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