First Week in Obihiro 5/20/2013

 

Konnichiwa! 

My first full week in Obihiro is already over! It goes by so fast. This week we had bipolar weather. It was cold (like I'm still wearing thermals) and rainy and then we had one beeeautiful day where it got over 20 C. And then it got cold again. The sakura [cherry blossoms] bloomed and the tulips are out, but its still rainy and cold. Obihiro is country compared to Atsubetsu. Lots of old people and we get excited whenever there's someone on the street we get to talk to. 

Right now we have an investigator with a baptismal date, but other than that our investigator pool is pretty small. So this week we went through the area book and went housing (tracting) quite a bit. We planned, worked hard and Heavenly Father blessed us; we had 4 new investigators this week!! Next week and the week after are slowly filling up with appointments so that's really exciting. We saw quite a few miracles, but there's one in particular I want to share. 

So we had a plan to visit a member's house, just to stop in a say hello, share a scripture, and leave. But my companion--who waited until the last minute to break the news to me haha--forgot the map. We had the lady's address, but didn't know how to get there. So we decided to pray. We figured we would look for it while housing. On our third house, this nice old lady came out and we started talking to her. Turns out someone from her church joined our church years ago and they were really good friends. My companion recognized the name of her church. Turns out this lady's friend was the member we were looking for! She knew where she lived and she showed us the way. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon, talked about Heavenly Father, and made an appointment to come back. The member we visited was happy that we met her friend and encouraged us to definitely go back. It was really funny how everything played out, but it definitely wasn't coincidence. 

I love my companion. We get along really well and communicate very openly. I'm learning that loud laughter does indeed turn the Spirit away, so we are working on not having too much fun and staying focused on the task at hand. She's naturally really loud and I'm not the most quiet either, so it's been interesting. She eats more than I do so we make a great pair ;) Speaking of which, good grief four girls eat a lot! Last week the other two came home with a ton of food and I really thought we wouldn't eat all of it. Oh no. Sunday night we were scraping together the last of everything haha. Grocery shopping on Monday and trying to fit everything into our bicycle baskets is going to be a challenge! 

I love missionary work. I love this gospel, the ward, eikaiwa [English classes], my companion, apartment, and yes, even the weather (it's all part of the experience, right?). Theres a bunch more I wish I could say, but that's it for now. Thank you for your love and prayers. They are appreciated!!

Love,

Sugihara Shimai