Wow this week has been a slow one. I'd tell you what we did every
day, but we didn't really do much. We've been so busy planning for a summer
festival that was supposed to happen on Saturday that between those
preparations, training, and visiting some people, we haven't done anything new.
I say "supposed to happen" because by the time it was the night before, we
got a text message from the ward telling us the the activity was canceled
because of a typhoon (kind of like a hurricane?) was coming. The storm mainly
hit on Sunday, so church was also canceled. But seeing as missionary work isn't
exactly a cancel-able activity, we were still out and about in the storm doing
what missionaries do best! All I have to say about that crazy adventure is that
Pocahontas had it all wrong. The [humidity] and the rainstorm are [NOT] my
brothers, and the [mosquitoes] and the [cicadas] are [NOT] my friends. But we
seem to be connected to each other, in this circle, this hoop that never ends...
until late October, when summer is rumored to finally give up its attack and
allow Fall to make a quick appearance. Gotta love summer!
Sister Abe is doing so well, though. I've noticed recently, as I watch her
start to take the lead on things we do together, that she has grown so much from
when I first picked her up in Meito. The other night, we had just come home from
visiting a very interesting (in not a very positive sense of the word) woman who
loves to talk, we were exhausted, and we had about 20 minutes before it was time
to plan for tomorrow's activities. I was all ready to just plan right then and
there and then see if we could go to bed early, but she said she wanted to do
some practice teaching. So, just thinking off the top of my head, I asked her to
teach me about faith. I was expecting this practice lesson to be much like the
first ones we had together, we hadn't had much time recently to practice
teaching, but she surprised me. She really followed the Spirit and taught a
beautiful lesson about faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost,
and enduring to the end. She then tied baptism to Christ and almost invited me
to be baptized. I would have said YES, had I not already been baptized and this
was not a practice lesson, she did such a wonderful job teaching and I could
feel God's presence in the room so strongly. Man, I was just so proud of her.
She finished her lesson and I just could not express in Japanese how wonderful a
lesson she taught, so I just went off in English telling her all the wonderful
things she did within her lesson, and she nodded and nodded and laughed, and
then at the end of my praising-rant, she asked me if I could repeat the last bit
again. I asked her if she meant the last sentence or the whole last bit and she
said all of it, actually. Haha I did my best to translate what I had said, but
really all I could do was smile and tell her that she's an amazing
missionary.
...now we just have to find someone to teach.... wish us luck!
