March 19, 2012

March 19, 2012

Greetings Fam from Urayasu, Japan –

The day after I got here a package was delivered from Sachi Mumford! Thank you!!! That granola is amazing. Mumfords also added in a couple of packages of Jerky so tell them thanks too please. How long are they here for?

Urayasu is pretty close to central Tokyo; at least it's in the Tokyo stake. My companion is Sister Barbour, she's also from Califormia and went to BYU before coming here. She just got here in December, but her Japanese is better than most returned missionaries. She studied it for about 6 years before coming on her mission. I like her a lot. She works hard and knows a lot about Japan.

Also, last night I got a call from President and he said that one of the sister missionaries in the area next to us has to go home next week, so starting next Monday her companion will work with us too. We are going to be covering her area and ours together, and he just said to stay at whichever apartment is closest to the appointments we have. I think we might be bouncing back and forth every couple days if that's really how it works out... who knows. Her name is Sister Tomura and she's Japanese.

Our apartment is new as of last transfer, and there are still various items that we don't have, such as clocks and hangers. It's pretty much set though, and I like that there's not as much junk in it.

Suzuki Shimai is an investigator that met the missionaries last transfer and finished the lessons last week. She's ready to get baptized except that she doesn't want to quit drinking tea. She's about 40 I think, and just lives alone. Pray for her if you can.

Also, this week we knocked on the door of a lady from Columbia and she let us in and sat us down. She believes in God and Jesus Christ but thinks they are the same person.  We went back again and gave her a Spanish Book of Mormon and told her about Joseph Smith. Pray for her too.

We also met a lady in a park the last week and have an appointment to meet her again this week. Pray for Kanesaka.

This ward is amazing. Everywhere I go I never cease to be amazed by the ward members, especially the leadership. That's one of the biggest blessings of my mission: having the opportunity to work so closely with so many good leaders and learn what leadership really is.

Mom - keep going with visiting teaching! I would get on my soap box about it every week if I could. You know how if you see a kid with no shoes and a runny nose and no coat on you think, 'Kid, where is your mom?'. Well, whenever I meet a less-active who isn't getting the Liahona every month, is struggling with something and wants to talk, or has problems in their family the first thing I always think is, "Sister, where is your visiting teacher?" Yep.

 

Brother Nakayasu's baptism. 

You know that stuff that is the consistency of snot that I wrote about once. Well, I forgot I had written that until Dad mentioned it in a letter. Since last transfer I've been eating it about every other day, so this is a picture I took as evidence of that. It's called natto, and it's pretty good.

Pix from our front door. We live on the 5th floor. Out the other side of our apartment we can see Tokyo Disneyland off in the distance. Too bad missionaries can't go! haha :) We get to enjoy the perk of seeing fireworks every night from 8:30-8:35. They are way off in the distance but it's a pretty good show. 

I LOVE YOU ALL to pieces...

-Waite Shimai