So. We had our first investigator officially drop us this morning. That was really sad.
Oh wait ... she's on the phone right now ... yes right now ...
Spoke too soon. She wants to meet us at the church this week and have a lesson. Hallelujah, miracles DO happen.
In other news, we finally had the Halloween Party that has been in the works since August. (No really, the chairperson rounded up all the missionaries the first week I arrived in Japan for a meeting). Sister Christensen and I sat in the corner and painted kids' faces with Halloween-y themed pictures. The same kids kept coming back and pretty soon we were running out of body parts to paint. We helped the Relief Society make little rice balls with Jack-o-lantern faces made out of seaweed.
A strange fusion of Pinterest and Japan. Welcome to the land of the rising sun.
We had a typhoon this week. Fortunately a couple of weeks back I invested in a pair of dollar-store rain pants. Unfortunately, my luxury-rain pants ripped in the crotch all the way down to my ankle so I might as well have just worn no rain gear at all. Good thing I like rain.
I awoke on Thursday morning to have the phone buzzing in the middle of the night (and by the middle of the night, I mean 6am) to hear the bishop's voice on the other end. We were supposed to evacuate, but neither Sister Christensen nor I could really make out what the announcer over the siren outside was saying so it was a really good thing the bishop called us. But we were prepared with backpacks carrying our finest missionary wear. If we're going to evacuate, we might as well look cute. A few more typhoons are set to hit this week but our apartment is on the second floor so we are pretty safe. (Don't worry お母さん!)
Sister Nagamine sent me to Narita this week to "train" her two first-transfer missionaries while she went on an exchange with Sister Christensen. Haha. It's a little unnerving when thinking about how young everyone is, so I just try not to think about it. I learned some good Aussie lingo ("heaps" = really, so that was "HEAPS AWESOME") and talked to some nice Buddhist people on the street. #storyofmylife
We had a lesson with an investigator who's been taking the lessons for about 12 years now. The whole issue of blind obedience repeatedly kept coming up, so I turned to the oh-so-wise-and-logically-sound words of Dallin H. Oaks for a little direction:
"We all act upon or give obedience to knowledge. Whether in science or religion, our obedience is not blind when we act upon knowledge suited to the subject of our action. A scientist is not blind when we act upon knowledge suited to the subject of our action. A scientist receives and acts upon a trusted certification of the content or conditions of a particular experiment. In matters of religion, a believer's source of knowledge is spiritual, but the principle is the same. In the case of Latter-day Saints, when the Holy Ghost gives our souls a witness of the truth of the restored gospel and the calling of a modern prophet, our choise to follow the teachings is not blind obedience."
That pretty much sums it up. Thank you, Elder Oaks.
And that's about it. Lessons are far and few in between and some people's eyes pop out of their heads when I pull out the Book of Mormon, but that doesn't make the work any less true.
Go share the gospel with someone today. Hey, thanks!
Magi-chan
Pic 1: District photo shoot. A pretty mismatched bunch.
Pic 2: The fruits of a three-hour seaweed-cutting sesh, courtesy of the Relief Society.
Pic 3: Happy Halloween part 2.
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