I have more time today (normally we have an hour to read and respond to e-mails) but I will still try to do this fast because we are running a little late (the guy using the computer in front of us took forever!) Ok so yeah, Kofu! How about it, huh? It's been pretty crazy so far. I thought it was super busy when I first got here, and we're always going up and down the streets and stopping people as we bike to places or to the park to do park dendo (mission work). Then on Monday I had a Kokan (a split? for a day.) and I went to Kichijouji, which is like the second busiest places next to downtown Tokyo's Shinjuku. And it was crazy busy!! You have to dodge in and out of cars and people all the way down the street, while here in Kofu it's only every once in a while that you have to navigate narrow areas (like between a wall and the curb!) and the roads are narrow here, for the cars, and the cars are small, but it's even narrower in Kichijoji. Anyway, other than that it was not too eventful, we just taught a Mogi (role-play) lesson to a member and visit taught the Relief Society President. But our time was cut really short since we have to ride the train like three hours total to get between the two locations. About an hour to Otsuki (which I think is still in our Kofu area--it's HUGE) and then another two hours into the city. Anyway, we get a lot of exercise on our bikes here with a lot of appointments like an hour bike ride away. And you get really good at doing bike dendo.
The food's just fine. We try to eat pretty inexpensively and my doryo is not the biggest fan of seafood so mostly we eat ramen, curry, and stir frys with lots of vegetables and some meat. She loves onions. So we eat a lot of those. Then we got Hyaku-En (100 yen=1 dollar) sushi one night which is like two pieces of sushi for a buck-not bad. And we ate at a cafe one night but it was kinda stingy portions with expensive price so I wasn't too impressed.
And the language! It definitely took me a couple days to get used to riding around town not being able to read anything. But I'm getting better now and I'll continue on working on reading kanji so that I can get around better. It's no fun being illiterate! :) Most of the important things (train stops, etc.) they have in romaji (English letters) too, but things like street signs and shop signs--all kanji. And I'm getting better at being able to follow whole conversations now, almost :) I think I'm way ahead of what most bean-chans (greenies) are, but I feel like I also have a trainer that speaks probably the best Japanese of the sister trainers, so a good example to follow!
Ok, well I better wrap up so we can still get our grocery shopping in today, but oh just to let you know, we already have two baptisms coming up! One is a 17-year-old daughter of a member who is the only kid interested in the church. Her name is Hikari which means light. And the other is Yuko who is a very mature looking 23-year-old who goes to college at a school up here and just has a fire of a testimony about Christ and about the Book of Mormon. She pulled out what she'd found as a favorite scripture the other day and it was a scripture mastery! :) So Yuko's date is the 24th and Hikari's will be on the 31st. We are way excited for them both. We also have a Brazilian older sister, Kihara, who we are hoping will commit to baptism soon. She has just had some health issues lately but is pretty much a member and comes all the time and has a very strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.
Anyway, so pray for those three will you? I love you all and wish you the best! I'm keeping my eyes out for great souveniers to send, but let me know if you have any requests! (Candy toka...origami paper toka...toys, etc.) It was SO good to talk on Sunday and I hope you all send lots of e-mails and letters soon, as I would love to hear from you!! :)
Aishiteimasu!!!
LeFevre Shimai
p.s. Mt. Fuji is in my area, but I guess my companion said it takes like a whole day to climb it and it's best to do in the late summer with the least snow, so I'll probably have to save that until I'm done with the mission, and combine it with hiking and backpacking escapades. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment