McKenna in Japan!: Learning sign language too

The Nagasaki Zone…what a great bunch of missionaries!

We are headed to Nagasaki today to go on "splits" with the sisters there. I have never known exhaustion as well as I do now :) It's been a very busy couple of weeks with going to different areas to help the sisters and trying to keep our own area blossoming. It's been super busy. And I have absolutely loved it. We are running frantically from appointment to appointment, teaching lessons and having a blast. Just a little over six weeks ago in this new area (Kurume) we were teaching just one lesson, if we were lucky, every week. Now we are well, well over that :) It is a huge blessing and I am so grateful. I have learned a lot about the power of prayer and the miracles that come from "cheerfully doing all things that lie within our power." I am so, so, so happy. I really am. I am seeing the change in our investigators and I am learning with them! We have a wonderful cute nursing student who we have been meeting with. Her name is Fukumi and we met her on the street. She is just one of the purest, genuinely kind people I know. She has come to church a couple of times and last Sunday she biked several miles in a torrential downpour (It's currently rainy season. Even Seattle doesn't have this much rain! I feel like I constantly smell like wet dog. The other day we met with Fukumi and talked about how her views of God have changed and she said that she came from not knowing anything: only knowing Christ's name and hearing about Christmas to now feeling the peace that comes from His atonement. I was just so surprised. She told us so straightforward that she loves what she is learning and she has felt more joy come into her life because of it! It was an incredible lesson.

This week has been fun because Williams Shimai (Sister Williams) and I are hilarious together. Two Gaijin (foreigners) in the middle of Japan attempting to understand the train systems and learning Kanji (or learning how much more we need to understand). It's been a blast! We laugh constantly. Last Wednesday we set out on an adventure to find a member's home... we some how ended up in the next ken (prefecture) and totally lost. We started housing and looked up to see a huge, massive statue.

Giant statue overlooking the neighborhood we got lost in.

Then we found two young mothers who have now become investigators :) On our way back, I stopped someone on their bike and it turns out that she is Vietnamese. (I know "hello", "I love you" and "God" in about 9 different languages) I used what little Vietnamese I knew and she ended up leading us all the way through town to the nearest train station where we sat down with her and told her about Sac Mac Mon (the Book of Mormon in Vietnamese) and exchanged numbers. It was a miracle! And so funny as we used a mixture of English, Vietnamese and Japanese.

Finally the coolest thing ever happened to me! We were on the local train line to teach an investigator and I saw three cute ten year olds on the train sitting near us. They were deaf. Luckily Oi Shimai (Sister Oi) had taught me some Japanese sign language before she left. I signed to them "how are you" and they freaked out. They were so excited! :) We had so much fun! One of the girls opened up her notebook and we started writing messages. When we had to get off the train and leave I gave them a free English class flyer and said if they came we would teach them American Sign Language :) Only one problem, I don't know any. Oops! I might be studying ASL from now on!