We Rejoice in Christ--キリストのことを喜ぶ

Infamous Bamboo Forest

A Buddhist practice of washing hands

Dear Family, 

I am glad to hear you have recovered from the bacteria. Bleh! Misato shimai taught me how to say throw up this week. Apparently she was hit with it as well. In case you are wondering, vomit in Japanese is outo (嘔吐) [pronounced oh-to]. Now you know for next time the family gets hit with water poisoning.

I will begin by talking about the *lady who prayed*, our dear investigator Yamaguchi shimai. She is wonderful. She just gets it! We pray about what she needs to hear/feel/learn/do, we follow promptings we received to make her a good lesson, we teach it to the best of our (very limited) abilities, and she takes it in. But not only that, she understands it and feels it and loves it! We were able to teach her about the atonement on Tuesday, and her testimony was so sweet. She wanted to learn more and more about faith and repentance so that she knew exactly how to come unto Christ. On Thursday we were able to teach the Restoration of the Gospel, and WOW. Teaching the Restoration is probably different here than in a lot of places. People are not really looking for which church is right, or wanting to know the full truth. Usually the issue is just whether or not they want to believe in any religion or not. So when we teach the Restoration, more than trying to convince our investigators that this is the true restored gospel, we just want them to feel and learn of Gods love, and notice how He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Well, Yamaguchi shimai got it. To me, the restoration is absolutely marvelous, and Yamaguchi shimai was able to recognize that. She was blown away when she learned about the restoration, and she just kept talking about how great Gods love is and how wonderful God is. She was right on. And after hearing about Joseph Smiths vision, she pretty much taught herself the rest of the Restoration. She asked *so did Joseph smith, through Gods power, receive authority and learn how to bring the full church back to the earth?* Pin pon!! She just gets the message. And she feels it. And she loves it! And you can see in her eyes and her responses that she is rejoices in this message too! She still cannot get her job off (or find a way to quit her job), so she can not come to church yet, but we are praying and praying and praying for her!!

Speaking of prayers, God answers prayers. Our beloved investigator Misato shimai was evidence of that this week. We spent another great week working to find those who are prepared to hear the gospel! We are grateful everyday for the sheep revelation, because it always makes knocking on the next door worth it. Every day I feel like the senmin are SO close!  She is the one who followed us at the very beginning, and has been willing all along to listen to our message and come to church and keep commitments. We were struggling the last few weeks with her though. She had to take a two week break from meeting with us, and she seemed to have forgotten everything after that! Of course we were sad about that, but it seemed to have an even bigger impact on her...she felt discouraged that she could not remember and she was not excited about hearing our lessons anymore. (She was still meeting though because she is scoring very high on the social converstion.) But after prayer and pondering and studying and more prayer, God helped us to make a lesson plan that fit her needs exactly. It was a simple simple lesson about God, and when we taught it, something clicked with her. She understood well, and she felt something too! She liked it. We were able to review the gospel of Jesus Christ the next day, and it all seemed to click with her as well. Something happened, and she was excited for baptism! She had about 1000 questions about it (she is worried about if it is scary or fun or painful or cold, etc.) Yesterday at church, we gave her the baptismal record to have her mom sign it, and she was so excited that she just filled out all of her information right away! God answers prayers and is ready and willing to help every step of the way! 

The image people have of Jesus Christ here is really sad to me. I have talked about it before, but it was so clear to me this week! We spent a few hours with girls we met at a college, and when we first got on the train with them, one of the girls asked if we always have to wear our *Jesus Christ badge.* We said we do always wear it, and she made a face like she bit into a worm. It broke my heart. And a lot of times people will be talking to us, then they look down at our name tag, and their face completely changes and they just stick up their hand and walk away. Hunt shimai mentioned once this week the desire she sometimes has to just cover up the nametag. I say wear it loud and proud. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be serving my Savior. He is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. He is the only way to return to our Father in Heaven with our families, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share this message with others! I will keep going until I find those who are ready to accept Jesus Christ and follow Him. I love the gospel and I love our Savior!

And I love yall!!!! Have a great week!

Love,

KRIS

Mom, that lady with the flowers is a problem haha. We visited her a while ago and found out she is very orthodox in another religion. (This religion has an anti Christ. He is very close to being just like Christ in the fact that He can perform miracles and give people peace and comfort and things. The power of the devil is strong in this religion. I would say more, but I do not want to talk about it.)  She still loves to talk with us and asked us to come back...but we do not know if it is worth our time to visit her. 

The family. Ahh the beloved family. We visited again yesterday and the mom said that she is no longer interested in hearing our message. Sad. 

Good luck with your sugar challenge. Ha. 

Dad, sorry to hear that you were rolling on the bathroom floor. That sounds gross. Here in Japan, we use squatter pots. Sometimes my legs are sore from biking, and I think I might actually fall on the floor while I am squatting. But I like the squat pots because they are sanitary, and the regular pots are only nice if they are heated (which thankfully, a lot of the public restrooms have heated toilets.)

Jason and Becca: bah Cameron sounds like the cutest little ball of sunshine! Will you tell him hi for me? Enjoy the good weather!! Despite the two coldest days of my life last week, it is actually fairly warm right now! I usually wear 3 pairs of tights and 3 shirts and 2 sweaters and a coat and scarf, but today I took it down to 2, 2, and 1, and I am not wearing a scarf. 

Peach and Jan: Good luck with the school and work this week. I love you! Are you proud of the fact that Jon and Ali are probably getting married because of you two? 

Tyler: sorry about your fingernail. but congrats on the family! you are a wonderful missionary example to me!

Saud: good luck. I hope you arent too busy to still be loving life. 

Dan: I saw a bus drive by a few days ago that was just like thomas the train. It looked awesome! I wanted to ride it! 

Joey: did you get sick too? when i show people our family picture, they like to ask what nationality you are. 

Carl: Time goes by way too fast. I can actually understand people when they talk to me now, which is convenient. Sometimes I forget that I am speaking a different language. Except for old people. I do not understand them at all.  I can have a 10 minute conversation with an old person and walk away with only about 2 or 3 words that I understood. The food is just delicious. Except fish is not really a novelty anymore so I prefer to not eat it. I feel like people stare more and more at me each week. Good luck with the wedding plans. 

God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.

HELLO FAMILY!!

I am so sorry to hear that you are sick. That sounds miserable. Especially Jasons experience. I have heard the phrase *a family that prays together stays together*. But it seems like our family gets sick on vacations often, so I like to think that a family that vomits together stays together. Nonetheless, I hope you all recover quickly.

This week in Katsura was another week of blessings. Oh how wonderful the Lord is. I believe my favorite day of last week was Tuesday. So I will write about that day. So one of the first days in Katsura, we were exploring our way around this area and we ended up going up a big big big hill for about 45 minutes to an area with lots of houses and apartments. It was a pretty good area, but we figured it was far away and hard to get to, so people would probably not be interested in coming all the way to church and we would probably use our time better going to an area closer to our church, so we determined not to go there again. But one night as we were planning, we both thought that we should go to that place! That night as I was praying, I had one specific area in particular come to mind (it was up and over the hill and then up another even steeper hill!) We had never been there before, but we decided to just go for it and trust in the Lord. After about 15 minutes of housing, we came to a door and the people got really excited to see us. They said it was because we are cute Americans haha. BUT we jumped on that and talked about why we came to Japan, and they said they would listen to our message! The mom actually said she has interest in religion and she is listening to other peoples messages but she wants to hear ours! They were busy at that time, but they said to please come back! There is the mom, a 16 year old son, a 15 year old daughter, and then another 8 year old son...I am SO EXCITED to teach them! We went back on Saturday and the 16 year old was outside his door. He said he was locked out and he was waiting for them to come back, so we figured they would come home soon. We housed around the area for about an hour and then came back and he was still just standing there. It was a FREEZING DAY!! (the coldest one yet.) And he was shivering super bad, so we bought him some hot cocoa out of the vending machine and talked to him for a while. He likes music and running and ice cream. Me too! I really am so excited to teach this family. The Lord led us right to them! 

Tuesday got even better with our lesson with Yamaguchi san that night. She is the *one who prayed*. (Ha mom I like the title you gave her.) She talked about how she prayed every night before going to bed but she also prayed in her heart at work, and how she felt like since then EVERY part of her life has become happier. That is the gospel right there. We actually taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson, and she caught on so well. She does not understand the message perfectly in her head (because who does understand sin and death and the atonement perfectly?) but she understands it so well in her heart. In her prayer at the end of the lesson (which was only 5 days after having first learned how to pray) she expressed her thanks for Jesus Christ and asked for help in following Him.) It was such a good prayer. The member in the lesson (who just returned from her mission last year) was crying at the end of the prayer. It was GOOD. 

I was blown away by Yamaguchi san when we taught her again on Thursday.  We had a CPR lesson prepared for her (church,reading,and prayer), but as we talked about prayer, she basically taught US how to pray and why it is important. She has it FIGURED out and she loves prayer! And then before we could even teach much about the scriptures, she told us about how she had been reading from the Book of Mormon (which we never even asked her to.) She said she only read a little bit, but she read through it three times, once for the story and twice for the teachings, and she loved it because of the thoughts and feelings she got as she read. So she taught herself that  part of the CPR lesson too! I feel like she reads the Book of Mormon better than a lot of the members do! She did not know anything about church or sacrament, but she understood what we taught her so well and her desire to come to church and take the sacrament was strong. However, she works every Sunday. She asked us if there was any way we could do the sacrament on another day or later on on Sunday. She said she already asked her boss if she could get Sundays off and she did not get permission. She even tried to quit her job, but apparently if she quits the whole business will go under. She is really in a pickle! However, her desires are SO strong. She really really wants to go to church and to be baptized! We believe as we show our faith together with her, and as her desires grow even stronger, a way will be prepared for

her to find a way to come to church. This is really a situation where we are going to have to show our faith and put every last drop of trust in the Lord. I am excited to see how the Lord will help her. 

As you can see, the Lord loves His children. He wants them all to return to Him, and He is preparing them and helping them. I have the sweet privilege to be involved in His work  and assist Him in helping His children! Before coming on my mission, I was definitely excited, but I had no idea how wonderful it was going to be. I LOVE being a missionary!! 

Also, I love you all so so so much! Thanks for your prayers and support. I love you I love you I love you!!!

With love :)

Kris

Heart Might, Mind, and Strength--心と勢力と重いと力

 Dearest Family,    

     I just want to tell you about the Japanese people. They are so nice. Because this week was unusually cold (which I did not know was possible. I was reading back in my journal from November when I wrote about how it was the coldest I had ever been. Every week since then has become exponentially colder I am pretty sure.) Anyway, it was cold, so people were really nice to us. Even though we still talk to people all day every day and just get turned down the whole time, their *no*s are very nice. Like *wow what you are doing is great and we think you are strong and have good character and you are a hard worker and it is cold so be careful and wait a minute (leave and come back with a box of chocolate for us) and if i was interested i think what you are doing is great but sorry i have absolutely no interest (bowing in between every comment) and thank you and good night and be careful and good luck!* That is a typical contact for us. I LOVE JAPAN!! I just pray their hearts will be opened! We actually had one lady let us in (she was sokagakkai and made it very clear that she did not want to talk about religion and she would not take down our contact information or anything) and she fed us corn soup and cheese and had us sit in front of the heater for a while. She said she did not want us to have to be out into the cold with empty stomachs, and then when we left she told us to go straight home because it was cold and dark and she wanted us to be safe. Haha she was SO nice! But she said we can only come back if it is cold and we are hungry and we do not talk about religion. I think I may just come back. And eventually baptize her. 

     I love the moments when something happens, and you know that God is in charge. 

Last week we were talking to somebody as we walked down the street with her. We did not say anything about church or what we were doing, but just as she was about to leave, we introduced ourselves and asked if she would meet with us again and she said yes! So she set up an appointment to meet with us. She is 25, single, and working really close to our church. On Tuesday we met with her at the church. We were walking around the rooms just talking and getting to know her...she said she had never thought about God and she did not really have a ton of interest but that she would listen to our message, so we did Setting the Table with her. Watching her eyes as we taught was incredible. With every new thing we said about God her eyes lit up even more. She was smiling and crying and smiling some more, and then when we introduced baptism for the first time, it was like a big light turned on in her. She just sat up and asked what baptism is right away! We said we could explain more later, finished the lesson, and as I was praying at the end, I felt like I should ask for her to be able to get baptized, so I did. After the prayer, she asked again about baptism, so we very simply explained it, and she said she wanted to get baptized! We met with her again on Thursday and she became a Yakusokusha!! We taught her prayer, and she seemed just as excited about every new thing she was learning in this lesson as she was with the first lesson! She got pretty teary-eyed during the lesson, and after I did the first demonstration prayer, she seemed to be very touched. By the time Hunt shimai finished the next demonstration prayer, she was bawling. We sat there for about 5 minutes and she just cried and then smiled and then cried. She finally was able to pray for her first time...it was INCREDIBLE. She talked to God like she knew Him. She had some really good questions afterward (for example if she is allowed to pray without speaking) and then we set up our next appointment. She walked away from the church so giddy and excited to meet with us again! When we meet people like this and have moments like these, i cannot help but think of D&C 123:17. This is Gods work and it is moving forward fast! We have the wonderful privilege of choosing how much we will participate in this work. I know for myself, I find JOY participating in the work of the Lord! Dearest family, thank you for all of your prayers and support and emails and more prayers and examples. I wish I could thank you enough for all you do for me! I love you all so so much! 

Love,

Krissy

Knock and it shall be opened unto You たたきなさい。そすれば開か

Another reason why I love Japan so much...cute construction cones!!!

More Construction Monkeys!

Check out the name..haha!

I think this tennis court is beautiful...and it is often occupied

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

Called to This Work--この技にめされている

A typical meal: Cabbage, Raw Egg, Pumpkin, Rice 

Painted frogs mark the entrance of most preschool and elementary schools

Kobe

I've loved teaching her

Notice the caption on my new bike 

My new church building

Daikon....a staple

I eat a ton of cabbage!

Kyoto ward nabe party

Hello Family!

Well, we are still moving along here in Katsura! This week was much the same as last, given the fact that we only taught one lesson again. We are enduring the cold well, and except for the signs of frostbite on a few of my toes, we are healthily marching on! Work is a lot different here in Katsura as we are working to build up an investigator pool, and even though I do not have nearly as many different experiences as I was having in Mikunigaoka, I still feel like every week of my mission is the new best week of my mission! Because we spend a lot of time outside just walking or knocking on doors, I have had more time to think about the calling of being a missionary and the relationship I have with the Lord and the millions of people here who are waiting to hear the gospel. I felt some really powerful things last week that helped me realize even more how marvelous this work is! Now I just hope to be able to share this message with more people!

Last week on the bus on our way to district meeting, I was talking to the lady sitting next to me, and she was so nice. She came to Kyoto at about the same time I did, so we were both fairly new. We had a good conversation about her job and family and hobbies and my family and what I am doing here in Japan. She said she was happy she got to talk to me and then she got up and left. Well, this week after interviews with President Zinke, we were waiting for the elders so we could catch the bus back with them, but then sister Zinke started talking to us, so after a while the elders just left. We ended up staying at the church a lot longer than we had planned. We finally got on the bus and began heading back to Kyoto and a few but stops into the ride, that same lady walked on! So I went up and began to talk to her again, and it was so good! We talked about church and she said she actually goes to church and she loves it and she loves singing hymns and she said she felt something different talking with me. It was so AWESOME! Unfortunately, the end of that contact turned into what most of the other ones do...she said she was busy and if she had the opportunity she would come to church or meet with us, but we were not able to exchange contact information. That was sad, but I was still so happy that the Lord led us right to this lady again and I am praying for an opportunity to meet again!

We were finally able to meet with Misato chan again on Saturday. It was a fabulous lesson! She is a funny girl...we have had a hard time knowing if she is actually meeting with us to learn about God or if she is a gaijin bandit. (likes foreigners.) It may still be a little bit on the gaijin bandit side of things. Sometimes we feel like she might be answering our questions with what she thinks we would want to hear just so the lesson can move on and keeping commitments just to please us. However, during this lesson on Saturday I noticed things that convinced me otherwise. We taught her the GOSH chart, and I love this lesson because it is where we introduce eternal life. After some simple explanations and powerful testimonies, she really REALLY wanted eternal life. We then explained about the obstacles that keep us from it but how God gave us Jesus Christ to help us return and in order to receive that help you must be baptized and so we invited her to be baptized and she accepted without hesitation!! Again this could have been an acceptance just to please us, But as we were reviewing the lesson at the end, we had her go through and explain what she had learned, and when she got to the Jesus Christ part, she actually got emotional. She got choked up as she talked about her gratitude toward Jesus Christ for helping her to be able to return to God. It was a touching moment for me because even though I have worked with many different investigators,  I have never seen an investigator have that much love for Jesus Christ before. And three weeks ago, Misato chan had never even heard about Jesus Christ! What a wonderful experience!

I am still waiting to visit the Buddhist temple. Last week we had to take an emergency run to the store and buy me some boots and Hunt shimai a coat because the deathly cold hit! And this week we had something set up with a PI...she was going to take us around Kyoto city to different shrines and things, but we have to go to the hospital now because Hunt shimai has a rash, so hopefully NEXT week I will have experienced some of the Buddhist/Japanese culture!

Thanks for the updates on your lives. If you have any questions about what is going on here, shoot them my way! God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and He loves each one of you so very much! Have a fantastic week! The church is true!

愛してます！

Kris

おどろくべきわざ--a marvelous work!

愛する家族、

Dear Family,

Another week come and gone.

We have spent a lot of time looking for new people to teach. It is grueling work. (I like to steal the words of my dear brother. In some few ways our missionary experience is exactly the same...in most ways it is completely different!)

Besides one lesson we had on Monday night, our week was spent all  outside in search for the prepared children! Because I had the opportunity to talk to A LOT of people this week, my eyes were quite opened. I already knew this about Japan, but it was made so much more clear to me what role religion plays in the lives of the people here. The answer is none.

We spent a large portion of our week walking by the colleges talking to people. Most people got pretty excited to talk to us, especially because one of the colleges is a foreign studies college, and so foreigners are good people to talk to. Everybody we met from that college was either studying Italian, Spanish, or English, so I was able to have a polylingual conversation with them all! People are really interested in talking to us until the moment they find out we are volunteers for a church. Then they are all of a sudden busy or late or something. A few people were willing to talk to us a little bit about God. Although we tried many different approaches, the majority of the responses we got to our questions was that some people think God might exist, but most people have not thought about it. A lot of people have not even thought about their purpose in life or wondered where they come from or where they go (at least that is what they say.) If they have heard about Jesus Christ, it is usually a negative thing. In fact we are trying to really advertise our Eikaiwa program in order to simply get people into the church building, so we found high schools and as the students were getting out, we would go up to the crowds and hand out our Eikaiwa flyers. They all seemed pretty interested in learning English for free. However, in one group, once somebody recognized our nametags and said Jesus Christ out loud, everybody started to just walk around us and say they were not interested. Also after going to another group of high school students and handing out the flyers, a woman came behind us and took all the flyers away from them! So that was frustrating.

BUT despite all of that, there are still people here who the Lord is definitely preparing for the gospel. We taught Misato chan again on Monday and she prayed for her first time! She said she had never even thought about talking to God (but she prayed to her ancestors for New Year...that is what they all do.) Our purpose in teaching her how to pray is to help her learn how to receive answers from God, so at the end of the lesson when we all knelt down together, we asked her to pray and ask if God loves her so she could feel His existence. She said she did not need to ask that because she already could feel His love and she knew He loved her. Three days before that she had never even thought about God before!! It is amazing how tangible Gods presence can be.

We met one lady this week, and I have just been in awe since meeting her. She passed us on her bike going down a steep hill, and she had a seat in the front with a 4 year old girl, a seat in the back with a 6 year old boy, a 5 month old baby strapped to her belly, and a backpack on. When she passed us she looked back and smiled so big and waved.  At the bottom of the hill, she stopped at a bank so we were able to talk to her. She is from Egypt, and she does not speak Japanese at all. They are here in Japan for her husband to study. She said she was on her way to go grocery shopping. I was very impressed with her. First of all, I had just gone up that hill on my bike a few minutes before, and it about killed me. But she did it with three kids and groceries every week! Also, she did not speak a lick of Japanese, which means she did not have friends I am assuming. And she said she was looking for a school for her son to learn English, but she could not afford any, so I am also assuming she does not have a lot of money. BUT she was so HAPPY! She was smiling the whole time we were talking to her and she had the most honest eyes. I felt so good after talking to her.

Well family, this work really is marvelous. I feel God guiding me every day and I know this is His work. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings us more happiness than anything else. We are so blessed to have it in our lives! I love you all so much!

Love,

Crofts shimai

愛しています！

クロフス姉妹

Nothing's Going To Rain On My Parade!

Konnichiwa!

 We had a WONDERFUL New Year Conference this week! One of the highlights of the year so far! We reviewed last year as a mission, so I will tell you a little bit about our mission. Over 80 percent of the mission, as most missions are,  is missionaries who have been here for less than 6 months. However, unlike a lot of missions, and unlike all of the other missions in Japan and this part of Asia, instead of seeing a downward trend in the numbers because of all the inexperienced missionaries, the Kobe mission has seen a large increase in numbers. In fact, by the end of the year, we were able to see 204 baptisms! (Kaicho and the aps made it a point to say over and over that we are the highest baptizing mission in this part of Asia.) It seems that the only way the numbers could increase that way, especially with all the inexperienced missionaries, is by relying on the Lord. After talking about the miracle of seeing 204 baptisms, Kaicho shared Mosiah 18/16. Wow the Lord has a hand in this work! Anyway, they talked up the Japan Kobe mission quite a bit, but over all, I was very humbled to have the privilege of participating in the work. We talked about our new goals for the year and the need we have to rely on the Lord. Kaicho put together a wonderful slideshow talking about Jesus Christ and His role and work and our role as missionaries to help. As we were watching the slideshow, I was thinking about how magnificent and divine this work is. God really does love all of His children so much, enough to send His own Son to earth to suffer for all of us. Right now He is performing a marvelous work by preparing His children to receive the gospel and start their way back to Him. He loves His children SO MUCH, but He has asked ME to help Him with His work! So as I was watching the slideshow, i was thinking of the privilege it is to be serving Him, and how I really really want to give up everything I have for Him and trust and follow Him, but I kept thinking to myself, *but will I?* Will I actually do it? And then on the screen it said *Will YOU?* With all my heart I wanted to say yes, but because I sometimes get distracted or scared or discouraged, I did not know if I could really say yes. But then the next slide said *He knows you will. That is why He called you.* That slide made all the difference in my mind. That slide connected all of the training we received about trusting in Him and relying on Him and serving with all diligence and faith and heart. The Lord trusts me, and that is why He called me here to Japan. That slide has been on my mind the last few days and it has made all the difference in the world.I want to do whatever the Lord needs me to do to find those children who are prepared for the message.

The Lord did lead us to some wonderful people this week. One of my favorite miracles happened on Friday after a long day of finding. We had a lesson at the church on Friday evening, so we were planning on leaving the place we were streeting around 5.00. However, at around 4.15, we both looked at our watches and decided that it was probably time to go. I do not know why we were thinking it would take that long to get back, but we did. As we were walking to our bikes, we started talking to another girl who was walking that way. We were not talking about religion, just about her job and things, but then she asked what we were doing and we told her and she got SO excited. She said she went to church a long long time ago and she remembered having a good feeling but she has not gone since then. She said she has a really strong interest and she asked if it would be alright if we talked to her about our church. We exchanged contact information, and she got most excited when we invited her to church! SHe said she really wanted to go! Unfortunatly she was not able to come this week, but I am very excited to teach her. The previous days training at conference had been in mine and Hunt shimai:s mind all day, and we know that the Lord definitely was leading us to that girl!

We also saw miracles with Misato chan! She is the 18 year old girl who followed us last week and said she wanted to see our church. She came to church last week and we taught her. She said she had never before thought about God, in fact she had never even heard of Jesus Christ before. Even though I have been in a Buddhist/anti-religion land for over 4 months, that news still shocked me. I can not imagine living a life without knowing who Jesus Christ is. Anyway, she came to church and the ward members LOVED her! She exchanged numbers with the young women and they were so excited. She also said that even though things were difficult and she had never thought about religious things at all before, she felt Gods love and she wants to learn more! What a miracle! (Also I gave a 10 minute talk in sacrament meeting, with less than a days notice. Ha Hunt shimai is giving a talk in two weeks, but she got two weeks notice. I do not know why they do not think I need preparation time.) We are teaching Misato chan how to pray tonight. I am so excited because God always answers their prayers! 

I do not know if I said anything about my area, but I will briefly. About 2/3 of the area is just mountains, so we do not really go over there. The other 1/3 is a lot like Mikunigaoka...a little city-type place. However, there are some very crowded places. For example, the largest trainstation in Kyoto is in our area, and it is surrounded by some of the largest malls in Japan. It is amazing!! And there are Buddhist temples and shrines ALL over the place! It is funny looking at our map because it is so marked up with Buddhist temples. There are quite a few very touristy spots as well. I am dying to go visit them, One of them is a monkey forest. BUT we will have to wait for another preparation day because today, we needed a chance to rest. Ha I walked more last week than I ever thought I would walk in my life! We are BEAT. But I LOVE it. I will keep going until my body stops going, and even still, I will keep going! I LOVE being a missionary! The church is so true. And I love you all so much!! 

Love,

Crofts shimai