A Day in the Life

Being a Senior Missionary is the BEST!

I'll try to give you an idea of how we spend our days. We try to incorporate the young missionary schedule in some ways by including gospel and language study, and exercise into our daily routine. A typical day includes some or all of the following: exercise (usually a walk around the neighborhood), gospel study, nursing calls and documentation (for me), language study (for Dave more than me but I'm trying), working on assignments from the Mission President, shopping for the day's food and necessities, assisting the young missionaries as needed, attending activities or meetings with the young missionaries. Activities include a weekly Family Home Evening at the church for anyone who wants to attend, a weekly English class at the church, District planning meetings, Zone conferences, and other training meetings. Some days we drive missionaries to MD appointments or to stores when they need a specialty item that can't be found in one of their local stores. 

These are some of the sights we see on our daily walks. Our neighborhood is a wonderfully eclectic mix of old and new, private and public. Some traditional architecture single family homes, some modern homes, some apartment buildings, many businesses....all mixed together in a neighborhood called Oyama.

 A children's school bus:

A moving van. Remember the roads are quite narrow and so are the trucks.

A neighborhood garden.

We live at the base of a small mountain (hill) and this is the bamboo forest at the top of our street.

 Nestled in this forest is a shrine. They have many versions of shrines throughout the country, from very small and open and simple to very large and ornate. This one is medium in size and is enclosed.

As beautiful as our neighborhood is, and as fun as it is to explore a foreign country and it's culture, our main goal is to serve the young missionaries and help support them as they carry out the difficult assignment they have of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Japanese people. They work so hard every day, all day, and we want to do whatever we can to lighten their load.

Another thing we are tasked with doing is apartment checks. All missionary apartments are checked once every transfer cycle (6 weeks) by a senior missionary couple. We check them for cleanliness, organization, safety, and function. It is so fun to go visit them at their apartments and have a chance to get to know them a little better. Our missionaries in our zone do a fantastic job keeping their apartments clean and organized. We did two apartment checks this past week--one in Oita, a city about 3 hours from us here, and another one here in Kumamoto.

These are our Oita sisters--Sister Richards and Sister McCully. They are the only missionaries in their town, 3 hours from us, 2 hours from the Mission President, and about an hour from any other missionaries. Think about that! Two native English speakers in a Japanese town, far from anyone familiar, yet they are thriving. They know all their ward members by name, they know how to get around town, they teach English classes, they work with the Ward Mission leader and other members, they teach the gospel, they serve the community, and they encourage other missionaries during weekly Skype meetings.

These are our sisters here in Kumamoto--Sister Monson and Sister Sato. They are assigned to the Nagamine Ward which is the ward that shares the Stake Center with the Kumamoto Ward. They live the closest to our apartment and even rode their bikes here to bring us a cute Easter origami they made for us on Easter evening. Whaaaat?? We are supposed to be serving them, but they made us so happy. They make a great pair because they have different strengths and talents that compliment each other, but both are loving and kind and dedicated. People are drawn to them because of their outgoing and friendly personalities and they have a large following of friends. And like the Oita sisters, they are knocking this missionary thing out of the park.

Well, we have 4 more apartments to check over the next few weeks, so I will introduce you to our other fabulous missionaries when we do that. And we have a new assignment from President Mack that I will tell you about next time. Exciting stuff!

We wake up everyday so grateful for the opportunity to be here. Thank you to each and every one of you who have prayed for us and served us in so many ways. The Lord is so good, and it is our testimony that He lives and that He loves each one of us more than we can comprehend. Because of Him and through Him, we can become better every day if we put our faith in Him. This knowledge brings me great peace and joy. I think that is why being a missionary is the BEST--we can share that peace and joy with others, whether we wear a missionary tag or not. What a gift!