Hi minasan,
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| First day in Chiba |
Finally in Nihon, and I got sent to Chiba where I was born--woooooooo! My trainer is Sister Bagley from Michigan, who is a third transfer missionary. We mostly don't know what we're doing so we take advantage of looking American to get people to talk to us. Which doesn't always work for me, haha. They mostly just squint at my nametag and try to figure out why I sort of look Asian but can't speak fluently. But we try. We like to compliment on their clothing that has weird American sayings or cartoon cats and strawberries and then they get really excited that Americans are talking to them.
We live with another companionship of sisters who is also training. One of the sisters, Nagamine Shimai, is the older sister of my MTC companion. Small world. As the only resident Nihonjin she does a lot a translating for us and tolerates all my Japanese-related questions. Our apartment, Fuse Heights (so urban-sounding, right?) is at the end of a long dead-end road. Every night feels like a sleepover since every square inch of the floor is used for our futons. It's a good time.
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| Super posey sister mish pic |
I also bought a bike the other day. It's black and it's name is Ernest. I just pray every day that it doesn't get stolen because there seems to be a thief around here who likes to target missionaries. Nagamine Shimai's bike disappeared last week. I quickly discovered that I am not much of a cyclist. I guess that will be changing very soon as it's way too hot to run here.
It is way hotter than I ever remembered it being. It's a good thing I like being sweaty. One of our investigators invited us over for dinner since it was her daughter, Nagamine Shimai, and Bagley Shimai's birthdays, and we walked for a while from the eki (train station). Let's just say it looked like we took a shower in our clothes when we showed up on their doorstep. We were trying to figure out the temperature conversion from Celsius and we all about died when we realized that it was 104. The weather report on the trains literally read, TODAY'S WEATHER: DANGER. Haha.
Our ward now has 2 elders and 4 sisters, so the Chiba area is hopping with missionaries. The ward seems pretty pumped about it so we're going to do all we can to work with the members to find people to teach. Our ward has a lot of gaijin people (from Australia and the States). Also, the people here are very on top of things. As in one of the members came up to me and said he needed help planning the Halloween party and that it needs to be figured out by next week. No procrastination here.
We have a baptism next week! Bagley and Nagamine Shimai have been working with a family from the Philippines. The daughter got baptized a few weeks ago and invited her mom to take the lessons. I got to teach my first lesson to the mother, and they're so incredible! Full of so much faith. The mother is getting baptized next week and I think the younger sister is going to start taking lessons. We're super excited.
Sorry this email is sort of a jumble (just like I feel, but I try to mean that in a good way). I love the Church. I love being a missionary. That's all.
Write me! Love you!
Magi-chan
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| Last Sunday at the MTC - everyone from our branch going to Tokyo |
(Monday, August 12, 2013)
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