Hi family,
Thank you for your emails! It was so fun to hear from everybody, especially BEN! I read his email out loud to Sister Wylie and she went, "Awwwwww!" I sure miss you guys. And I'm bummed I'm missing so many of your plays! I bet you are all superstars. It's so fun that you get to be involved in that. To Lacey I will say, "Otsukaresama desu!" What a trooper for sticking out the presidency! And I LOVED the photos of the Highland games. You guys are hilarious.
I have some photos for you this week thanks to Wylie Shimai!
1 - This is what our futons (beds) look like---basically a pile of blankets and sleepy missionary on a thin mattress. (This photo comes from a homework assignment from our zone leaders; for our first zone meeting each companionship was supposed to re-enact a movie. We chose "While You Were Sleeping." Nyark nyark nyark.)
2 - The two of us on sister exchanges with the sisters in Oizumi (Tokyo's Portuguese branch). The sister in front is actually Brazilian but grew up in Japan, and the other is a completely Japanese brand-new sister who knows no Portuguese at all! Fun times.
3 and 4 - Brother Fujinuma in Kiryu Ward is a less-active, but he's very lonely so we visited him this week for dinner with another member. Brother Fujinuma is a retired military man and he loves planes! He showed us his model kits and magazines and photos and fed us so much curry we about burst.
5 - An adorable text message from Ogiwara-san after we taught him the Plan of Salvation. We laid it out before him and he said, "You should show this to all the Japanese people! They only know heaven and hell, but this is a plan with so much more hope! These people need that!" (He said that in Japanese. His English is not very good but it's very endearing.)
6 - Neither of us have gotten any mail since we've been in Kiryu. Maybe we're just getting old, or maybe we're so far out in the middle of nowhere the postman can't find us!
7 - Kiryu is so windy that my bike gets knocked over all the time and my helmet has taken some nasty falls. You may not be able to tell if you haven't seen a missionary helmet, but the entire back chunk is missing and the left side is all skiddly-wompus. Fun times!
8 - Today we went out for lunch at the restaurant of a less-active's friend! I remarked to Wylie Shimai that I'm wearing this shirt in almost every photo I send home because it's unofficially my P-Day shirt. What we ate: katsudon (breaded and fried pork with onion and egg cooked in sugary soy sauce + served on rice), salad, miso soup, and the token Japanese pickly things.
9 - I wasn't actually present when Wylie Shimai ate this scary-looking thing, but who can resist a picture like that?
Missionary work in Kiryu this week has gone really well! We're busier than ever and teaching a lot of great people every chance we get. It's awesome! I'll let you read more about it in journal pages for the next few weeks.
The other bit of news I have is about change in the Tokyo mission. Recently church headquarters issued an announcement that because of the surge in sister missionaries new leadership positions are being created, namely Sister Training Leader, which is basically a zone leader position held by a sister. They join President's council, train at conferences, and reguarly exchange with sisters in nearby zones. The first ever sister training leaders in Japan Tokyo Mission history are none other than Wylie Shimai and Long Shimai! President didn't really have another choice because we're some of the only sisters not training, but we figure we're out in the countryside so we can't do too much damage. We have no idea what we're doing, so it should be fun!
I think that's all I have this week, but I love you all lots! Have a great week and talk to all your friends about the GOOD NEWS!
Take care,
Long Shimai
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