Miss Maddy in Japan

p-day at Monkey Mountain! こんにちは Amazing week! It feels like I was writing last weeks group email just yesterday. So tomorrow I officially hit my 6 month mark! Crazy! I blinked! This week has been so fun. On Monday we went to monkey mountain and saw a lot of monkeys. It was fun and terrifying at the same time... monkeys can be scary. This week Whitney Shimai and I focused on using the Book of Mormon in as many contacts as possible. It worked really well. The weather has been crazy hot, but the last few days have been cloudy and rainy so its a nice break from the heat.... We heard there was or is going to be another typhoon. Don't worry everyone in Oita says we will be fine.  Spiritual keiken: So this week had a lot of humbling moments for me. I have had a few different struggles that I'm working on. One of them is the language. Let me tell you, Japanese is so hard! especially when everyone uses ほうげん (dialects).  But last night during one of our contacts, Whitney Shim...

ice cream pancakes are to die for! こんにちは Hello everyone! This week had a lot of adventures. We met so many amazing people. I'm doing great and loving every minute of it! I learned a lot this week. One thing I learned was that God will push us farther than we think we can go, because we can go farther than we think we can! This is so true. On a mission, God is pushing you really far all the time. Some days you feel like it's too much and you're going to break. But if you hold on a little longer, you can see you will be able go a little bit farther. It's hard but you learn more. This is a lesson I feel I learn all the time, every day. Spiritual keiken:  Okay miracle this week! We have this less active we have been teaching and her daughter is an investigator.  We taught them a lot and the mom's faith is exploding! She loves the gospel library app and all the videos on it. They have been really nervous about coming to church but Saturday we got them to ag...

Crepes in Kumamoto during exchanges こんにちは！ Man crazy week with lots of fun stories! The biggest thing is junkais (exchanges). So on Monday, Sister Whitney and I and the 4 Beppu elders left on a bus together. Four hours later we arrived in Kumamoto. Our STLs (sister trainer leaders) and zone leaders were there. We got there late and so we pretty quickly got ready for bed. The next day we met President Mack, our new mission president. He is amazing and I am so excited to see the miracles that come! Then we started the exchange. I was with Sister Graviet and she is amazing! I love her! I learned so much! I also got to see 3 people from my doki (same group I came in with). Then on Wednesday night we came home to Oita. The week flew after that. Spiritual keiken:  Okay junkais have some real miracles. The first night we got there, we had 15 minutes before we needed to be inside so of course we dendou.  Sister Graviet and I walked 5 feet and stopped a lady. She ended...

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! こんにちは Oita is amazing! We see so many miracles every day. We had a lot of great contacts this week and laughed a ton. Sister Whitney is hilarious!  We are constantly talking and telling stories! Heavenly Father blessed me so much to have her as my companion.  We had a busy week full of rain. It rained really hard and we were in a typhoon (don't worry we are all safe and healthy) ! The typhoon was crazy windy and we ended up having to go inside for the night. So crazy but we are safe. There were some flood warnings and we were fine. We came in soaked every day and it was so much fun!  Spiritual keiken:  We are told to talk to everyone. We do our best, but it is really hard because awkward humans. But we made a goal to do our best! We went to to talk to this girl and she got way excited. She started talking to us and said "I can't believe you remember me!" And we were super confused, but just went with it. Turns out, she is the Krispy K...

Last eikaiwa (english) class in Kurume こんにちは！ There were so many miracles this week! I had my last days in Kurume, kanashii (sad) right?  I said goodbye to so many ward members and had a lot of fun meals with them. They were sad and I was heart broken leaving. Its crazy how much you learn to love the people you serve (hint: if you have a bad kankei (relationship) with someone serve them) So transfers! I had to take a bus all by myself to Oita (stressful) but now I am in Oita. It's beautiful and huge! It's a big city right next to the ocean. My new companion is Sister Whitney! I love her! I was terrified to get a new companion but I testify that God has a plan! She is amazing, and we were instantly best friends! We talk all the time and laugh even more! Funny keiken: So we were at a dinner last night with the cutest family, the Ushijima family. They have a lot of little kids and a cute baby. The dad is fluent in both English and Japanese.  The little baby kept cr...