturday night me and Sister Bullock, 2 English class students, and a member made the gingerbread house that you sent me! It was so fun! And delicious! We tried to be sneaky and teach a lesson through our conversations and just do it way naturally but both the English students straight up told us they dont have interest at all. They are still way nice though and they said they would do our 30min program so we could practice our Japanese. We are hoping that once they start hearing the gospel, something will click, and they will realize that they ARE interested!
Sunday was good. I got a little frustrated in the morning because my companion is just sooooo slow at everything. I dont know how to explain it.. everything she does is in slow motion. We are always late for everything and its frustrating. We were supposed to have an old investigator come to church, but we were late for church so I was freaking out because we werent going to be able to be there to greet her or anything and meet her. But it turns out she didnt show up anyways...
And then getting home is always a struggle. It takes about 10 min on bike to commute from our apartment to the church, but now we have to add on like 15 min for prep time to get coats and bags and the bike key and light and everything situated. So we are pretty much always late at night and I dont like it. I try to bike fast but she bikes slow so then she ends up getting lost and I have to back track and go find her. Ha ha...
But even though these little things happen, she is actually a really good person. At the end of a weekly planning session, we always do something called companionship inventory where you set goals and just talk about your relationship with each other. We did that yesterday and she just kept telling me that I am the best companion ever and that she is so lucky and grateful that I am her trainer and that I am so nice. I almost started to cry because I know in my heart and mind and in my journal and emails I have been complaining this whole time, but in her eyes, I am this great experienced missionary that has been through it all and so Christlike and full of love and converted to the gospel. Well, right there I realized that I need to do better and shape up. Yeah maybe our personalities are different and the way we do things is different, but that doesnt mean we cant love each other. We can still be sisters in Zion together. We can still laugh and have fun and dendo. We ended the night last night smiling and joking, and it was really fun. We are going to work harder this week on being on time for everything and getting ready quicker in the morning and leaving earlier so we have time to get places and go slow on our bikes and be safe at the same time. I think everything will work out after all.
And thats it for last week. This week will be another fun one because it is NEW YEARS! The biggest holiday. I will let you know all about my cultural experience next week. But I got directions to a giant shrine yesterday at church from a member, so you best believe we are gonna hit up the Buddhist/Shinto traditions! Holla!
心から愛してるよ
（Love you guys so much.）
Miranda
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