Fwd: 1st Transfer Week 6 Shokuji, Baputesuma Kai and Mountains to Climb

From: Lindsay Sanders <lindsay.sanders@myldsmail.net>

Date: December 1, 2014 9:48:00 PM MST

Subject: 1st Transfer Week 6 Shokuji, Baputesuma Kai and Mountains to Climb

Sorry about Saturday and my lack of good emails! The internet stopped working, so we got permission to finishing emailing today. We had a great week.

I have no idea when I will be able to email next week because of Mission Conference. THE WHOLE MISSION IS COMING TO FUKUOKA! It will be so exciting! But yeah, I cant tell you when I will get to email next. It will be sometime next week. SO sorry!

This week is transfer week, which means Sister Nelson is going home, and I am getting a new companion........... SISTER SMITH! She is in our district, but is currently in Nakagawa, but we are already friends and I love her so much! I am excited to get to work with her! She is on her fourth transfer, so we will have a lot of Bean power. Beans are new misisonaries. She is allergic to gluten, so if you have any recipes that don't involve an oven, please send them!

SUNDAY WAS THE BEST DAY OF MY MISSION SO FAR! Yamaguchi san was baptized! It was a beautiful day! I will send a picture. He said I feel like I have truly changed. So many people from the ward came to show their support. It was great!

We went to 3 Shokujis this week. Shokujis are meals at members houses. You know in the Half Blood Prince where Dumbledore has to keep drinking the poison because if you try to dump it out, it just comes back? That is what Shokujis are like for me. They give us SO MUCH FOOD. And they are super offended if you dont eat it all. So we had the first course of salad, then a full plate of sushi, then fried taco (taco is octopus), then some kind of thick stew, then nabe with squid guts, and THEN we started a 3 course dessert: Glazed bread, chocolate cake, then a huge kaki which is a Japanese fruit. I thought I was going to die. It was all yummy, but these were full plates of all of these things. Then we had to bike up Temple Hill, which is what I will tlak about next.

So Sunday was the busiest day of our lives, but we had 20 minutes to get to the Honbu (Mission Home) from our dinner appoijnment, which is about an hour away, so Sister Nelson could do her exit interview with Kaicho (President Gustafson). The Honbu is underneath the Fukuoka Temple, and the temple is at the top of a lovely hill. Which means you have to go uphill both ways to get to it. It is sooooooooooooo steep. Not to mention the wind has really picked up... and it had just started to rain. It was a trial. My legs were shaking because we were riding so fast up this big hill. my skirt was blowing up in my face (I was wearing like 3 pairs of tights, so I was modest), and I was going to throw up, but you just are not late to an appointment with Kaicho. All I could do was pray. We got to the top of the hill and saw the statue of Moroni on top of the temple, and I had the sweetest peace come over me. 

We all have mountains to climb. My investigators have mountains to climb. God intended for this to happen. It might be hard, but the view from the top is sooooooooo worth it!

Have a great week! Love you all!

-Sister Sanders

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Sanders Shimai