April 17, 2015,
I am emailing today (Saturday) because we are going to the temple
with our branch today (it's a 2.5
hour drive) and whenever we go to the temple we have to count
it as our Pday for the week.
I really love it here in Nagasaki! The people here are so
nice! Even though a lot of people we meet aren't
interested, they are always super polite. We have seen a couple really
neat miracles this past week. We were talking to people in the street
and we met a really nice lady who said her father was christian but she
couldn't remember what church he belonged too. We ended up chatting for a
bit and exchanged phone numbers. She said she would call us later to
set up a time to meet again. Then later that night we met another lady
who has met the missionaries before in Fukuoka at the free English class
the missionaries taught there. She said she didn't remember a whole lot
about their message, but that she would be interested in learning more
about it! She was so nice and inviting! We set up a date to come back in
a couple weeks because she's really busy right now. But I am so excited
to teach her! Just after we left her house, the lady we met on the
street called us back and said that her Dad was a member of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!! Klein Shimai and I were so
excited!! She said that we can set up a time to talk later!
Besides
that, I have loved just talking to people on the street. Getting to
know a little bit about everyone is really cool. And we get to teach
little bits of how people can feel more happiness in their lives! It's
been really neat.
I still don't understand a whole lot of
what is being said around me but I am picking up bits and pieces here
and there. My trainer is really encouraging and is helping me feel
confident in using what I do know in Japanese. It's interesting here
though because a good number of signs are either in Romaji - Romanized
version of Japanese Characters - or just plain broken English
like "Smile Drug Store" or other funny things like that! A lot of people
will pretend like we aren't speaking Japanese to them; they'll either
say, in Japanese, I don't speak English, even when we are speaking
Japanese to them or they'll say, in English, Sorry, and just walk away.
We get a lot of funny looks from people probably for a lot of reasons.
1. Because we are Americans 2. Because we are wearing big white
helmets 3. because we are biking in skirts and 4. because we talk
to random people on the street!! I love it though, it's been so great
to be here and I look forward to the many weeks to come!
BTW - The
produce here is SO Expensive!! A cantaloupe is 30$, a little thing of
grapes is like 3$...its crazy. But yeah, we are doing our best to eat
healthy (:
-- Sarah's companion's mother also keeps a blog; last week she shared a cool story and said some really nice things about Sarah so I have included those here:
On Thursday, I picked up my new companion straight from the MTC, Lowe
Shimai! She is from Lombard, Illinois, is 19, and is such an awesome
missionary. I love her personality and we get along really well! She
loves to work and has lots of confidence with her Japanese, which will
help her SO much. She is so willing to try new things and is such a good
example to me. Lowe Shimai and I have already seen lots of success since she got here 3
days ago! On Saturday night, we came back from general conference and
had 20 minutes left before 9pm. We decided to go an area by
our apartment and met a really neat lady that had lots of interest
about eikaiwa [English lessons]. Always work 'til 9pm because it's always worth it!
Last night, we didn't have enough time to go to the place we originally
planned to go to, so we prayed on the street and asked where we should go in order to find a new investigator. We
saw an apartment [building] and felt good about it, so we started to house [knock on doors] there.
After three floors of straight kekkos [I am satisfied], we prayed again and asked the
Lord if He would have us stay there or if we should go to a different
apartment [building] altogether. After we prayed, we looked up and saw an apartment
across the way and felt really good about the 2nd and 4th floors. We
had no success on the 2nd floor and then prayed again before we housed
the 4th floor. Well, on the 4th floor we met Kaere Chan. She is 15 and
had lots of interest about the Book of Mormon. She became the new
investigator that we were searching for! It was actually Lowe Shimai that suggested the 4th floor!!!
-- Ok, now for Sarah's pics...
One of my new favorite restaurants is Sushiro! Plates
of sushi come around on a conveyor and you can just take them off. Each
plate has two sushi pieces on it and is one dollar! it's delicious!!
This is the
Story Book Museum, we didn't go in but it's so beautiful on the
outside!! We visited this on our Pday on our way to the Oura Church.
The Oura Cathedral, the first Christian Church in Japan, also known as the Church of the Japanese Martyrs. It was really neat to go inside. It was rebuilt after being destroyed by the bomb in Nagasaki.
Ice cream w/Klein Shimai
A local market
Making Japanese food w/Keiko!
Nagasaki Missionaries!
"spectacles bridge"; Built in 1634
Making Japanese food w/Keiko!
