Bike angels

1st companion in Japan, Sis D.

One of Sydney's 1st weekly email letters home, from Japan:

 

Oh, and let me just say that I love love love my new douryou (Sister/companion). She's magical, and can do literally everything and is super nice, and... well, you'll be hearing a lot about her.

12/7

"Okay, so Friday, I had the privilege to participate in the mountain run, which, as the name implies, was largely uphill. This quickly became the Mountain Walk for Sands Shimai. My douryou tried to encourage me, but I was in no mood to be encouraged and puffed out "Douryou, I love you. Please don't talk to me. I am very much aware of how out of shape I am."

But the sunrise was beautiful--the sky was a rainbow, and the horizon was a dark bar of crimson, isolated by a strip of clouds. It really was very pretty.

Later, (Me: Wow. My muscles are gonna be sore tomorrow. Body: Why wait? :D), we got our new companions. My new companion is magical. My mission president read my name (it was no surprise--there were only two other sisters and they had gotten paired first) and she ran up and hugged me. My immediate thought was "Oh my gosh. I love her."

I wasn't expecting that. Well, anyways, my douryou is magical and takes very, very good care of me. I'm really looking forward to our training and companionship--I hope I can help her, too. According to her, we've had a very abnormal first two days.

Now, bikes.

If I've learned about anything these past two days, it's bikes. Before I begin, it must be understood that I have not touched a bike for the past 5-7 years, and my physical ability is... well, wanting. Severely. Alright, here we go--

1.) Bikes are smaller than we give them credit for. Those bikes can squeeze into some pretty absurd places. For instance, there's this tiny tunnel that we passed through--maybe 3/4 of my height, and my new douryou, D. Shimai, informed me that she and her previous douryou loved to speed though and duck under the tunnel. She said she'd wait for me to be ready and we could do it together. Shell be waiting for a long while. That being said,

2.) Bikes are a lot bigger than we give them credit for, and pedestrians are easy, slow-moving targets. That's all I'll say on the matter.

3.) There will always be a headwind. There will always be a headwind. There will ALWAYS be a headwind. I had the exciting opportunity to take an hour-long bike ride to an investigator's house (remember my physical condition). We went one way, and I thought, "Well, this is remarkable. I am moving diagonally. Well, at least we'll have the wind at our backs when we go home."

Nope. Headwind both ways. To and from. So, I learned a very, very valuable lesson: Satan will always be there, discouragement will always try to nudge you one way or the other or make your unworked spiritual muscles scream in agony (I could barely stand after hopping off--I'd wobble and stagger a couple steps each time we dismounted). There is no use in asking God to make it go away. It won't. There must be opposition in all things and so there will always, always be a headwind. But, most importantly,

4.) Angels are pushing your bicycle. When douryou and I began the ride back, I went maybe five minutes before my legs began to scream at me. So we stopped and got seran wrap (not randomly--it was on the shopping list), then continued. I tried to get in the "Come what may and love it attitude, but despite the scriptures, hymns, and peptalks recited, I wasn't having much success. As we got on a road near the highway, D. Shimai said, in her brightest voice, "If we get to choose our jobs when we get to the celestial kingdom, I want to be one of the angels that pushes missionaries on their bikes." And she told me a story about doing things she couldn't have done alone.

Here, we stopped at my request for a drink of water. She informed me that we were a good thirty min away from home. She also told me to take it easy if I needed to.

Me: *looks in dismay at the stoplight 20 minutes away*...

Ds: We can do whatever you want.

Me: I can walk... *looks at bike*

Ds: Okay.

Then I capped my water bottle, looked at her and said "I mean, I can walk... but we get angels if we bike,right?" My douryour assured me that we could get off at any point in time, and so we mounted and biked off. This whole time, I was chanting "God gave me this bike. If God gave me this bike, He will help me ride it. There are angles like Sister D. pushing my bike. I can make it. God Gave me this bike..." (punctuated with the occasional "It'd be REALLY nice to have some angels right about now...")

And they came. No flash of light, no splitting of the veil, no physical push or shove, but when I mounted that bike, I went far faster than I had gone the trip before, and after 15-20 minutes, my legs stopped hurting. I mean, yes, they hurt, but it wasn't screaming at me. I was able to push it to the back of my mind. That was a miracle.

God does that sometimes, I guess. :)

I'm so sorry, time's up, the mission calls. Love you so much!  Email you again next Monday!

Postage--Send all mail to the mission home in Kobe, and do it by USPS, not FedEx or anything besides the government postage, because that's the only one that allows forwarding.