(Don't worry mom, my bike has insurance.)
So! The biggest event of this week was Sister G's birthday! She was way happy. I snuck sticky notes all over her desk and in her books while she was in the shower in the morning and she collected them all on a page in her notebook entitled: "Happy Birthday to Me!" I made her chocolate cake in our rice cooker for breakfast, but our rice cooker (In Japanese it's call a suiehonki and I keep saying suiehonki in my head as I type out rice cooker and it's freaking me out.) ANYWAYS our rice cooker is real wide and I only had a little bit of cake mix so it turned out to be a birthday pancake. Then at lunch I made her an extra cheesy cheesecake. I guess the flavor I bought was way authentic. But she loved it, or at least she said she did and I was able to finish my slice no problem.
The thing was, right after that I had to exchange with some sisters in my zone so for the majority of her birthday, I wasn't with Sister G. I felt really bad. But President Budge took the time to call her that day! How sweet!
The next day the elders, flustered and angry that I hadn't given them advanced notice about Sister G's birthday, informed us of a surprise meeting directly after English Class. They told us to meet in the kitchen stat right after class. So I was suspicious but when I translated for Sister G. I told her it was a very important meeting. When we got there, the elders had bowls of ice cream, strawberries, and frozen brownie mix for all of us. They were way happy when they saw how happy Sister G was. One elder was whistling a happy little tune as he washed our dishes afterward. Amazing.
So what's fun about my area is that it isn't just one area; it's two. We can essentially get anywhere by bike in our first given area but to get to our second one we have to go by train and thereafter by foot. The awesome thing about two areas is that we teach English Class every day from Wednesday to Saturday. Wednesday night we teach beginners' adult English Class, Thursday and Friday night we teach two different Children's classes in our far away area, and Saturday morning we teach our final Children's class in our own area.
The thing that stinks about having two areas is that the sisters that were in our second area before are absolutely hounding us. They want to know about all their friends learning about the Church. We saw these sisters on Sunday and again today and they're always shooting questions at us. You'd think you could trust God's messengers . . . but some sisters aren't convinced. Today, I ate lunch with my companion from before Sister Dopp. Her new companion is very new to the mission. After lunch, we hugged and she said: "I'll take care of your friends learning about the church for you." Her brow furrowed a bit and her voice trailed off and I could tell she was worried. I could see myself in her. I told her what I wanted to hear from the sisters before: "Don't do it for me, do it for God. I trust you. You're called of God for crying out loud! God trusts you, too."
SIDE FUNNY STORY: Before my mission, I went to a "missionary expo" and at this expo I modeled(?) for this skirt company. As I was changing out of my little outfit, I heard the woman in charge exclaim: "You're going to Tokyo, Japan? My model is going to Tokyo, Japan too!" I kicked down the PVC pipe and curtain changing room and shook hands with an adorable blonde girl about my age. I pointed out skirts she ought to buy, skirts she not ought to buy, and pretty much said: "See ya later!" I've stayed up late a couple of nights trying to remember her face. Well, guess what, she's Sister D's companion now, Sister Cl! I squealed so loud. I hugged her so tight. She's way cool. There are EIGHT children in her family. She's a gymnast. I hope she's my companion someday. Before, I used to think that it'd be awesome to just have one companion for a long time, but as I meet more sisters I think that having as many companions as possible would be the best. SO MANY SISTERS TO LOVE.
Thursday was Sister G's first time giving a training in district meeting. She did great. I like to write in Japanese on the board when I do a training, and she wrote on the board in English for her training. She's going to be SO FLUENT.
On Friday we went on another exchange. I went off to a far away land at the foot of some pretty ridiculously gorgeous mountains. The bike that I rode was way too high even after lowering it as far as I could. The owner of this bike is Sister H. if you remember her. We lived together in Koga. Now we're Sister Training Leaders together. BEAUTIFUL. Anyway but she's over six feet tall. So every time I stopped the bike, I couldn't touch the ground, forcing me to leap off of the bike so I could land a single foot on solid ground. This often led to me missing and scraping up my legs, which led to me walking around this down with gladiator size wounds on my legs. It looked pretty cool but I could have scared some church members into thinking I'd come straight off the battlefield.
Sunday was a miracle and a hot mess. Because we're in charge of two wards, we've got A LOT of meetings. Before I came to the city, I already thought that Sundays were the busiest days as missionaries but now, I KNOW. The Elders handed over a friend of theirs that's interested in the church right then and there, a member brought her nonmember friend to church out of the blue, I translated the English Gospel Principles class to Japanese for our investigator as a ward we planned how we can get more people to church this coming June the 14th, and this whole time Sister G. and I were fasting. My insides felt like they were shriveling up into nothingness but I felt really happy! Sunday night was the International Party which went BEAUTIFULLY I'll probably write more about it next week I'm so sorry!
I love you I'll see you soon!
Birthday Cheese Cake
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