Dear Family,
Shout out to my best friend in the whole wide world! SARAH--is there anything that you do not do simply wonderfully?? Congratulations! I love you to pieces!!!
Also shout out to dan the man! お誕生日おめでとうございます！HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I love you!
Well, things took an unexpected turn of events this week. Through a long course of talking with members and **** chan, we found out Monday afternoon that she never actually talked to her mom about church or the baptism, and that she did not have permission to be baptized. Worse than that, we found out that her mom HATES religion and that **** chan does not have a good relationship with her mom. We spent all Monday night together with our ward mission leader and **** chan. We came up with a plan to help her, and we visited her mom that night. Yep, her mom hates religion. We did not even mention anything about **** chan joining the church or being baptized, but her mom was against the idea of her daughter having any associations with religion. It was definitely a huge bummer to be standing there hearing her say all of that, but what was worse was seeing **** chan. She looked SO sad and defeated! **** chan is not able to even come into the church any more. We met with her on Tuesday and on Friday at members homes, and her testimony and desires had been weakened. Her mom is telling her that God is not real and if God were real we would not have suffering in this world and things like that.
In January, we set a goal as a mission to have every companionship see a baptism by the 23rd of Marc. We have been putting all of our efforts toward relying on the Lord, and I did not doubt at all that we would see that baptism! We prayed hard and worked hard and studied hard all week for **** chan. The turning point was on Saturday night when her mother was still just as against religion as ever. I began to think about my efforts and who I was relying on and I think I almost gave into the natural man and self-pitied myself. But then I remembered who I was putting my faith in. I decided to just keep moving forward because this is the work of the Savior. We had 2 hours left on Saturday night and I remembered that we had set a goal to get 2 investigators to church. We only had one investigator in line, so I determined to show the Lord my faithfulness and rely on Him to get somebody else to come to church. We parked our bikes next to the eki and were about to get started when I asked Hunt shimai about a man we had housed into a couple weeks ago. We both felt like we should go visit him. So we got back on our bikes and rode back the other direction to his house. He was very surprised to see us. He said he was touched that we came back to visit him again! He talked about some of his religious questions/concerns for a while, and we testified about church and how we can receive answers/peace at church. He said he wanted to come! Sure enough, he came to church! And he was very pleased with what he experienced at church too! Hunt shimai taught him after sacrament meeting while I was in a lesson with Yamaguchi shimai, and apparently he has been searching for the truth since he was in middle school (and he is old now!) and he has studied the bible and he knows so much about religion, but he has so many questions still. Fortunately, we have the answers! And we think he realized that yesterday. We are so glad God put him in our path so he can finally learn the truth!
Speaking of church yesterday, Yamaguchi shimai came!!! YAY!! That was the day we have been waiting for for a long, long time! And, it turned out to be even better than we expected for her. She felt everybodys love so much and she recognized Gods love really really strongly and...well she is what you would call the golden investigator. Everything we hope will happen for somebody at church happened with her. We left the church and stopped by about an hour and a half later to pick up something, and she was still there talking to the members! We had a dinner appointment with her and some members at 6, so we went to the church before then, and she was STILL there. She talked to us about how she does not really have any friends because right out of high school she went straight to work, and she has just been working for the last 7 years! But she was amazed to be surrounded by such friendly people at church, and she said she was so happy. We set a new goal for her to be baptized at the beginning of May, and even though she does not have specifically set breaks on Sunday yet, she is praying for the chance to be able to come to church enough, and she really believes she will make her date!
Yesterday we had another good park dendo day. We like to play with the kids at the park in hopes that their parents have a good image of the church, and usually I will quit out after a while and go talk to the parents while Hunt shimai keeps playing. However yesterday, we started a game of tag with 3 other 7 year old girls, and by the time we were finished, there were more than 20 kids playing with us! It turned into a reverse kind of tag though because the kids all wanted to chase us, so we were both just running around the whole park having 10 kids running after us yelling *amerikajin! amerikajin!* haha it was so funny. I love being here in Japan!
I am excited for another transfer with Hunt shimai. I learn so much with her, and we are both being very humbled together. We have learned a lot about relying on the Lord, and we have high hopes for the next transfer! Also, we will be right here in the center of Kyoto during the biggest tourist season of the year. The Japanese people are getting real excited for it! It should be fun! But more than that...this missionary work! It is the most fun, most rewarding, most humbling, most exhausting, most marvelous work in the whole world. I am SO GRATEFUL to be standing in the front-line of the battle!
Love you all so so much!
Love,
Kris
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