Byouki

Hey Hey.....

Sickly Fukuoka District

I am feeling super not genki right now so sorry if this email isn't very inspiring. On Saturday night I started to feel a little sick to my stomach, then Sunday morning it was worse but I thought it was just something I ate so I went to church. At church I had a massive migraine and there were about 5 members that I needed to talk to and make appointments with but I could barely even stand up. When we got home I fell asleep for a few hours hoping to be better by 5:00 when we had a big dinner party with some people in the ward and the Oyama family. I had been looking forward to that day for SO long because it is super rare for something like that to happen, where we're teaching an entire family, and a few other families in the ward invite them over for dinner.

Comp exchanges with Sister Matsuhashi

We always watch these DVDs called "Preach my Gospel" where it shows missionaries in America teaching people and working with the ward. Whenever I saw clips of them having big dinner parties with those they were teaching and members I always thought, "wouldn't that just be the best! I wish something like that would happen here!" And then finally when it actually did happen I caught some sort of gross virus (nodobairisu) and ended staying home, watching that same "Preach my Gospel" DVD, feeling so sad, haha. So ironic. On the bright side the Elders were able to go in our place and we heard nothing but good things. The Oyama family seems to be making a lot of friends in the ward and seemed to have a lot of fun. I'm extremely happy about that.

Making mochi pizza.

Elder Stratford, Obayashi and I all have the same sickness so today we took the van to the doctor and got some medicine to take. My stomach hurts super bad and don't have much of an appetite. :( :( :(. I have been very lucky, however, and this is the first time I have ever been sickly on my mission. Hopefully I won't be out of commission for too long.

My sick bath with a bath bomb the Elders gave us

This week was actually extremely fun because we had companion exchanges and  Matsuhashi Shimai came to Fukuoka to dendo with me for a day and a half! We started out the day by meeting with some members who she used to know when working in Fukuoka last year, and then did a lot of streeting. We met this one woman who as soon as we introduced ourselves she started talking about how she watched a program the night before on TV about the Mormons and then started telling us about living prophets and temples. "WHOAH!" Is the first thing that came to my mind. That is definitely a first. She said it had to do with Romney-san and the new President, which was really confusing because I haven't watched or heard ANYTHING concerning the news in the U.S. or the Presidential election. Right after we were both talking about how amazing that was, we visited a member who pulled our her newspaper and pointed at the program that was on the night before and said she was so sad she had missed it but apparently there was some special on about Mitt Romney explaining his religious beliefs. That was the second time we heard something about that in about half an hour. Later that night when we called a woman who comes to Eikaiwa to make an appointment to teach her she said, "Hey, you won't believe this but I NEVER watch TV but last night I decided to flip it on and suddenly I was watching a program about "The Latter-day Saints"!" She also said that she is totally rooting for Romney and that "The Mormon religion is great!" Haha! I couldn't believe how much we had heard about that program in one day, from random people on the street, a less active member, and an Eikaiwa lady! With Mitt Romney running the Church seems to be getting a lot of coverage and its reaching all the way here in Japan! What an amazing opportunity! Go Romney! If it isn't too much of a hassle could someone possibly shoot some info my way about that? I literally know nothing. Is it just Romney and Obama in the running?

Speaking of shooting things my way, if anyone is planning on sending me a package anytime soon feel free to throw in some REAL toothpaste, like Crest or Colgate. I ran out of the tube Teri sent me and I've been using the Japanese candy-flavored toothpaste that makes your teeth rot out. Thank you! :)

Other news.....this week we have a big meeting with a lot of the zone's on Kyushu where Elder Ringwood is coming and giving some sort of training. We're all pretty excited except for the fact that we might possibly all be dying of nodobairisu.

I love you and hope you're all healthy and happy. Thanks for your emails and love!

Love, Tingey Shimai