It was quite the week. Sitting here at the computer I'm having a hard time remembering quite what happened ... the blur of time seems to become more frequent the longer I'm out in the field.
I shall do my best.
SAYING GOODBYE.
On Thursday, Sister Christensen and I headed into downtown Tokyo to do a little switcheroo so she could go to Tsukuba and I could meet up with my new companion, Sister Dunn. Sister Dunn is from California and likes chocolate as much as I do so it will be a smooth transfer I believe.
We dragged a couple of suitcases and one bundled up bicycle through one of the busiest ekis (Akihabara) and annoyed quite a few people along the way. Fortunately we ran into some elders who took pity on the poor helpless sisters and carried the bike all the way to the honbu (mission headquarters). Sister Christensen has become one of my bestest friends, so it was sad but we'll see each other soon!
SAYING HELLO.
Once we arrived at the honbu (a little sweatier than when I had left the apartment), Sister Dunn and I met our brand-new missionary / trainee, Sister McAllister from Texas. She's a fellow BYU cougar and likes to bake, so I think we will get along just fine. She's such a doll (and happens to speak pretty well) so we pretttty thrilled. With the influx of missionaries, the mission has an incredible number of threesome companionships, usually one Japanese and two Americans. Unfortunately Sister Dunn and McAllister got the short end of the stick because I'm not fluent but I'm doing my best. I had an incredible number of people tell me this week that my face looks Japanese but when I open my mouth they question their judgment ... haha.
Working in a threesome has its challenges--it's not exactly comfortable having three strange religious gaijin show up on your doorstep unannounced telling you that "we can change your life!" We also pretty much take up the whole sidewalk when we walk places. But we are making it work.
Funny coincidence, the Chiba elders also happen to be a threesome and one of the elders happens to be Elder Dunbar (who I have never met till this week), whose family is in our ward. Small world!
MIRACLES.
Miracle 1: Yesterday was probably one of the best days of my mission thus far. The Y------ family, who I met the beginning of my very first transfer, came to Primary! For the second week in a row! And Sunday School! And Sacrament meeting! That evening, we went to teach them at their home with one of my favorite people, our ward missionary Ramoちゃん who got baptized last July. We hadn't planned on setting a date during the lesson but she kept saying how she really just wants to get baptized (which sort of felt like smack in the face to extend a baptismal commitment), so I mentioned that December 8 looked like a really good day. It just happens to be the week before I will likely transfer out of Chiba--call it selfishness on my part or following the Spirit, but she accepted! Sister Y------, and she is so excited to get baptized so she can begin teaching her family about the gospel! I almost cried (I know, weird) I was so happy.
Miracle 2: Someone put a bag of marshmallow mateys in the fruit basket (the food donation bin for the missionaries) at church.
That's the week in a nutshell. I still feel awkward stopping people on the street and asking them their favorite restaurant and then inviting them to church, I still don't really like using the phone (probably something I will never get over), and I'm still not sure what to do when old men at the eki ask me if I'm married, but I wouldn't give this up for the world.
Hey, go share the gospel today!
Love, Margaret
P.S. Spiritual enlightenment for the day: "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life--the life God is sending one day by day."
-C.S Lewis
If we didn't have hard things, this wouldn't be real life.
Pic 1: Meet Sister McAllister.
Pic 2: Meet Sister Dunn.
Pic 3: Meet me and my Justin Bieber hair. I just don't want to get a $50 dollar haircut.
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