Week 2 - Nagasaki

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 (: 

 

All my love!

Lowe Shimai

 

-- 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