September 30, 2013

HOLY SWEET MERCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am DYING RIGHT NOW. I cannot stop crying and I could not  be more excited for Kristy! Well my entire life has been made. And just like before my mind is BLOWN. She is going to be the most INCREDIBLE MISSIONARY EVER. I`m one super proud sister that`s for sure.:) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am so pumped for her to join me!!!

This week has been busy! I am feeling tons better and so is Smith Shimai.

Monday we went to Zenkoji and it was super fun to go there for a second time! We went to a park after and I kind of broke 3/4 of my big toe nail off... So it looks disgusting and has been spouting puss off for days. So i have just wrapped it in gauze in order to prevent it from bumping my shoe so much. It is so painful! While we were at the park we went and talked to this family that had a single mother and 3 adorable kids. So they were super interested and we played with her sons for about an houro and built a really good relationship with them. We also met two potential investigators from New York and NEW ZEALAND (AHHH) (Who we had appointments with today).

We are doing a new thing at a hospital in our area where we teach eikaiwa with the elders to some of the doctors and workers. The doctor we connected with who got it started is an orthopedic surgeon. We have gotten three PIS from that. Last week we had gone through all of the material and then the elders said "well what do you want to know or talk about." Then the lady said "well you can tell us about your church!" Of course, don`t have to ask twice. SO it has been a good thing so far.

I wasn`t recovering as fast as we hoped, so Smith Shimai made me go to the hospital with Katsuta Shimai. It was the most bizarre experience... I have never really been to a hospital in America, let alone Japan. SO we waited in this insane line and finally went into the doctor. He was saying all of these crazy fast things and of course I didn`t understand anything he or Katsuta Shimai said, so it was kind of overwhelming. It was insanely expensive, so fortunately I will be reimbursed by the honbu. He gave me prescriptions for medicine... One of them was this powder stuff that looks like cocaine. It kind of concerns me that I have these random pills I am putting into my body, where I have no idea what they are or do. I am feeling lots better though!

Takemoto san has a really hard job translating for some big prestigious company so she has been super stressed. We were planning to give her a baptismal invite, but then when she showed up she looked like she has lost a lot of weight and is just not healthy.... When we were helping her with English she was getting kind of frustrated so me and Smith Shimai just knew it wouldn`t be the state of mind to give her a baptismal invite. We met with her again on Saturday and she was doing a little bit better, but we decided to do something more simple. We shared a scripture and testified and shared some experiences and we really felt like she related on them... She is begging us to stay in Nagano, so hopefully one of us is still here next transfer!

We went streeting in downtown Nagano and just tried to walk as far as we possibly could and talk to every possible person. We had a lot of success, testified a lot, gave out a million "mormon.org" cards with our number on it so it was really great. There were some foreigners and we were going to go try to talk to them. They walked into this store and they didn`t seem too interested. However, one of them started talking in Spanish to the Japanese lady at the counter so we were kind of surprised. So they left and I asked the lady how she knows Spanish in Japanese. (I was going to ask in Spanish, but then I realized that Japanese has taken over the language part of my brain and I can`t say anything) SO then she responded in Spanish and told me about how she lived in Argentina and when she was 14 moved to Japan not knowing any Japanese. (We kind of related on how hard it is). She told me all about her family and life IN SPANISH. BUt I somehow understood everything and then would respond in Japanese. It was interesting because I haven`t used Spanish in so long, and I really didn`t know that much when I studied it. But because of the Spirit I was able to understand. It was so insane because I honestly understood more Spanish than I do Japanese... So aggravating. Hahaha it was one of those crazy cultural moments for me... Understanding Spanish and responding in Japanese? What on earth? So we just really clicked with this woman! She was so sweet and awesome. We ended up talking to her for about 30 minutes. We were about to leave and then we asked if we could teach her more about our church. She said that she can`t right now because she is working and she looked a little bit disappointed.. So we gave her our number and a mormon.org card and then told her we can get together another time. The awesome thing is that we can follow up with her and visit her again! So she is really great.

We have so many PIS right now and we are trying to get appointments with them and invite them to hear about the church! Some of them are hard to meet with and ones that have said that we could teach them more about the church are being kind of sketch about responding and making appointments. However, today we met with 4 potential investigators and it was really good. So there is lots that could be happening soon.

There is this man who comes to church every Sunday and all of the activities, but won`t take the lessons. So somehow he knew where we live and showed up at our door with this massive box of cracked figs he picked from a wild tree. Hahahaha. So Grant Shimai and Katsuta Shimai were the lucky suckers to answer the door. He told them they had to try them (and I guess they were extremely disgusting) ahahaha. So Grant Shimai took a bite and was like "ohhh.. yeahhh.. heheh.. yummy" He said- what, you don`t like it? Why aren`t you eating it? So then they had to eat the whole thing.. Hahahaha. We now have 2 massive bowls filled with wild rotten figs. TENDER MERCIES.

So maybe send letters to the honbu rather than my address. I want to make sure that they get to me. I have noooooo idea what is going to happen with transfers. Whatever happens, I will be happy and know that it came from God. So I find out Saturday. YAY! Smith Shimai is sold that I am going to become a trainer, so these past two weeks we have been doing everything possible to get me prepared. So we will see.

This church is true! My heart is changing every single day and I have so much love and happiness in my heart. I love being a missionary.

Love you all!

愛

クロフツ姉妹

Our favorite elder (elder Heo) gave us these face masks from Korea. They were incredible and they apparently are meant to make your skin whiter.. Hahaha all of our apartment did them together and it was really fun, we looked so freaky.  It was the craziest thing because I am so used to going in the sun to be tan.

Figs delivered to Sisters

The Amy Sisters (Crofts & Smith)

We found a subway!