LEAD THOU ME ON

Dear Family,

I love you all. 

I just went grocery shopping. The sample today was octopus. I put it in my mouth and started laughing. I do not know why. Probably because I was in Japan eating octopus. It never gets old.

Shout out: MOM!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I love you so so so much.！ お誕生日おめでとうございます！I love you. 

Also shout out to America. Sorry for being a party pooper, but because I am in Japan, I cannot celebrate America day. I will celebrate beach day in a couple weeks. 

Speaking of Japan, The World Cup is a hit here. All the stores are using it for advertisement. Tojo shimai loves it. She is sad that Japan lost.

 I do not know if you remember this, but this week it was the anniversary of my entering the MTC. The night before, I had a dream that it was the night before I entered the MTC. I was packing and doing things just as I did last year, but this time it was in the new house and Jason and Becca and Cameron were there. I fell asleep with Cameron on my lap, and he was so sweet. When I woke up, I decided he was too sweet to leave. I decided I could not be away from my family for so long, and so I did not go on my mission. It was the most REAL dream of my life. The next day was so weird as those feelings kept coming back to me! It was the first time I actually felt that kind of homesickness on my mission. Weird. I love you all to pieces, but I am so glad I decided to serve a mission!! I feel like this is right where the Lord wants me to be right now, and I love every day!

This was an especially great week in Yonago. I LOVE the investigators we taught!!

We were able to have Family Home Evening with the Takekawa family. This is the family with the Japanese father,  Ukranian mother and 6 kids!! They fed us great Russian food, then we shared a message, and played a game together. It was one of the best nights of my mission. I feel like the gospel was made for this family!  We talked about God as our loving Heavenly Father. I just love this family. They listened and participated so well in the lesson...it was almost like family home evenings we had when we were all young! My favorite part is praying together with the family. The kids love praying with us, and they seem to understand the importance of prayer really well. I love seeing 6 kids in a row with their arms folded and learning how to pray. I know this gospel help this family in unimaginable ways and I am so happy we were led to them!

     We also taught Dateyama kyoudai last week. I just love Dateyama kyoudai. I do not know if you remember Dateyama kyoudai. His wife was a faithful, active member. Dateyama kyoudai took the missionary lessons on and off for years but he is very stubborn about baptism. However last year when his wife got really sick, he began going to church with her. She passed away in April, but he still comes to church every week. The ward said missionaries should probably lay off of him because he does not need pressure at this time, but we felt like this time is better than ever for him to accept the gospel. Last time we met with him, we did not intend to teach much of the gospel, we just wanted to talk with him about his wife. He ended up having many questions about the gospel anyway, which we answered for him, and then we closed by singing his wifes favorite hymn. He was in tears at the end and he expressed to us his need for missionaries. We visited again this week and answered more of his questions/concerns about the gospel. His greatest desire is to be sealed to his wife! He is so stubborn though--his biggest worry right now is his grave. He does not know if he should have a Buddhist grave or join with his wifes Christian grave. To me it seems like a no brainer. I talked to him about Grandpa and Grandma Vance. When I heard about his wife the first time we met, I thought of Grandma Vance. She was a cheerful, friendly person who was loved by everybody! I told him that. And I told him he is a lot like Grandpa Vance. Very very nice and close to the Spirit, but stubborn haha. Then I talked about how hard it was when Grandma died, but how even now, 10 years later, Grandpa is able to move forward with hope because he knows they will be together again. The Spirit was strong and it seemed as though a lot of things were clicking in Dateyama kyoudais mind. He really wants to be sealed now.  We feel like he is so close to baptism--he just needs to climb over a few tiny little walls and he will be ready to enter the gate to eternal life!

     It is so amazing to me how the Lord leads us to do His work. A couple weeks ago I wrote about a less active man named Yanase kyoudai. He used to be very active in the church--a regular temple attender and a branch president! However about 10 years ago he was offended and stopped coming to church. He is the man who let me borrow his violin and after a lot of encouragement entered the church building to hear us play. When we visited him two weeks ago, he was very curious why we decided to visit him. We found out that the reason he was so curious is because after a LONG time of not reading his Book of Mormon, he decided that day to pull it out and read from it. That same day, we visited him! Well, this week, he decided to try pulling out his Book of Mormon again and reading it. As he began to read, he heard the door bell ring. It was us!! We decided to visit him and invite him to church. He came!! After almost ten years of not attending church, he came to church. Not only that, he attended all three hours and stayed afterward to talk with some members! 

    The Lord is in charge of this work. I see His hand in the work every day. I am so grateful for the privilege to be serving Him.

Have fun this week! I love you!

Love,

Crofts shimai

THE PURE LOVE OF CHRIST

Dear Family,

It was so fun to hear about your week! You are all so busy. Ha Dad spent his week enjoying City Creek and an orchestra concert, and mom went camping with the boys! I love it!

I remember when you called for Mothers Day, I told you that Tojo shimai is a wonderful missionary. I did not really know why because I had just met her, it was just what the other missionaries told me. Jason mentioned that it was probably her obedience, because obedience brings miracles. I completely agree. However I am blessed to be in Kobe Japan, where the missionaries are very very obedient. So I knew there was something more that set her apart.  I love Moroni 7. It talks about how we can perform miracles. It talks about faith and hope, which Tojo shimai is full of. But then it ends with charity, and it says those who are true disciples of Christ have charity. Probably the thing that stands out the most to me about Tojo shimai is her charity. She is constantly thinking of how she can help those around her, non members, less active members, and members. And then she follows the Spirit to help them! 

We had a few hours planned one day to visit a whole list of less active members. However that morning Tojo shimai said she thought of an apartment she wanted to go finding at, so we went to that apartment instead. We got through about 60 doors, and most people barely even let us get out a few words before they turned us down. Finally, one old man actually listened a little bit to us. Tojo shimai took advantage of that. She began to ask the man questions about himself and get to know him and show concern for him. I was impressed at how much I could feel the Saviors love in the way she was acting. At the end, we briefly testified of our message and asked if we could come back and he was more than willing to accept a return visit! 

Another day, we visited a less active member named Nakada shimai. She has not been to church for decades. She has had missionaries visit her in the past but was never really interested. As we got to know her, she really opened up to us. She told us that her husband just recently passed away. She has no family living around, and she has not really told anybody about his death. However she said she felt our love and concern for her and she told us about it. She was crying and we gave each other big hugs and comforted her. To be honest, when two Japanese people are speaking emotionally back and forth to one another, I have a hard time understanding what they are saying. But even though I did not understand much, I felt Christs love so strongly. Even though for years she has turned down the missionaries invitations to learn the gospel again, she accepted ours. 

I also saw Tojo shimai probably the happiest she has been when she found out that somebody who was baptized in her first transfer is getting married in the temple to the branch president in Kurayoshi! She was SO happy, and what I saw in her joy was deep love for this person who she met a year ago! 

I am so grateful to be working with Tojo shimai and learning from her example and working together to serve those around us and to serve the Lord. It is a great time to be a missionary!

Crofts shimai

p.s. I was in the hospital a couple times last week, so hospitals have been on my mind. People in Japan go to hospitals for everything. Ha a few weeks ago our Eikaiwa topic was health, and the students were shocked to find out that in America, we only go to the hospital for emergencies/baby births. Tojo shimai was really surprised. She said *then what do you do if you catch a cold??* Haha. We just stared. 

p.p.s. You may wonder why I was in the hopsital. One of the times we were visiting a less active member who had surgery. The other time is because an old grandpa and I collided while we were biking. Old Japanese grandpas are tiny, and I thought I crushed his bones to pieces. Thankfully, he just had to get a bandaid on his knee and he was good to go. 

p.p.p.s. I know a lot about chopsticks. You would love to find out what I know. 

THEN SINGS MY SOUL

Dear Family,

Shout Out: DAD! Again!! I love you so much! Happy Fathers Day! If every father in the world was a father like you, we would have world peace. And the whole world would probably be translated like the city of Enoch. 

Also Shout out to Jana! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I was thinking about you on your special day...I love you! Shout out to your husband too. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

I am so glad to hear you all had a fun week. You look great in the picture!! Becca and Sarah you have adorable hair cuts. 

Every once in a while, I write LONG, fantastic things, and then the email deletes. Sometimes, I rewrite another long email, and the computer crashes. Today was one of those days. I hope you can get just a glimpse of how wonderful my week was with the following excerpt from my letter to President Zinke. 

Another fantastic week in Yonago! There is nothing better than missionary work! 
This week was astonish the ward week. I think it began on Friday when the entire Takekawa family came to ward FHE. The 6 kids were all sitting in a row, well-behaved, and as each ward member walked into the room, they stared, counted down the chairs, and then stared some more. It was so wonderful having the family at FHE. They looked so happy to be there, and of course I was happy to see them there, and at the end, they said they loved it and asked us to please visit them again any time. Of course there is nothing better than missionary work, but within that, I do not think there is anything better than helping an entire family accept the gospel. 
The ward was also astonished again on Sunday. On Saturday night, we visited Yanase kyoudai. He used to be very active in the church. In fact, he even went to Hawaii to go to the temple before there was one here in Japan, and he was an active member in the Bishopric, etc. However about 8 years ago he stopped going to church. Our visit seemed to have a big impression on him. He kept asking why we came, and as we testified to him of Gods love, the spirit was very strong. He was asking us about the ward, and he asked if anybody in the ward was very musical. We both raised our hands. We told him we would be playing the violin/flute the next day at a fireside after church. He plays the violin and flute too! He asked about my violin and I said I was just borrowing one from a ward member but it was not very good, and he offered to let me use his! I did not want to at all because it is a VERY nice violin and he plays it every day and I had an hour long bike ride to get home. As I refused, he said *go ahead, i will just come to the church tomorrow and pick it up.* So of course I took it, and he did come to the church the next day! At first he would not even walk through the front door. With lots of encouraging from us and one of his friends, he eventually walked through the front doors, but he would not go any further. We went and told bishop about him, and he immediately went to greet Yanase Kyoudai. The members around bishop who overheard looked so shocked. They were saying *subarashii!* and giving thumbs ups. After the program, bishop announced to the ward that I had used Yanase kyoudais violin, and the ward seemed SO surprised! Apparently it was a very big deal that Yanase kyoudai was associating with the church. To us, it seems like him lending the violin was just an excuse for him to be associated with the church. As we visited with him, we felt a desire that he has to come back to church. He feels insecure and weak and he is worried about others judging him, but we could sense that desire so strongly and we feel like he will be returning soon. 
It is a privilege to be working with less active members. The Spirit can be easily felt with them. I love missionary work!!

Family, I love you so much. Have a fantastic week!!! The church is true!!

Crofts shimai

Love at Home--家庭の中に愛がある

Dear Family, 

Weather: rain

Shout out: Dad. Haha. I showed somebody our family picture, and he pointed at you and Joseph and said *I can tell those two are family…they look exactly the same!

Week 5 in Yonago: WONDERFUL. 

     We actually spent our first 2 days of the week in Kobe. It was my first Mission Leader Conference. It was so great! I love President Zinke. I expect to see him sitting on the stand in general conference very soon. On Monday night when we got to Kobe, we stopped by the mission home to say hi to Sister Zinke and show an english presentation that Tojo shimai prepared, and we were able to talk with Sister Zinke and President Zinke for a while, just the four of us in a normal conversation. It was so fun to be with them when they were not training and see them as normal people. They are awesome! We saw them again on Thursday when they visited our zone to say goodbye to us (theyll be back in America soon!) They talked about how they have been training us not to be good missionaries, but to be good people. Disciples not just for 18 months, but forever! They talked a lot about families and temples. It was WONDERFUL. It made me so even more grateful for the family I have now, and excited to go to the temple again! Interestingly, it did not make me want to go home. It made me want to be a better missionary now and work my very best now! 

     I love missionary work. We visited the Takekawa family again. (The family with 6 kids!) They were just as willing to let us into their home, and we were just as impressed with the family. They prayed together for their first time and it was probably the cutest thing I have seen, and definitely one of the happiest moments of my mission! There were five kids in a row with their hands clasped and their heads bowed, and at the end of the prayer, they all said *amen* at the exact same time!! We arranged for them to come to this weeks ward family home evening, (we need two big cars for all of them!)nand I have a feeling the ward is going to love them to pieces. I think it is perfect to have a wonderful family of 8 with good values and aspirations to be living in a ward with so many families and primary children. The Lord knows what He is doing. It is a joy to be working with families. 

     I also love being involved with less active members. It is pretty adventurous biking from one house to the next, finding out that some people moved years and years ago or passed away or something. The crazy thing to me is that we receive their record from the ward, place the name on our map, and then when we are planning, we usually just look at how much time we have and determine where we should go based on that. However, I still feel like the Lord is leading us so much, and I can recognize His hand in the work often as we go along. 

     One day, we went to visit a less active brother. His mother answered the door and said he moved to Osaka almost 10 years ago. As we talked to her though, we thought there was something different, and we found out she actually got baptized too. She was baptized with her son in Osaka over 20 years ago, but the ward did not have any record of her, and she does not really remember anything about church either. We sang a hymn with her and prayed with her, and tears came to her eyes and she asked us to visit again. The Lord is leading us to His lost sheep. 

     Something about less active members makes me love them SO MUCH. Probably because they have already been baptized and I know they are so close to being able to go the temple and feel of the blessings that I have in my life!  Instead of just picturing them being baptized, I picture them going to the temple and having families like my own, and it really makes me want to help them! I am so grateful for the responsibility we have to help the less active members.

    I am also grateful for music. Tojo shimai also loves music, so we use it a lot. Almost every time we sing a hymn for a less active member, whether they are interested in the church or not, it brings tears to their eyes. We also sing hymns to random people who we meet housing who may not have interest in the gospel but seem to have a hard life. The Spirit is always very strong, and I feel like I can share my testimony powerfully through music. We are so blessed to have music in our lives!! I will be performing the violin a few times this week…I am excited!!

     Thank you for being the best family in the world! I mean it. I love you so much!

Love,

Kris

Come, Come Ye Saints--畏れず来たれ聖徒

Dearest Family,

I love you all so much. Thank you for being the best family in the world! One of my favorite things to do (among many) is to pull out my picture book and show people YOU! Everybody notices how happy our family is. Also, they think you all look like movie stars. Its funny. Sometimes they ask which movie star the picture is, and when I say it is my brother or sister (people have asked about almost each one of you) they are shocked. 

It has been a great week in Yonago! I am so grateful. The Lord has blessed us to be able to meet wonderful people this week. 

When we first got to Yonago, the previous sisters left us a note about a potential investigator. It is a man who has an udon/Ukranian food shop. They said it is delicious and he is really nice! We decided to go check it out. The food was good, and he was REALLY nice. He is married to a Ukranian woman, and they have 6 kids!!! He told us that after he met the other missionaries, he went to search for our church, but he could not find it. We gave him a map and he said he would come when he had work off! We left the shop to go to an appointment, but the appointment cancelled, so we had some time, and we decided we really wanted to meet this mans family. We knew it was a little bit weird and maybe forward, but we went back to the shop and asked him where he lived. Surprisingly, he was more than willing to have us meet his family! In fact, he biked with us back to his apartment, and let us right in! His wife was so welcoming and his kids were SO happy to see us. They are GOOD GOOD kids. And half ukranian/half japanese kids are beautiful. Anyway, the family was absolutely wonderful. Apparently the wife also has a lot of interest in church, and they said they would love to have us over whenever! They are not investigators yet, but we are excited for the future! 

My favorite part of the week: Dateyama kyoudai. Dateyama kyoudais wife was baptized about 30 years ago. He took the missionary discussions on and off from that point, but he had absolutely no interest. He was especially bothered by people pushing him to be baptized. His wife was a faithful member. She passed away a little over a month ago, and he has been coming to church in order to feel close to her. We decided we wanted to help him. Last week at church we went up to meet him and ask if we could visit him, and he was very stand-off-ish. He was hesitant to even be talking with the missionaries. We told him we heard wonderful things about his wife and wanted to learn more about her, and that we would not talk about church things. He finally agreed to let us visit him. When we visited, we talked for about an hour about his wife, and then he brought up prayer. He said his wife always prayed and he began to pray for help before she passed away, but now that she has died, he was confused (especially with the Buddhist beliefs about prayers) and he did not know how to pray. He asked us to teach him! Then he began to ask about God and about the restored church. Then he brought up baptism by himself! He said he still does not want to be baptized, but he understands that it is necessary and he wants to become like the members of our church. We had a very good discussion, and at the end, we sang his wifes favorite hymn, Come come ye saints. He was crying and he said he realized he NEEDS the missionaries. We saw him again at church yesterday and he was a completely different person. He had a nicely prepared gift for us and a smile on his face. It was wonderful. 

Missionary work is the best. The Lord is preparing people everywhere. He loves His children and He has a plan for each one of us! This gospel is true. Thanks for loving it and living it so well. 

I love you!

Kris