Light in the Rain (September 14, 2015)

Well, this week was crazy. Guess that's getting prett typical;)

The biggest news is that all is safe now, which is good. Quick filler: there was a typhoon in this area, lots of flooding, and a lot of government-issued evacuation advisory texts in the middle of the night, most of which I chose not to read because it was two o'clock in the morning and I lacked the motivation to decipher the kanji (Chinese characters) in my sleepy stop-waking-me-up state. (Evidence that God is protecting his missionaries: our area ended up being just fine, and I learned a good lesson called, "read all government issued texts, even if it's the seventh one and four o'clock in the morning".)

We were supposed to have Zone Training Meeting on the worst day, but due to landslide warnings and public transportation being down, we stayed in Nagamachi along with the Aizuwakamatsu sisters who were stranded in Nagamachi. It was actually quite fun, we ended up Skyping in to ZTM, along with a bunch of elders stranded in Kamisugi, so it was an adventurous multi-Skype call ZTM:) (I had to give a training over Skype, and we had some tech issues so I gave the first half of my training to my own face. God be willing, I will never do that again, holy awkward.)

One of the Book of Mormons we placed this week was also in the rain--we had some time, but it was raining enough that we couldn't ride our bicycles (we probably could've, but the sister that was working here before me broke her arm biking on a rainy day and had to go home [before returning to finish her mission], so we agreed to play it safe). I had on my cheap hand-me-down plastic raincoat and had a Book of Mormon and some flyers clutched to myself underneath it. There was a lady walking down the street that we were housing, so we stopped and talked to her. I slid my cheap hand-me-down plastic raincoat open like the sketchiest person ever and stood there in the rain discussing the Book of Mormon like some sort of missionary version of a drug deal. The good news is, we made the sale, and scored a name and phone number as well as a "yeah we can talk about it sometime," so we were pretty happy.


We're always pretty happy:) Even when we're nasty as heck, even when we've had a ridiculous number of bike problems, even when it's raining, even when it's still kind of hard sometimes. That's the best part of it all for me is that we are happy, and the reason why is because we are sharing something that is important not only to make us happy now but to make us happy forever. And when we speak from our hearts, when we truly care for the people we're trying so hard to reach, and we see them pick up on a little spark, a little tiny piece of the light we're holding out to them, it makes us happy.

Also ice cream. Ice cream makes us happy;)

They gave us a ten minute break during ZTM and Sister A and I determined that we could make it to the convenience store and back in time, so we took of running in rain boots and flip-flops and treated the Aizu sisters to some ice cream. And yes ma'am, we made it back before the break was over;)

P.S. Lisa also answered a few questions about her area, companion, etc.:

Nagamachi is not Ishinomaki, but I'm growing to love it:) We have a Q who comes to church every week and one who was almost has a baptismal date, which is quite exciting:) 

Nagamachi is hilly as heck, if heck is hilly, and so sometimes I die on the hills a little but I'm getting stronger. My companion is Sister J..... Annett, she's from Tennessee and a hoot and a half. She's gluten intolerant but is a really good cook and says exactly what's on her mind all the time, it's hilarious:) We have a lot of fun together, she's competing with my second transfer Takahashi Shimai for favorite companion thus far, which says a lot. She's very patient with my cluelessness, haha:)

Yes, lots of rain, but our apartment was fine and so were we. A few times showing up to play looking like wet cats, but other than that, the work rolls on:) This week was MLC, which is a long meeting, and ZTM, which is a long meeting, and interviews with Preaident Smith, which is more travelling, so this week was really not a lot of time in our area, unfortunately. 


(Tedhnically the honbu's in our area so MlC and interviews were, but I don't really count that.)

Yep:)