bunch of parties is week... It was crazy! Monday we taught Paula, and
the lesson ended up focusing on obedience and who God is, which was a
good lesson. We also went to a pre-wedding party thing, because we
were doing some service there for one of our investigators and her
less active husband. Mainly I played the piano, and we helped get the
food ready. And then we raced home, because we had five minutes til 9,
and we made it just on time, though technically that shouldn't have
been possible. For the wedding party, I got some music from a music
store, which was crazily cheap! I was a bit shocked, about $2 for
pachabels canon. Music in Japan is basically a steal! We also got
dendoud (proselyted to) by some Jehovah's Witness missionaries, so we
dendoud them right back, and it was a pretty friendly exchange, just
funny. It surprised me a bit that they tried to dendou us, but it was
an interesting experience for sure.
But Tuesday we tried to visit some less actives with no results, and
mailed a bunch of people in the phone inviting them to the
thanksgiving party, in the hopes lots of people would come. We also
taught directions in eikaiwa again, and mills Shimai drew a city map
on the board so that they could practice giving directions. It was
lots of fun, and some new people came, so we had to teach more simply,
but that was ok. We yet again didn't have anyone come to kids eikaiwa,
which was sad, but we are working on promoting it with the members, so
that will be awesome when it really picks up.
Wednesday we ran everywhere! And of course since we were out of the
house, without our kappas (rain gear, it had to decide to start
pouring rain. It started when we were up in the mountain just about to
leave inoue sans, and so she gave us umbrellas, so we had some
coverage, til we got down to where we had parked our bikes, cause we
don't have the leg strength/ desire to bike up the entire mountain,
biking down is fun, but not worth the bike up. Inoue sans lesson
wasn't the best. The lesson went well, but she is so stubborn. She has
decided that she doesn't want to pick a religion, she just wants to
study. We have seriously been considering dropping her lately, but we
got told it wasn't the right way to do it right now, and that we need
to try to get her to act, cause faith without works is dead, and her
faith is very close to dying right now. But, then we wet and visited
the takatas! We had planned to visit takata Shimai and taught her a
lesson to encourage her and build up her faith. She is the relief
society president and works extremely hard, and I think it really
helped her. Then takata kyodai came home, so we talked with them some
more, and the showed us some pictures of kurashikis ward back when it
was just beginning. It was so cool! But when we left there house, the
rain was pouring down, and they grabbed us some plastic kappas that
they didn't need, so we ate least had some protection from the rain.
But we had to go meet the elders at a cheap supermarket to grab the
spices and such we needed for Saturday, with the help of funaki choro,
we were able to get almost everything there, though we didn't find
ginger and cloves til the next day. Japan is weird, and has things in
forms you wouldn't even think of, or at least I wouldn't. They don't
really have chicken broth, but the do have these pebble things that
make an excellent substitute, so we used that and it worked out just
fine. We then went home, warmed up really quick, and luckily the storm
ended then, and we were able to go visit the last person of the day.
Ootsuka Shimai and family. Her two boys were wiped, but the stayed
awake for most of the lesson, though one fell asleep part way through,
and the other was struggling hard core. Despite them being so tired,
it was a great lesson, and ootsuka Shimai really loved it. She is
working so hard! Love her!
Thursday we had SKK, in which we learned we are not to drop inoue, and
also that, thou we really want to, we shouldn't invite Donna to get
baptized right now. At this point we weren't really sure why, but the
spirit told us that that was so, so we are going to follow it. We also
visited less actives with the takatas, which was awesome! We got to
see almost everyone we tried to visit, which was 4 out of 5! This was
awesome, because we just drop in and hope to be able to see them, and
share a short message to strengthen them and help them. They took us
to dinner at sukiya, which is a fast food Japanese restaurant, that
has really good food, and is pretty cheap for Japan. Yay, we didn't
make them spend a ton of money on us!
Friday we had district meeting, where I learned a lot about the
connection between faith and charity. If you want to be charitable to
some one and help them, you first need to strengthen your own faith,
so that you are in a position to do so. You can't help someone improve
if you are at the same level, when you help someone, you are raising
them up to your level. I love how Christ does this with Peter when he
fears as he is walking in water. Christ didn't have to raise him to
his level, he could have dragged him to the boat. But he didn't, he
raised him to his level, and helped him to become stronger. That was
legit cool. We also went and visited Donna, and had an extremely
spiritual lesson. The spirit was just really stron, and the words that
we spake were from the spirit, not from us, and it was so cool! Ya, it
was in English, but it was still so cool! Found out that her husband
is extremely against her getting baptized, and so that is why it isn't
the right time, but we are encouraging her, and helping her see that
through her example, and just showing her husband how'd happy the
gospel makes her, his heart can be softened. He refuses to even meet
the missionaries, so that hasn't ever happened, so there is no way for
us to help him, but I know that there is a way, and that Heavenly
Father wants her to keep pushing towards baptism. She wants it, which
just have to clear the little stumbling blocks out of the way.
Saturday was awesome! We came to the church early in the morning and
put the stuffing in our rice cooker to cook, and then we attended the
ornament making party the relief society was having. Definitely
building great relationships with that one. And then we had a small
lunch with them, and then we had the thanksgiving party. We had 9
people there, including the yonnin of missionaries, so not lots of
people, but it turned out really well. Two of the people we randomly
mailed came, so that was a success, hopefully they become
investigators for the elders again, since they were both guys. Lots of
fun, and the member who helped us arrange all this really wants the
recipes, so now I need to translate those into Japanese, which should
be fun! I also got to play ping pong for the first time? If I've
played it before, I don't really remember it all that well, but I
wasn't as bad as I thought I would be, and kept on doing sneak attacks
and getting people out, though I hadn't been trying to do that, it
just kind of happened. We also tried to visit some less actives, but
no luck...
Sunday we had church, which was great, though I had a hard time
understanding, I know we talked about tithing, the book of
revelations, and also spiritual experiences, but the details are not
memorable. But we did go to takahashi! We weren't able to visit any of
our investigators, cause no one would answer, and Imai San was
probably sleeping, but we had an amazing lesson with Imai kaichou and
family. We taught about faith, and how they need to exercise their
faith if they want to see miracles. We focused it some on Imai San
getting baptized, but we also talked about Imai kaichos desire to
share the gospel with his friends. It is hard to know what to call
him, because there are three options really, kyodai (brother),
bishoppu (bishop), and kaicho (president). The struggle is real.
Kaicho is probably best, but he is also still the bishoppu of our
ward, and he prefers to be called kyodai, so that isn't confusing at
all. When mills Shimai kind of mentioned the confusion yesterday, he
told us to call him Imai kun, and, well it made us feel special, cause
we know he thinks of us as his friends, but we still have to be
respectful. Kun is the male close friend suffix that is common in
Japan. It is used mainly for younger guys, or friends, and we don't
really use that as missionaries, except for we do with one member, but
that's because he was introduced to us as a kun, and we know his first
name isn't just a, but we don't know what it is. Anyway it was a
really great lesson, and Imai kaicho is just the best! He works really
hard to help everyone, and he is working extra hard right now, since
he is still the bishop, but is also the stake president. He did let us
know that the new bishop had been figured out, no details, but soon we
will have a new bishop in Kurashiki, which will be good!
Guess that's basically all for this week. About last weeks scripture
(1 Nephi 15:27), if you didn't get what was so special about it,
that's ok, I didn't get it at first either, but just so you know, it
is an amazing scripture. Think about it. The water was extremely
filthy, but Lehi didn't notice. Where was his attention? It was on the
tree, on bringing his family to the tree, on the joy that the tree
could give. He knew the filthiness was there, but he barely even
noticed it. He was so focused on the tree, that nothing else mattered.
How wonderful would it be if we were so caught up in the joy of the
gospel, and all the wonder that brings, that we barely noticed that
the turmoil and filthiness of the world even existed? Yes it does
exist, but we don't need to dwell on thought of it, we can choose to
focus on the things that bring us joy rather than the things that
bring us sorrow.
This week I will be ponderizing Matthew 28:20! Love you all and miss
you tons! I am so grateful I have the opportunity to serve the lord,
and it is a wonderful joy to work so hard! Love you!
Love, Sister Makin
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