sunday in kasukabe.

こんばんわ！！

oh my stars, it has been an entire week since i last updated. i`m horrible at this blogging thing. sorry. :(

so, let me tell you about sunday and what happened sunday! because that sounds like a good idea.

if you read my recent post about trying to call the tokyo mission office, you probably have an idea of how difficult it was to find what ward i was supposed to attend. so i went on lds.org to the "find a meetinghouse" feature, and that gave me some trouble too. i found what ward i was supposed to attend, but i had absolutely no idea of how to get there. googlemaps refused to recognize my address, so it wouldn`t give me directions. poopheads. so i had to zoom into the map really close and find the train station that was closest to the meeting house. from there, i tried to find a route that would get me to the chapel...it mostly involved hoping that i would come across certain landmarks, like a 7-eleven and a ministop on the same street. so i wrote down some possible directions and prayed that i would find it.

well, i seemed to have gotten off at the right station.

so i began to wander around according to my makeshift directions. i walked for about half an hour before ending up right back at the train station. hooray for going in circles. so i abandoned my directions after that and just started looking for a 7-eleven.

after wandering up and down the narrow streets, i finally found the 7-eleven.

i have never ever been so happy to see that orange and green sign.

so i headed toward the 7-eleven, and that is when i saw the steeple! i wasn`t expecting to find an actual church. my experience of trying to find the church in tokyo made me wary of that. but luckily, this one actually looked like a church! such a delight.

so i went into the building, and went up some stairs to where a woman was corralling her children and a man was standing, appearing as though he was waiting to go into the door at the end of the hall. i was about twenty minutes late by this time, so i figured he was waiting for the sacrament to end.

when the adults saw me, they both got these huge smiles on their faces and started whispering to me in japanese. i got really flustered and said, 「日本語が下手です!」　which translates to, "my japanese is poor!" (one of the few phrases i know by heart. haha) and, so sweet, they started to talk to me in broken english. "what is your name? where are you from? where do you live?", et cetera. very, very friendly. which made me just so happy because it can`t have been easy for them to approach the big, scary american and try out their rusty english. i am so so grateful for the people that actually try to come and talk to me. i hope they receive lots and lots of blessings.

after talking to me for a few minutes, they started motioning at the door, nodding their heads as if to say, "go on inside! the water`s great!" so i peaked in the door, and they were very apparently in the middle of a prayer. so i waited a few minutes and tried again. i found an empty seat near the front of the chapel and made a run for it. i sat down next to a young girl, who looked quite bewildered at my appearance. i motioned to the chair and myself, saying "okay?", trying to make sure it was okay that i sat down. and she nodded, so i figured i was good! it looked like i really freaked her out though. haha. whoops.

so, despite my lateness, i apparently made it in time for sacrament! they were just about to sing the sacrament hymn. i was just about to reach for a hymn book when a little voice in my ear said, "do you speak japanese?" not seeing the speaker, and figuring she was japanese, i whispered, 「ちょっと｣ back to her, meaning, "a little!" then the voice said, "follow me." so i turned around to find...an american!! yessss.

so i followed this sweet lady back to a chair in front of her. after the sacrament, she began translating the talks in my ear. apparently i had shown up to this ward in time for ward conference! that was a really nice thing for me, as i was able to partake of the sacrament because of it! yay! anyway, the bishop spoke, and then so did the stake president, who turned out to be an american as well. i love americans. haha.

so after receiving a condensed version of the talks and singing out of the japanese hymn book -- which is delightfully much easier than i thought it would be, because it was all in hiragana, which i busted my butt to learn before arriving in japan (studying really does pay off!!) -- the meeting was adjourned and i was able to get to know the people around me. again, they were so friendly and nice. if they weren`t able to talk to me, they smiled and waved to me, letting me know they were there. the sweet lady who translated for me is named elyse, and she is the relief society president! perfect! so i thanked her profusely for translating for me, and stood around for a few moments while people milled around in the chapel.

elyse then turned to me and asked,

"do you speak spanish?"

now, when people here ask me that question, i tell them i do. they all seem fascinated by it and ask me to speak in spanish for them. so i end up bearing my testimony and telling them about the church in spanish, haha! i do that because that`s really all i can remember in spanish. plus, how often do you find a person that speaks spanish in japan?? it`s hard enough to find people that speak english! so they are completely unaware that i am preaching to them. haha, it`s the best.

anyway, when she asked me that, i told her "yes" with a sheepish smile, expecting to be asked to show off again.

i said yes, and she lit up.

"perfect!!" she said,

"you can translate for monica!!"

you know that feeling you get when you`re on a roller coaster and you`re going down that first huge hill and your stomach seems to jump up into your throat? i usually love that feeling, but whenever i get it when i`m not on a roller coaster, i get really really worried.

and i got that same feeling when she said that to me.

i tried to protest while she led me over to monica, but to no avail. she introduced me to sweet monica, telling her i speak spanish. monica lit up and began talking to me in spanish. and, by some wonderful miracle! i was able to understand her.

we talked for a few minutes, and i found out she is from chile and has been a member her whole life. i also found out another wonderful thing about monica: she speaks spanish, japanese, and english. spanish is her native language, and she speaks a little japanese and english. well, her english is infinitely better than my japanese is, so i was extremely relieved.

she led me upstairs to the bishop`s office, to where the ysa sunday school class was being held. again, they were so friendly to me. smiling, and asking my name. in that class, i found a young woman named tomoko, who went to byu, so was fluent in english. also, i found a young man who served his mission in roseville, california, who happened to know my dear friend shawn howell!! tiny, tiny world. he was also fluent in english and let me borrow his english scriptures. oh, the tender mercies of the Lord!! i felt them time and time again that day.

tomoko was sweet enough to sit by me and translate for me, and monica sat on my other side. and thus commenced a lesson taught by the bishop. they seem like a great group. i am very, very excited to get to know them all.

so, i was trying to understand as much japanese as i could...and i understood a couple things! mostly numbers, haha. and there were times that if monica couldn`t understand them, they turned to tomoko, who translated for me, and i was expected to translate for monica. so my brain was trying to process three different languages. i had the biggest headache by the end of that lesson!! i was able to translate for monica sometimes, but most of the time, she understood tomoko`s english, so my spanish wasn`t necessary. and i loved those moments. but the moments that i was able to translate for monica made me extremely grateful for senorita taylor and that special day where she taught us religious spanish. best day ever.

at the end of the lesson, tomoko and this other girl, yukimi, both gave me their phone numbers and i gave them mine. i thought it was so sweet that yukimi did the phone number exchange as well, since her english is limited and my japanese is even more limited. so, even though we may not be able to communicate easily, she still offered me that extra support. and i am so, so, SO grateful.

i wandered back down to the chapel, where the priesthood and relief society meetings were joined, since it was ward conference. i sat with elyse and monica. for the opening song, elyse handed me an english hymnbook. i thought that was so thoughtful and nice.

during the lesson, they showed a video in english with japanese subtitles. i think they were going to do it the other way around at first, but for some reason, they switched it at the last second. i don`t know what made them switch, but i am extremely grateful for whatever reason that was.

after that, we divided into groups and had group discussions about the video. it was when we were dividing into groups that a saw a cute cute lady in a kimono. it made me very very happy.

when the lesson was over, i wanted to hang around for a bit to see if i could get to know more people. luckily for me, they had a sort of munch and mingle thing after the block, with all the fixings to make your own sandwich. it was amazing; i sat in the chapel and watched them transform it into a picnic area. i`m sure that`s what they always have to do, since there isn`t much room for a cultural hall in the building. plus the chapel is made up of folded chairs anyway, so it was quite easy. they had this big curtain draped in front of the stand and podium, which i guess was supposed to make it feel less like we were in a chapel and more like we were in a cultural hall.

it was a special occasion, kind of to celebrate that the stake presidency made a visit, so it sounds like it isn`t something they do every sunday (dangit). while eating, i chatted more with monica. she is a queen sweetheart; she gave me her pocket translator to borrow while i`m here. "i don`t use it. it`s more for tourists!" she said. i am so so so grateful. apparently she`s lived here in japan for over ten years! crazy business.

in mingling around, i was able to meet bishop abe`s wife, who is one of the sweetest ladies ever. her english is very, very good. apparently she served a mission in nagoya, where she was able to pick it up from the american missionaries. she was also speaking spanish to monica! what a super hero. she is super duper animated and i loved talking to her. she also wanted my phone number; so she got out her hot pink cell phone with pretty disneyland charms on it. i tell you, no one is exempt from the cell phone charm rule in japan. EVERYONE has at least one, if not twenty.

so i had a lovely conversation with sweet sister abe. i also met a missionary couple, and the sister asked for my phone number and address. so so so sweet, as it was another demonstration of "i speak very, very little english and you speak very, very little japanese. so we can`t really communicate, but i want you to know that i`m here to support you if you need it." i just got warm fuzzies remembering that.

where were the elders, you may ask? well, they were there. however, they made a point to not talk to me, let alone make eye contact with me! one of them is japanese, so it`s understandable. the other looked american. i was a little annoyed by that. seriously, if he caught my eye, he looked away super fast. i concluded that he is a punk. i`ll be waiting to see if he proves me wrong.

i walked to the train station with monica. on our way out of the building, i met a young woman who told me she is korean. so i told her the only korean phrase that i know, which translates to "i`m a fool!" she seemed to think that was pretty funny. seriously. she was laughing hysterically. i hope we can be friends. haha.

i also ran into the man i met when i first came into the building. he asked me if i knew any japanese, so i told him the only phrase i can say fluently: ｢田中さんは面白い本を買いました。｣　　he acted like he was really impressed and complimented my pronunciation. i love my ward. (i also love that i am typing on a japanese computer, so it looks like i`m awesome and know kanji when i really don`t.)

so i walked to the train station with monica, thus showing me a much more effective way to find the church. and i came home and napped.

my sunday ruled, as you can obviously see. i love the church.