Week 73 - Group Email - 01/06/19

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます！

We had a huge miracle this week. We got invited to a dinner at a member's home and they were nice enough pick us up at the church and drive us there and back. Well on the way back we were turning right at an intersection (across traffic because they drive on the left side here) and I was in the back seat studying some words when I looked up and saw a car coming at us way fast. I kinda yelled mite, mite, mite! (mite means look) He didn't have enough time to react so we got completely slammed by the other car. It hit us literally right where I was sitting. Elder Suzuki didn't have his seatbelt on and I saw him in the corner of my eye totally launch into the roof of the car. He learned his lesson lol. Both cars were able to pull over so we didn't make too much of a scene which was good. Besides Elder Suzuki's head bonk we were all totally fine. The member told me yesterday at church that his car was totalled so I felt really bad for him. He's just a super nice old man. The mechanic said he was really surprised no one got hurt based on the damage so it was a miracle for sure. That was quite the experience though and my second car crash ever. I'm just glad the cars here are like toys because if we got hit by a normal sized car we would've been toast. 😥

some other things:

- A less active member we have been visiting came to church yesterday! 
- For new years we went and watched the sunrise from a little hill by our apartment. It's something Japanese people like to do so joined the crowd. 
- We got invited to a member's home for lunch and planned to take the train and buses but once we got off the train at the bus stop we realized the buses weren't running due to the holiday so we had to go all the back and grab our bikes. We were one minute late 😬
- We got a new missionary fresh from the MTC named sister Schramm. Apparently her mom was baptized in this ward so her fam has visited here a lot. Well yesterday at church a member started facetiming someone then ran over to sister Schramm and it turned out to be her mom hahaha. Late Christmas I guess. 
- The members are awesome here so we had lots of meals this past week! 
- One of the recent converts that I baptized in my last area just moved to Utah on a 4 year visa and he told me he is living literally 2 miles from my house! Kinda crazy. It'll be way cool to see him when I get back. 

That's about it for the week. Love you guys!

ディーン長老