Sister Malone's Mission in Fukuoka, Japan!: This week went by so fast! / Week #12

Konnichiwa minasan!

Does anybody else feel like this week went by super fast? Or was that just me? Probably because it was my birthday. And Sister Nagamine's birthday on Thursday. So basically we partied the whole week...in a missionary style. That means that we go out to dinner to celebrate, and bring an investigator along! So Tuesday was really fun. For district meeting we had a pancake breakfast to celebrate me and Nagamine Shimai's birthday. Pancakes are so good! Who knew? Tuesday night Sister Wedekind, the best member missionary in the world, took us out to eat with one our investigators Emi. It was my first time having actual ramen. It's super good. But so filling. Then she pulled out ice cream cake and Emi pulled out Japanese cheese cake. Needless to say I was so full after that. After dinner we had a lesson with Emi. Pinzon Shimai has been teaching Emi for a few months now before I was here. She's come a long way though. She went from reading a few verses of the Book of Mormon each day, and now she's made it to 1 Nephi 11. That's big progress for her. The best part was she told us she feels like she's Nephi. She's applying the scriptures to herself! The biggest thing for her right now is she needs a new job where she doesn't have to work on Sundays. Because she can't come to church with the job she has. So we are praying that she can find a new job.

On Wednesday we went on base and fixed up these two new rooms in one of the storage buildings. They are now the new seminary rooms for the high school kids. Before this point they just met in one of the chapels on base. But now they have a place where they can put up pictures and make it more LDS. The rooms were packed full of stuff but luckily we had four elders and four sisters working on it. The rooms look awesome now. I hope those seminary kids appreciate what we did for them! Just kidding.

Thursday we did lots of studying and weekly planning. Then we had Eikaiwa. I really like Eikaiwa! I teach the advanced class with Nagamine Shimai so they understand a lot of what we say. We practice new words and phrases and then just talk at the end. One of the students brought me and Nagamine Shimai a cake. She's so nice and it was really good. It was grape flavored. I never would have thought a grape flavored cake would be good but it is. We also went out to dinner with the Crosby's and went to this fried rice place. They give you huge sizzling pans of fried rice and I couldn't manage to eat all of it unfortunately. That's one of my goals. To be able to eat everything I'm given. It's polite in Japan to eat all your food okay?

Friday we took Sister Wedekind's daughter, Meadow, with us to teach a lesson to some investigators and to do some tracting. She doesn't really speak any Japanese but she's preparing to serve a mission in the Baltic mission so it's good experience. We taught our first investigator Tamiko san about the Plan of Salvation. Her English is pretty good so Meadow could participate with us. Our second investigator didn't answer so we had more tracting time. We just went housing and handed out flyers to people. I'm trying to be better at talking to people. It's getting there I promise. I just usually have no idea what they're saying back to me and that's when Pinzon Shimai swoops in and starts talking.

On Saturday there was a baptism! One of the elder's investigators got baptized. It was so cool to see. It's over so fast though! But all of the elders and sisters sang a musical number for the baptism and they put a picture of it in the program on Sunday. Haha Japanese people are so funny.

On Sunday we had our usual 7 hours of church. It's exhausting but it's a really good time to get to know members and set things up with them. And unfortunately none of our investigators showed up to church. After church we had a dinner appointment with some members. The missionaries are supposed to go around to each house in one of the wards and talk about making a family mission plan. It's a good chance to encourage members and help them form specific goals for missionary work. And it's a good chance for us to see if they have any referrals:) But the best part was the food! (Sorry that's all I talk about). The sister who fed us is from the Philippines and she made really delicious food! I think it's the best meal I've had yet.

Anyways, this week was really great. There's the usual ups and downs of missionary work. We're always striving to do more and it's exhausting sometimes. But there's really good times too. Thanks to Heavenly Father we have little miracles every day. I just need to remember to look for them and be grateful for them. Love you all! Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Malone Shimai

Me & Pinzon Shimai