私の新堂よと徳島が大好きですよう！いつも徳島に住みたいです！でも、たぶん私和いつか転勤し中ればなりません。
My
current companion will sometimes send her weekly emails home, entirely in
Japanese because her family can read them...and that just takes way too much
time and I would die. So I think that two sentences will suffice. The above
says: "Hello everyone! I love you all! I love my new companion and Tokushima!
I want to live here forever, but I will eventually transfer." Or at least
that is what I tried to say...who really ever knows! It is all Japanese!
This
week was SO amazing. We had the most packed preparation day of our entire lives
last week and I was exhausted by the end of it. We went hiking in the morning,
biked to email, went shopping at daiso, we need more daiso's in the United
States. いつか. And then we went to this cultural
center place where we watched awadori, which is the traditional dance on
Shikoku and I love it.
Awadori - the dance that Shikoku is known for. I wish I could send home the video it is legit
 |
| The Cake that we "made" for Palmer Shimai's birthday |
After
our packed preparation day, full of biking and tons of fun we went and visited a
less active lady who talked to us for about 45 minutes! She was super sweet and
invited us to come back, so we are visiting her again tomorrow! It was an
insanely busy week. We had a few days where we were gone for the entire day -
leaving our apartment at 8 in the morning and not coming back until 9 at night,
completely exhausted, slightly tanner and maybe a little bit sunburned and very
sweaty. We were able to teach quite a few lessons this week and I just love all
of our investigators with all of my heart. Our French investigator this week
asked us when she could be baptized, we don't think that she really understands
a lot of what we say though...so we are going to continue teaching her at a
slow pace to make sure that she really understands why she wants to be
baptized. I talked to one of the Elders (the french one from Canada) in my doki this weekend at the
Christofferson Taikai (Conference, Elder Christofferson ) and he told me that he
could get me some French teaching materials, like the chart, in French, so that
was a life saver.
On
Sunday we had a lesson with a girl who has come to a few activities at the
church with us, but had not actually become an investigator yet. Basically I
love her and she is completely 金人 there is no doubt in my mind about that. I love her so
much. We taught her that she is a daughter of God and a little bit about prayer
and she asked the most amazing questions. She took notes throughout the three
hours of church and made a ton of friends and by some miracle, her off day of
work is Sunday. I love this girl. She wanted to know how to pray and if
we keep a pray in our minds all the time. She was a little bit confused about
why we don't pray to mountains and stuff...but we explained it pretty well. She
asked us about experiences that we had had where God protected us, and we both
shared experiences from our missions thus far about times when the spirit had
warned us of danger, or protected us from crazy drivers while we are biking
hahahhaha.
Some
of the highlights of this week were the taikai with Elder Christofferson and
one of my follow ups with my zone leaders. Basically, I just really love follow
ups. I get to hear amazing stories and miracles from my leaders and they are
super inspiring and all of my zone leaders have just been the most inspiring
people ever. Anyway, I was talking to one of our zone leaders and he told me
about a guy who walked into the church while they were studying and he is going
to be baptized soon. Basically, this guy was studying to be a monk or something
like that and then the leader of his little shinto sect was on his dying bed
and shared this secret with him that he had known his whole life. So the secret
was that Christ was really the leader of this shinto religion but they had
called him by a different name and so no one knew that Christ was this
religions leader, and this little monk guy on his death bed was like: "The
truth is in Christ....." or something like that. So then this man began
his search for truth and walked into the church while the elders were studying!
He was telling me the story and I was like.....this is the craziest thing I
have ever heard in my life, but it is so cool.....miracles happen. The Lord
sends the people that are searching for truth to us!
And
then the Elder Christofferson Taikai. Oh my goodness I just loved it so much. I
felt like I prepared myself really well spiritually for this taikai because I
did not want to miss anything. I felt like I did not spiritually prepare myself
well enough for General Conference and so I did not receive all of the
revelation that I could have, had I gone into the conference with a more willing
heart and more humility. So I have been keeping this conference in my
prayers for the past...month or so...and I fasted before it and prepared a lot
of questions. Every single one of my questions was answered and the spirit was
SO strong. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was so
neat to be gathered with the entire mission in Ibaraki right before Zinke
Kaicho and Zinke Shimai (mission President and his wife) go home. They have been so AMAZING...it was so good for them to see the whole mission all together. I
have never seen all of the missionaries so well behaved either...but everyone
was super quiet and serious and reverent and it was amazing. Pretty much,
everyone was there like two hours early and spiritually preparing. We traveled
for an entire day, and stayed overnight in Sekime (in Osaka) before the
conference and then woke up at 5 am to make it on time. He spoke so powerfully
and left an amazing blessing upon the mission. It was beyond words to shake
hands with an apostle of the Lord, with a man whose testimony caused the room
to essentially catch on fire with a vibrant spirit. And if this mans testimony
could make Zinke Kaicho cry (I never thought I would see Zinke Kaicho cry, but
he definitely did as he bore testimony to us). And Zinke Shimai cried too. I
can't imagine how they feel leaving...because basically I just cry whenever I
think about them leaving. Christofferson Choro said that this taikai was the
Lord's way of thanking the Zinke's for their amazing service, it was His way of
telling them that they have done all they can and done His will. He told us
that the Lord sees us as worthy, that we are obedient and that we will see
miracles here because we are true disciples of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. There is nothing quiet like getting that confirmation from an apostle
of the Lord. His testimony of the Savior was amazing. I noticed two words that
he used in particular that I just loved: "I know that Christ lives. I know
that He is our Savior. From confirmation and from experience, Jesus
Christ is our Redeemer...."
This
weekend was amazing. This week was amazing. And it went by way too fast. Somehow
the transfer is nearing its halfway point....and I don't really know how
because it just barely started....
Oh
and I also translated Sacrament meeting again. And then I had to translate
Sunday School. My Japanese is improving and the gift of tongues is real because
I can understand Japanese and I don't really know when on earth that happened.
And sometimes I can even speak Japanese which is craziness.
Have
a great week!
Grundvig
Shimai
Basically those pictures looked exactly the
same.....but.....there will be slow but sure differences throughout the weeks
hahahah.
No comments:
Post a Comment