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| Another reason why I love Japan so much...cute construction cones!!! |
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| More Construction Monkeys! |
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| Check out the name..haha! |
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| I think this tennis court is beautiful...and it is often occupied |
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| Missionary feet can get ugly! |
Most beloved family,
What a privilege it is to be serving my Savior!
Before this week, I never fully understood why the phrase *sweat, blood, and tears* applied to missionary work. Well, all three of those things were very much applied to the work last week...I think I understand it better! It was definitely a test of our faith this week as we spent all day every day walking from door to door or from one person to the next on the street and receiving kekkos every time. Enduring unusually purple toes and strange rashes added to the adventure. Every night I plopped down in my futon and it took everything I could to stand up and turn off the light! Haha Hunt shimai and I were quite the scene to behold this week. BUT to be honest, I felt GREAT this week. My mindset was so different than it has been before. I am not quite sure what the difference was, but I know my love for this work and for this opportunity and for the people here and for the LORD is growing a lot. I trust the Lord and His promises. I want more than anything to see them fulfilled in this area.
I had some moments of feeling very famous this week. After district meeting, we stopped to get some lunch and as we were walking back to the church building, I said hello to some middle school girls. They got all high pitch giggly/screamy and said hello back. Then I stopped and started talking to them in Japanese, and they just freaked out. They both pulled out cameras and asked to take a picture with me! Ha it was hilarious. Then that night we ran into two 20 year old college students who asked us to eat ice cream with them and then they exchanged numbers with us because they want to hang out again! And we told them why we are here and what our purpose is, and they actually seemed some what interested, so there is potential!
And then yesterday the funniest of them all happened. We knocked on a door and a little boy (7 years old) answered. It took probably less than a second for him to yell, jump back three feet, and fall to the ground! His mom came into the entry way and he was just breathing in and out so loud and she was like, *who are you??* Ha we did not have to get 4 words out of our introduction before she said no, but as we were walking away, the little boy was begging us to come back and visit again.
We got into the strangest situation this week. We FINALLY had somebody let us into their home! We were so excited..it was the first time this transfer that that has happened! Unfortunately, our Japanese ability is not quite where we thought, and the situation turned out to be a bit different than what we were expecting. There were 3 ladies sitting at a table, and when we came in, they pulled out their Sokagakkai pamphlets and began teaching US a lesson!! (sokagakkai is the religion that is a mix of Mormonism and Buddhism. The founder went to BYU but was disappointed that he could not use his money to become a bishop, so he decided to create his own religion. He took everything from Mormonism, including Priesthood and Missionary work and stuff, except took out God and Jesus Christ and added Buddha and chanting. The ladies in this meeting showed us an introductory video and it was the saddest thing I have ever seen.) Once we realized what was happening, we did our best to share a powerful testimony and get out of there. We did not get out fast enough to miss the chant They would not take our Book of Mormon as we walked out, but boy was it a relief to get out of there!
About a minute after we got out of that meeting, we talked to a lady who was outside of her house, and she seemed genuinely interested! She gave us some flowers and asked us to visit again, so on Saturday, we went back to visit. She was not home, but we continued housing around that area, and about 30 minutes later, we ran into her! She was out delivering something to one of her friends right where we were housing! She said she was happy to see us and she asked about the church invite that we had previously given her and she said she wanted to come.
At the beginning of church on Sunday, it was disappointing to see that NONE of the people who said they were coming to church came. However, I felt the strangest sense of peace. I was sitting thinking about all the work we did this week and all the prayers and discussions about faith and the study and the preparation, and I just felt peace. I usually am the type of person who gets very discouraged when I work hard for a goal and trust in the Lord and then it does not happen. However, yesterday at church, I just felt peace. It was a nice feeling. And then about 10 minutes after recognizing that feeling, the old lady we had run into the day before walked through the door! It was like a big huge mound of frosting on my cake!! The Lord works miracles. She became a new investigator and she is excited to learn more!
The mission had a huge goal this week to get 400 nonmembers to come to church. Lately the average church attendance number in the mission has been around 130, but our latest training plan has been focused on trusting in the Lord to see miracles happen, and guess what...we got 396 nonmembers to come to church! Isnt that incredible?? The Lord is incredible!! I love this work. I love my Savior!
Have a fantastic week!!
Love,
Crofts shimai
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