Brittany is tranferred!

Hi family,

This week has been CRAZY busy because, you guessed it, I got transferred! My new area is called Kichijoji. It's just one area over from the mission home in Tokyo prefecture, and it is the BIG CITY! It's been so fun. My companion is Facer Shimai, my senpai (a missionary 1 transfer older than you) who I got to know in the MTC. She is blonde and Barbie-doll gorgeous, so I bet it's going to be fun proselyting with her! The other big news is that we have four sisters in our apartment---two sisters from the countryside got transferred into our zone without an apartment, so they have to stay here and bike 20 minutes into it every day. Yikes. The new apartment is TINY! In the room we sleep in, all our futons overlap, and maneuvering around the kitchen and bathroom is tricky. It's been fun though. The other two girls are Facer Shimai's doki (missionary on the same transfer) and a 2nd transfer missionary she's training. We're all American and all young missionaries (even though I'm like, halfway done now; that's so weird) so this transfer is going to be wild. So far I haven't met much of the ward or investigators, but I'm really looking forward to it. Leaving all my friends in Matsudo was tough! But you'll get to read all about that in my journal. Speaking of which...sorry, I have absolutely no pages to send this week because I was way too busy with transfers to even draw in it. Next week I should have some.

 

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It was pretty good. Mano Shimai and I had lunch with Kiko-chan and an eternal investigator, we did a three-hour weekly planning session, and then we had dinner at a member's house with our ward mission leader. They didn't actually know it was my birthday until Mano Shimai told them, so we ended up sitting around playing UNO while we waited for the dad to go out and buy me a cake. I was a little embarrassed, but the ward members are SO sweet. They said I'll always remember the only birthday I had on my mission!

 

I won't get to watch conference here until this weekend, but I am looking forward to it so much! I heard the news about the missionary age getting lowered and I still can't believe it. The work is really going to start growing and the world is going to change, I hope you're ready!

 

Send my love to flea-bitten Tanner in Chile, Julianne in Germany, and everybody else. I pray for you all every night. Have lots of fun, work hard, and share the gospel! The spiritual message I want to send home this week is actually an article in the September Liahona magazine (it's probably in the Ensign too) called "Sharing the Gospel" by Burns and Jensen. It's about natural ways to help your best friends receive the blessings only the restored gospel can bring. I hope everyone reads it!

 

Have a great week everybody! Ai shite iru yo!

Long Shimai