1st week in Japan!

I'M IN JAPAN!

Could someone teach me how to rotate this picture ?:)

Thank you for all the mail.  I really appreciate it.  I'm going to try to combine all the answers to your questions into this email.  Don't think that I don't appreciate you!  I'm just trying to be efficient :)

Did I mention I am in Japan?!?!?!?!?!? :)  I am so excited!  I have no idea what is going on and I LOVE IT :)  Guess where in the Fukuoka mission I am?   Okinawa.

Look it up.  It is the absolute southern part of Japan.  The hottest and most humid part of our mission and usually sisters and elders don't leave this area for a while.  For example, my companion has been here for 6 months.  It is so beautiful here.  People speak a different language than what I was taught in the Missionary Training Center.  No really!  It's called okinawabin and the older people speak it.  Native Japanese speakers can't understand them.  What an adventure!  It is hilly, it is hot, the bugs are bigger than life it's self!  Futons, fancy bathrooms, military branches, buying a new bike (or trying to find one at least... bike season is over so it was a challenge.), attempting to ride that bike in a skirt (there is no graceful way to do it, I've resorted to putting shorts on under my skirts.  Poor passersby were getting a funny show), eating whatever my native companion decides to cook, etc.  There is so much I want to tell you!  So i apologize in advance for the randomness.

First off, when I arrived in Fukuoka, I stayed in the mission home for 2 days.  Then I left early in the morning to catch a plane for Okinawa.  Okinawa is an island so we have to fly here and we could only have one suitcase on the plane.  It was kind of annoying, but it made things interesting.  My other suitcase was just shipped here so that's a relief!  I love my mission president and his wife they are extremely nice.  

Sister Watanabe and I in our small apartment.

It is hot and humid.  The ocean is on all sides of us.  

My companion's name is Sister Watanabe and she's from Japan.  She is the cutest thing that has ever been squeezed into a 5'2' frame! I LOVE HER.  Watanabe Shimai (Sister Watanabe) is fun and she has been here for awhile so she knows what's going on.  She loves throwing me under the bus to challenge me!  :) There isn't a single street contact where I don't get nudged to saying something :)  I love it!  She is 24, before her mission she was going to school in agriculture.  She is really good with people.  She is from somewhere in Japan... it starts with a K :)  Ha Ha!  She is an angel.  And her English?  Well... let's just say I'm learning Japanese really fast :)  She is teaching me lots and I'm working her to death :)  I say "hokori ni omoimasu" often to Watanabe Shimai.  It's Japanese for I'm proud of you... she died laughing the first time I said that.  She asked (or at least I think she did) what my teachers in the MTC were teaching me!

Our apartment is the size of a shoebox, a very cute shoebox.  The door frames are meant for tiny tiny people.  I saw the biggest bug of my life this morning on our way out of our apartment.  It was gone before I could take a picture, but it was huge, it had a million eyes and it could have eaten me.  

The view of the city of Okinawa from our apartment.

I am exhausted!  The heat kills you here.  I sweat constantly.  It's attractive.  I just got a new bike this morning.  It should last me all my mission.  It was one of the last small framed bikes on the entire island!  Super lucky.  But I look horrid riding it.  There is no way to ride a bike modestly in a skirt.  Your skirt can't be too long or it will get caught in the chain!  Sister Missionary problems!  And Dad, no cars in this area for the missionaries.  I'm fine with that.  I will be ripped when I come home :)  and so will all my skirts!  The roads here are non existent.  They have them but they are so small.  If I die during my mission it will be in a bike accident.  It's scary riding in a car here too.   The cars drive on the opposite side of the road (than the US)!

Yesterday I went to 2 baptisms... IN THE OCEAN!  Cool!  See the pictures.  Isn't it beautiful!  They were from one of the military branches here.  I'm in the actual city of Okinawa.  I didn't realize how many military bases there are here!  It's insane.  The two military "branches" here are massive.  but it's really difficult to keep track of everyone.  Especially in the summer.  The kids are out of school, people are on 2 month long breaks, they're moving bases called "pcs"ing, etc.  There are 2 English speaking branches (military) and a large Okinawa Ward (Japanese speaking).  Tell Ken and Krisy Nelson that I thought of them this week!  There are senior couples that serve on the bases and the Nelsons would be perfect for the job.  In fact there is a fun couple here that reminds me of them.  You have to be retired military or active duty to get on the base.

Japanese is hard.  But I have jumped head first into this experience.  I have no idea what's going on, but I haven't let that stop me.  On Saturday there was a ward activity at the beach.  Lots of our investigators came and it was a great experience to introduce them to the bishop and to members of the ward.  It went really well!  Sister Watanabe left me!  Well, she was in eye sight and sound so there was no breaking the rules, but she basically told me to go make friends and get to know the ward while she did the same thing.  We divided and CONQUERED!  The kids love me (I'm not being conceited).  They love it when I try to speak to them.  They laugh a lot.

My new friends!

The beach party....white sand beaches.

So I embarrass myself to make friends.  It's really working out great :)  The biggest blessing of the week was that beach party.  I talked to every single person.  And not a shallow conversation either.  I think it went really well!  If I didn't know a word, those kind ward members helped me figure it out.  And after a while I completely forgot that I had no idea what I was doing.  I went 2 hours forgetting that I can't speak the language. :)  It was a huge tender mercy to be able to communicate.  I love these people!  They are so kind!  But as soon as the party was over and we den do-ed (Note from "editor"...I don't know if that is a typo or a Japanese word) I went back to my normal poor Japanese-speaking self.

The Kamijo Family...I love them!

We have an hour each Thursday that we teach English class.  AKA... the foreigners teach the English class.  It is hilarious.  There is a pretty big American influence here.  There are over 30,000 service members and their families on the bases.  Don't worry, everyone I run into speaks Japanese and usually only Japanese so I'm getting plenty of exposure to the language.  I love looking at the English translations on signs.   For example, at the beach party there was a sign that was translated to English also, it read:  "Don't use the money after the wet."

Mom, it is 4: 30 pm right now if that helps with the time change stuff :) (It sure did help....McKenna is 16 hours ahead of us in the Pacific Time Zone.)  I have no idea what time it is at home... or day for that matter.  

I got a blessing at the MTC from a member of our district presidency before I left.  I was really nervous about coming.  I don't speak the language that well!  (Well I kind of do, but my accent it so thick!)  He blessed me that I would be able to adjust to new areas and new companions.  I haven't missed a beat!  No jet lag, no nothing.  I love it here!  I love the people!  I love the bugs!  I love the weird food they feed me!  My only complaints: riding a bike in a skirt, and getting a million bug bites!  If thats all I have to worry about my entire mission, then I'm set!

Life is great!  I am exhausted!  I am working my tail off and I love these people!  The food is a little weird, but I'm eating it all with a smile (be proud mom!).  Our investigators are great, but we had a hard time meeting the Fukuoka missionary standards of excellence (the goals set by our mission president).  That is going to change.  I am excited to just be outside, meeting all the people!  I love this gospel.  It is true.  If it wasn't I would have given up long ago.  No one in their right mind would relocate and learn a foreign language in humidity and heat that is out of this world, for fun.  This message brings peace and happiness that you can't find anywhere else.  I love it.  I love being a missionary and I love the beautiful people of Okinawa.

Ai Shite Imasu!

Hawkins Shimai.

This address is for while I'm in Japan!  

Sister McKenna Lain Hawkins
Japan Fukuoka Mission
9-16 Hirao-josuimachi
Chuo-ku
Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka
810-0029 Japan