Monday, September 22, 2014

Missionary--宣教師




This is what we do in Japan to make our cheeks look smaller in pics!  
Dear Family,
Missionary work is the best. It just keeps getting better and better every week! I wonder what it would be like if I was serving for 100 years. Would it get better and better each week? I do not know. I cannot imagine it getting any better than this! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! 
A week ago we had FHE at the Bishops home. It was a BBQ with members and investigators and missionaries. It was a blast! I do not love the food at Japanese BBQs, but they are fun.  And I love Bishops wife. We have a great relationship with her and lately she has been telling us about her friends who need help and we are working together. There is a lot of joy in working with members! She also told us how comforting it is to know that we are praying for her and her family and friends. Shout out to all Bishops and their wives and to members who are doing missionary work! 
Tuesday we went to the beach to pick up garbage. Japanese people are SO CLEAN, but they do not have garbage cans, and hence, the beach had a lot of garbage. Anyway, we put on our service vests and chose one section to clean, and we got it CLEAN. When we were close to finishing, a woman came up to us and started talking with us. Then her sister and niece and nephew and mother all came and we were talking together, then they started helping us clean up. They were so grateful for us. As we were walking away, we had many other people come up to us and express thanks. They are very proud of the beautiful nature, so they were glad we were helping out. I love helping the people here. They mean the world to me. 
After service we rushed to teach Pat. Pat prayed!! She is still insistent that she is meeting with us not to talk about to religion, just to practice English. But she is drawing so close to Christ. On Tuesday we put on a scavenger hunt for her through the church. It was so much fun, and the last clue led her into the chapel. We had music playing and we sat down together and just looked to the front (we have stained glass in our chapel.) After a few minutes, we asked how she felt. She said sacred and repentant. Then she said she felt like she was sitting in front of a big waterfall, and she was full of wonder. We talked about how that was Gods love for her, and how through prayer she can feel that. We invited her to pray, and she never said yes or no, she just sat there. But we followed up with her a couple days later, and she did it! She said it is not very often at all that she prays, but she did, and she said it was a great experience. I am excited to hear more about it when we meet with her again this week. 
Wednesday was an adventure with Dateyama kyoudai. Apparently he wanted to do something with us that would make us happy, because he knew that would make his wife happy to see the missionaries happy. So he took us to grape vines. Let me explain. We walk into the orchard, and there are grapes hanging from vines. Grapes and grapes and grapes. And he said, begin eating!! So we did. Japanese fruits are amazing. Their grapes taste like grape flavored candy in America. And they are huge. And we just plucked and ate and plucked more and ate more. It was fabulous. 
Better than the grapes was the lesson with Dateyama kyoudai afterward. We went to his house and began to talk about his concerns again. He has always had the same plan: die, accept baptsim in the next world, and ask somebody in his death will to do his temple work for him so he can be sealed to his wife. We have tried many times to tell him that it does not work out that easily. Last time we met, it finally clicked with him. It was actually heart wrenching. When he found out that in order to really be sealed to his wife forever he has to be baptized in this life, he looked in pain. He promised himself he would never be baptized, but he promised his wife he would do what he needs to to live with her forever. I felt like crying for him. He sat there in such deep thought and we could feel the Spirit working with him. At the end of the lesson, he finally said that he decided to be baptized in this lifetime!! That is a step forward!! It is so wonderful to see the Lord working so closely with this great man. I just love it! And him!
On Thursday after meeting with the wonderful Eiko shimai (she fed us pumpkin quiche and pumpkin soup and pumpkin seed ice cream. I could not be happier) we went over to the Yonago train station to talk to people and look for a few less active members homes. We were walking down a street when we saw a poster on one of the shops for *bubble waffles.* they looked divine, so we stopped to get a better look at the poster. Then we looked inside the shop and the person at the register was waving back at us. We went in to talk with her. Turns out, she has a lot of interest in religion, and she is picking us up at her shop next week to take us to her house so we can have a lesson! Once again, my appetite has led us to somebody ready for the gospel.
Friday was a spiritually uplifting day at district meeting. We talked about visions and goals. I love spiritually uplifting discussions. This week will be with a member of the quorum of the seventy. I will have to tell you more about it next week, but I am excited!!
Saturday was also fabulous. We had a lesson with Angel ( a philipine woman), and we decided to show up a little early with lunch. So we made her stew, and she was so surprised to see us with food! We ate together, and she decided to share with us her hot dog spaghetti with some other ingredients that made us so sick. Anyway, we had a fabulous lesson about Jesus Christ, and at the end we invited her to be baptized. She pulled the classic line that I never thought I would hear: But I cannot swim! ha we helped calm her fears about that one, and then she accepted to be baptized. Yes!! It was sincere lesson and I was impressed by her desire to follow Jesus Christ. 
After coming back from her lesson, we were so sick. There was something in that spaghetti. We were lying on our apartment floor just moaning and laughing and rejoicing that she accepted to be baptized but so sick. Her lesson was long and we had another lesson cancel so we had to change our plans, and we just had no idea what to do. We were lying there like sick dogs with no clue how to help the people here. We prayed, and we were still just stumped. And sick. After a few minutes, we finally decided to just go outside and work. We did not take our bikes, we just walked. We went to some houses, tried to contact some less active members, and then we kept walking. We did not know where to go, but I think we were led. We both had a Book of Mormon in our hands, and we were able to meet 2 people who were interested in the Book of Mormon and accepted to take the book and read it! I love testifying of the Book of Mormon. It is so true and powerful. 
I think the Lord blessed us for getting up and going to work, because as we were out and about, we got a phone call from a member telling us that she was bringing her friend to church, she wanted us to teach her, and then we were invited to dinner at her home! At church on Sunday, a cheerful, friendly 28 year old lady came up to us, shook our hands, and introduced herself as Uchida san. She said it was her first time at church and she was excited! After sacrament meeting, she seemed in awe. Deklerk shimai and a member taught her a lesson during 2nd hour and apparently it was such a good lesson. (I was not there because I was translating for an Australian 11 year old. His family of 8 came to our ward because his mother served here 15 years ago. It was a blast to translate for him!!!!) Anyway, we had dinner that night with Uchida san and another nonmember the Ueda family, and it was a wonderful time. Again, when members are involved, it goes by so wonderfully. I am grateful to be in Yonago ward where the members are so faithful and loving and great missionaries! It is a joy to be establishing the church here with them!!! 
Family, this is the Lords work. I see it every day and I feel His hand in this work every day. We are all working together to help others return safely back to our Heavenly Father. The more we serve Him, the more joy we feel. It is a blessing to be alive at this time!!!
I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and love. :) 
Wub,
Kwissy

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