Monday, May 2, 2016

やっと切った!

Dearest Family and Friends,

I did it.  I finally bit the bullet and got my hair cut.  How short? you might ask.  Well, to me it feels quite short, but most people probably won't even see a difference.  I got about 15 cm cut off.  I was shocked though, because the place I went to just cut it dry.  Why would they do that when I have naturally wavy hair?  I'm a little worried that it isn't straight, but I guess we'll find out tomorrow when I wash it.

ANYWAY.  This last week was a little crazy.  We decided to do half day exchanges in Kasukabe, and instead of taking the train, we just biked there.  It took about an hour to bike, which is actually shorter than it takes us to bike to our less actives' homes... Crazy stuff.  That day we ended up biking about 45km, which is about 28 miles.  I was exhausted, but I felt really good.

Things have been warming up here, and I'm finding myself extremely sensitive to the heat.  What am I going to do when it is August?  I'll walk outside and evaporate or something!  I'll probably be throwing out all of my old long sleeve shirts next week when transfer calls come.  Fleece lined tights are a thing of the past.  I did it!  I survived my only winter in Japan!  Next up is Tsuyu part 2... Maybe I'll break down and buy rain boots this year.

The ward here is also warming up.  The Dendou Shunin is starting to participate more in our work, and he is helping us to organize youth activities!  This Wednesday will be the first day of our 8 week Eiken Test Prep program.  Our mission was chosen to be the pilot mission for this new dendou tool, so it'll be cool to see how it works out.  We announced this in Relief Society on Sunday, and told all the sisters that it is a great dendou opportunity for all of them.  We invited them to invite their junior high and high school aged neighbors.  They were way pumped about it.  Inoue Shimai even asked if it would be alright if she went to a nearby junior high to tell them about it. It's so amazing to see this ward get so excited about dendou, and I'm a little bummed that I'll probably be transferring away next week.

This week should be fun.  We have the Yamashita Chourou conference, as well as MLC - two all day conferences right in a row.

I guess I'll finish with a miracle that we saw last week.  On Saturday, we had had a pretty slow morning.  In the afternoon, we had a little bit of finding time, so we decided to go visit a member who had recently moved in.  She wasn't home, but on the way to her apartment and back, we talked to two amazing women.  The first had gone to a Christian Kindergarten, and she was way interested in learning more about Christ.  The other lady, when asked if she believed in God, went off about how we should always give thanks to God; how whenever she was in nature or with her family she wanted to give thanks; and how we have a lot of trials, but those are given to us by God to help us to progress.  All of her thoughts about God were spot on!  It was so amazing to talk with her!  Afterward, we had a meal appointment with our Dendou Shunin and his family, but upon arriving ten minutes early we decided to visit another older member who lived across the street.  We visited with her and shared these two miracles we saw while finding, and she cried.  I was so touched to see how deeply moved she was.  Her faith really impressed me.  I too want to have faith like that.

I love you all!  I hope you all have a wonderful week, and a wonderful Mother's Day!

Love, Crandall Shimai
PS:  I apologize for the lack of good titles to my emails.  I'm really running out of good ideas!

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