My way of thinking has changed

Today can be summed up in one word: Tabechatta. [This is Syd's mom.
I believe this word means something like "completed it / finished it", but I
will have to check with my Japanese speaking missionary on that one.]

We finished up our studies, and went to N.'s for food. We get in, take our

mandatory picture, and come into the kitchen to find an enormous (quick 

note: G. shimai, my companion, has the most adorable laugh.It's seriously 

the cutest thing in the entire world.) plate ofomuyakisoba with our seats 

marked by respective "UT"s and "LO" (forUtah and Rotterdam. XD So 

adorable!)

I hit about halfway through the omusoba before I realized that I couldn't 

eat it all. Despite G. shimai and I being shimaitachi (girls), N. did not give 

us lesser portions.

Anyway, it was a serious battle today to finish that omusoba. It got
worse as he pulled out the spice cake and yogurt. It was rough. But by
slowness and steadiness, I won. And thank heavens.

Afterwards, S. chourou and E. chourou gave a really good lesson on 

forgiveness. And I said, "N. Forgiveness isn't something you do for 

the benefit of others--it's something you do for yourself. Just a little 

bit ago, you talked about cancer. Grudges are like spiritual cancer. 

When you forgive someone, you accept the love of Christ and it heals 

you. You can't heal others. That's their choice to make." And he stopped 

talking and thought for a really long time. After a moment, N. began 

punctuating the silence with "Oh, I see." and "That makes sense." Then 

he looked at me and said, "My way of thinking has changed." And I was 

really happy--you don't get one of those kind of compliments every day.

Then we filled the rest of the day with SKK (weekly planning).

Oh, wait, we also met D and W again. That was fun. It always gets
really intense in their lessons. But they want to know like, super
deep doctrine, which is awesome and fun, but doesn't help anyone
before they have the basics down. But, they're super and I like them,
so I guess I can't complain too much. I just gotta pray hard to have the
spirit with me, and not just my pot of Gospel Trivia.

*******

I love you all--have a great week and I can testify that as
you live the gospel right, you will be happier that you are. There's
always something more we can do to be something more.

Love,
Sanzu shimai