Life as a Sister: I transferred to America!

Konnichiwa! How is everybody doing? One thing I didn't really grasp when I got my transfer call last week is that I was really being sent to America! Okinawa is so much fun! We work with two Military branches and 1 Japanese ward, so it is a lot of English! I gave a talk in church on Sunday and didn't even have to read notes or anything! I just spoke about whatever came to mind! It was beautiful! EVERYBODY knows Logandale! First of all, that is where one of my branch presidents is from! TJ Finlayson! Talk about small world! I was so surprised when I heard his name. Another member served in Logandale, one has family there- Phil Leavitt and then another is friends with a lot of families down in that area. It was weird. Am I still in Japan? How have you heard of it before?

But Okinawa is a lot of fun, I miss the people I used to meet in Fukuoka like Yamamoto san, so that stinks, being in Fukuoka for a year is a long a time !I have a lot of friends up on the mainland! But I flew out to Okinawa on Thursday, it was SUCH A PAIN to pack and get my bag under 20 kilos, and ship everything else through the post office, but I DID IT! The flight was only about 1 1/2 hours, I landed and we got to spend the WHOLE day in the airport waiting for other missionaries to fly in. There are only 6 sisters on this whole island, so i feel pretty blessed to be down here, and we have the most wards to work with.

Sunday was CRAZY! Since we have 3 wards, we have to go to all three, right? We have to have meeting for each ward separately, we started at 8, with a ward council meeting, So we went to THREE meetings, I spoke in only one of them and then we stayed for the whole Japanese ward, so the wards got done at 4, and then we had another meeting until 5:30. My bike is still on mainland, so we walked home and got home around 6, ate dinner and then only had 2 hours to go out to find! It was crazy, and our brains were so tired after the 2 English branches, and three hours of Japanese, but it was SO FUN!

I haven't seen much of the island, a less active we are working with, Sam (what an easy name to member, none of this Japaneses stuff!) took us to a beautiful light house on this rocky peninsula, I will have to send pictures if I have time! We ate pancakes, and talked in English! It was so fun! The weather is amazing! no coat, no tights, beautiful! I know it will heat up fast though!

We were able to teach a recent convert, Elina, and she is amazing! The lesson was all in English, in a members house, sitting on COUCHES and I would randomly catch myself smiling because I thought it was so cool. The couch was so comfy, I didn't really know how to sit...but it was fun, it was my first real lesson in English with a ward member who was a well, she is Korean but fluent in English, like beyond fluent, so it was my first time with a ward member who could also speak English. But it is great to also have a Japanese branch we can work with so we can have the best of both worlds! We have another recent convert we get to teach the same lessons to, but in Japanese, so that is such a big blessing!