Beginning is easy - continuing is hard.
Japanese Proverb
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
It doesn't snow in Tokyo
At least, it hasn't snowed yet. It rains instead, which is far more annoying. Snow at least has the courtesy to stay outside of your clothing for the most part. Rain is very inconsiderate.
Sorry about my lack of an update last week. Internet has been difficult to obtain for P-Day for a while. I've been incredibly busy working on a few projects and with appointments, so that's good, right? I don't have a lot of time this week either, due to the same Internet problems.
First let me say THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has wished me a Happy Birthday! You are all so awesome. I really appreciate it. We found a Yakiniku restaurant (grill-your-own-food, mostly meat) that gives you all you can eat/drink for 1,200 yen (roughly $14) so we'll probably check that out either this week or the next.
Japan doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but ex-patriots in Japan do! My companion and I are over an ex-patriot ("Foreigner") ward here in Shibuya, so we actually got invited to a genuine Thanksgiving dinner! Huzzah! The Elders that got transferred were very sad.
Oh yes, transfers. I wanted to mention that. Transfers happen every 6 weeks. They are a rather big deal to missionaries, and in fact we measure time by transfers more than months when talking to other missionaries. Every transfer you find out if your whole world is getting flipped inside out: you could be moving across the country, you could be living with all new people, and that person you just commited to baptism may never see you again. It's pretty stressful.
It doesn't help that the mission handles transfers in possibly the worst fashion possible. Sometime on a Friday night we get a call. This call lets us know if there is a transfer. It doesn't say if both companions are leaving or just one, it just says "there is going to be a change in your companionship." A third person may come in, one may leave, or you may be getting whitewashed (both leave). You don't know.
Saturday you find out details. Who is going where, sorta thing. Saturday you have a deep cleaning and packing day. Sunday you say goodbye to the Ward, and Monday you transfer. It's crazy.
This was my first transfer in the field, so I was nervous. I really like Shibuya, and we had appointments well into the Christmas season and investigators we really liked, so my companion and I really wanted to stay. Then our district leader calls our apartment, where we and another companionship stay. The call goes kinda like this:
"Hey Sisters, how are ya?"
"Forget the small talk. Give us the news, Elder."
"Okay. *pause* Three of you are transferring and one of you is staying."
"..."
"..."
"WHAT."
"Ha ha! Nah, I'm just kidding. You're all staying."
That was not funny. Actually, that was pretty hilarious, but it freaked us out for a second. Two Elders got transferred, sadly. We wanted our district to remain unchanged, but alas.
Oh, a quick note, have any of my letters arrived yet? If anyone has recieved a letter from me while I was in Japan please let me know. I've been sending out letters every week but I'm never quite sure if they get there. I believe Adam got one, but I have no clue if my friends know how much I love them.
Which I do, so I guess I could just point it out here. You are loved!
Okay, I'm outta time. We have a lesson that we need to plan. Wish me luck!
Sorry about my lack of an update last week. Internet has been difficult to obtain for P-Day for a while. I've been incredibly busy working on a few projects and with appointments, so that's good, right? I don't have a lot of time this week either, due to the same Internet problems.
First let me say THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has wished me a Happy Birthday! You are all so awesome. I really appreciate it. We found a Yakiniku restaurant (grill-your-own-food, mostly meat) that gives you all you can eat/drink for 1,200 yen (roughly $14) so we'll probably check that out either this week or the next.
Japan doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but ex-patriots in Japan do! My companion and I are over an ex-patriot ("Foreigner") ward here in Shibuya, so we actually got invited to a genuine Thanksgiving dinner! Huzzah! The Elders that got transferred were very sad.
Oh yes, transfers. I wanted to mention that. Transfers happen every 6 weeks. They are a rather big deal to missionaries, and in fact we measure time by transfers more than months when talking to other missionaries. Every transfer you find out if your whole world is getting flipped inside out: you could be moving across the country, you could be living with all new people, and that person you just commited to baptism may never see you again. It's pretty stressful.
It doesn't help that the mission handles transfers in possibly the worst fashion possible. Sometime on a Friday night we get a call. This call lets us know if there is a transfer. It doesn't say if both companions are leaving or just one, it just says "there is going to be a change in your companionship." A third person may come in, one may leave, or you may be getting whitewashed (both leave). You don't know.
Saturday you find out details. Who is going where, sorta thing. Saturday you have a deep cleaning and packing day. Sunday you say goodbye to the Ward, and Monday you transfer. It's crazy.
This was my first transfer in the field, so I was nervous. I really like Shibuya, and we had appointments well into the Christmas season and investigators we really liked, so my companion and I really wanted to stay. Then our district leader calls our apartment, where we and another companionship stay. The call goes kinda like this:
"Hey Sisters, how are ya?"
"Forget the small talk. Give us the news, Elder."
"Okay. *pause* Three of you are transferring and one of you is staying."
"..."
"..."
"WHAT."
"Ha ha! Nah, I'm just kidding. You're all staying."
That was not funny. Actually, that was pretty hilarious, but it freaked us out for a second. Two Elders got transferred, sadly. We wanted our district to remain unchanged, but alas.
Oh, a quick note, have any of my letters arrived yet? If anyone has recieved a letter from me while I was in Japan please let me know. I've been sending out letters every week but I'm never quite sure if they get there. I believe Adam got one, but I have no clue if my friends know how much I love them.
Which I do, so I guess I could just point it out here. You are loved!
Okay, I'm outta time. We have a lesson that we need to plan. Wish me luck!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
C's letter to A
Our big brother, A, received a letter from C this week and sent me some of the news to post on this blog:
"My companion is a thespian. Enough said."
C is finding it funny that, while wandering around Tokyo, she can identify most of the music and film stars on the posters. This is a side effect from living with Japanese families for such a long time before her mission.
In particular, there's a huge role-playing game coming out in Japan soon (it's called Final Fantasy 13), and there are posters EVERYWHERE. Billboards, convenience stores, shopping centers, whatever. This is, unsurprisingly, distracting because C *loves* the Final Fantasy games. She hopes that someday she'll be transferred to the countryside because this will be less distracting, though I think she'll find that they stick posters in the convenience stores out there, too ;).
"My companion is a thespian. Enough said."
C is finding it funny that, while wandering around Tokyo, she can identify most of the music and film stars on the posters. This is a side effect from living with Japanese families for such a long time before her mission.
In particular, there's a huge role-playing game coming out in Japan soon (it's called Final Fantasy 13), and there are posters EVERYWHERE. Billboards, convenience stores, shopping centers, whatever. This is, unsurprisingly, distracting because C *loves* the Final Fantasy games. She hopes that someday she'll be transferred to the countryside because this will be less distracting, though I think she'll find that they stick posters in the convenience stores out there, too ;).
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
C's letter to S
I ran out of time because I have too many appointments today (even though it's P-Day! Nooo!), so no blog post. You can either put this, or if you want to put up a blog post or something you can. Life is great, Shibuya is huge, rain is terrible.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Food
'So, I bet you are sick of Japanese food.'
'Here's some American food, I bet it's been a while!'
'You poor missionaries eat strange stuff all the time, huh?'
Thanks to wonderful members and a companion sick of local cuisine, I HAVE NOT YET EATEN JAPANESE FOOD.
'Here's some American food, I bet it's been a while!'
'You poor missionaries eat strange stuff all the time, huh?'
Thanks to wonderful members and a companion sick of local cuisine, I HAVE NOT YET EATEN JAPANESE FOOD.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Short but Sweet
Yesterday was a national holiday in Japan so the place we normally come to do e-mails (The LDS Family History Center in Tokyo, in fact) was closed. We dendou'ed instead and decided to come and do e-mails today. Today is cut a little short, we had a bit of an upset this morning and we have to hurry to get to our meetings on time. Rather than the usual wall of text I thought I'd try to spruce up the blog a bit. I won't do this quite so often in future because I love my sister and I want her to not hate doing this for me. This week is going great, and I'm really enjoying my time here. I was able to stop by a dollar store so I picked up a few essential supplies. I also sent out letters to a great number of you this week; if you do not get them by next Monday please let me know because you should have.
Okay, so here is mission life thus far.
Sometimes you have a hard time getting along with your companions.
But most of the time it's just awesome.
Especially when you can relax and have fun. (the person in the middle was my MTC companion, although due to my crazy swapping around all the sisters you've seen thus far were companions at one point. There is another sister, too)
Missionaries will use any means to seek out people and teach.
Those were my MTC days. Here in Shibuya it does get pretty hectic, but we've adapted rather well. Do you recognize this place? I guess there's a video of this crossing on my blog, so I hope this looks familiar. It was actually a pretty slow day when we took this.
This is the Shibuya district. Bring it on! Ironically two of the sisters couldn't be in the picture because they were actually teaching. We just got out of a Halloween party.
Yep. Missionaries will teach anyone who will listen!
I really am having a great time, and while these are my favorite pictures, there is very little goofing around during the day. During the night, though, MAN. I just found an old deck of cards in our apartment. I've been doing magic tricks the past few nights. It's been awesome. If anyone wants to send me some magic trick instructions that can be done with a standard deck of cards, send them over! I have forgotten many of the ones I could do, I'm stuck at about 5 tricks.
I love you all, and thanks for reading! I hope to have more stories next week.
Okay, so here is mission life thus far.
Sometimes you have a hard time getting along with your companions.
But most of the time it's just awesome.
Especially when you can relax and have fun. (the person in the middle was my MTC companion, although due to my crazy swapping around all the sisters you've seen thus far were companions at one point. There is another sister, too)
Missionaries will use any means to seek out people and teach.
Those were my MTC days. Here in Shibuya it does get pretty hectic, but we've adapted rather well. Do you recognize this place? I guess there's a video of this crossing on my blog, so I hope this looks familiar. It was actually a pretty slow day when we took this.
This is the Shibuya district. Bring it on! Ironically two of the sisters couldn't be in the picture because they were actually teaching. We just got out of a Halloween party.
Yep. Missionaries will teach anyone who will listen!
I really am having a great time, and while these are my favorite pictures, there is very little goofing around during the day. During the night, though, MAN. I just found an old deck of cards in our apartment. I've been doing magic tricks the past few nights. It's been awesome. If anyone wants to send me some magic trick instructions that can be done with a standard deck of cards, send them over! I have forgotten many of the ones I could do, I'm stuck at about 5 tricks.I love you all, and thanks for reading! I hope to have more stories next week.
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