What a backyard!

My beautiful city!

I LOVE my bike (isn't the basket cute?)!

Christ is the Reason- Kirisuto wa Riyuu desu

Happy Birthday Sarah!! And congratulations. :) Dad--congrats on the marathon!! You are a beast! Grandpa: congratulations! You are a winner!! Your letter was the first one I have received in Japan! THANK YOU!!!!

What a fabulous blessing it is to be in here Mikunigaoka!

The highlight of our week has definitely been working with Matsuzaki san. He is our miracle investigator. It was only our second week after meeting him, but I feel like we have been teaching him forever. It is a comfortable feeling going into lessons and his testimony has grown immensely! On Monday night, we taught him the entire Plan of Salvation. He ate it all up. He loved it! His favorite part was of course learning about the celestial kingdom. He talked to us (in English, so I understood) about how much he loves being with his family, and how he feels so much comfort and happiness with them. He said that if he could feel that kind of happiness all the time, he would do anything. So on Tuesday night, we decided to teach him how to achieve that--we taught the gospel of Christ--faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Because he is a logical thinker, we just had to show him the goal of eternal life, show him the steps to make that goal, and it all made sense to him! Our member in the lesson went a little crazy during that lesson and started talking about the war in heaven and tons of details about the Fall of Adam and things that I honestly do not know much about, but we just kept trying to get back to our lesson plan and simplify it as much as possible! With 4 weeks from the time we met Matsuzaki san until the time he is baptized, there is a lot to teach in a little bit of time. However, the Lord has definitely been working with him for a long time. During our lesson on Thursday, Matsuzaki san was telling us a little bit about a business that he wants to start up, and then he began talking about how he was introduced to the gospel at just the right time. He said he had been thinking a lot about his desires in life and his purpose and what he should be doing, and just as he began exploring different options for work, he was introduced to the gospel, and he said he is so ready to learn about it all and he believes it and he knows it was no accident that we met him when we did. Wow. I knew it was a miracle that we found him, and our investigators recognizes how incredible it is too! He really has been such an honor to work with. This weekend he has been in the Philippines...he went to meet his girlfriend for the first time! She took him to church with her and to the temple...I hope everything went well!

Tuesday before our lesson, we called the member, Kitada kyoudai, to make sure he was still okay to be at the lesson. He said yes and then asked if we could go to his house an hour before the lesson for dinner. WELL. It was good, but it was SO MUCH!! Kitada shimai brought out a bowl of spaghetti, and it was about the size that our whole family eats, and she set it right in front of me and then brought another one for Dobson shimai! And in order to be nice, we had to eat the entire thing!! BLAH I felt so sick! My taste buds are big time changing though...it was mushroom spaghetti and I loved the mushrooms! Then on Thursday, Kitada kyoudai invited us over again for dinner! We REALLY did not want to go, and we would probably have told him no but it sounded like it was already prepared for us, so we went. We had salmon and radishes and a cabbage salad and potato salad and rice and ice cream. Believe it or not, my favorite part was the salmon and the radishes! They were DELICIOUS! I probably would have enjoyed the ice cream too, but by the time we got to that, I was so stinkin full. Also, they have 9 cats. Yeah.

Wednesday was a FUN day! We were going finding at the park, and we ran into a group of 8 year old girls. They were SO excited to see us! They talked with us (Dobson shimai haha) for a little while and then gave us some of their candy and we gave them stickers and pass along pictures of the temple and of Jesus. We were walking away, and then they chased after us so that they could get handshakes from us. Later, we saw them all again, and this time they were with their moms, so we decided to go up and talk to the moms. The little girls went crazy! They gave us their pass along cards and asked us to sign them. THen they got other papers and asked us to sign those too! THen they gave us more candy, and they were asking over and over if we could play with them. We showed them pictures of our families (they could not tell the difference between me and Sarah at all...it was so funny!) and then they taught us the Japanese version of Red Light Green Light. I did not understand a lot of it, but we played a couple rounds, and it seems a lot more fun in Japan. They were so cute! When we were leaving, they all had to give us handshakes again...ah it was the best! Eikaiwa on Wednesday night was also so great. Ha they were trying to say *music*, but they could not figure out if it was *muziku* or *muzika* or *muziki*. We said it is just *muzik* and they could NOT say it! I had a hard time holding in my laughter. We played a game at the end, and it was hilarious. At Eikaiwa, there were about 8 women and 3 men. They are pretty old, but during this game, they were acting like 3rd graders. THey were getting so excited about it all and jumping up and down and saying *i got it! I got it!* English is super exciting to them. After Eikaiwa, I was talking to one of the ladies, and it was the best conversation I have had here in Japan. Thankfully we were talking in English because I am not allowed to speak Japanese at Eikaiwa. I found out she has a 19 year old daughter who lives in America, so we started talking about families. I showed her my photo book, and she was just ooing and aawing the whole time! She thought we were all good looking, but more than that, she just kept saying, *they make you so happy!* *you are all happy!* *you must love them all so much, you are so happy!* It is true. You make me insanely happy. She asked if I missed you and I said I sure did but I could not be happier to be in Japan because I want to share our happiness with other people. She seemed super excited to come back to Eikaiwa this week and talk to me again. Yay!

Again, on Friday and Saturday, Dobson shimai and Murayama shimai left. When Dobson shimai and Murayama shimai leave, it is always a huge learning experience for me and Griffin shimai. This week we did less streeting than normal. Elections are going on here so there are people with big signs yelling at the top of their lungs all over the place. It is crazy hectic. And they get in these big white vans and speak on the megaphones and drive through all the streets. It is so noisy here! Oh speaking of noise, this is random, but the garbage trucks here play music. Like ice cream truck music, but they are garbage trucks haha. We did not want to compete with the　noise though, so we spent quite a bit of time housing and quite a bit of time mogiing the Setting the Table lesson and working to memorize it (That is the first lesson that we always give to new investigators, it basically talks about God and our purpose and such. We definitely are not supposed to be memorizing our scripts as missionaries, but Zinke kaicho said that this script was revelation, and the Lord will bless us with more investigators when we are prepared to present this lesson well.) While we were housing, the most embarrassing thing happened! We were going through neighborhoods next to one of Griffin shimai*s investigators. We came to a house and the girl who answered said to wait, and after about 2 minutes, she came out of her house. Griffin shimai began the little introduction about who we are and stuff, and the whole time I was looking at this girl thinking that she looked just like one of our investigators, Chiho chan. I could not get over how much they looked the same! Then she said something about Dobson shimai, so I then thought, *oh she must be Chiho chans cousin or sister!* Well, she went in her house and came out with a letter for Dobson shimai, then went back in her house. We turned the corner, I turned around 2 or 3 times, and then realized we were at Chiho chans house! It was Chiho chan! Now this is why that is embarrassing: we had just had a lesson with Chiho chan on Tuesday, and we have another lesson scheduled for this week.  She is the nice cute one who gave us the delicious fruit! Out of our 11 investigators, she is one of 3 that we are actually in contact with! And I went and housed her without even knowing it! Haha Griffin shimai and I laughed about that for a LONG time. 

It is clear I am not very good with my directions or recognizing where I am, but that may actually be a blessing in disguise. Saturday night, Dobson shimai and I had about 30 minutes to go out housing, so we did a neighborhood that is pretty close to our apartment. At one of the houses, a mom and her 3 daughters all came out to talk to us. Well, she told us that she has already had missionaries come to her house. She said it was just a few weeks ago and it was 2 young girls who could not speak Japanese and they were looking down at notes the whole time. That was definitely me and Griffin shimai. BUT she must have been impressed with Dobson shimais Japanese, because she said we could come back! We are teaching the family on Wednesday and we are SO excited!! Dobson shimai has been working so hard to be prepared for a family, and I KNOW the Lord led us to this family! 

As part of the Kobe Mission, we have 4 questions that we should always be thinking about to make sure we are being true disciples. They are *why am I here* *who called me* *whose work is this* and *what is my purpose*. This week, I have really been focusing on *why am I here.* I have learned more than ever this week how much of the work is God. God is the one who prepared Matsuzaki san. God is the one who is changing his heart. God is the one who is letting him understand the message and desire more. There really is nothing I did to have all of these miracles happen. So why am I here? I do not have a perfect answer to that question, 

I know that God is real! I KNOW He has a plan for each one of us, and I KNOW He loves every single person! 

With that in mind, have a FANTASTIC week!! 

Love,

Crofts shimai

Dad: are you running in the Boston Marathon?? I forgot, did you ever come to Japan? And if so, where?

Mom: You are the best ever! And p.s., adopting a Japanese baby would have been better than adopting a black baby...they are SO CUTE!! Family is really important here in Japan, and so I see a gazillion and one moms with their little kids and little babies and they are all just adorable. And I can see you being a good mom here...riding a bike with a kid in a seat in front and a kid in a seat in back and a little kid trying to ride with training wheels beside his mom. It is fun here :) p.s. could you forward me ty:s letters? and maybe my other friends like kayden and emily and such? thanks i love you!!!!!

Jason and Becca: I hope school is going super well!

Peach and Jana: Enjoy the rain! oh haha nursery. I bet yall are having the best time ever with that!

Tyler: The Lord said, *according to thy faith, be it unto you.* I believe the Lord definitely will do all things according to our faith. Keep up the good work! 

Sarah: wow. congrats. ahhahahahaha crazy girl. you are crazy! I am glad you got the package! Everybody here uses decorated tape...nobody uses normal tape. If you want a certain color or pattern, i am sure i can find it for you! Plus, did you not like the black thunders?

Danny; I have not been blown up yet. THe best food is a okonomiyaki...it is a cabbage pancake type thing. I like to put onions and carrots and eggplant and lots and lots of cabbage in mine. the worst food--some smoothie thing than an investigator bought for me with bananas and yogurt and vegetables and i am pretty sure it had seaweed in it. blah i thought i was going to die. have fun this week!

Joseph; konnichiwa!

Grandpa Vance: thanks for the letter! I appreciate your efforts to greet me in Japanese, but Jitensha actually means bicycle. Haha. Next time try konnichi wa! THanks again!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

I Stand All Amazed

I cannot believe how fast my weeks are flying! I will share with you some of our special experiences we have had this week. 

First of all, remember Matsuzaki san? We met him last week when the Lord directed us right to his apartment at right the exact time and he said he wanted to be taught. We taught him about God on Sunday, then we talked about God and prayer on Monday. We felt like we should extend the baptismal invitation, which is weird because usually in Japan that does not come until the fourth or fifth or sixth lesson. Anyway, we asked if he would be baptized, and he said YES! YAY!!!! That is exciting news! For us and for his girlfriend and for everybody in heaven I am sure! We were SO HAPPY! So we taught him again on Saturday and again on Sunday and we have another lesson with him tonight! He is a fantastic investigator. We can definitely tell he has been SO prepared by the Lord. We will teach him a simple concept, then he will think through it and explain it back to us, and then ask just the right kind of question. It is always the kind of question that lets us know that he has really been thinking through it, and it almost always leads right into what we had planned on teaching next. He has such a strong desire to know for himself the truth. It is an honor and a privilege to work with somebody so prepared by the Lord!

Griffin shimai and I were alone again for a couple days this week. Of course, the thought of being alone for two days scared me to death. My Japanese skills are slowly improving...but SLOWLY. So I was worried because I knew that we probably would not have much success, because we cannot do much. However, on Wednesday during companionship study, we read *Finding People* from PMG as part of the 12 week training program. That section talks a lot about how we have the power of God with us, and as we testify with the Spirit, it will reach the hearts of the people and they will be able to recognize us as servants of God. After reading and discussing this section, I was beyond excited to go out and testify of the great message of the Restoration. I was praying so hard and completely relying on the Lord*s power (because I still do not speak Japanese. Haha reallly...). We were streeting by the Mikunigaoka eki. As usual, we would go up to people and after saying we are missionaries for Christs church (because nobody here understands what latter day saints is. In fact a most have never even heard of Christ.), they would all say something like *I am busy* or *kekko* or whatever. After about ten minutes, we finally went up to somebody who was willing to listen past our simple introduction. So immediately I bore my testimony that I know God loves everyone, and I asked her if she wanted to learn more, and she said YES! The power of testimony is so real! We set up a time to meet with her and got her phone number. Unfortunately, because I was so excited and I am still inexperienced, I forgot to set up a place to meet, and she has not been answering her phone. However, it was such a testimony to me that God really is working through me and as I bear testimony of this powerful message, I will be able to find people who are ready to hear the gospel. The rest of the day as we were streeting and housing, even though we continued to get *kekko*ed, I was just so proud to be putting forth all my efforts to bear such a powerful message.

On Thursday we always do weekly planning, which takes hours. So we usually do not have much time to go out and find more people. However, we decided to take just half an hour in between weekly planning and a lesson to go out streeting. We were by the eki, but we just got kekkoed a bunch, so at the end of that half hour, we were going back to our bikes and we saw an old lady walking down another road. We decided to go talk to her. Good decision! Dobson shimai went up to her and said the liked her hat, and this lady just started talking like crazy! I did not understand a word she said, but she was just talking on and on and on and she looked so happy and excited to see us! Before i knew it, we were walking to our church with her, and then we sat in our chapel and she talked some more. Dobson shimai let me know what was going on. This lady is 89 years old. She lives next to our church. She had been going to another Christian church, but about a year ago she moved away and so she has not gone to church yet and she said she has been really sad because she can not go to church. She asked us if there was any way we would allow her to come to our church. YES! We invited her to church and she was so excited to come! 

Haha so there is a typhoon here right now. That basically means that it is raining hard and it is windy, but everybody has been making a big deal about it. A lot of people do not come to church when there is a typhoon. We had quite a few people tell us they would come to church if it was not raining. This old lady we met did not come to church, probably because of the weather. Anyway, it is raining and I love it. But that is all haha.

On Saturday we had about 15 minutes in between two things, so we decided to go stop by one of our old investigators houses. She is a young teenager, and she had to stop taking lessons with us because she has to spend all of her time studying for a college entrance exam that is in April. The teenagers here study like crazy!! It is hard because they are the people who are most interested in our religion, but they can never meet because they always have to study. Anyway, we stopped by her house to give her a little bag with little sweettarts from Dobson shimais dad (I do not know if I ever mentioned that he visited her last week. He spoke in church and ate at the members home with us.) So we gave her this little bag, and she went in her house and came out with a big bag full of big fruits! THey are these apple/pear fruit things that are more than 2 dollars each and they are huge and delicious! She gave us 5 of them, which is a lot. Then she asked if she could meet us at the church this week for a lesson! How does missionary work get any easier? So we are meeting with her this week. I am excited because she is so happy and nice!!

Yesterday at church I understood a lot more of the Japanese! yAY! (OOPS THIS KEYBOARD IS CRAZY AND i JUST SWITCHED INTO CAPS LOCK AND I DONT KNOW HOW TO CHANGE IT.) THE PEOPLE IN THIS AREA OF JAPAN SPEAK REALLY BAD JAPANESE. THE JAPANESE SISTER WHO IS IN MY APARTMENT SAID SHE HAS A HARD TIME UNDERSTANDING THEM, AND OUR INVESTIGATOR MATSUZAKI SAN SAID HE COULD NOT UNDERSTAND AT ALL ONE OF THE MEMBERS WE BROUGHT TO A LESSON. ANW\YWAY, WE GOT A NEW BISHOPRIC YESTERDAY, SO OUR STAKE PRESIDENT, WHO LIVES IN A DIFFERENT AREA, CAME TO SPEAK AND I ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD PROBABLY 60 PERCENT OF HIS TALK! 

OKAY SORRY ABOUT THE ALL CAPS. I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU ALL!! AND I LOVE LOVE LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK! 

LOVE,

KRIS

O P.S. IT IS A HOLIDAY HERE IN JAPAN. *RESPECT THE ELDERS DAY*. SO GRANDPARENTS, I LOVE YOU. 

Dad: My bike riding is super pro now. I have 6 gears on my bike, but even after all of the many many lessons you gave me on gears, I still do not really understand them. So I stay on gear 4. But it is flat here so I would not change it much anyway. We went to a different area for district meeting this week, and there were so many hills! I was dying trying to walk up the hill to the church it was SOO steep! So I hope if I go to that area ever I can figure out gears. Also I hear there are monkeys in that area. Cool! 

Mom: I found more tennis courts right next to my apartment. If you ever feel like google earthing Mikunigaoka, you could find our church building, and our apartment is near by, and then you could see all the tennis courts. And you could look up Kanaoka park and see all the tennis courts there too. It is a fun city!

Jason and Becca: Thanks for the emails. And thanks for warning me about dads letter Jason. Unfortunately, my mind had already been dirtied by it. Becca, I still can not get over how cute your belly is. Hahaha. There are lots of cute decorating things and such that remind me of you here. 

Peach and Jana: How is life?

Saud: Congrats on turning 17!!!! Ahh my dear little sister HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! O TANJOBI OMEDETO GOZAIMASU!!! I LOVE YOU!!!! Oh and congrats on being asked to homecoming! How is life?

Dan: school sounds like fun! I used to walk through the field where your school is now every day on my way home from the bus stop.

Joe: the church is true. How is karate?

I LOVE YOU ALL! BYE BYE!

First run in beautiful Kobe!

KAZOKU

It is great to be writing you again! I hope everything is going well for everybody!

Japan is perfect for me. I do not know if I was made specifically for Japan, or if Japan was made specifically for me. All I know is that I love everything about Japan! Maybe one reason for this is that Japan is actually a lot how I expected it to be. We go down the street and there is a little old Japanese grandpa riding his bike with an umbrella attached to it. Then we go further down the street and there is a group of school girls dressed up in their school uniforms with violin cases on their shoulders. It is so cute!

When I first arrived in Japan, I was thinking if I were to design a city, it would turn out exactly like Japan. The architecture and the layout and the weather and everything just seems like something my brain would come up with.

Another thing that is perfect about Japan is the clothes. Oh my goodness we went to the mall last Monday so I could get my dendo back, and wow. Wow wow wow! You know how I never liked shopping? Well that is because I had a hard time finding exactly what I wanted. Well this mall had 5 floors, and in every single store, everything was exactly something I would LOVE to walk around wearing! I LOVE the style here in Japan!! It is SO CUTE!! Anyway, I am a missionary so I got a little simple dendo bag. But I might just fly to Japan every year for my Christmas shopping.

Tuesday was a day based completely on FAITH. In my apartment there is me and sister Dobson and then another companionship of a sister who came to Japan with me and the other sister is from Japan. Well sister dobson and the japanese sister are the sister training leaders, so on Tuesday they went to the mission home for training, and sister Griffin and I were left on our own! We were two girls who had arrived in Japan less than a week before and could not speak any Japanese and we had ALL day to make the best use of the Lord:s time! After study, we set out to work. We went to a college, because we figured we could hand out english class flyers and they would be excited about that. Well, they were not really excited about it. People really tried to avoid us. In fact, one person read our name tag and saw that it said Jesus Christ and she ran away! I have noticed a trend with the people here. When little girls see me, they get excited and wave a lot. When middle-school age girls see me, they laugh. I haven:t figured out why yet. When teenage girls see me, they usually get really shy around me. When anybody older than teenager sees me, they do their best to avoid me. When little boys see me, they just stare. Haha a lot of times they do double takes and then triple takes and then they just stare. When teenage boys see me they just go crazy. Kind of like in America. Anyway, so Sister Griffin and I were on our own, and we could not really talk, so we left the college. We went to the trainstation and tried to talk to people, but not one person wanted to talk. We just kept telling each other that even though we could not talk, we had dendo fire, and the Lord was aware of our efforts and he would step in and make up the difference for what we could not do. We spent a LONG time housing, but we still did not have one person who wanted to listen to us. After dinner, we went back to another trainstation. This time a few people were slightly willing to at least listen to us, but because we had no practice with anything past our introduction, we usually did not know what to say so we ended up throwing out some Japanese words and giving the people english class flyers. Around 7 30, we were expecting Dobson Shimai and Murayama shimai to return, so we were just waiting around the trainstation trying to get people to talk to us. The coolest thing happened! A girl around our age and her grandma walked out of a restaurant and when we started talking they both got so excited! Apparently the girl had just returned home after a year in Canada and she was so excited to see people who spoke english! So we talked to her for quite a while and got her number and we are meeting with her next week!

Wednesday was a nice welcome to dendo (dendo is missionary work) day. We were biking to an investigators home when it suddenly started raining. And when I say rain I mean pour. It was pouring rain SO SO hard! And we are biking as fast as we can and there is rain splattering off of me, and because I am new here, I do not have a rain coat or rain boots yet. I got SOAKED!!! The investigator ended up not being home, so we decided to go back to the church and get ready for the next lesson. Well it was raining SO hard. And when there are two girls in Japan riding their bikes around town and the one in back is wearing just a little skirt and a little sweater and little shoes and it is pouring rain and she is more wet than she even gets in the shower, she just has to laugh. So of course I was laughing really hard. I always say konnichi wa to everyone I pass as I am biking, and I got more hellos and his back on that day than ever before! I think I might just never buy a raincoat or rainboots because I think it was good missionary work!

Thursday we had a super interesting lesson. THe investigators are a 13 year old boy and his mom. They had only had a couple lessons before (about God and prayer) and they did not believe it at all. THe boy only kept meeting because he wanted to see if there were any connections between religion and science, and the mom just wanted to learn about Christianity. Dobson shimai planned the lesson for them before I got in the area, and she had had the feeling to do the First Vision lesson, which is really weird because in Japan that is usually after at least four lessons. Anyway, we got there, and this boy had two of his 14-year old friends over, and his little sister was in the room, so it was CRAZY! THe boys were laughing and talking and the little sister was just yelling and making noise the whole time! CRAZY!! But we showed the Joseph SMith movie, and one of the 14 year old boys was SO interested in it. His eyes were glued to the TV despite the distractions. Afterward, we asked our investigator what he thought of it, and he said that he could not believe it because science does not support it. We asked the mom and she said there is no way she could believe it without actually seeing it. Then that 14 year old boy jumped in and said I believe it!! We were just like REally?? And he said yeah can you teach me how to pray? And we said YES!!! He became a new investigator. The Lord works in mysterious ways, but He is definitely working.

Friday we had a zone training meeting that was really really good. I LOVE my zone! Everybody calls me lauracroftshimai. Haha they are fascinated by my name. We talked a lot about how we have these goals as a mission and we have so many tools to make these goals, so now we need to go to work and access the Lords power and make these goals happen! After the meeting, a few of us sisters went to a sushi restaurant! This restaurant was the coolest thing ever! There are just little plates with sushi and they go around the whole restaurant on a little conveyor belt so you can sit at your table and if you see something you want you grab it off the conveyor belt. At the end, they count your plates and you pay by the plate. It is the most genius idea I have ever seen. I think it would be a huge hit in america. With american food. I must say, the only thing I liked was my little plate of chicken. Haha.

Saturday the Lord really worked miracles through us!! So on Thursday night we received a referral from the MTC. We went to find him right away, but as you know, addresses are extremely confusing in Japan, so we had a super duper hard time finding his house. After going back and forth and asking a lot of people, we finally found where he lives, and it was an apartment. We tried calling him and his phone number didn:t work, and we did not have his apartment room number. By that time, it was time to return home anyway. On Saturday morning we decided to go back during our study to try to find him. We planned on just housing the whole apartment until we found him. We started on the first floor and not one person answered. We got about halfway through the second floor and somebody finally answered! (he answered his little microphone doorbell thing). We gave our little introduction and he said to wait and then we heard him speaking in english in the background and he said they are here at the door right now! I think I will let them in. So he came to the door and invited us in! We actually could not go in because we are two sisters and he was the only one home, so then he went and grabbed his computer and brought it to the door. On his computer he was skyping with somebody and when she saw us, she got SO EXCITED!! She was going crazy!! So apparently she is from the phillipines, she is his english teacher, she is a return missionary, and they are dating! She was the one who had sent in the referral and when she saw that there were two sister missionaries at the door, she went crazy! Anyway, he is a new investigator of ours. I know the Lord made it so we arrived at his door right at the perfect timing so we could meet his girlfriend and have everything work out. MIRACLE. He came to church yesterday and then we gave a short lesson afterward about God. At the end, we asked him if he had any questions and he said, *how can I know for myself if it is true.* THat is a perfect question!! We said *we will teach you taht!* and so tonight we are going back to teach him and we have a feeling he will be baptized really soon!!!

Later on Saturday we had another miracle lesson. We found Mari chan in the area book and just randomly decided to call her, and she said she would love to have a lesson! We met her at the church and gave her the lesson about God, and she was SO HAPPY. She kept saying over and over how happy she was to hear from us and to hear what we were saying. We would say things in our lesson like *we can teach more about that later* or *if you would like to continue meeting with us* and such. Everytime we said something along those lines, she said *please!* Oh I am excited to teach her!! She just got married last sunday though, and she is 20 and he is 44! Crazy!

Last night we had dinner at a member:s home! I:ll send pictures! My favorite thing (the only thing I actually enjoyed) was the Sprite! ;)

Well, sorry my writing is super down hill. Haha i have less time now than in the MTC! But I want you all to know that I love Japan and I love missionary work and I love the Lord and I love you!! Have the best week ever!!

Love,

Kris

Pa* my debit card number is... I love you! And stuff should be sent to my mission home address.

Ma* I found out we cannot go to electronic stores any longer, which means I can not buy a camera here :( maybe an early christmas present??? Anyway, tennis is HUGE here! We ride by a park a lot that has more than 20 tennis courts! And they are ALWAYS busy. On Saturday there was a huge tournament going on with cheerleaders and everything!

Jas and Becca; Thanks for the emails!! BEcca......CUTE!!!!!!!! Ah you are the cutest pregnant person I have ever seen!!! CUTE!!

Peach and Jana+ THanks for the emails! I love the SLC temple too! it rains here too. But to prevent flooding, they have 4 foot deep canals on the sides of the roads.

Ty; I love you!

Saud: Thanks for the email ;) I love you to pieces! Cute sweater! You would die over the clothes here. How is T.P.?  How is school?

Dan: I would rather have at least 5 mosquito bites. Right now i have more than 100 mosquito bites! That is a lot!!!!

Joseph+ good luck in karate! if you want help saying sensei, I can help.

I lov eyou all!!!

JITENSHAW

Hello Kazoku! 

I am in Japan!!!!!

I can not even begin to explain how exciting everything in Japan is to me.      Right when I got out of the airport on Wednesday afternoon I was so excited about every little thing, like the fact that all the signs are in Japanese characters and the cars are really short and they drive on the left side of the road etc! We all got on a bus to go from Osaka to Kobe where the mission home is. I was beyond excited, so of course there was no way I could sleep despite the intense jet lag. It was about an hour ride, and there were buildings the whole entire way. TONS of buildings smashed in like sardines and they just kept going on and on and they have the most unique architecture (in fact there is a building for something to do with puppies and it is shaped like a dog.) So that is the first thing that just blows my mind about where we are...there are SO MANY buildings!!! 

I LOVE President and Sister Zinke. They are super kind and happy and I love their views about missionary work. We talked about how there are about 30 million people in this mission, and about 200 missionaries, which means each one of us is responsible to share the gospel with roughly 110,000 people. (I think that is the math...) Anyway, there is NO way we could possibly do that, but President Zinke talked about how we are here to help gather Christs sheep, and His sheep are the elect, and God will lead them to us or lead us to them. In fact, he said that because God is already preparing the elect, there is a specific number in each area of people who are ready to listen to and accept the gospel. And he said God will give us the exact number. Well they have been doing this for longer than a year now. Our number in our area is 44. Anyway, I know President Zinke is so inspired and he is definitely leading us in the right direction. 

     On Friday morning, we all met our trainers! President Zinke presented them in a pretty intense way. He would call our name and we would go up one side of the chapel, then he would call our trainers name and they would go up the other side and we would meet in the middle. He did it one at a time and there were 33 of us, so the suspense was there. Anyway, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my companion! Her name is Sister Dobson. She has been in Japan now for a year, so she really knows what she is doing. She is super duper happy and loves the work and she is very patient with me. Right now we are serving in  Mikunigaoka, which is in Osaka! Ha okay funny story: We had to ride a bus from the mission home to the train station, and so about 12 shimai hopped onto the bus and we had all of our carry on bags so it was quite the crowd. The bus was pretty packed, but it kept stopping at every bus stop any way and people kept coming on. After about 4 stops, I thought there was no room to breathe. Well, i think there were 10 more stops after that until we got to the train station, and at every single stop, more and more people got on the bus!! Welcome to Japan! 

Saturday we got right to work! We did our study at the church in the morning. (The church is an old fire station and we study there in case somebody shows up and we can give them a tour.) Then after lunch we went off to go visit one of the investigators. I do not know her name, so I will call here Ka chan. Ka chan is a 13 year old who the previous missionaries met with a couple times quite a while ago and then were never able to get ahold of her again. She is about a 40 minute bike ride away, and we set out to go meet with her. Well, let me explain this whole biking thing. We are riding down a little sidewalk with a gazillion people walking and biking on it and with a gazillion cars driving next to the sidewalk and I am an unexperienced bike rider. Oh and riding in a skirt! I am pretty sure I flashed millions of people on our way to Ka chans apartment. It gets scary when there is a person coming at you on one side and a big bus on the road on the other side and your skirt flies up and then you see a pole right in front of you!! Haha I KNOW if this was not the Lords work, I would be dead right now. 

     Finally,　thanks to lots of help from the Lord, we made it to Ka chans apartment. Well, she was not home. We decided to go housing while we were in that area. We went to some houses that looked like families might live in them because Dobson shimai really wants to teach a family. In Japan, they have cameras and microphones next to their mailbox, so you just ring the door bell type thing there, and they talk to you through the microphone, so we do not actually go to the door unless they let us in. So we push the button, wait for somebody to say Konnichi wa, then introduce ourselves and ask if we can share a message. For the most part, people did not even answer. When they did answer, every single one said sorry I am good. (Usually they said they are Buddhist, so they are not interested.) In between houses, I would practice the introduction. Finally Dobson shimai said it was my turn to do it. Ahh I was somewhat terrified. I hesitantly pushed the button, and nobody answered. Phew! Haha then we just switched off from there and they usually answered for Dobson shimai and every time it was my turn they did not answer! It was sort of a relief. Until the very end. We were about to go back to the apartment when we saw a yellow apartment complex. Dobson shimai has a theory that yellow apartments are spiritual hotspots because she has gotten a lot of investigators from yellow apartments. So we went to it! I pushed the button, and somebody answered! Ahh so I had to do the speaking and of course I messed up a ton, but he still said wait a minute, and he came down and opened the door! It was the first one (and only one) who actually came to the door! Apparently he lived in LA for a few years and he went to temple square and stuff. Well nothing came of it really but I was happy that I finally got to see somebodys face. We invited him to English class. 

     Saturday night was wonderful. We were in our apartment finishing up weekly planning. We had hoped to have a lesson with an investigator Saturday night, but every time we had asked her what time she was available, she did not respond. We were hoping that sometime after her work was finished we could be at the train station and just meet up with her. Well, Saturday night she texted us and said she still wanted a lesson! We were really excited, and then she called us and said she would be to the train station in 4 minutes! We had to HURRY!! We quickly grabbed our bags and threw on rain coats and ran down to the bike garage and it was pouring pouring rain super hard but we just biked as quickly as possible to the train station! We got there just when she did. We walked with her to our church building, gave her a tour, and then sat with her in the chapel and taught our lesson there. Because our church is an old fire station, it really is not pretty at all. In fact, the rooms just look like normal blank rooms to me, but during the tour Ta san seemed so fascinated about each room. The feeling in the chapel was super peaceful. We began our lesson by singing I am a Child of God, and after we finished singing, she just stared at the words in the hymn book. Then we began our lesson about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and we our His children. My contribution to the lesson: I shared a 30 second overview of the lesson and a short testimony , and the rest of the time I smiled. Anyway, Dobson shimai did a fantastic job teaching and I do not know how Ta san felt, but I definitely felt the Spirit in there. We then taught her about prayer and I asked her if she would pray to feel Gods love. She looked somewhat shocked because she had never really prayed before, but we explained to her how, and then after quite a bit of hesitation, she prayed!! After the prayer, we all sat there in silence for a long time. The feeling at that moment put everything I ever felt at the MTC to shame. We are meeting with Ta san again this week! 

     The ward members here are the happiest people I have ever met. We got to church about 30 minutes early, and EVERY SINGLE member came up to me and introduced themselves. (I did not know what anybody said. All I can do is say I am Crofts shimai and I am from Idaho and this is my first week in Japan, so I said that to everybody.) Anyway, I wish you could see how happy they are. During testimony meeting, they are EXCITED to share their testimonies rather than apologetic. and I did not understand what they said, but I know from their smiles that they have very strong testimonies of the gospel. I played the piano in relief society and oh if you could have seen how happy the music conductor was! She has the hugest smile and she just dances as she leads! It is so cute!!! 

     After church, we decided to go out and try to find another family who was previously contacted by the missionaries but has not been available recently. Dobson shimai did not know where they lived, but we put the address in the GPS and started on our way anyway. Ha we got SOO lost!!! Dobson shimai kept apologizing because we had to turn around so many times. But to be honest I did not mind at all. For one thing, the road here are so crazy, I do not know how anyone could not get lost. They have apartments and roads and intersections and lights going every which way...it is the most hectic thing in the world! But for the most part people here know how to navigate it all, which I am super impressed with. Also I did not mind the fact that we were lost because then I could pay a little attention to the sights around me. Wow Japan is the COOLEST!!! I can not really describe it to you. Sorry. Haha but there are so many interesting details in the sidewalks and the apartments and the houses and the buildings. You would all love it! One thing I have noticed is that there are vending machines on almost every corner. Which means there are a lot of vending machines! And they talk to you (after getting a drink it will say Arigato go zaimashita!) It is funny though because you will never see anybody drinking or eating on the sidewalks. That is just something they do not do in Japan. Another reason I was fine with the fact that we got lost is because we stopped and asked a lady for directions, and she was SO SO KIND! She had three little kids running around her and she was trying to weed her garden, but she got up and decided to walk with us to the apartment we were looking for. She was happy and kind and she said we could go back and visit her, so YESS we are going to!! We finally found the apartment and the family ended up not being home. But we ran into another lady and she was actually pretty excited when she found out we were Christians because she is Christian too. She was talking about how it is really rare to find Christians in Japan, but every once in a while you will run into a Catholic or a Protestant. And then she got kind of embarrassed and she lowered her voice and said oh and one of my friends is a mormon! She laughed a little bit and we both got super excited and we said Oh we are mormon too!!!! Then she laughed and we continued on talking. Haha we gave her a book of mormon and invited her to english class as well. 

     Before coming into Japan, I had a different idea of what missionary work would be like. I knew it would be hard, but I always figured that because we have the strength of the Lord with us, that would make it easy. Well, it is a little bit different than that. It is definitely hard, and we definitely have the help of the Lord with us, but we still have to give everything we have to give and work as hard as we can and sacrifice all that we have to sacrifice, and THEN the Lord will step in and make up the difference. Keeping this thought in mind is what makes doing all of the difficult things easy. And so so worth it! I love going out and knowing that what I am doing is the Lords work and I have the opportunity to teach others about their Savior! I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! The church is SO true!

I love you all! Sorry I only included about 1/16 of what I would like to talk about....one day maybe I will have time to tell you all about it. I love you!!! :)

Crofts shimai