Transfer calls are coming to town, part 2

Konnichiwa Minna!

Hello, hello! It's sunny and bright here in the land of my new area. Yup! We sure enough got a call Friday morning and they told me I would be leaving. I was kinda hoping to go to a more inaka (countryside) area again but... I kinda got the opposite. You know the place you thought was the hombu before dad? With the temple and the gaijin wards? Well... I'm here now! It's called the Shibuya area and we cover two gaijin (foreigners) branches and the Japanese Shibuya ward. And my companion, get this, is Wells Shimai! My old MTC comp when we were a threesome! :) It's nice cuz we already know each other pretty well and just the last couple days together have been pretty fun!

So our area is waaay city, by the way. It's actually right next to my old Nakano area that has the mission home. It includes the Tokyo temple, the famous fish market on the pier, Tokyo tower, the Imperial palace, and one of the busiest intersections in Japan, possibly in the world which we can see out of our Eki (train station) window. We'll be making some fun P-days hopefully :) But for today we just came here to e-mail (which is at the church offices right next to the temple where I always e-mailed when we went to the temple before, and they let us use the computers), then we have some grocery shopping, a lesson in the afternoon and our 3 hours of P-day dendo time, and then we'll take it easy at the apartment tonight and unpack.
There are so many gaijins here!!! I swear I saw more yesterday as we kubari'd (handed out) chirashis (flyers) at the eki than I have seen my whole mission up to now... ! It's gonna be really really wierd working with the gaijin wards. It was a bit wierd talking to Wells shimai in English the first day, too. I kept responding in Japanese anyway since she understands it as much as I do. But I felt a little more peace about coming home as it only took really a day to get used to it (mostly) again. :) :) but I still have random words that are just easier to say in Japanese... sorry. Shrug. Shoganai.. maybe that's why I was sent here...

No, actually I think it might be because I can finally kind of talk in Japanese sign language, and apparently there's a few less active deaf families.. I want to really work with them!

Ok, other news for this week.. we had transfers actually Sunday night this time, because we had a totzuzen (last minute) whole mission taikai (conf.) in Kichijoji where JOHN BYTHEWAY came and talked to us! He was going to be here in Japan and one of the members arranged it through the hombu, and President Albrect loves him so he was happy to have it. Brother Bytheway talked about becoming even greater followers of righteousness like it said about the way Moses was in the Pearl of Great Price, and of course used a lot from the stories of Ammon teaching the Lamanites, who had also no idea of God. It was really great and of course entertaining. And his wife is really pretty! :) Then since that was transfer week we just did that and had everyone go home with their new companions right after. It was convenient :)

Oh, and the Shibuya apartment is so big! Or maybe I had just gotten too used to the Kanagawa apartment... but we have a whole room-size kitchen, a living room-ish area where we usually hang out clothes to dry and then a study room and a sleeping room. Oh!! And we have beds! How crazy is that!! sooooo hisashiburi. so wierd. I think they were given to us by one of the gaijin families. And those wards have a dinner calender like home instead of a food basket.. ... .. so different. But I think I like it so far. Our RS leader in the Shibuya Japanese ward seems really nice, too, she's being a joint for our lesson today.

As for school and whatnot dad, I am still waiting to hear back. The application should be just fine as it was, now it's just waiting. Once I hear, I want to start applying to Hale 1 for the juniors and seniors where they have kitchens in the apartment. I figure it'd just be simpler to live back on campus for my last year, and I'm fine with that as long as I don't have to eat at the cafeteria!! Then the class schedule comes out in May and I'll start looking at classes. So far it's just waiting. Thanks! :)

As for picking me up too, we can make it shorter if you need to! My trainer Perkins shimai said a week was even more than plenty. But I don't think they hiked Fuji-san.. :) I still want to do that. It's probably an overnight thing of one evening going up halfway one evening and spending the night (there was some cabins up there if we can find how to get into one of those) and then go up in the morning to watch the sunrise on the top. My last Japanese comp did that and said it was way cool! Then I just want to take you both around to the areas I've been in (I guess only Kofu, Nakano, Shibuya (now), Yokohama. We can skip Maebashi, it's too far out and I was only there one transfer. Nakano and Shibuya are close, so those are fine back to back, and one day in Yokohama is probably ok, and Kofu would include hiking Fuji. Anyway, I'm thinking (on p-days :) of good things to do here and places I want to take you, and so I can work with whatever time limit we have. It doesn't have to be a whole week if that's too hard.

Well, that was pretty long, and I think that's about all I have for this week. We'll be e-mailing for pretty sure every week from now on so no worries about that!

Everyone take care, Larisa (and Vik) good luck with potty-training! Hannah good luck with the goats! Brooke drive safe! And Austin ganbaru with the nature garden? :) (still doing that?) Will... have fun? ! :) Ganbatte kudasai! you have more school after spring break right?

Love,
LeFevre shimai

OH! ps. Vik--do you remember a Manabu Hisaka at BYU-H? We had a mogi lesson with his wife the other day (she was in my last area) and she said she knows you cuz they both worked at that computer help center and her husband was also studing IT. It was crazy to make that connection, sadly right before I transfered but... ! yeah. they say hi.. :)

ok love! Bye bye!
pps.. This is the Forsyth's old ward, so if there's anyone they want me to visit for them let me know! :)

Transfer Calls are coming to town!

Dearest Flamililily-

Well, sorry I didn't write yesterday, we ended up having an appointment in the afternoon waaay far away so we moved P-day. I was soooo tired! We biked for about an hour and a half to their house, had a lunch and lesson and then came home slowly, stopping at a referral's house on the way. When we got home it was dinnertime but neither of us were hungry so I opted to sleep and my companion wrote in her journal .. I think.. I was sleeping so I'm not totally sure. So I guess, you asked if I sneak a nap in at mealtimes and so yeah.. I do! There is just no other time to make up lost sleep or extra working out! Oh, I guess there's p-day, too, though, :) but I'm too busy writing letters to all my favorite people! :)

So this week was also really fast though, and we had a mini-zone-conference along with our transferly interviews with the president. I am most likely transfering as to what would make sense logically since they have six sisters coming this next transfer and a bunch coming the next. So Harada shimai and I are zettai going trainer either this time or next. It's most likely she'll stay and train here since she's been here the least long. but we'll see what the Lord wants. So not this time but probably next I'll be going trainer! :o I'm excited! :)

Let's see, we also had a goodbye party for the Inoue family, who are a deaf family and moving out of the ward. We played 'do you love your neighbor' in sign language and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. A big part of the ward gathered to wish them a goodbye it was really sweet.

And the sakura trees are just about to bust open! The pink is just starting to show and here and there you have a flower or two open!! :D :D

Oh, Mom, I get done Aug 3rd was the date, but now transfers are going on Monday, so then I think it's the 2nd. But we have transfers and then a testimony meeting at the hombu so probably I'd have to be picked up on the Tuesday.. You have to be back the 11th? yeesh this is hard coordinating. Let me know a finish date asap!! Probably a week is just fine.... plenty!
of course I'd love to stay here longer, maybe if you don't come get me I'll just stay and stay here ... :) Just kidding I'm excited to come home too but it'll be really sad leaving. Thanks for your last letter, Dad, I'll try to work hard to the finish!

:)

Love you all lotslotslots!
LeFevre Shimai

Temple Day!

Hello friends and family!

Weather update: last night it poured all night and my comp had trouble sleeping it was so noisy, but today the sun has come out so it's a nice muggy warm temperature. :)

Yay for the temple and e-mailing at PBO office! They're so nice to let the missionaries come and have time here. So how is everyone this week? Austin you keep telling me about Sakura-con but I have no idea what it is...??? Are you going to dress up as Ichigo? A strawberry? Or the bleach guy.. ;) And we're going to have to work on your planning skills bigtime when I get home before you go out :) Maybe I'll send you a 'daily planner' for missionaries and you can practice! hehe. Basically we plan all the time.. you have weekly planning once a week for about three hours (usually in the morning of a day not very busy otherwise) where you talk about your investigators and what they need, and then what you can do this week to find new investigators, etc., how you are going to work with the members, and roughly the week's schedule 'draft'. Then you also take a half hour every night as soon as you get home to plan out in detail the next day. It's amazing how much you can make time really worthwhile though! And true we don't plan out things down to what dinner we'll eat but some companions do! It would be fun for you to give it a try. You could plan out when you'll study for school, your classes... when you'll work on your CTR lesson.. :) And the next day is written out in 30 min increments on our schedule so we are told to try and have a 'meaningful activity' for at least every hour of the day. I've definitely learned a lot about time scheduling...

Phew! This week felt like we have been all over the place, and seeing some good results. We have a new Potential Investigator (PI) or friend. :) She's from China and contacted us through a Japanese class we're signed up to help volunteer at. She has lived in japan a while but just wants to polish up her language skills. I think she's just a bit better than me, so I'll be leaving that basically up to my companion, but she also said she wants to make friends. Especially because she is a freshmen at college but said the people there all just like to party... so she wants 'good' friends. Yosh! We'll be sure to bring her to a SA activity asap and she can get to know tons of really nice and really good people! :) Then we had a good lesson with Iwamoto kyodai and shimai, which seemed to go really well! We finally figured out we just have to keep things really simple and really well laid out, with a lead on to the next week's topic. He's been being taught for over a year, so it's hard to figure out which topics to choose, but we're kinda reviewing right now. He doesn't seem like he's really understood much of what he's been taught, and he is kinda a grandpa so we just have to be really patient I guess. I think he really will get baptized sometime but it will just take more time, and a tad bit more effort on his part to know if this is true or not. Then we had a service project on Saturday at the local park with our investigator Mari-chan. We wrote nameplates for the trees and then went with the park staff to hang them up. We also go a couple times or so a transfer and do other service for them. This week I got to keep up my 'playing in the dirt' skills, aka weeding. :) Then we had a couple lessons with less active sisters, a church tour, and two new people show up to church by themselves on Sunday, one in each ward! It was pretty interesting (one is an eikaiwa-- english class--student and had come a couple times before but like last year..). Oh and we also celebrated the RS anniversary for both our wards with a shokuji (dinner) and presentations. oishikatta! it was yummy!

Oh! Then one last thing, we finally ran into a deaf person on the street and got to use our Shua (Japanese sign language!) we've been trying hard to learn it for our deaf members in the morning ward and I was sooo excited to be able to street with it! We weren't able to make an appointment but told her about church and invited her to come in the morning or to our shua conversation class. She said she wasn't sure but maybe she'd try. But the fact it we could (kinda) talk! That was exciting. I'm so glad the Lord can bless us to meet the people we are prepared to help! :)

Well, thanks so much, sorry this is a little early but we wanted to get this done so we can get home early because we have a lesson tonight with the Iwamoto's again.

Love you all lots !

(Oh and I'm working on the letter to write still!!! Sorry--I'm trying to organize my pictures so I can send my SD card too but that keeps taking time! :)... trying!)

Love,
LeFevre shimai

Plum blossoms

Helloooo family and friends!

Sorry we didn't get to e-mail last week but thanks so much the week before for all the application help! Guess what's really cool, I guessed my credit hours right on the dot. 120 exactly. whoohoo! Thank you, Spirit...

So, these last two weeks have been great! One highlight was getting invited over for tacos dinner at the Ota family's house! They shop at Costco so they had all the real deal with refried beans and sour cream! It was soooo hisashiburi (noglostic?) and made me miss American food just a bit.

Otherwise, we also had a less active sister come to our Single Adult FHE and bring her older sister too, who started crying as we watched the Joseph Smith video. Pretty sure we'll be doing lessons with her soon :)

Sorry, today's way short cuz we're at the expensive place. The library's computer is broken. And I had to take a lot of time to read all your great great great e-mails. :D Thank you everyone for e-mailing and I will try my darndest to write responses to your questions in a letter today!!!
(but Mom I have nooo idea of all the muscles sorry! Anatomy is the one class i've been avoiding since everyone says it's so dang hard :) Ganbare!!!)

Let's see any last things... Oh yeah! Ai chan's baptism went great and fine and I have pictures! I will try and attach those. Her mom and mom's sister preformed a song in sign language, so my comp and I sang the words for everyone with a kareoke verson background. It was pretty fun! :) Then last week Sunday I got called up Friday night and asked to give a talk in church! It was a bit rushed for timing but I think it went really well! I was surprised cuz i even went long--I was afraid I couldn't talk for ten minutes straight in Japanese but I did it! I even only looked at my paper sometimes to catch my place! :D :D

Ok, well love you all so much and am excited to hear more and will try to send a letter too!

Love,
LeFevre Shimai

PS The plum blossoms are all done now and we are just waiting for the cherry!!!!