Week 21 Transfers

Hi minasan,

Picture 1 BEST "FRANDS"

Well, there was another transfer.  What on earth.

I'm supposedly finished being trained.  Which means you are technically prepared to train someone else.

So I am training a brand-new missionary next transfer here in Chiba, with one of my very lovely friends from the MTC, Sister Dunn.  I will miss Sister Christensen something awful, but I'm excited for what lies ahead.  Onward.

Today we had to take care of some dental work, so Sister Christensen and I hopped on a train (many trains) and went to Minato.  A pretty ritzy business-y area of Tokyo.  Since I lack the vocabulary to talk about teeth and cavities and fillings in Japanese, we passed on the dentist who lives downstairs and visited a dentist an hour away per recommendation of Sister Budge.  Dr. Kojima has a specialized clientele of "foreign expatriates, diplomats, and their families," so I got to sit in the waiting room with an ambassador from the US Embassy down the street.  

This past week we had an all-Sisters Conference after attending the temple.  We got to hear from Sister Aoyagi (her husband is a member of the Seventy), Sister Whiting, and Ringwood (whose father is Elder Nelson).  Some training we received:

1. How to take off shoes in a Japanese home: don't step on the genkan floor, don't turn your back to the host when flipping your shoes around so you can easily exit later, and definitely don't kick other shoes out of the way for your own.
2. How to be nice to your companion:  it's like when you step on a chair to reach something--if you step on a chair, you dehumanize the chair.  If you feel for the chair, then you feel guilty stepping on it.  Likewise, you need to feel for your companion.  I'm not sure how I feel about the analogy, but regardless, just be nice to everyone.
3. The Savior loves you.  And don't you ever forget it.

I received a letter from Kristen this week and she shared some sweet insights from an MTC training meeting.  The speaker (a former Stake President) talked how about how someone once asked why his nephew was allowed to die.  The Stake President responded by saying:

1. God is suffering when you suffer.
2. God is weeping when you weep.
3. God will suffer with you till you stop suffering.

As a missionary, sometimes we see other missionaries who can't wake up on time, can't understand the language, etc. etc. and we simply tell them to just "rub some dirt in it."  But we need to love, mourn, and cry with them.  We can't change them.

I think this is perfectly applicable outside of the mission field.

Moroni 7:45 - "And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Tell someone that you love them today!

Love,

Margaret

P.S.  To add to the haphazardness of this letter, an excerpt from one of my favorite hymns:

Ere you left your room this morning,

Did you think to pray? ...

When your soul was full of sorrow,

Balm of Gilead did you borrow

At the gates of day?

O how praying rests the weary!

Prayer will change the night to day;

So when life gets dark and dreary,

Don't forget to pray.

Picture 2: Hey, friend. (spider)
Picture 3: Post-dentist sunset.
Picture 4: We accidentally missed the train.  With no one in sight to talk to, naturally we experimented with the self-timer.