February 26, 2012

February 26, 2012

Dear Fam!

Happy week to you all! Mom thanks for the ideas of things to do with kids - I laughed when I read all the ideas you had gathered for me. Painting toast everyday isn't the worst thing that can happen to someone is it?.. : ) And, just know that I did try to make Grandma's play dough but they don't have Kool-Aid in Japan. Anything like it already has the sugar added as well, and that makes the play dough turn weird. Plus, Japanese people don't make food with that much fake color in it...they're conservative like that.)

Answers to the questions that you and Aunt Jenny were wondering about. 

1- Do you go to member’s homes each day to eat? We always eat on our own. Often we will ask members if we can come to their house to share a spiritual message, or do an activity with their family, and from that a lot of times they will throw in a meal too, but as far as the everyday meals that's up to us. The members do help a lot with groceries though. In every ward I have been in there has been a basket sitting in the hall for the missionaries that the members drop food into on Sundays. That is really nice.

2- How much money do you get each month and what does it pay for? We get about $435 dollars/ 33,000Yen per month. That sounds like a lot, and it is plenty for us, but Tokyo is an expensive area. I'm assuming we get more than anyone else. That money covers: all food (groceries, eating out of the apartment, etc.), supplies for the apartment (toilet paper/cleaning supplies/laundry soap), travel money (for trains), toiletries, postage to immediate family and fast-offerings. Things paid for with personal money: postage to anyone else, clothes, bike and bike-repairs, souvenirs, gifts, and printing pictures.

4- Dad asked Tristan a while ago what he was doing to prepare for his mission.  There has been a little bit of a family discussion going on since then as to what Tristan can do.  What are your ideas as to what some of the most important things are that he should be doing?  How to prepare: Prepare to go to the temple! The best way I did that was by going to LDS.org and typed the word 'endowment' in the search bar. I took the first 10 or so entries that looked good, printed them, and put them in a binder. Then I read them over a few weeks and highlighted in different colors 3 things I was looking for: 1- definitions of what the endowment is, 2-how to prepare to receive it, and 3-anything that was suggested to read. Then I went back through and took all the things it said to do to prepare and made a list, as well as things to read, and started doing and reading the things on those lists, as well as going back through the definitions I had found every once in a while to remind me what it was I was preparing for.

I'm a kind of thorough person, and Tristan might not need to do exactly all that, but I loved it. It was so fun to prepare so specifically for the temple. Some of the things on the to-do list I made could be done once and then checked off, but a lot of them were things to be doing everyday (like scriptures). It was neat to have that list and eventually see that I was doing all of the things required to enter the house of the Lord.

Pix: What it looks like when missionaries get together. (This is all the missionaries in our stake. Ours is the biggest of 9 stakes in the mission.)

This week was great. Here are a few favorite quotes from the Oak's meeting:

"To your investigators you will never be futsu. You will always be one of the most reiteki, special people they have ever met." -Sister Oaks served a mission in Sendai Japan and kept throwing in random Japanese words when she would talk. 'Futsu' means 'normal' or 'every-day', and 'reiteki' means 'spiritual'. She's a pretty classy lady, and also energetic. Hearing her speak feels like listening to someone who just turned 16. She's just so excited.

Elder Oaks did a Q&A with us about receiving revelation. After discussing for a long time about how to tell if an impression is from the Lord or not, he finally said, "If you get a feeling you should do something you really don't want to do, it's probably revelation. If it's something you really want to do anyway, you should probably put that revelation to some tests first to see if it's from the Lord." I felt like his point was that a lot of time the Lord just trusts us and knows we will fulfill a lot of His work with the desires we already have, and when there's something we should do that we wouldn't think of on our own, that's when revelation comes. Another favorite from him: "The Songs of Solomon are biblical trash." : )

Tonight we are doing FHE with Nakayasu Family and teaching them the last of the lessons Brother Nakayasu needs before he can get baptized! Pretty exciting.

Last night we were housing and met a guy from Thailand. He didn't speak English or Japanese, nor did his 3 Thai friends, but they knew a guy who did and went and got him. We talked and said we would come back in a couple hours with a Thai Book of Mormon. We left, went to our apartment and found we have nothing in that language, called a member at the church and had them print out the Book of Mormon introduction and first 3 chapters from the internet. Took that back to the Thai guy and taught him about Joseph Smith. Turns out there are 24 Thai guys all living in that apartment complex. The one we talked to is named Gein and said if he could ask God one question, he would ask what will happen after he dies. We told him we'd be back next Sunday. Stay tuned and put Gein on the prayer list. (Updated prayer list: Nakayasu (Male), Gein (M), Tateno (F), Handa (F), and Fukada (M) ... Hooray!)

Alright, gotta go. I love and pray for each of you every day.

-Sister Waite