This week the report comes from my dear companion, because she took the time to wrote it. Please enjoy, have a radical week and be missionaries! :)
We have found more investigators this week than we have the whole transfer combined! On Monday we were talking people near Nagano eki when we saw a girl in shorts coming our way and we knew we had to talk to her! The experience we had was kind of like Alma 32:34,"And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant." We didn't have to have faith the she would become an investigator because we knew she would. We meet with her on Wednesday!
Here in Nagano, we have three levels of Eikaiwa and Brewer Shimai and I teach the middle school level. Usually this would be fun, but our students refuse, REFUSE to talk. And if you ask them a question, they look at each other and whisper-discuss what their answer is for five minutes...only to not say the answer. Example:
Us: what do you eat for breakfast?
Them (whispering in Japanese): what did she say? Breakfast? Like what do we eat for breakfast? What do you eat? I don't know? What do they want us to say? You say it. Me? I don't know what to say.
And so forth. But our past two classes have been really good! We starting teaching them how to tell time and talk about their school schedules and they are eating it up! And they are actually talking to us! In English! Also, fun fact: apparently there is a time set apart for students to clean the school. Kind of like recess, but instead of jump rope and chalk, they give you a rag and a spray bottle. So if you are ever wondering why Japanese people are so clean, it is because it has been soap-scrubbed into their souls from when they were young pupils.
This week President Whiting, member of the first quorum of the seventy,area president over Japan and Korea (translation: very important church leader) toured the mission. When we started talking he said, "I can speak frankly to you today, and let you stretch a little or I can speak gently and leave you feeling warm and fuzzy." Obviously we opted for the former and I am soo glad we did! I wanted to become such a better, bolder, more faith-filled missionary after that! Also, his wife served in Japan in Nagano, where she baptized a bunch of people, including the son of our investigator. So cool!
On Saturday, we had a Vietnamese cooking night/branch activity, where the Elders' vietnamese investigator and his four non-Japanese speaking Vietnamese friends made us some crazy good Vietnamese food. Our investigator came and all the members loved her! And maybe I had known this before but it was only made manifest to me now, but I'm really bad at Japanese small talk.
Noriko: so, do you have a boyfriend?
Us: No. Do you?
Noriko: No.
Us: ....
I'm sorry I wrote you a novel. So if you don't feel like reading all of that, just know that I am so grateful for this time to change people's lives and help them "grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created [them], or in the knowledge of that which is just and true."
Go eat some Vietnamese food.
And I second that.
Love,
Sister Brewer
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