January 11 - Maizuru Area

This week has been a little crazy. Last week while I was emailing Elsie, a less active randomly walked into the church building! We had tried to contact her before, but she`d never been home and a note we left for her was never moved from where we put it or anything! But she just randomly walked into our small 2nd story apartment church thing and we happened to be there at the same time. She said she remembers how great and fun church always was when she was in middle school and wants to come back. We talked to her a bit and gave her a book of Mormon. She`s coming to a members house for FHE tonight and we`re hopefully we`ll be able to start teaching her soon. Way cool!

But this week`s been a little slow in that we spent a day traveling to Kobe for Sister Eddy`s final interview and then the next day we traveled back to Kobe for a companion exchange. My exchange was really fun, but we didn`t do a lot of finding or teaching so it was a little sad. But we went to this ward "outreach" where we played kickball with some investigators and less actives, and the next day we had a mochi party for New Years. I pounded rice into mochi with the STL! It was kind of hard but way fun! The members there made me eat Natto. Which is nasty. I cried a little bit. The Japanese Elders told me I should just keep eating it until the tears dry up and then I`ll be stronger for it. Haha yeah, not happening. I would probably try it again though, because I hear you have to eat it 3 or 4 times before you like it.

And then there was another Mochi Party on Sunday! It`s basically condensed, straight-up rice, so it gets hard to eat after a while. But we worked through the pain ;)

Our teaching has been going really well again. We`ve been able to find some investigators that I feel really good about, and some really strong potential investigators. Hoping to be able to bump up the number of lessons we teach every week!

AND MY FIRST TRANSFER DAY. I freaked out about that a little bit. My new trainer is a fifth transfer named MacKenzie Shimai from New Zealand. I`ll become her companion on Thursday. Which is way soon, because we are packed with lessons these next few days. Everyone wants to say goodbye to Eddy Shimai!

Everyone`s been really encouraging about my Japanese. I`m still not amazing whatsoever, or really even understanding, but I`m progressing pretty fast. Gift of Tongues is a real thing! Thanks for your prayers, and keep them coming! :)

Love you all!

Sister Williamson

Natto!