Katsura

Hard to say goodbye to people who I have grown to love!

 

Dear Family,

I am in Kyoto now! And I feel like I have just as much to tell you as the first week that I got to Japan!

Leaving Mikunigaoka was definitely a lot harder than I thought it would be! Is was interesting because Griffin shimai and I did not have a single lesson planned for last week! Everybody was busy doing their New Year celebrations, and nobody was willing to meet with us. But then I found out about transfers and called our investigators, and we were able to meet 5 of our investigators in one day! We were so busy! I definitely did not like saying goodbye. I just had to keep singing in my head *Ill go where you want me to go!* Arisa chan and Mai chan both were very very close to me, so it was hard saying goodbye!

On New Years day, the members ALL wanted to celebrate with us! We had two dinner appointments and two in-between-meals appointments! I sent some pictures of the food...that pretty much sums it up! It was yummy! New Years day is a huge deal here. I was surprised on Christmas when people were still going to school and work and they did not even realize what day it was. Well it also surprised me that for a week everything shut down! We could not even buy ourselves new bikes here until Saturday because of the holiday. It is a BIG deal! It was also very sad to say goodbye to all of the members.

 But now that I am here in Katsura, I am actually very excited! The ward is very very friendly and I feel like this will be a good area! Because we did not have any investigators, bikes, or a sense of direction at all on Thursday or Friday, we just set out by foot and decided to see where we ended up! We were walking around for about 5 hours (which is definitely unlike any dendo I have ever done...before we spent most of our day inside planning lessons or in the church teaching the lessons!) I thought walking around for five hours would be difficult, and while my feet did get pretty sore and we had some dull moments (the new years celebrations were still going on so not many people were out and about), the Lord led us to some amazing contacts. Within our first 15 minutes, we came across a couple, and the lady was so excited to talk to us! We barely had time to introduce who we were when she started talking away about how excited she is because she was giving birth the next day and she was just out taking a walk and she ran into gaijin...haha! We also contacted another lady who met with the missionaries a long time ago when she was young and she said she really enjoyed it but she is way too busy to meet now but she was happy to see us again. Those kind of contacts make me wonder what the Lord has planned for those people. 

We also had one of the most touching contacts I have ever had in my life. We were walking past an intersection, and we passed a lady on a bike, but then I turned around and just said *today is good weather isnt it?* (I do not know why they like to talk about the weather so much here) She agreed and asked what we were doing. We did not have time to finish our introduction with her either...she started crying before we could! She explained to us that her daughter passed away recently and she has a big family but their relationship is not good because of the Japanese lifestyle (she used to live in Mexico where the family lifestyle is much different.) She was talking and talking and crying and crying, and we were just standing there at the corner of a big intersection. She said because of her family circumstances, she can not meet with us or go to church, but she really wants to! We gave her a chirashi and she put it up to her heart and said, *I will try to contact you, but even if I can not, this will always be important to me!* It was a very special moment for me.

We had one more contact that day that really proved to me that this is Gods work. We were crossing a street where you have to go up the stairs, cross the bridge, and go back down the stairs to get to the other side. There was also an elevator you could use. When we began going up the stairs, I looked back and saw a girl going into the elevator, but then when we got to the bottom of the stairs on the other side, she was following us doing the stairs! So we talked to her and she seemed so interested. She asked for our phone number! So we exchanged numbers and she is coming to the church in about an hour because she told us she wants to see it! She is 18 and SO nice and SO cute!! I am excited about her! 

I am excited to be in the Katsura ward! The members have been wanting sister missionaries for a long time and they are SO happy to have us here. On Thursday about 15 minutes after getting into our apartment, the ward mission leader called us and said that his parents (the stake president and his wife) and the bishop and his wife were on their way to apartment to see what help we needed. They came and they were SO helpful! The sisters are so so cute. They have little high pitched voices and they were so giggly and smily and they were going around our whole apartment looking for this and that and checking certain things to make sure were were all taken care of. Then they all took us out for lunch, bought some things for our apartment (that they did not need to do! But they said they wanted to. They said it was their way of celebrating having sister missionaries in the ward!) And they bought us groceries for the week! Friday night the stake president and his wife had us over for dinner with their family and they are all so nice! It was one of the most fun dinner appointments I have ever had. When I met the ward on sunday I was also very impressed. They are already planning which less active and part member families they can visit with us and this ward seems like they understand the purpose of members and missionaries working together, so I am excited!

Kyoto is SO AMAZING. I remember talking about how big the mall was when I first got to Japan. Or maybe talking about how much I loved the streets or how many people there were. Well here, everything is bigger and better haha! Our area has the biggest trainstation in all of Kyoto and there are huge malls next to it and SO MANY temples and shrines and parks...it is so cool. On Saturday, we were lost (very lost, but that is a whole other story). At one point, after biking around for a long long time, we stopped at an intersection and I turned around and let out the most audible *whoa!!* I was shocked at what I saw, and shocked at what my reaction was too haha. There was a HUGE Buddhist temple all lit up, with the reflection on the river below it. It was AMAZING. Everybody, we live in the most wonderful world. And here is my side comment: if I did not have a testimony of the LDS church and if I did not know how wonderful LDS temples were, I would be a Buddhist.

But we do not have to worry about that because I know the church is true! I know we have Gods full truth restored to the earth through Joseph Smith, and I know that through this gospel, we really can live together forever. That gives me so much hope and joy every day! I love you!!!

Love,

Crofts shimai