On tuesday night we were housing an apartment building complex area. Because heaven forbid you house at night in the country... people will yell at you. They practically go to bed a 8 here and wake up at 9 the next morning. Or at least that's how it seems. Anyway, we were housing and this teenage boy answers the door and listens to us but then his mom in the background tells us, "we're good, thanks" and so we leave. We continue housing until this guy comes and finds us again. At first we just thought he had an interest in gaijin. But then he asks us if we are jesus christ's church and asks us to come again the next evening at 7. We asked if it would be ok to bring our 2 guy friends (chorotachi) and he agrees. We bike home feeling pretty happy when we realized that we had eikaiwa(English class) the next night at the same time. Boy did we feel stupid.
The next day we put a note in his post box ask him to contact us to set something up but so far no dice. We're going to keep trying to revisit him and see. But man, it broke our hearts how imperfect we are. Oh, well. Live learn and move on.
Then we taught a lesson with an investigator who has recently been very sick. I felt so lucky to meet her and teach her. We taught her a little bit more on God and our relationship with him and I ended up bearing testimony about eternal life and my hope in seeing my family again and being happy. And she totally agreed and said that she wanted that too. Before she couldn't imagine any life after death. She called it "mu" which means nothing. A bit depressing if you think about it. But I'm hoping that is changing. I hope she desires to have eternal life as well.
Recently we have a new rule added to our book which is to have ponder and study and prayer time from 10:00-10:30. However I have been the worst at keeping this new rule. For example, last night I knelt to pray and totally fell asleep without even realizing it. This is the third time in a row since it came out last week. oops.. There's always tonight. Granted, I might just have to sit at my desk and try to do this because in my futon is just not working. Because I fell asleep on my face, Archbold shimai said that I started to snore. The graces of being a sister missionary.
Heaven knows this work is not pretty. I've gained weight. I've got rice face. Most of my clothes are worn (most of my skirts have oil stains), my shoes are skuffed, my hair is a friz ball,(don't worry mom, I still look presentable) but I am happy. I love this work.
scripture of the week is Alma 36:3,27
Bevan Shimai
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| Sunset on the way home from Aioi, Japan - just a few miles east of Ako |
