Soccer is a Dangerous Sport!

Konbanwa minasan! 

This week was one of those weeks that felt like 3 or 4 weeks clumped together. The worst part is that I can't remember anything past..ehh..Friday maybe.. Everything else seems so long ago!

I can remember Tuesday though. 

Tuesday we had exchanges. That is when we switch companions for 24 hours. Now that there are sister training leaders in the mission, this is who we switch with. I got to be with Sister Tan. She is the cutest thing ever! She probably came to my armpit. She was tiny! And she reminded me a lot of one of my best friends (Kinzie) so I liked her instantly. She was super cool; she grew up in Utah but has been at BYU Hawaii. She knew Dopp Shimai too! That was another reason to like her. Well, we had a really awesome time studying together. It was great. She helped me make some really great nihongo Sentences and then I committed to using them that day. We also got to bear testimony to one another about the Book of Mormon. It was awesome! She had lots of really great thoughts and new ways of looking at things. 
I loved it.

After lunch we went out streeting. We talked to soooo many people. Most weren't interested but there were a few good conversations. Andddd I got to practice my sentences! It was a really great exchange. Sister tan has been out for a year and she speaks so well. She doesn't use any fancy words, just what she knows and she teaches and speaks simply. I really liked that.

Wednesday....can't seem to remember anything spectacular happening....and Thursday....hmm... Oh! Thursday we had our first kids eikaiwa at the community center here in Oyumino!! We had planned for younger kids so it might have been a little simple, but I had made coloring pages and everyone ( even the parents) were more than happy with that. 
We probably could've just had a coloring party and it would've been dijobu!

Friday we did the same lesson at eikaiwa in Goi. The younger crowd ate it up! We had so much fun!

We also have this beautiful thing in our apartment. It's just a test run but the man at the door must've done a pretty good job selling it (or Orton shimai just can't say no). So it is now residing in our kitchen.
I wasn't too thrilled.

Saturday was quite the day! We went out for a lesson, which ended up falling through so we decided to visit an obachan who is a member of our ward. Orton shimai forgot the address so we just housed in the area she thought this lady might live in...well, while doing that we ended up meeting another obachan who actually wanted to talk to us! We got to share a little bit about our church and what we believe and then we was out of the Book of Mormon together. Orton shimai attempted to give her the Book of Mormon 
but the little old lady felt bad taking it. So, we invited her to eikaiwa. 

Well, turns out that the obachan that we had been looking for lived one floor up from this other obachan so when we finally found her ( which was a few hours later at a return visit) she was thrilled to hear about what we had done! Announced she needed to do more for her country 
by sharing the gospel and marched down to talk to this lady.

We headed out to Goi and couldn't wait for Sunday to hear what happened. We went out to Goi to find less actives and inactive members. Well, when nihonjin don't want to be found they can't be found. We did set up an appointment for the elders tho! We found the brother of a less active member and he gave us all the information we needed haha. 
The best part about it was that the brother we found isn't even a member of the church!

After a long day in Goi we decided to treat ourselves and get ice cream for dinner. What we call Baskin Robins in the US is called 31 by the nihonjin. I think it is easier to say. They have the coolest flavors here! I got three different ones; musk melon, peach yogurt and melon cotton candy. It was delicious! 
Why don't we have such cool flavors in the US?

Kyo (ed. note: today) was probably one of my favorite days on the mission this far....well, at least out in the field. I actually was in a really bad mood all morning. For various reasons...today was zone p-day. We had to go out to toke to meet up with the rest of the zone and china zone a as well. I really wasn't too thrilled. Wit ended up being a blast!!! I spent most of the time playing soccer. It was sooo so fun. It was mostly elders and the sisters who were playing...well...they didn't really go after the ball all too much. 
But for good reason! 

The elders can be a little scary. But, that didn't faze me. I may have gotten a little too into it...so this elder has the ball and I decide I'm going to get it, so I go to kick it away from him (which I did) but in doing so I tripped him...I'm not really sure how it happened..but he ended up sliding full force into my legs! I have no better way of describing it except that he scissored my legs. Does that make sense? And I didn't move so he got hit pretty hard...right where it hurts...at least I didn't fall on him. That would have made an awkward situation even worse! Well, everyone busts out laughing! Orton shimai falls to the ground she is laughing so hard. We literally all stood/ fell there for about 5 minutes. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

Then after we were all done laughing we asked the elder if he was ok. He was. In a normal situation it really wouldn't have been that funny. But, as missionaries we really aren't suppose to have too much contact with the opposite sex. Therefore, it became ridiculously funny.

For the rest of the game all the elders made funny comments every time I would try and get a ball from an elder like "watch out she's gonna get you too" or "ATTACK" and I would start laughing and getting the ball got a lot harder. I'm pretty sure I became "one of those stories everyone here's about" at zone p-day today.

The other crowning moment of the day was during capture the flag, when an elder jumped into a bush. Yup, you read that right, he jumped into a bush.

I was lucky enough to have a front row seat to the action. So, this elder is being chased by 3 or 4 of my teammates and he has two choices: be caught or jump over the bush next to him. Being an elder, he chose to jump over the bush. I watched as his face went from, this is a great idea I'm getting away! To oh no, I'm not going to make it over the bush and then, I watched as he disappeared into said bush.

Just swoosh, and gone. It was such a graceful jump too. 
You would've thought he had jumped into water not a bush.

Eventually he resurfaced and a few elders pulled him out. Boy was that funny! 
My retelling doesn't even do it justice.

We came home and did some dendō. I'd say it was a good night. We told a lady we liked her plants and in return she gave us some of her plants. Then we met someone who has been feeling like she needs to learn about Jesus...hmmm.... Coincidence? I think not! I'll tell more about her next week. 
We have a lesson with her tomorrow night! Yay!

I love you all so much! Thanks for the emails and letter!

Love,
Sister Molinari