Weekly Typhooned Mail

Early this week we went up to a town called Nago and did companion exchanges, and we had quite the adventure. They are in a trio so I went with Elder Egan & Ishijima while my companion went with the third, Elder Chantry. We spent a lot of time in the sun walking and talking to people, I applied sunscreen four times, to protect my authentic whiteness, and after dinner we rode out pretty far to a place we prayed & decided on in order to find people who will let us teach them and as soon as we got there Elder Egan's bike decided it had had enough. After 45 failed minutes of trying to fix it we went just decided to continue with our plan, talked to 3 people and 2 said that we could come back and teach them next week! Then we had a lesson nearby, and by then it was 8:40 and we were waiting for a member we called earlier to come save us and by 9:45 we arrived home with a ute full of bikes, with us in another.

That was definitely the highlight of the week, because after getting home we spent the next two and a half days inside because a Typhoon came through Okinawa. Amongst other things we studied, called some investigators, practice teaching lessons... Then the cabin fever got to us and we made workout videos, made shaved legs (and arms too) and had a sweet EFY Music concert in our living room. 

Getting outside and Dendo-ing has never been so beautiful. Yesterday at Church my trainer now-Brother-Rogers gave his homecoming talk and I got a shoutout saying, "one of my companions is here, his name is Elder Wheeler and he's a great missionary so if you have any friends let him teach them." Nice plug.

I'm really loving Okinawa and the ward members too - American & Japanese. Still feel quite uncomfortable with English speakers, I feel so limited with my sad accent and my slangy habits ('cause the only English I've used in the last year and a half is with other 20 year olds!), but I'm getting here. This morning we went to Japanese seminary, and today we are going to the American Military base for lunch. This week we have another typhoon coming and tonight we are heading south to Futenma for companion exchanges, but these past few weeks of being Zone Leader with Elder Richards (my companion) have been super fun, and I've been trying to help our zone feel more united and everyone's working hard & happy so it's all going well!