She rides her bike under this bridge every day.Rainy season in Kagoshima is now officially over. Yayyy!!! But it is HOT!!!! Every day I sweat gallons...it's disgusting. The worst part is that we have a rule in the mission for using the AC only from 9 PM-12PM and 6AM to 11 AM... it sounded reasonable when they first told us...but now that summer's actually come I've realized it's not enough!! Last night I woke up twice cause I was sweating like a pig. It was NASTY! It's the worst feeling waking up all gross and sweaty.
one of our investigator we've been teaching is super sweet and likes taking the lessons, but her friends are not a very good influence on her, so it's been really hard for her to change her lifestyle. but little by little she's progressing, so that's good news.
Anyways, story of the week. Last Monday I had my very first ride in an ambulance! No worries, I'm totally fine. My companion had a little bit of a bicycle accident. And no worries, she's totally fine too. I saw everything from behind, so it was a little scary, but long story short, the Lord truly protects his missionaries. It was 8:30 and we were heading back to our apartment (we had just gotten on our bikes so we were riding pretty slow) Well, a car broadsided my companion with alot of speed. It was really scary. I thought for sure she had broken a bone or something. The front headlight of the car broke and the hood was dented a bit, but literally not a scratch on my companion. Only bruises. Even the bike was totally fine! The chain fell off but that was about it. There was a man across the street who was watching when the accident happened, so he called the cops and the ambulance right away. It was pretty intense...but really, everything was completely fine. TRULY a miracle!
So this week I learned alot about prayer and faith. I read the most amazing article about calling upon the powers of heaven. There are things, especially in the mission, that no matter how hard we try, we cannot accomplish by ourselves. Mostly things that involve other people's free agancy. BUT that doesn' t mean there's nothing we can do about it. If we have the adequate faith, we can call upon the powers of heaven to assist us in our goal. If I were home I'd totally pull a grandpa, copy the article and give it out to everybody! It's written directed toward misisonaries, but I think it applies to everyone who is in need of help from the Lord. It really helped me focus my prayers and reminded me of the knid of faith I need to have. Maybe you can read it on the internet or something. It's called "Use faith as a principle of power" from a book called Tools for Missionaries by Grant Harrison. (I think it was a BYU textbook) Anyways, if you can find it, you should all read it. In a nutshell, it's a "How to see miracles".
The work here in Taniyama is good. We're busy teaching lessons all the time. We still don't have any baptismal dates, but we had a family come to church for the first time!!!! So hopefully we can set a date for them soon! We have so many investigators that are SO CLOSE! I'll keep you updated when we set a date.
