Bugs and Tears in Maebashi

No photos yet from Japan; hopefully we'll have some by the end of the week! It's Sister McMahan's birthday on July 22; feel free to send her a card!!!

July 2, 2009

Yeah it is warm at night. I sleep with one blanket, a small one, and I don't even really use it. The sun is not out all the time but it is humid. Also there are lots of bugs. I have 16 bug bites on my legs but that is nothing compared to the 40 that one sister had last summer. The other day I saw a bug on my hand having a feast and I swaped him away. Sure enough there is a bump there today. Luckily it's a small one. I have had oily hair for 3 weeks and headaches from it about every day. Dunno why. Sakamoto Shimai thinks it is the weather. I have my hair in a low pony every day. I said in the past that my arms were getting tan. Well, not any more. I bought some gloves. They have no place for fingers but cover the backs of my hands and they go up past my elbows but not all the way to my shoulders. It saves me from using the nice sunblock you gave me and lets me use it just on my face.


We found a new investigator, housing. Her name is Akutsu-san. She has some friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses so she knows Christianity. She spoke fast and thought fast and I was overwhelmed. She invited us in. Sakamoto Shimai taught the first lesson. Akutsu-san had tons of questions. I felt bad that I couldn't help so much cause the conversation was super fast and whatnot. Sakamoto Shimai turned to me so I could recite the first vision. Instead I put my hands in my face and cried, mostly because I was just kinda overwhelmed, and also I am sure that the Spirit was there too of course, but mostly just overwhelmed. Akutsu-san was confused and asked why I was crying. I said it was happy tears. Well, and just overwhelmed tears but I didn't say that. Sakamoto Shimai continued teaching and then at some point she asked a question about Joseph Smith's experience. Akutsu-san said she had been distracted by me and needed to hear it again.

Akutsu san came to Eikaiwa yesterday but before Eikaiwa we had a lesson at the church. Well, actually we met her at Mr. Donuts (yes, Mr. Donuts) a couple blocks away and she drove us cause she had never been to the church before. We watched the Restoration DVD. Again, she had questions and stuff and I felt like I couldn't help, but I was able to inform her that the name 'Jehovah' appeared 4 times in the New Testament (or was it Old Testament) in response to a question she had.

For eikaiwa I taught homographs. Last week was homophones. They really liked the homophones. I get the lessons and ideas from the few binders of stuff we have in our apt. Osawa Kohei-san, a grandpa who comes, brought us peaches an loquats (i think is the name) from his garden. He is great. I learned, from the game we played, that he has 6 brothers and sisters and 5 grandchildren. So, there ya go. He is really bright and was nice to being us that food!

So, like I said I had been kinda overwhelmed, especially with the language. I got up at 5:45 today and yesterday to get more language study time. I think other missionaries feel like this, but I feel like I am on an eternal course to learn the language. It is like a huge ocean or something and somebody just said "go!" but I dunno where and I don't have a boat. So I',m trying to get organized and find a good learning method (the building a boat) and then just going on and not looking back (the setting sail part) because if I look back I can still see the shore. You always need to be positive. I think serving a mission is humbling and strengthening me more than anything.

Oh yeah! We had a ward activity where we made udon (noodles) and Phillippino dessert. The noddles was flour in a big big bowl (if other stuff was in there, I am not sure) and then you added a mixture of water and salt (which had been combined completely). You added the water like you were gonna make a pie crust, little by little etc etc. Once a dough we put it in a bag and stepped on it to make it flat and did that 4 times, putting it back into a circle each time. Then we rolled it out and cut it into noodles with a big, sharp knife. They set up a vat thing downstairs outside and built a fire underneath. It was real big. There was tons of noodles. Maybe 15 people came. It was brutal for the guys outside cause it was super hot and they were building a fire. Speaking of which, Sanders Choro said that in his area, Kumagaya, the record is 40 degrees celsius that that is like 103 or something. He said it is one of the hottest places in the mission or something like that. Anywho.

Then we made phillippino dessert. The bishop's wife showed us how. It was a fruit salad thing but with yogurt and then sweetened condensed milk. Then also was apple and pineapple with super duper chopped nuts heated on the stove. The they were wrapped into those triangle things that you then fry. Lastly was rice squished together and then it was kind of a cinnamon flavor and looked lightly like a brownie but you still saw the rice.

Wow. I just took time to describe the food we ate. That's embarrassing.

So, on the 28th we were trying to find a lady's house and ran into a ginga, or temple. It was way old, and the grave sight next to it was from the 7th century. I took of picture of course. The grave sight was a mound, maybe 2 stories high. There was a sign (in Japanese so I couldn't read) ... but it had a picture that looked kinda like a pyramid or stacked cakes. Then there was an entrance. It was a picture of the grave sight structure although the grave sight looked like a mound and not a cake and it was covered with trees and whatnot. I wondered who was buried at the top. It was very old. Maybe they were high up in the community or something. Very near was a river. There are rivers and there is water everywhere in Maebashi. There was a concrete walkway along the river, although up a bit from the river. There was a sign. Sakamoto Shimai read the sign and said that the spirits could walk along the river. It was very green. Maebashi is very green and humid and lots of bugs. It looked real calm although I am sure if I went there I would have a million bug bites. The lady's house who we were trying to find..... we found yesterday after going back and searching for the 3rd time. Her home I think was where all the bugs lived. Seriously. And her house was caved in by plants. She was a grandma. Her granddaughter lived in a house next door and said her grandma was sometimes home, sometimes not. The time we went there she was not. We were dancing when we talked to the granddaughter because of the bugs.

Oh yeah, after the ward udon making thing, Sister Uchida, the bishop's wife gave me some..... homemade yogurt!!!! She had put it into a milk carton for me to take home.

Thank you so much for your letters. I love you!

Sister McMahan