What a Week!

2 June 2014 Oyumino, Chiba

Woahhh what a week!!

We were busy, busy, busy. We had quite a few lessons and we have a few new investigators too!

Today was transfer calls. I'm staying in Oyumino!! Everyone thought I was going for sure. 3 transfers in one area is a long time. And now, at the end of this transfer, I'll have been here 4. I will have spent a third of my mission here! But, I am most definitely not complaining. I love, love, love Oyumino. The church members are amazing, and the people here are soo nice. Maybe not always interested, but nice. Shimoji choro is leaving!! I am sooo sad. He was an awesome district leader.

Yesterday at church, we were singing the opening song when I noticed something running along the edge of the pew in front of us. Well, scurrying with the occasional hop. It was a spider!!! Let me tell you, spiders here are a different kind of ugly. Yuck! This one was black and had yellow spots and yellow pinschers (I have no idea how to spell that word) and it was fat and too big for me to be comfortable with it in front of me. Especially since it jumped!

So I quickly shut my hymn book and FWAP killed it. Sitting next to me was the relief society president. She quickly handed me a tissue, I wiped it up and from behind me appeared a plastic bag and I dropped the tissue and spider in and they both disappeared. It was like nothing had happened. It all happened so smoothly and probably within a minute. There had never been a spider...except the bug juice on the back of my hymn book attested otherwise. And sister Hubner and I had a hard time trying to stop giggling. I was also told later by one of the elders that my "FWAP" had been heard through the sacrament meeting room....oops.

I can't even remember what happened this week...I seem to have this problem every week. The mission is just flying by and all the days are blurring together. Umm...? Hmm, I really can't remember.

Ok, here was one of my favorite things we got to teach this week. We taught an older lady about the plan of salvation. We told her that she can be with her whole family again in the next life. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us. And he wants us to return back to him again. She asked; “Why would we want that?” We shared a few scriptures about the joy and peace and happiness that we will have. It was cool to watch her face change from "this is the strangest thing I've ever heard" to "hmm, I like how that sounds".

I am so grateful that we get to return back to our Heavenly Father one day. I'm grateful that our families will be reunited again too. Death is not the end. I know it's not. And I'm so grateful for that knowledge and the opportunity we had to share it.

I have another spider story! Before eikaiwa Hubner shimai and I ran to the bathroom. I really had to go and ran into a stall, then quickly turned around and ran out. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen something scurry into the corner. I figured it was a cockroach and after checking the stall again, decided it was safe to use it. Hubner shimai however, did not like the idea of a cockroach wandering around
and starting searching for it.

Turned out to be a giant spider! It was probably the size of my palm. She became pretty jumpy, peering around corners and checking the bathroom floor. I washed my hands and was ready to go when I realized the opportunity this situation presented.

I grabbed my bag, turned to her and pointing to the ground, screamed. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! She jumped and turned in the air. I couldn't stop laughing. It was sooo funny. I've never seen her move so fast in my life!

I'm laughing just thinking about it.

Ok sorry this was a super lame email. But, I have no more time and we have no internet connection at our apartment right now. So this is the best I can do.

Sorry!

I love you all!

Sister Molinari