Final time with President and Sister R

Hey family! How are all of you this day! So this week has been a busy one. Started off Monday getting ready for zone conference and the FHE that night. Before FHE I had a temple recommend interview with president which was interesting. He used the phrase, "This isnt your final interview but if it were I would say...." and then say something to me. It was nice to have that time with president. He gave me my "white book" which has all my returning stuff. So yeah. That was sad to know it was the last one but yeah. From there we ate together and just had a jolly old time. We had various musical numbers. It was interesting to sing our, Ill go where you want me to go with the version that Sister Stubbs made because it was kinda sad but the last verse was sweet. Then we had ice cream which went to like 9:40. Then the next day was zone conference. That went well I think. I was put in the translation position which was basically all Japanese to English. I have secretly always wanted to do the translation but yeah. Man is that harder than it looks. Its not that I dont understand them it just that its hard to listen and speak at the same time, let alone put it in naturally sounding English. Oh well, we had the area doctors there and they were very nice about my translation. Its kinda funny because I knew who was wearing the headsets so I could play with them. Mostly Sister Rasmussen. President always set me up good when he would talk about his wife. She knows he is talking about her but not what he is saying so her reactions are very delayed. I also had my "Last Testimony" which was kindof an erry experience. Especially since I still remember my first zone conference in that same building over a year and a half ago with my zone leader giving his last testimony. We gave President and Sister and R a book we put together of pictures of us and little notes to them. Then it was over. Then president and sister R stood up in the front and said they wanted to shake hands with and hug us. Kinda a strange feeling. Thankfully I have mothers emotions so no crying from me. Strangely the biggest tomboy sister I have ever met, Sister S, just lost it. She just hugged Sister R for like 3 minutes straight crying into her shoulder. A touching sight. Then we cleaned up and everyone left, as I walked out of the church and I looked back and waved goodbye to President and Sister R for the last time and that was it, I dont know the next time I will see them. The rest of the week was more uneventful than the rest. We got passed an investigator for the sisters. He is a man so they try not to teach men and they gave him to us. Hes an interesting guy. His name is Hさん. Now the whole lesson I thought his name was H. Very unfortunate name I thought but oh well. Still find his name very dangerous to say. We still arent sure why he is meeting with us. He absolutely LOVES beer. As he walked into the lesson he was finishing a beer and we had hardly said "amen" in the closing prayer before he opened a new one. And this lesson was at 11:30. The Word of Wisdom will be fun. Yesterday at church Brother S from Aizu came to Niigatas church. He is the first counselor in the mission presidency and so he is making the rounds but it was nice to meet him one last time. He even mentioned Elder K and I in his talk as the miracles of missionary work because we could actually speak Japanese now. Ha. This week doesnt have anything too crazy. Next week will be the interesting one. Monday night we have interviews with President B, the next day is another zone conference where we are to put up to speed on what Tokyo is all about. Then Friday is zone training meeting. Oh and this Sunday is a satelite broadcast from somewhere at the Niigata church so that means Joetsu the farthest area in our zone will come three times to Niigata. Probably going to cost them over 200 dollars. Yay for effciency! Oh and today was transfer calls. Of course no changes to me but some of the people of the zone escaped the switch to Tokyo and a few more new missionaries are being thrown into TOkyo three days after coming to the Sendai mission.

The Bullet Train

Hello family.So we end another busy week. Unfortunately it wasnt so busy in the ways I would like it to be. Tuesday we went to Sanjo for district meeting which was not that exciting until we came home. So in my apartment above my desk is my bucket list pertaining to my life as a missionary. One of the things was to go to Sado. Checked off last week. Another was to ride the shinkansen, or as you would know it as, the bullet train. So we took that back and it was way fast and smooth and 13 minutes ha. But it was a good experience. We tried to focus more on finding a new investigator this week which didn't end up with any results so the end of the week our numbers looked like crap. Also worked a lot on this Excel spreadsheet of all the members in Niigata and organizing them in such a way as we can use it better. Let it be known that I may have not really touched a computer in two years but I still dislike Microsoft. I have wanted to run my head into the wall a thousand times working on that although this week we talked with the Elders Quorum president and he asked me if I could make excel do something and oh how that became a problem. You dont challenge me to something like that. Although I realized how much I miss free use of the internet. In the end I wasnt able to do it but yeah. Other than that really nothing interesting this week. I had a good birthday. K長老 took me out to dinner and I received 3 cakes, and all that jazz. Even some crappy singing of Happy Birthday made it feel like home. Kinda funny presents. Tie and "P-day shirt", you do realize we wear normal missionary clothes on p-day right? But I could feel the love and to be honest, no offense to you mother, but I really was impressed with your tie choice, I really like that tie. So yeah. Tonight is our family home evening with president and sister R. And before that K長老 and I each have 45 minute interviews with president for our temple recommends. Either he thinks we are big sinners or he is going to use it as an opportunity to give us a "pre-final interview" since he wont be there for the real one, half excited, half terrified. So that shall be fun. So we will keep working. This week is zone conference so that shall be fun. The last zone conference. And then it will just e back to the old grind. It will be interesting to see how the switch off of missions is going to be. I thought it might be a little hectic but as things are going now we are just going to become an island at that point. We have heard zero about the switch over. I guess there is not much to say. Im assuming President B will come do a zone conference type thing real quick to introduce us to Tokyo mission and meet the assistants and stuff. Then after that basically going to tokyo to end the mission. Shall be interesting. So I hope all is well with you guys. Talk to you later.