It's hottttt

This week was great - maybe not as great as last week, but it's okay.  I guess when you're on a high you have to come down at some point.  Really it wasn't that bad, but yesterday was kind of a disappointment.  We had 8 investigators confirmed to come to church and none of them showed, making for a very stressful sacrament meeting spent looking over my shoulder every time I heard a rustling or the squeaking of door hinges.  It was also 84% humidity that day, so we melted all the way out to a less-active's house which took an hour to find.  She wasn't home.  Sister Sticht and I decided that things had been going too good, so we must have needed to be humbled or something.  I'm just grateful that Pday comes right after Sunday because Sundays are extremely mentally taxing.

Does anyone have suggestions for making the Sabbath day an actual day of rest? I feel bad because we tell people all the time how church is like rest for the soul - which is how it should be, and how it is as a non-missionary, but it's hard for me to feel rested when I'm so high-strung and worrying about where everyone is.  You definitely have to live the gospel before asking others to live it.  We ask our investigators to read the scriptures and pray every day, so how can we not do the same?

We did get to do tons of cool things this week!  Last Monday we went exploring at an old shrine next to a HUGE Buddhist graveyard, and since it was a national holiday the place was completely deserted.

We also had our first zone meeting in Togane, about thirty minutes away by train, and I went on splits afterwards with Teruya Shimai.  It was really fun - we visited a family of seven and everyone was home except the dad.  Probably some of the most polite and well-behaved children I've ever met.   I'm always amazed at how people manage to raise so many children and not go crazy, especially in Japan where it's really rare to have over three kids.  We met Yu this week at the church with her four children, and it was one of my most favorite lessons I've ever taught.  The kids were all paying attention, and participating, and it was so touching to see Yu go from the role of investigator to teacher as she explained things to her kids.  She's an awesome mom, and she's only 25.  With four children.  Again, don't know how people do it.

Trying to remember what else we did this week. Teaching... Biking... Eikaiwa... Bugging people on trains. We've been using Facebook to teach a lot, which is cool. It was really hard for me to figure out how to use it effectively for a while but it's really helpful now.

We also went to the summer festival! Shi came with us and we browsed all the food vendors (some delicious and some weird) before watching Iza perform with her hula group. Right afterwards two of the kids that go to our Eikaiwa danced with their hip-hop group, which was really cute because they were the youngest ones there and didn't really seem to know what they were doing and their gangster outfits were way too big.

Not as much to say this week so I'll just add lots of picture.  Pictures.  I'm turning Japanese.

Us eating snow cones with Shi, trying on yukatas (summer kimonos), and exploring the back part of a shrine where I'm not sure if we were allowed to be.

Love you all!  I'll try not to melt this week.
Anna

Anna visiting a shrine in Chosei

Anna & Sticht Shimai trying on yukatas (summer kimonos)

Sticht Shimai, Shi and Anna eating snocones at the summer festival