With temple P-day and going on splits twice, this week seemed to go by in seconds. I think I already wrote about last Monday and Tuesday so I'll start with Wednesday: We went on splits with the sisters in the Tokyo 1st (English) ward. They share an apartment with the sisters in Shibuya, just like us and the Tokyo 2nd sisters. We all have the really nice advantage of getting roommates who aren't working in the same ward, so there can't be any sense of competition. I don't really remember feeling any competition between the sisters in Niigata either, but there were a few times when we'd be struggling to find new investigators while the other sisters found tons and one can't help thinking "we're in the exact same area, so I must be doing something wrong." Anyway, I had fun teaching in English even though it was kind of strange.
Thursday we switched back, visited a less-active member and did weekly planning before heading out for dinner at a member's house. And she is awesome! She told us that when she was younger she would share the gospel with her friends all the time, and that 22 people she referred to the missionaries got baptized. 22! Apparently it would usually start by people asking her why she was so happy and full of light all the time, and she would tell them how church brought her joy. And I believe it - the woman radiates light. She recently got remarried and told us her husband wasn't a member of the church... yet. She had perfect faith he would be someday soon.
On Friday we had zone meeting, which was all about unity. Recently a lot of districts in our mission have been getting together and making goals, praying for each others' investigators, and doing other things to help them all work together - and have been seeing crazy miracles. Some areas consistently have over ten investigators at church every week. We've been working really hard to help people come to church more, since that's one of the most important steps they can take towards conversion. It's kind of hard to know if the church is true without ever going, right? So that's been a recent goal.
We also got to see Mo again, who's been reading some of the Book of Mormon, and taught Ru in the evening. His whole family participated a lot in the lesson and it was awesome. Before we left they had us try some "beauty juice" that is really expensive and apparently works wonders for your skin. The secret ingredient is pig's placenta. It didn't taste too bad I guess, but smelled awful.
Saturday we taught kids' Eikaiwa, met some new friends in the park, taught and ate dinner with a new family who moved into the ward.
Sunday we went to church, where Yamauchi Shimai had a talk, and got to go to Young Women's. During small group discussions I messed up reading one of the kanji in the textbook so I talked about experience for a while when the topic was supposed to be modesty - a little embarrassing but they were very forgiving. After church the single adults had a potluck lunch which they asked us to bring American food to, so we made rice crispy treats and mashed potatoes. Easiest things possible. May came to the English church again, and it was a nice day so we talked to people in the park.
Observation of the week: we've been talking a lot about choosing to be happy now. So many people are in the middle of trials and are waiting to be free from them before they'll let themselves be content. It's so sad - nothing is holding them back from happiness but themselves! Life isn't perfect, and if we keep waiting for everything to be perfectly resolved we'll be waiting forever. Yamauchi Shimai and I talked about Elder Wirthlin's talk this morning, "Come What May, and Love It." Sometimes it's easy to be happy and sometimes it takes a little effort, but it is always possible. We were created to have joy.
I'm very happy here and hope you all are too! Have a great week.
Love, Anna
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