Shinjite

Kristen's family had the wonderful opportunity of meeting her trainer, Dobson Shimai and her family.  Dobson Shimai spoke about light, and the source of light in our lives.  She interweaved many missionary experiences into the talk and the Spirit bore witness of the things she taught.  Dobson Shimai is a perfect example of someone who radiates the light of Christ and Kristen was very fortunate to have her as a companion and trainer.  

DEAR FAMILY,

Merrry Christmas!!!!

Good morning family! This email is coming from all the way over in Japan!

It was so great to see the pictures of you with Dobson shimai! Ahh I love you all!

I wish I could express through email how much I absolutely LOVE being a missionary, but words would not do it any justice. Let me just tell you, I love being a missionary!

This week, again, the Lord blessed us SO much!! Our week was a little bit not normal at first. We decided that in order to show the Lord our faith and be prepared for our investigators, we would completely plan for and mogi for all of our investigators before we went out housing or streeting. Well, we were inside A LOT this week, and we did A LOT of planning. The interesting thing is, our numbers were almost higher than ever! We still were able to teach A LOT of lessons this week!

The main focus of our week has been on Arisa shimai. Her baptismal interview was on Friday, so we were preparing well to help her be ready! On Monday, we had the most wonderful lesson I have ever been in. We taught the commandments like Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom, so you would not think it would be a super spiritual lesson, but as she willingly accepted the invitation to keep all of these commandments, and then described why it would be so easy because of her desire for eternal life, the most wonderful feeling entered the room. If everybody in the world could have felt what I felt that night, everybody in the world would HAVE to believe in God and would want to be baptized, I am sure of it! She also explained how she can feel that she is closer to God as she meets with us and does the things we invite her to do. It was amazing! Unfortunately, because Arisa chan is under legal age, and she could not get permission from her parents, even though she passed her baptismal interview, it does not look like she will be getting baptized this week. We have been praying our guts out for her and we are still hoping for a miracle to happen though!

Meeting with Mai chan was also a highlight of the week! Mai chan came to the Relief Society activity on Saturday. We were sewing bags for some humanitarian thing. Let me just say...cutting and measuring and folding...all of that stuff does not go under my list of talents and abilities. Especially when I hear all the instructions in Japanese. Anyway, Mai chan came and she fit in so well with the members! Our Relief Society is just like 10 old grandmas, and then she was there helping away..it was amazing! She also came to church on Sunday and stayed for all three hours. It was a little unfortunate that our Relief Society lesson was all about Joseph Smith because we have not taught her about Joseph Smith yet. But she still seemed to handle everything really well and the members just love her! I absolutely love teaching her. When she tells us about her feelings and experiences, she just acts like it is all so natural, and of course she is supposed to feel warm and good when she prays because she is talking to her Heavenly Father and of course she wants eternal life because she knows she will be completely happy. Everything we teach her just clicks. Working with people like Mai chan and Arisa chan make me love missionary work so so much because I can see how much the Lord is preparing these people for the gospel!

Most of our other investigators are still having a hard time understanding/accepting/applying our message, and so for a lot of our lessons this week, we started back at point one and talked about God. Over and over this week I was able to testify that God is our Father. What a wonderful truth to be able to testify about! My hope is for these people to really be able to feel that!

Yesterday at church we had six investigators come! It blew our minds because we were not expecting that many to come! We each were sitting with two investigators and then two of the other investigators were taken in by the members. It was so great!

Also, I just love Japan. It is beautiful here and the people are so nice always and I feel like its some sort of happy wonderland. Haha I have never been happier. Missionary work is the best!

Have a happy holiday season! Oh p.s. I bought a mini speaker for my ipod at the dollar store so we have been listening to Christmas music! and a Jenny Phillips song that we have in Japanese...we stick it on repeat during our meals haha.

Anyway, I love you all more that you can know!! The church is true!

Love,

Crofts shimai

Pops: How was the Christmas devotional? How is work? Do you still run? Do you ever go biking in the winter? Have you gone skiing yet?

Mom: I do not really know what they do for mutual. There are two young women and one young man though. I hear music all the time!! Cars have music on their megaphones and all the stores have music. But it is not regular music...it is like annoying kid video game type music haha. Also the garbage trucks play music. It is noisy here!  And we have 2 different flyers...one for eikaiwa and one just for church. We do have pass along cards but I do not pass them along as much as I do the flyers.

Jason: the fall leaves are beautiful here! I do not know why but they remind me of you.

Becca: How are you feeling?? Congratulations again, just in case.

Peach and Jana: I hear your apartment is way cute! Happy Holidays!

Tyler: Congrats on the investigators at church! It is always a relief to me when I see investigators walk through the door. They get to participate first hand in the gospel of Jesus Christ at church! What a wonderful blessing!

Sarah: The only thing they really do to celebrate Christmas here is play Christmas music and eat Christmas cake. They do not even get work off. Sad huh? Anyway, you looked cute in the pictures! How are you?? What have you been doing? Is your life still super busy?

Danny: What is up?? We played would you rather at Eikaiwa this week. It was hilarious because they do not play that game here and they thought it was so fun. We also taught them head shoulders knees and toes. I could sing it faster than all of them.

Joey: your church outfit looks really good! Do you still bear your testimony?