It was ANOTHER week full of miracles in Mikunigaoka! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!
Arisa chan is progressing so well. We taught her about the Book of Mormon, and she was really excited to read it. In the next lesson, when we followed up, I was amazed to see that she understands the Book of Mormon so well! That is unusual, especially for the Japanese book of mormon, and especially for a culture where people do not even understand what scriptures are. We were also able to teach Arisa chan about the atonement this week and the lesson was so powerful. We just taught super duper simple doctrine and testified of it, and because of her desire and understanding of her relationship with God and Jesus Christ, it sunk right in. It was such a good lesson! She came to church yesterday and she is starting to become good friends with the members.
Reira and Johna san are also doing really well! We were able to teach them prayer on Saturday. It was a really really neat lesson. Because they are really devout Catholics, they actually already pray every day, but they just give repeated prayers. In our lesson though, we talked about different things they could pray for. Reiras husband has been in the hospital for over a year and she has a night time job with a 6 year old and a 1.5 year old child. Johna is in japan looking for a husband and a job. Her six year old son is still in the Philipines and she does not speak Japanese or english. BUT we talked about how they can pray for comfort and help. In the lesson, Dobson shimai prayed in Japanese to demonstrate how we do it, then I prayed in English, and then Reira prayed in Japanese/English/Tagalog (she was going back and forth the whole prayer!) and then Johna prayed in Tagalog. Even though I did not understand their prayers, I could DEFINITELY feel Gods presence in that room. When we finished, they both talked about the amazing feeling they had. I love teaching the prayer lesson because EVERY time we do it, Gods presence is so tangible. It is incredible.
We also were able to teach Fukushima san the prayer lesson this week. Yesterday we decided to go to the church early because one of our potential investigators said she would be coming at 9 o clock, but when we got to the church, she was not there. Instead, Fukushima san was there! She was sitting all by herself in the chapel, just how we had found her the first time! We took her to another room and talked to her about God and how she can talk with God. We asked her what kind of help she would like to receive from her Heavenly Father, and she said that she wants to get rid of all the black/dark things inside of her. AHH we have something that can help her! I hope she continues to meet with us because I want to help her SO MUCH. She is a really really nervous/uptight/anxious person, but as she prayed, I could definitely tell she was more relaxed, and by the end of sacrament meeting, she had loosened up even more. I know this gospel can help her so much!
A miracle happened with Yamauchi kyoudai this week! We have really struggled with knowing how to help Yamauchi kyoudai. He does not understand what we teach him and he is not willing to get baptized. He told us that he only wanted to meet with us at the mall and he would not come to the church. After zone training meeting, we were pretty sure that there was nothing we could do for him. However, on Tuesday when we were out housing, we got a call from Yamauchi kyoudai. He seemed really nervous and he just said *I want to meet with you I will go to the church when can we meet?* WHOA. So we met with him on Thursday! We already had a lesson prepared for him, and it was about steps to reading the Book of Mormon. Before we even began the lesson, something about the Book of Mormon was brought up, and Yamauchi kyoudai pulled out his Book of Mormon and said *I just do not know how to read this thing.* Well, that was what our whole lesson was about! So we taught him about the Book of Mormon and praying to receive answers and things. We read part of the Book of Mormon together with him, and invited him to read a section they way we had taught him. He committed to do it. He said he understood the lesson really well and he wanted to try it. That is a big deal for yamauchi kyoudai! Yay!! He also was at church this week too!!
Saturday was a really fun day. We had to bike like crazy in the morning from Reiras apartment back to the church to teach Arisa chan. Right after Arisa chan, we met with Hidomi and Satoru. They are two of our Eikaiwa students who come every week. Hidomi is a member of the church and she speaks pretty close to fluent English, but she comes every week with her *friend* Satoru. He is not a member of the church. However, let me back up a bit. Before I got here, Dobson shimai and her old companion ran into Hidomi and Satoru at the bike shop after they had had to carry her companions bike all across town because she lost the bike key haha. Anyway, they ran into them at the bike shop and Hidomi decided that she would start bringing Satoru to Eikaiwa. He is really scared of religion, but as he has been coming to Eikaiwa, we have been visiting with him afterward and we have been trying to bring up religious topics. A few weeks ago we gave him a church tour, and this week, Hidomi felt like he was finally ready to hear more about the church, but she wanted to do it in a casual way, not a sit down lesson. So we got permission and we went with Hidomi and Satoru to a famous mountain thing. There were buddhist statues and temples. THe mountain was BEAUTIFUL! The trees were all red and orange and there were waterfalls...ahh it was wonderful!! We hiked the mountain and then went to an all you can eat low calorie Japanese food restaurant with the yummiest food I have tasted since I have been here. Anyway, we were talking to him about God and he said he has not thought much about him but he is starting to believe in God because he feels like God led us to the bike shop right when he was there and because of that we have been able to develop this friendship. It is hard to explain, but I feel like God has really been preparing him for a while. He was always scared to death of religious things and chruchy things, but now he is beginning to think that God really does exist, and yesterday he came to church!!!! AHH it was such a miracle!!
This week as we were able to be a part of so many miracles, I was again in awe at how much the Lord is involved in this work. Well...it is His work. And he is preparing people and guiding people and I am so happy to be able to participate in this work!
Thanks for all of the emails! I hope all is well! I love you all so so so much!!!!
Love,
Crofts shimai
Dad: Thanks for the weekly update! Those brownies sound delish. Aren:t you proud of your beautiful pageant queen daughter? I bet you are happy you still have at least one daughter at home. I am sure she adds a lot of spunk to the home.
Mom: Good work with Sarah. you are the best! To answer your questions: most people get really excited to talk to me at first, but when they find out I am for a religion, they try to get away from me as fast as possible. My ward is one big family. Like there is the grandma and her kids and their siblings and their kids..but really only two main families with kids. There are 3 youth in the ward, about 6 primary kids, and 2 or 3 nursery aged kids. And there are lots of old grandmas. Family history is nothing here. As part of my training, I was supposed to practice doing things with family history but Zinke kaicho just told us to skip that part because it really is nothing. Every body has records of all of their families, but they are stored away in some buddhist temples. We would encourage the youth to do more, but the adults unencourage them to do family history because they are so busy.
Jason and Becca: congratulations on making it into the law school!!!!! yay!!!!!!!! and wow that is so exciting that you get to live in georgia!! wow! I will miss you.
Peach and Jana: I hope all is well!!!! Good luck with school and work and running and everything.
Tyler: I just love ya so much. Your letters are fabulous. Keep up the great work!! :) :)
Saud: ya you are amazing. Absolutely positively amazing. Can I see some pictures? Do you listen to Michael Buble? When are you going to hear him??
Dan: what is up dude? have you seen any good movies lately?
Joey: joey joey joey joey joey joey happy birthday!!!!! i love you!
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| These cute little preschoolers go by our church every morning. |
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| After a pretty intense bike ride. |
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| SPECTACULAR!!! |
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