岐阜--Gifu: It's Big (1/15)
皆さんこんにちは!お元気ですか? I am officially in Gifu and what an experience it has been so far. A few facts about Gifu:
-My area is huge! The area recently absorbed another area (Ogaki), so it's now one of the biggest in the mission. Not sure how much of it we'll explore over the next 5 weeks, but the possibilities are endless!
-Gifu is very big city. The train station is huge and there are so many stores! I've always wanted to serve in big city, so I'm really excited for this transfer. There's also a ton of shrines and castles and parks (Gifu is also a really big tourist spot) so I'm hoping to go see some of those in the P-days to come!
-Gifu Media Cosmos is a huge library/community center where they have books, food, clubs, and lots of students studying! It's become my new favorite place and I wish we had them in America. I don't think I've ever seen so many people at a library before. It was also really cool to see a whole library full of Japanese books. Turns out I'm actually in Japan. Who knew?
-Gifu Ward is huge as well! (Are you sensing a theme?) There's over 100 members and a lot of them are actually young! Haha, it was crazy coming to church on Sunday because it almost felt like a ward in America. And the best part is everyone is so fired up to do missionary work! We had so many people arranging meetings with us and telling us about ideas, it was crazy. And a little overwhelming. I'm not used to having this much ward support! But I'm excited to experience a different kind of missionary work here in Gifu.
I'm still learning lots about the area everyday, but we're slowly getting a handle on things and figuring out the best way to do things. Speaking of which, my companion (Sharpe Shimai) is amazing! She's from New Zealand, is 26, was an English teacher before her mission, and is so funny. She has so many fun and awesome ideas and I'm just trying to keep up and make them happen, haha. We're still learning lots about each other each day, but I'm excited to spend the next 5 weeks with her trying to bring others unto Christ.
Not a ton happened this past week (mostly logistic boring stuff that comes with whitewashing an area) but the highlight was definitely the traditional Mochi Tsuki Taikai. AKA: everyone comes together and beats rice with a mallet until it turns into weird edible bubblegum playdough type stuff. In all honesty, I'm not the biggest fan of it. And after Saturday, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat it again. But it was fun! The whole ward got together and we spent five hours making different flavors of mochi. Shrimp, sweet potatoe, sweet red bean paste, strawberry, sweet black beans, just to name a few. The members kept giving us samples, which was very nice of them. But I don't understand how they were eating so much of it. Maybe it's an acquired taste? Either way, I had fun banging the hammer. I still have to get the video from the elders, but I'll at least send some photos.
That's about it. Sorry this week's is a little shorter. Hopefully next week will be more exciting ;) Thanks as always for the letters/love/support/emails/
アルマー姉妹
Sister Armour
Sister Armour
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