November 1, 2011

Hello FAM!

Last week of this transfer. I've learned a lot, that's for sure.

Virginia and Jun are both from the Philippines and have been dating. Sister Derricott knows them a lot better and first started teaching Jun. Jun got baptized my first week here and that's pretty much all the association I've had with either of them until dinner with Brother Derricott. Virginia has been less active for a while.

Our investigator Yajima came to church for the first time on Sunday with his fiance Yayoii Shimai (also less-active). It was wonderful to see him there. He is definitely making an effort to change his life around and make church a priority. His baptismal date is the 13th of November. He was so happy-looking the whole time. That's something I love - you find someone, and tell them about the gospel, and they make a few steps in the right direction... and then they come to church, and when things go right you can just see it all clicking in their brain and they see that there really are other people who are happy because they live the commandments. Spare a prayer for him.

Also at church, in one of our English branches, Caroline (a member from Brazil) brought her husband Fernando. They are both pretty young and just got married 8 months ago. Fernando believes in the Bible, and prays every day, and has already been baptized in his other church that he goes to every Sunday. We visit them a lot and also the past week set up a dinner with them and 2 other couples and us missionaries at the church. We are really hoping that he will begin having more interest in what sets our church apart from the others.

Sunday, in that same English-speaking branch was the Primary program. I haven't seen anything funnier in a long time. Seeing all those squirmy bodies wiggling around up on the stand made me think of all my cousins. It's been a long time since I've held a little kid.

Mom- to answer your question about who pays for dinner, when we went to that dinner Virginia paid, which was not ok with Brother Derricott, so next time he comes to Japan we are all going out again and he's buying. But besides that, who pays for dinner just depends on who arranged it. Usually if we are actually going out to eat with someone (an investigator/less active), we all pay for ourselves. Living here, pretty much all our money goes to eating out with people and riding the trains. Not all the meals we go to are at restaurants though. Since we have a lot of American/English-speaking members in our area, they invite us over a lot for meals. Doing that fits a lot better into American culture than it does into the Japanese culture. Japanese people don't really go into each others' homes, even their friends.

So, I've told Sister Derricott many times that I believe that part of the reason I was called here to Tokyo is so that I can go through all the sister missionary apartments and throw away all the junk. I've only been in 2 apartments so far, but both have undergone minor surgery in the process. (I swear, Japanese people never throw anything away because it's just too big of a pain to sort it all into the right recycling piles...). Anyway, our elders have an investigator who is a true hoarder. Last night all 6 of us went over to his house to clean. We made a small dent, and a return appointment. It felt great to just throw things away. I'm including a picture of our 6 bikes parked outside with the huge pile of trash on his sidewalk. (That trash was from just one room.)

Halloween - we had a trunk or treat and I was a lady bug. Also, we had a Halloween party at our English-teaching class and it was a huge success. Everyone brought treats. Japanese people only celebrate Halloween in a sort of "this is an American holiday and we don't know what it's for" way. They have their own holiday for the dead that is a different time of year. We played games and for the game Sister Derricott and I were in charge of we had them do the 'cookie on your face' race that I think Aunt Megan did at a Halloween party once. It was so funny! Japanese people aren't the biggest game players, so it's fun to watch them get into it.

One last thing: Sunday night, we had dinner with a less active Italian member and he made us pizza. I will never be satisfied with normal pizza again. One of the best meals I've ever eaten.
Gotta go to yet another dinner! (We're making tacos with a potential investigator at her member-friend's house).

-Love,
Sister Waite

PS - Happy Halloween! Also HAPPY NEVADA DAY MOM!!!