Valerie's Attempt at Pondering: No Subject in Mind

The transfer went smoothly, and it's been good so far. I definitely can't say that anything could have gone well this last week were it not for the goodness of God. It never can be, because all truly good things come from God. My companion is from Okinawa, and he likes video games, and anime. We like lots of the same stuff, so it's pretty cool. His English is really good too. He likes sports too. I can't remember specific sports at the moment though. It's going well, and we've been getting along fine.

This week has been tons of fun with my last days in Hachinohe, and my
first few days in Morioka. This week was a bit different than normal
transfer weeks, and I didn't get to my new area until Thursday. I have
had fun so far though, and I look forward to at least a month in this
big city.

Kanji of the week is: 月曜日 pronounced "ge-tsu-yo-bee," and means Monday.

Alex with his new companion

Monday was pretty normal, as far as going to email, eat, and
groceries. Any free time we had was taken by packing all of our
belongings to send to our next area the following day. In the evening
we went and tried to have Family Home evening, but no one showed up
but our investigator. That was fine, because we had fun messing around
on the piano and talking, and even taught him a bit about some
questions he had for us.

Tuesday, in the morning our luggage was taken away from us, and sent
to our new areas. We finished our studies, and then left to figure out
the schedule we had been given from the Assistants to the President,
and that took longer than we thought it would. Eventually, after going
a few places and more than a few calls to the Assistants, we got even
more confused, and they told us to do something different than on the
schedule. I decided to go to the church, because the times weren't
lining up on the schedule they sent and on the schedule at the bus
stops, and looked up the train schedules on an approved website. As
soon as I did that than I figured out that the schedule they had sent
us was for the train and not bus. So with all that figured out, we
returned home because I wasn't feeling too well, and we did stuff in
the apartment to prepare to leave.

These 3 photos are from a lunch trip he and his former companion Elder T. had at a dollar sushi place

Wednesday, I still wasn't feeling good in the morning, and we had
studies, but besides that I was bad enough that I needed to rest a
little. I ended up spending the rest of the day in bed, but I got
better in time for English class in the evening. We went, and no one
was expecting us, because usually people transfer on Wednesday, and
the sisters thought we were in Sendai. It was good to talk to all the
students one last time, and I didn't have to teach, because one of the
sisters prepared a lesson thinking that there wasn't going to be
another person to do it that evening.

Thursday morning was normal studies, but soon after lunch, the new
elders arrived. We said hello, gave them their stuff, and headed out.
We eventually got to the train (we walked to the station, with some
interruptions by some of my stuff falling a few times), and rode it
all the way to Morioka. When we got there, we didn't know where to go
and looked all over the place to find the elders that we were supposed
to have met at the station. We prayed a few times, called the mission
home a few times from a payphone (we didn't have a cell phone on us),
and finally during the last prayer I remembered an email I got a while
ago with the numbers of all the areas' church phones. I thought we
should call it, and sure enough when we did there were elders at the
church and they told us what bus to ride to get to the church. It was
a good answer to my prayers (and my companions), and we got to the
church safely and had fun with the elders at the church and some
investigators before going home.

Beef Kimchi

Friday we had a fairly regular morning, but found out that one of the
new missionaries was sick and had to stay in Sendai for a while, and
that the missionary supposed to train him was going to get a new
companion and meet him at the Morioka station. So, after a quick
weekly planning, we headed over to the station and got that all
figured out. We then went to a bike shop and got new breaks for my
bike, because the tires were completely worn out, and changed them
back at the apartment. That took up just about all the day, except for
a tiny bit of streeting towards the end of the day.

Saturday we went to visit some less active members, but none of them
were home, so we went to a pond nearby the church (literally in front
of it), and did some proselyting there. It was fun, but not too much
came from it as far as people accepting more than an English class
flier. We were going to do something with the other elders and a less
active member to get to know him, but he ended up not having any time
after the lesson to do some relationship building, so we went to the
station and ended up talk to a guy for quite a while. He asked some
good questions, and eventually accepted a Book of Mormon. Hopefully we
hear from him.

Corn and Dragon Fruit, which isn't bad, but doesn't have much flavor

Bread shaped like Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro

Sunday was great and I got to know the members quite a bit. We also
had some time after church to talk to them and get to know a few of
them. After that we spent a big chunk of time with a member going to
less active member houses and introducing ourselves to those who
answered. Besides that it was studies and a tiny bit of Streeting
where we talked to a boy who hopefully will read the Book of Mormon we
gave him like he said he was going to and calls us.

That's all for my week, and I hope you all enjoyed hearing about this
week's adventures. I love you all and pray that you have a great week!

Love,

Elder _______
長老