Hey everyone!
One thing that I love the most about missionary work are the investigators. Especially when they come to church. Yesterday, this investigator is kind of an interesting guy to begin with. And before church starts he begins to meditate. Except it's not really prayer-like but more of a yoga pose - he rests his hands on his knees and then curls his forefinger towards his thumb with his fingers straight. So he's in that Bhuddist type trance. I loved it! He's been to church at least 3 times now. So I'm hoping he's doing well. He's the Kobe elders investigator so I don't really know much about him, but I think he's great because he wears red high top converse to church :D
Anyway, cool story of the week. This week Fish Shimai and I are out "dendoing". We just parked our bikes and she was looking up addresses of our P.I's. I'm just standing there trying not to sweat too much when I see a man up in a apartment complex just having a smoke and staring at me. It made me a little uncomfortable and creeped out, so I turn around towards Fish Shimai and tried to ignore him.
We finally begin to walk away and then Fish Shimai starts to walk back towards the building but then changes her mind and turns away from it, and starts to walk down the street. I suddenly felt like we needed to dendo that apartment building, but I still felt creeped out, so we kept walking. Finally, I just go with my gut and say to Fish Shimai, "Have we ever dendo'd that apartment builidng?" She says, "no, I don't think we have." So I say, "I think we should go and ping pong it." So she follows me and we go up to the second floor of the apartment building. I felt so nervous.
We knock on the first door, nobody home. We slip a pamphlet into his mailbox and then we go to the smoker's home. My stomach was full of rocks. We ping pong. He answers the door. I see the cutest little toddler at his feet, and immediately my heart went out to this family. We say that we're missionaries and he says, "I'm eating dinner right now but do you have a book I can read?" Fish Shimai, excitedly says, "YEAH we do!" and hands him the Book of Mormon. After he closes the door, neither one of us is sure what just happened. But we were excited. I hope to visit them again this week :)
Sister Fish and I are going to try and extend a baptismal commitment to one of our progressing investigators. He's been investigating the church since march/april and we're hoping he'll be baptized by the end of the month. He has a lot of questions and we're hoping to answer them as simply as we can so that we don't create any misunderstandings or confusion.
Other than that I can't think of too many exciting things to say. I love the ward I'm serving in. All the members are so kind and so strong in the gospel. I try to speak to them every Sunday and get to know them better.
Fish Shimai and I go to Eikaiwa (English Class) every week on Tuesday evenings. We teach this little Pakistani girl with her mom. She speaks only Japanese and her mom wants her to learn more English. We are still working on the alphabet with her and sounds. She still doesn't know enough English for the basic class that we teach. As missionaries we teach both basic and intermediate levels of english... or engrish...
Glad to hear you're doing well. It's kind of weird to think that I won't be going to school in the fall. I've always gone to school and now I'm not. I've been going to school every fall for the past... 15 years and now I'm serving a mission. Who knew? Anyway, it's been really hot here recently. As in, in the hundreds with plenty of humidity. I love the large sweat stains on my back, that way more people tell me, "Atsui desu ne" Yup.... yes it is.
Love you all,
Bevan 姉妹
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| "Atsui desu ne" - do you think it's time to change shirts?? |
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| Downtown Kobe - Sannomiya District - this is where the main hub is for all the transportation services in Kobe. It is also the largest downtown district of Kobe. Sannomiya Station is home to the Hankyu Railway,Hanshin Electric Railway, Kobe Municipal Subway, and Kobe New Transit Railway |
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| Another view of the Sannomiya District from Mt Rokku - (Wikipedia file picture) |
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| Yummy! |
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| My apartment |
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| Sister Fish and I with our bikes! |
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| This is the tatami mat and futon I sleep on each night! |
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