I started off the day today by sending off my beautiful trainer...she is on her way back to America! Her last week as a missionary was definitely a week full of adventures!
Monday she was inside packing all day so Griffin shimai and I just went shopping together.
Tuesday, we spent almost all day long outside finding people. It was the first FREEZING day of the year, and boy was it freezing! But we managed to thoroughly enjoy it. Something about missionary just lets that happen.
On Wednesday we were able to teach Yamauchi kyoudai again. His lessons have completely changed. We choose simple simple doctrine, teach it clearly from the beginning, and then read about it from the Book of Mormon with him. He understands the Book of Mormon well, and as we read it together and discuss it, he opens up with us and we have been able to learn more about him and he has been more willing to listen to our message. We taught about the atonement and read from Enos together and it was a really powerful lesson. We gave him a homework assignment out of Alma 36, and he did it! In fact he was so excited to share with us what he had written about it, that he called us on Friday and asked if we could meet again! Yay!
We also taught Arisa chan on Wednesday. She got to the lesson a little bit late and we had to start Eikaiwa, so we were only able to do a little bit of follow up and testimony, but Aiko chan was there (the young woman in our ward) and we had a fun conversation before the lesson and Arisa chan loosened up so much around us. I feel like we are a lot better friends now.
After Eikaiwa, people were showering the gifts upon us. (upon Dobson shimai specifically.) We had two different students make us cakes! And then one of our students who is from China came with a TON of food to make us homemade Chinese food! She invited everybody in the Eikaiwa class up to our kitchen and we were all making food together. There was so much! And because of that, it was taking a really long time. We did not know what to do because we had a curfew coming up soon but there was all this food and tons of people (potential investigators and investigators included) and we could not just leave them in our church, but we really did have to leave. So we told them we were leaving and everybody started cleaning up super duper fast and they just had to give us a big bowl full of the food and we had to ride our bikes home super fast. But it was SO MUCH FUN.
Thursday we spent ALL day long inside planning. It was a long day haha.
We were able to teach Arisa chan again on Friday. We taught her the entire plan of salvation, and she understood it all so well. She said she does not know for sure if it is true, but she hopes it is true. After her lesson, we went with Izumi shimai and her son to another all you can eat healthy food restaurant! These restaurants are called Viking. Funny huh? it was beyond delicious.
Saturday we went to visit Reira and Johna, but they were not home :(. Instead, we spent a lot of the day planning because we had a lot of lessons coming up. We were able to teach Yamauchi kyoudai again. Saturday night, Takayoshi fufu took us out to dinner! It was a bread/steak place. You would not believe it, but I absolutely love steak now!
Sunday: yay I finally got to Sunday! Yesterday was the best day ever!! It was the primary program, and WOW. I have never been to a better primary program before!! There were only four children, but when they first started singing I am a Child of God, it was more powerful than any other time I have heard that song! Every single time they sang it was so powerful! and they can all speak Japanese so well. Haha I was sitting next to Arisa chan and dobson shimai was sitting next to Satoru, so it was up to me to get a conversation going with Arisa. I was trying to tell her that I was impressed with the children because they can speak better Japanese than I can, but I could not even get that sentence out. I realized I probably sound like a 1.5 year old to these people. Or less. But Arisa chan was super nice and she is very understanding with my language disabilites. And a good thing because after sacrament meeting, Dobson shimai was teaching Satoru san and I had to teach Arisa chan by myself! The goal of the lesson was to help her feel excited for her baptism because in previous lessons she had expressed her worries. Well, I do not know what I said, but in her prayer at the end of the lesson, she talked about how she was really excited to be baptized and her fears were gone! Yay! The Lord is so great! Also the member might have helped a lot.
We were also able to teach Fukushima san during church. She really has the saddest life! She talks about the darkness in her life and how she wants to get rid of it. She actually asked Dobson shimai if she could go back to America with her and she was completely serious. But she said that when she prays she can really see Gods light. She wants to go to heaven and she committed to a baptismal date in order to make it there!! The date we felt good about is January 25. That is super soon, and it is a little weird that we chose that date because she honestly does not understand much of what we say...she just nods her head and says yes out of anxiety. BUT I know the gospel can change that in her and baptism can be a wonderful thing for her! I am excited to continue helping her!
After church we were able to teach Matsuzaki kyoudai! Wow it feels so good teaching him! We really went full circle. Dobson shimai and I started out our companionship together finding and teaching Matsuzaki kyoudai. He was baptized. He got the priesthood and he was then able to help us by passing the sacrament to us! Finally, we finished off the transfer together by teaching Matsuzaki kyoudai again about the Restoration. I just have to say, the gospel is so wonderful, and it is so true!!
After church we watched 2 hours of the district! I finished my training!! yeehaw! Then we went to Izumi kazokus house for dinner. They live about 45 minutes away, and when we started our bike ride, the weather was just normal, but about a minute into the ride, it started raining, and about two minutes into the ride, it started down pouring!! and it was dumping buckets on us the whole entire way. When we got to Izumi kazokus house, we were SO WET!!!!! they took all of our coats, wrung out our skirts into a bowl, then just gave us new skirts and tights to put on, and blow dried our hair for us! Ha it was such an adventure. We ate takoyaki!!! Do you know what that is?? Octopus pancake balls. It was actually pretty good!! I am getting good at this Japanese stuff. We had to bike home super duper duper insanely fast after that dinner appointment. Ha we were all wearing the big flowy skirts from Izumi shimai and they were getting stuck in our chains and it was crazy but we did not want to be late!! We got home, Dobson shimai and I began our final planning session, and then Griffin and I finished off the planning by planning for today.
THis mornign we said goodbye to Dobson and Murayama shimai, cleaned our apartment, and came to check the email to find out about transfers. And guess what! Griffin shimai and I are both staying in Mikunigaoka and we are going to be companions!!! !!! I can not tell you how excited I am!! I absolutely love Griffin shimai!! Because she came to Japan when I did, neither one of us really can speak the language, and neither one of us really knows what we are doing, but we do know that the Lord knows what He is doing and we are so excited to perform miracles with His help. I am looking forward to this next transfer. MISSIONARY WORK IS THE BEST!!!!!
I love you all!!!
Love,
Crofts shimai :)
Dad: congrats on the deck! That has been quite the project.
Mom: your braces-free smile looks beautiful!
Jason: commandments was definitely hard for Matsuzaki kyoudai to understand. he thinks very logically, not very faith-ily. However, we kept talking about how everything God asks us to do is to help us receive eternal life, and that was enough to get him to keep the commandments. the hard one for people to keep here is tithing. most people have work off on sunday, but they work super hard the rest of the week and they are very stingey about their money. at least that is what i hear--i have only taught one person tithing and he did not have an income.
Becca: i love the name cameron!!! are you sure you do not want him to have a japanese middle name? i think cameron akihiko crofts sounds good.
Peach: haha congrats on the deck!
Jana: thanks for the letter. sounds like you are making some yummy food. i hope your feet heal!
Tyler: do you sleep on a bed? now that there are only two people in my apartment, i get to stack the futons and make a mega futon. i am excited!
Sarah: thanks for the pictrues! dont enjoy michael buble too much" i love you!!
Dan: what is up dude. good luck with the piano.
Joey: hey joey! i am teaching people. it is fun!!
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