Hey There 4/21/2014

Dear all,

Another week in the life. It was so good! Transfers came and went. I stayed. I'm still in the area of Odori (Moiwa) and still STL [Sister Training Leader]. I'm still with Kuroki Shimai and things are going great. I'm really happy I stayed. My favorite roomie transferred and that was really sad but that happens.

Okay before I run out of time, funny story. So the other week, we were housing and we pinged this old lady, 85ish. She came out of her house and told us that she was Buddhist, not interested, but that her kids went to a Lutheran preschool. She was really nice and talked to us so we started teaching her on her doorstep. Somehow we started talking about money and life as a missionary and she said "I bet you don't  have a lot of money. Hold on a sec." She went inside her house and ignoring our protests, grabbed her purse and handed us a bill. It was 10,000 yen (100 bucks). We were shocked. Regardless of the rule that we can't accept money as missionaries, we couldn't accept that much. We tried our very best to explain why we couldn't take it and gave it back. She completely refused and told us to go eat something delicious. Realizing that refusing was futile, we knew we would have to return it without her knowing it. We made an appointment for the next day (she said she would buy us sushi!) and that was that.
The next day we went back and she seemed surprised to see us (hint one). She asked if we wanted to come in and we said yes. We went in and sat down and she started to tell us everything she told us the day before. I'm Buddhist, but my kids went to a Lutheran preschool (hint two). She seemed genki [healthy] and we thought she was all there but...well. We put the money in the pages of a Book of Mormon and planned to give the money back to her without her knowing. Well, Kuroki Shimai didn't time it right and handed to her, and then she [the lady] promptly flipped thru the pages, seeing the money. She was surprised to see the money and said, "Look there's money in here!" We acted surprised and changed the subject. We started explaining the Book of Mormon and 5 min later, she flipped thru the pages again. "Look there's money in here!" That's when we knew, she was not all there. Old age, it's okay, it happens. We had to do all we could to not giggle though. We taught her about Jesus Christ, invited her to keep learning (she refused) and we decided to leave. We quickly slipped the money back in the Book of Mormon and left. We got a good chuckle out of it :)

S-san [investigator] is golden. She came to church again and all of lessons went well. She's so cute. She said she was going to stop perming her hair because she read something in the Book of Mormon that made her think it wasn't okay for church members. We reassured her that it is totally okay :) She's still planning on getting baptized and things are going smoothly. She finished the BoM and started it again. She's slowly building friendships with ward members and things are going great.

There is an RC [recent convert] we are working closely with. She was baptized in November, but is old and doesn't understand doctrine at all. We were teaching her an AB lesson and asked her what she promised at baptism. She adamantly said that she didn't promise anything. We reassured her that she did and taught her about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. She is coming to church regularly and I am really proud of her.

Kuroki Shimai is really goal oriented and is a really good example to  me. We work well together and I'm really glad she is my companion. Our apt is now all nihonjin [Japanese] plus me, so hopefully I get to learn some more :)

She went home this week. So sad!

 I love this gospel and know it's true. Easter wasn't celebrated here and that was kind of sad, but I know that Christ lives today and loves every one of us.

Thank you for all of your love and support! I appreciate all of you!

Finally threw these away this week. They served me well.

Love,

Sugihara Shimai