I am so excited for general conference! I know all of you have already
seen it, but since I haven't, I am still super excited! I do get to
watch all the sessions, both Saturday and Sunday, so that will be a
blast, but I only have to wait an hour between sessions, which is
definitely nice.
New hand news! I no longer have pins in my hand, and I don't even
have to where a wrap or anything anymore! My hand is free, and it is
definitely a weird feeling. I am still being careful, and just working
on getting the strength back in my hand, because it is really weak...
I can't even really make a fist at the moment, so we will still be
walking for a little while until I have enough strength to squeeze a
brake. Even if I wanted to get back on my bike immediately, my
companion wouldn't let me, which is a good thing.
My hand still doesn't look very pretty, but it does look better I
think, not as much dead dry skin, so it should be great by the end,
and I don't think I will get any scars really, so that is fun. By the
way, I DID NOT look as the pulled the pins out, but it didn't hurt, so
it was all good. They didn't numb it or anything, they just grabbed
them and pulled them out quickly, so that was fast.
My bike did not get hurt, which is good. The way I landed, I don't
think my bike even really hit the ground, because I landed with it on
top of me, so it is fine.
I've heard about the RMTC, good to hear that they enjoyed it.
I have a new nephew!! He is adorable, Michelle sent me a picture at
some point last week, though I don't exactly remember the day, but he
is adorable. It is funny that you don't know what to call him, Quade
or Alex. But I would love more pictures, of all my family. Could you
send some, mom? And be sure to include one of your self, because you
are a very important part of my family.
I remember my last session at the Provo temple before going to Japan,
there wasn't a married couple, so they called on just a brother and a
sister, but it was interesting.
It sounds like everyone is having a wonderful week, and that Michelle
and Alex mcquade are doing better, and I'm sure they will get even
better as time goes on.
That is awesome that will could go to the priesthood session, it is
really amazing. Did you watch the womans session? If not, you
definitely should, I got to watch it Saturday, and it was powerful!
The spirit was very strong, and I learned a lot, especially from
president uchtdorfs parable. The keys to happiness are faith, hope,
and especially love. It was just amazing.
This has been a wonderful week! I love kurashiki more and more as each
week goes by, and I am just so excited to work harder once I can ride
a bike again, which will be very soon!
We had a very relaxing pday Monday, and I got to work a bunch on the
music for our musical number, and I am just so excited, I literally
have ideas going crazy in my brain, but I can shut it off, which is
definitely a good thing.
Tuesday, we had one of the best eikaiwas ever! We reviewed a lot of
what we had been teaching of late, and then we got into groups, and
they practiced speaking English to us missionaries, about those
subjects, and we pretended we didn't speak English, which was very
hard for the older missionaries, because they wanted to throw in
Japanese everywhere like they normally do. It was also hard for me,
not to not speak Japanese, but to not understand, because I really did
understand quite a bit when they tried to figure out how yo say
something in English, which they naturally did in Japanese. It went
really well! They really got into it, and it proved to all of us how
good our students are getting. They do use katakana English, but they
are definitely understandable, and work very hard to learn English,
and they also help us learn Japanese, so it is really just awesome.
Wednesday was probably my favorite day of the week. We were completely
booked, and that is so much preferable, though we only had to lessons.
We went up the mountain again, and visited inoue San, and had a great
lesson with her, though I was shocked to find out that over the years
she has met with at least 100 missionaries, and she has meijis for all
of them! Kind of crazy, but I hope we can end the eternal investigator
syndrome for her at least.
After inoue San, we went and visited Donna, who lives another hour
away, in the opposite direction of our apartment, so there was
definitely a lot of travel today, but it was so worth it! She is just
amazing! And we had a wonderful lesson about the plan of salvation,
and readily accepted it, and we gave her a Book of Mormon, and
committed her to read it, and she promised that she would. She also
fixed us some berry smoothies from scratch, which were very delicious,
reminded me of your smoothies, mom, and made me miss them, but that's
ok, because I can make smoothies myself, right? When I can afford
fruit at least, because it is expensive.
We then went to institute, and had a wonderful lesson about the book
of remembrance, I learned some stuff, despite it being in Japanese, so
that was awesome. It is great to have that extra listening practice.
Thursday was also awesome. We met a potential investigator, and the
elders went with us, cause he is a man, and had lunch, and the elders
were on exchange, and it turned out that one of the guys friends who
was there was another elders former investigator that they had lost
because he moved, and so they were able to reconnect him, which is
awesome.
We also got to meet with an amazing member, and really get to know
her, and build a strong relationship. She speaks Portuguese, English,
and Japanese, all basically fluently, so she will probably help us
with Donna, because sometimes it would be helpful to know a word in
Portuguese for her understanding.
Friday we did our SKK, and had our dendoshunnin meeting, and that was
wonderful. We felt really guided by the spirit, and just everything
was great. Sometimes I feel like I can't think of what I can do to
help my investigators, or some are just way harder, but that wasn't
the case this week, we were planning very specifically, and I am just
so much more excited to help these people, they really are wonderful.
Saturday we met with Paula again, and it was really good. She read the
introduction to the Book of Mormon, but not anything else. When we
were making a return appointment, the day that was going to work out
the 'best', since we are going to be really busy, was Sunday, and she
said that we could eat lunch together. My companion and I knew that
she would expect us to pay, because the food is how they make a
living, so we explained about the sabbath day, and she tried to
convince us to break it. We held firm though, and moved the
appointment to another day... We are going to have to help her respect
that, but it was hard in the moment, just because I was kind of
shocked that she would do that, but I'm very grateful that I stayed
firm, and hopefully we can help her change her mind about that.
The highlight of Saturday was watching the women's session, as I
mentioned before, it was awesome, and I felt very inspired. Earlier I
took the time to write down questions that I had, and I found some of
the answers, and I know that the rest will come as I watch the rest of
conference this weekend.
I love you all, and I hope that you are doing well! I am still loving
it here in Japan, and I am happy that I made the decision I did to
serve the lord, it truly is hard, but a wonderful blessing! Love you!
Love, Sister Makin
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