Halliday shimai's happy birthday and a "stupid" visit to the doctor

dearest family,

yes, i got your packages and they didnt hold them at the honbu which is a good
thing cuz interviews were actually zone conference and we were not informed
(kofu doesnt get informed of anything...and no one gets informed about kofu
either but more on that later)

so anyhow, i actually got the packages last p day but of course the post office
couldnt fit them in our mailbox (they tried to stuff natalees in there and it
was halfway sticking out and it amused me greatly) anyhow so they stuck a
notice in there saying that they had them and to call them so they could bring
them by when we were home.

the lame thing is, they came when we were home in the first place.
but anyhow,  i had to wait til saturday cuz on account of having to go to
hachioji for interviews we wouldnt be home all day friday but they came on
saturday and i had a grand old party opening them (slowly of course) haha. I
video taped some of it and took pictures so i will send those home when i get
the card filled up. (shouldnt take too long)

The elders were very pleased with their half of the package and powell shimai
and i dont have to go shopping for like a month now! whee! I told president hill
we were saved! (i tell him all about my food in my letters every week...its like
a gourmet cooking show...he seems to enjoy it too cuz he called me a couple
weeks ago to tell me how much my letter amused him. It was on account of my
kiwis and grapes story hehe)

anyhow, so yeah and the granola bars do stay with your forever! Its great! We
have so much more energy now and we are happy sister missionaries! yeah!

Also, the CDs are really pretty. yay! I love them! We listen to them all the
time! And the junk food is pretty much all gone. I managed to eat all the
chocolate covered raisins in one sitting and i shared the popcorn with the
district at district meeting and then gave the other one to Silvia cuz she is
pregnant and wants popcorn and its not so easy to find. I figure that has got to
be taihen, to be pregnant in a country where you cant get what you are craving.
I think it was babysitting Clarissa what made me that sympathetic to a pregnant
woman`s plight. haha.

Speaking of Sylvia, it reminds me to answer your question... I DIDNT TELL YOU
WHO THE MIYAZAKIS WERE!?!?!

how did i not tell you that!? Powell shimai and i talk about no one BUT the
miyazakis at home. And Hosaka shimai of course. (who we havent seen in like 2
weeks and we are much afflicted on account of it)

Moving on, the miyazakis are one of the brazilian families in the ward. (the
other one being the Lemes who are also very nice and i hear that Leme kyodai
is very good at barbecuing BUT i digress...) All the kids served missions cept
silvia and they all speak english, portuguese, and japanese fluently. Silvia and
Elaine are really cute and love to talk. Silvia is married to Hoshi kyodai and
they have the cutest little kid, Lukas. I actually have yet to talk to Elaine,
but Powell shimai sings her praises all through the apartment so i am excited to
talk to her someday. She served in Temple Square.

Then there is Eder and Andre kyodai who served in Fukuoka and Sendai
respectively. They both trained like 4 times on their missions, and were APs and
now that they are home hand the missionaries referrals like crazy. Which is
basically why we talk about them and Hosaka shimai all the time.

I could have sworn I told you all this. Remember? Andre trained Brittan.

Ok, moving on. Back to my birthday. (you cant get me started on the miyazakis
like that...it could go on forever) (and just so everyone knows, we are down by
the temple and a bunch of missionaries walked in...is it bad that i keep hoping
that Harris and Allen choro will walk in? Allen choro is another name that comes
up a lot in the apartment, cuz he served in Kofu and so Powell shimai knows him.
I tell her stories about him in the MTC. Hee hee. I miss Allen choro. And Harris
choro. Has anyone heard from them?!?)

OK! back to my birthday! I went to furuya kyodais restraunt on my birthday cuz
he wanted to throw me a birthday party so we invited all our investigators. Our
ONE investigator didnt come...cuz she is well...she is Tanzawa san and we dont
know what is going through her head at any given moment in time.

But Tommy and Emma came. Tommy is the elders investigator from indonesia
and Emma is his friend, she is from the Philippines. They are my favorite.
Tommy is way good! I think he will get baptized. His story is very Alma the
younger like...he converted to Christianity in prison in indonesia and really really
loves reading the bible and the book of mormon. They came to church for the
first time on my birthday and they said they will come next week too.

Emma is actually the one that referred Tommy. She was a PI from a while back
but just wanted to play with the missionaries, she had no interest in church.
Then she started coming with Tommy. (funny story about Emma...I NEVER see
her without Tommy or vice versa but she is married and has kids...she just
always hangs out with Tommy. Weird, i know. But they are both great.)

Anyhow, Emma came to gospel principles and got a migraine halfway through
relief society so she had to leave but she said she enjoyed it and wanted to
borrow the gospel principles book so we have hope in her yet!

Anyhow, they bought me nice socks for winter! Ones that go all the way up to my
thighs so they keep my legs nice and warm. And they got me some cozy slippers
and i think i want to get some for mommy cuz they are so cozy and toasty...but
they are made out of fleece and well...that never goes over well at our house
cuz they will become cat hair slippers haha.

And Phil came! He is from eikaiwa. I hear he is a former investigator and just
couldnt give up drinking so he feels really bad that he couldnt get baptized. He
comes to church and eikaiwa still though and he brings us referrals without
being asked! he is great! He bought me violets. Which...i am sorry to say, i am
slowly killing...I dont know how to keep them alive. I put them on the balcony
to get some sun and i water them...but still they are dying.  sad day!

So yeah, that was my birthday party. It was full of delicious foods and fun. I
enjoyed it. And Leiataua choro was talking to emma and he said something about
the president of the philippines and his wife with all the shoes and I nearly
choked on my water cuz i started laughing. I thought of frank de lima comedy
sketches haha. no one really understood and i forgot to ask leiataua choro if he
knew why i was laughing. heh. It was funny though.

Furuya kyodai wanted me to tell you guys that i had a good birthday party in
Japan. hee hee.

So lets see, i am going to tell you the horror story about zone conference now.
Well, in a nutshell, we thought it was just interviews so we scheduled an
appointment for 6 pm that night. The next morning we got up to catch the train
*at that lovely hour of 5am...) but we missed the train and the next train going
to hachioji that WASNT an azusa (the superfast train...that is not the
shinkansen but still expensive) didnt come for 3 hours and so we would have
been late. So we took the next azusa and made it in time for what we thought
was interviews but was in actuality a zone conference (to make up for not having
zone conference as we normally would on account of mission conference) So we
had to stay for the whole time and the only way we could make it back was to
catch ANOTHER azusa home.

Well, things we order from the honbu are given to us at zone conferences so we
had like 3 bags of lesson pamphlets etc to take home from conference and no
time to go home so we just looked like hobos. Then, the closing prayer was like
forever long and we barely made our train but with all the stuff we had we
couldnt move fast enough to catch our next train so we missed that one and had
to cancel our appointment cuz the next train didnt come for half an hour and
then it would be too late cuz the kids had to go to bed so we had to reschedule.

We already had a ticket for the train though so we caught the next train just to
try to salvage a day where we hadnt talked to ANYONE and we did talk to some
nice junior high school girls on the train...

We got off at Joei thinking we could walk to hosaka shimais to see her but with
all our baggage we couldnt have possibly made it. I dont think we could have
made it without all the bags...she lives far away from the eki. THEN of course,
wouldnt you know...it starts raining. And our bags are paper bags. So we
resigned to waiting at the eki (which is a tiny middle of no where eki) for the
next train to Kofu. We talked to one girl before the train came so it wasnt a
TOTAL waste... but by the time we got home (with our bags somehow, probably
through the graces of God, still intact despite the rain) we were DEFINITELY
ready for bed. haha.

So yeah, that was our fun adventure at zone conference. Oh yeah! and it rained
on my birthday too! That was exciting! Except i got splashed by 5 cars on the
road...gross. dirt water in my shoes. and i had forgotten half my kappa so my
skirt was soaked through. but it was a fun adventure and people do take pity on
you at the door if you are dripping wet. haha.

Today was another stupid adventure to the stupid doctors where they charged
me another stupid 50 dollars for more stupid medicine i didnt really need cuz i
still have half of my other stupid birth control pills i have yet to take. and then
they told me to come back in a month. I think next time i will just ask my district
leader for a blessing becase it is a PAIN to go to the doctor every month.  Why
cant it be like america where you fill your perscription every month instead of
talking to the doctor EVERY time you need a refill. I LOVE japan...but they are a
little bit crazy. Just a little.

So I bought cold stone to make myself feel better again and they actually sing
when you tip them here too. It was kinda funny. They sang 'a pirates life for
me' and it was quite amusing.

So yeah, there is my week. Aside from the doctor it was a good week. Eikaiwa
was last night and we made skits. Those were hilarious. My skit was about 4 of us
being stranded on a raft and trying to get to hawaii. We had to beat off sharks
with our shoes and surf back to hawaii on a tsunami.

We taught them how to share personal experiences and we had different topics.
one of the topics was an earthquake experience which ironically, I ended up
getting. I was able to trade with Andre and I got to share an experience about
one of my good friends. So I talked about making magical cookies with Ali and
watching Jane Austen movies. No one understood what Jane Austen was of
course...but oh well. I taught them the word chick flick. hee hee.

It was very amusing listening to all their experiences but we had a really good
turn out at eikaiwa last night (even if half the students were the miyazakis)
and phil brought us another referral! Whee!

Oh, and the yogurt turned out wonderfully. I had no idea how easy it was! Powell
shimai was so cute, she was walking around talking about the yogurt like it was
a child and she would go check on it every so often and pat it and talk to it.
haha!

ok, we gotta go. Love you all!

Love,
Sister Halliday