23 June 2014 Oyumino Chiba
I opened my email this morning to sooo many
emails from friends and family!! Made my day! Thank you!!!
Rainy season is turning out to be not so rainy.
The occasional rainstorm cools down the hot temperatures too. It's a
blessing.
This
week we went to the Young Women's activity. They were having a pasta
party. I was soooooo excited! But, when we got there I saw we were NOT
making normal pasta. The first pasta that we made was spaghetti with
dandelion greens, tuna, fish flakes and smashed Japanese radish (daikon).
Second was cold pasta with muscles, tomatoes, summer squash and
something else... And third was my favorite: fish egg and cheese pasta.
Yummy! The other two I didn't really care for. Our friend, Haruno
chan went! She has gone to the last few. I don't think we will need to
go to accompany her to the next one. She seems to really like them and would
probably go regardless of if we came or not!
On
Wednesday, I decided we should go someplace in our area we hadn't
before! It was supposed to rain that day, but I was sooo sick of sticking
close to the apartment because of the rain. It feels like a waste of
time to me. So we walked about half an hour-forty five minutes out, and
crossed the train tracks. It was like stepping into a whole new world!
No one knew who we were. Quite a few people
would ask if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. We would very quickly respond
"chigau" or different. We did a lot of housing!
At first it didn't seem like it was
going to be very effective. There were quite a few, what we call, "bukyo
houses"; old, old, old, but very beautiful, houses with people just
as old living in them. When they hear "watashitachi wa kyokai no boulenteer
desu. Matsu jitsu seito iesu Kirisuto kyokai." They just smile at
you, wave there hand and say "bukyo desu." The minute they hear
church they stop listening and tell you they are Buddhist. So after
probably 20 minutes of that we stumbled upon this cute and fairly new
neighborhood. We had much better luck there! In fact, two of the people
we talked to while housing that day came to eikaiwa (ed. note: English class)
the next! Yay!
While
there we also met a pretty interesting fellow. While talking with an
obachan (ed. note: old person), who wasn't at all interested in anything we had
to offer, I noticed this man walking down the street. He had a shirt that
barely covered his belly and he was carrying a whole bunch of very long
bamboo poles and wood planks. As he walked up the street he said hi to
everyone.
Then, he got to us. I think he said something
to us in English and so we replied. Then he beckoned everyone in the
street to come over so THEY could practice their English as well. We
ended up with two mothers and their children and a couple of boys riding
their bicycles. It was pretty funny. We were telling him about our church
and ended up handing him a Book of Mormon. At one point he turned really
fast and hit one of the boys on a bicycle with all his poles!
The boy, all though shocked, was ok. He and his
friends biked away soon after that. After a while the man decided we had
talked enough and needed to return to his garden. He tried to hand the
Book of
Mormon
back but we didn't want it back! First, because we wanted him to read it
and second because his hands were all dirty, making the book dirty too!
We told him he could keep it. Finally he hands it to the young mother
who had been standing there and marched away. Now she is stuck with the
book. She tried to give it back too. But, she ended up keeping it. We
invited her to read it and then continued on our way.
We passed the man working in his garden and he
beckoned us over. We ended up talking for a while. We told him about our
church some more and gave him a little booklet about the restoration. He
almost didn't
take
that either. He was concerned that a book, with a picture of Christ on
it, had no place in a dirty garden. I told him it'd be ok.
At one point while talking he lifted up his
shirt and started to take his back brace off. I got a little
worried...what in the world was he doing??? Turned out he was showing us
his cancer scars!! They were
huge! They
looked more like a bullet and knife had gotten him than cancer. Wow! He
also invited us to help in his garden. I really wanted to! But Hubner
shimai quickly responded that we couldn't. I thought it would've been
fun! She told him however that we had friends (the elders) who could
help. Finally, we said our good- byes. He told us to come back anytime
he was at his garden, haha.
This week, as I'm sure a few of you have
noticed, there has been some activity on my Facebook. Tokyo mission can
now use Facebook!! We are only to use if for mission purposes though. So
if you'd like to send me a message you still have to do it by email or
mail otherwise, I won't be able to respond.
Before our Facebooks went "live" each
of us had to go through it and clean them out. Mine took the entire day.
That is not an exaggeration. I had hundreds of photos I had to I tag
myself in. Ohhh my goodness it took forever. But I'm really grateful I
got that chance. There was quite a lot of stuff that, after 7 months of
not seeing, I realized didn't really need to be up there. Also, as
missionaries we are asked to only have pictures up that reflect standards
of our church and of us as missionaries. And, although I didn't have
awful pictures of me up there were quite a few pictures of me dressing
immodestly that had to come down.
Also as missionaries we don't date.
So...any picture that was of just me and someone of the opposite sex and
to come down too. There were a lot of those as well. Pictures with
brothers and boy cousins also had to come down. I don't know if it's the
same in state-side missions that use Facebook...but here, sometimes it's
a little hard for the Japanese to tell the difference between a brother
and a boyfriend so...we just avoid the confusion altogether. Sorry
Kristoffer!
I'm really excited, now that the clean-up is
over, to start using Facebook! It's a really awesome opportunity to
reach more people in Japan and share what I believe in a different way.
The Japan Tokyo and Tokyo South missions are the first international missions
that get to use Facebook! How cool is that? It's also a little intimidating...everyone
is watching. So, if you'd like to keep up with me on Facebook you are
more than welcome to! And you are also welcome to comment and add
uplifting and wholesome comments to the things posted. But remember nooo
messaging.
We had dinner with Yui chan this week. She is
such a rock star! She got baptized a little after I came to Oyumino.
Well, recently finding time to read scriptures had become hard. I think
we've all been there at one point...or are currently! I know I have
been. Anyways, a few weeks ago we taught a lesson on the importance of
scriptures and gave her a notebook and colored pencils. We showed her
our Books of Mormon and how marked up they are and I showed her my
journal where I write things I like from the scriptures and church talks.
This week when we went over she had been
reading! And not only reading, but actually thinking about what she was
reading too! She had questions for us and showed us how scriptures connected.
She was so excited! It made me excited too!
She is such a good example. Even if we stop
praying or reading the scriptures or going to church we can always start
again! If at first you don't succeed, try again.
We are also doing Personal Progress together (ed.
note: this is a Church program for the young women in the church). We started
this week. During personal study (ed. note: time set aside each day to
study and read) I read multiple talks that made mention of Personal Progress.
Oh, Personal Progress is a program that church
has for the young women of the church ages 12 to 17. It focusing on
different qualities/ attributes like divine nature (my favorite), individual
worth, knowledge...and has projects to complete about each one. It has a
Girl Scout like feel to it...but it's different. The focus of the
program is to help build up girls’ confidence, faith and testimony and
prepare them for the future. It's great.
Anyways, I was thinking about what a
great base personal progress gives girls to build up from. But, when you
join the church as a single adult you miss out on that! And I really
felt like Yui chan could benefit and really enjoy it. So, we talked to the
young women's leader in our ward, she thought it was a great idea, gave
us a book, and then we gave it to Yui chan. I'm excited. It should be
fun. I haven't touched Personal Progress in years. And it is a really
neat experience getting to go back through it and really recognize its
value for young women. I'm loving it.
Sunday we had a miracle! One of the women we
had been teaching came to church with her daughter!! We hadn't been able
to meet with her in a while and when we had eikaiwa that week she hadn't
been there. We sent her a text the next day telling her we missed them.
And she replied back, apologizing for not being there and then said
hopefully we will see you Sunday. Hubner shimai and I were shocked!!! We
had invited her to church soooo many times and she hadn't come. Then this Sunday she
came! I was so happy. I couldn't stop smiling.
At Kamatori eikaiwa (ed. note: English class in
a different location) this week we had 22 people in kids class!!! 15 of them
were children! It has gotten soooo big. Kid’s class started with 6 or 7
kids on a good day. Now we fill the room! It is sooo exciting! And super
fun too! There are also two other classes we have, so all together we
had about 40 people come! When I got here we might have had twenty, and
there wasn't even a kid’s class to begin with.
It's really great getting to see the
"fruits of our labor". I've also created 24 weeks’ worth of
lessons, with pictures, handouts and activities and the occasional song
for kid’s eikaiwa. It's been a lot of work, but totally worth it.
This week I've felt like my time in Oyumino is
coming to a close. It's a little sad. I love the ward members here. And
I absolutely love the area. I love the families at eikaiwa. My sister
training leaders and zone leaders are awesome. And, although our
investigators are far and few between, there are a few I've come to
love. But, if I get transferred I'll be ok with it. President
Budge (with Heavenly Fathers help) knows best. And if I get sent
someplace else, it is because I am needed there. We will see. Transfers
are on July 7th...I think...
I love you all.
Thanks
again for the emails!
Love,
Sister
Molinari
