FAMILY! happy mothers day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MITCH FELIZ CUMPLEANOS (pretend there's a tilde there) and TANJOBI OMEDITOU GOZAIMASU!!! I'm so happy I was able to talk to you on the phone (:

slash it was so nice to talk to you all on the phone! (:

I mentioned a lot of things over the call so this email might be really short because time is blurring together. My companion hit her half way mark last thursday and she's a transfer older than me which means I'll be half way done with my mission next transfer. hahahha and I've decided that sisters should be allowed to serve for 2 years because I still feel like I've only been here for like a month. But then sometimes I feel like I've been here my whole life and that family and college and anything that's happened before September 18th of 2013 was a dream. 

Wakayama is AMAZING and a super good mix of city and farmland. Actually there are only a couple of small farm/gardens that aren't being taken care of and I'm　trying to imagine how any of my Toyooka friends would feel about this. But the people here are YOUNG!!!!! except for our ward mission leader who is 80 years old but he is the most on-top-of-missionary work person ever and has so much dendo fire and is really just a 30 year old man in a 50 year old man body born 80 years ago. He is marvelous. We have a WARD <3 and when we biked over here today we ran into some ladies who were talking in the parking lot and told us they wanted to go visit less actives with us THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT THAT IS OUR NEW RESPONSIBILITY. #intunewiththespirit. Sunday was fantastic because the whole ward was 1. shocked and 2. beaming that there are now sisters working in Wakayama. No one in the ward remembers ever having sisters before ever and the sisters in relief society were getting super pumped up and I love them. 

Leaving toyooka was the hardest thing of my whole life. I haven't changed: I still cried when I left them all. I'm just not even embarrassed anymore hahha. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Everyone was super sweet and wrote me little letters and gave us lots of delicious food and took us out for meals and my little girls gave me a bunch of hello kitty stuff. If I could've stayed, I would have. I also discovered donuts stuffed with anko beans. They are my favorite. I don't even like donuts.

I feel like this email is super lame compared to all the roller coasters of feelings I had this week. We're moving into the apartment and almost done setting up things to make it livable. Really what it comes down to is until we get the less active work rolling we'll be hitting the streets-- same as usual. Finding the people prepared to hear the best message in the galaxy that'll change their lives forever and the lives of all of their relatives and probably friends. The extent of this work is incomprehensible. 

I love you all! <3 

<3 Daniels shimai

p.s. my new bike is a mix between an elders bike and a sisters bike. and it's all black with a Jesus Christ yellow sticker on it. we call it the BAT

1. GRUNDVIG SHIMAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

2. one last look at the sea of Japan