Urayasu!

Monday, December 9, 2019

こんにちは!

This past week has been crazy, but so much fun! I moved to Urayasu, home to Tokyo Disneyland.

Spiritual Stuff:

We have several people we're teaching, and quite a few of them have very strong faith. They're only held back by a few things that we're praying work themselves out. One of the things we are doing with one of them, Keiko, is texting each other at the end of the day and telling one way we saw/felt God's love. It's helped her to feel it more and it also helped her with prayer. So I'd like to invite all of you to do the same. And if at the end of the day you can't think of anything, please pray to be able to see something. It can be as simple as looking at the mountains, or a crazy coincidence (not a coincidence) that made your day easier.

Daily Life/Fun Stories:

On our last day together in Odawara, Takatori姉妹 and I biked a Lot to visit a bunch of people. We biked for maybe 3 hours total. Idk how many kilometers, but I saw one sign that said "Hakone 9 km" and another that said "Hakone 7km" but that wasn't even close to all of it... Probably don't want to know lol.

On transfer day, a lot of sisters met in Shibuya next to the Hachiko statue (that dog that waited for it's owner at the train station until it died) in order to do a bunch of switching. My first time in a very Tokyo place, and my first thought was that it was definitely NOT Odawara. Lots of tall buildings and lots of people. Also discovered that the main train line to Urayasu is a line of the Tokyo metro, so that's fun.

My new companion is Augustus姉妹! She's from Huntington Beach, California and her grandma is from Okinawa, so she's a quarter. She actually spent her first 3 transfers in Odawara just like me, and when she left I came in. She's so much fun, and we've got a lot planned so stay tuned!

Urayasu is also definitely NOT Odawara. It also has a lot of buildings and a lot of people, many of whom are young. I feel like I've been seeing おじいちゃんs and おばあちゃんs (ojiichans and obaachans= grandpas and grandmas) for 4 months. Also, there's a bridge you can see both the Sky Tree and Disney from. It's pretty cool (though I unfortunately didn't get a picture).

I think I've biked faster and more often tin Urayasu the past few days than I did in a month in Odawara. Our apartment is a 30 minute walk from the church and 20 minutes from the 駅 (eki= train station), so we have to bike somewhere every day. Also, when we biked to a member's house for dinner last night we followed the 長老たち (chouroutachi= elders) and I once again realized how little stamina I have. I'm so weak lol.

So before my bike got delivered to Urayasu, we borrowed one of the 長老たち's bikes so we could get around. We lowered the seat all the way but it was still so tall I literally fell off while trying to get going. Which meant I borrowed Augustus姉妹's while she used the 長老たち's. We were dying laughing though.

At our 英会話 (eikaiwa= English class) we actually have 3 classes. We taught English Connect 1, the beginner's class and it was so fun. Also interrupted for everyone to start saying "地震?! 地震! 地震!" (jishin= earthquake). It happens every time there's an earthquake and it's actually pretty funny.

I've spoken barely any 日本語 (nihongo= japanese language) the past few days and it's a very strange feeling. It's mostly because my companion is American, my district all speaks English, we teach almost everybody in English, and a LOT of the members here speak English and/or are not from 日本. It's fun, though.

New Foods:

-random thrown together food because we can't cook 

-shumai dumplings

-yopokki (some sort of cheesy and spicy Korean pasta)

-gyuudon

About the Pictures:

• My first gyuudon but last meal with Takatori姉妹
• Huge, delicious cream puffs given to us by Miki, one of the people we teach, to welcome me to the area
• Me and Augustus姉妹!
• It was cold so we needed our winter clothes but also raining so...
• This didn't attach last week for some reason. Seen in Hakone when we visited that glass museum-- "Do you see how expensive this is? In dollars it's $28,211.90... We were nervous to keep going up as the items got more and more expensive..."

愛しています!

-スナ一姉妹