YOROKOBI (JOY)

メリクリスマス！！

Dear Family!! How are you?

Merry Christmas!

I am so excited to talk with you on Thursday! There are so many wonderful things happening here in the Japan Kobe mission!!

We had a fabulous Christmas party on Saturday. We had four investigators and five other potential investigators show up! It was quite the turnout! They served a really nice American style (kind of) dinner and the youth put on a nice little program. The ward gave me and Griffin shimai each a HUGE sack full of presents from the ward! Slippers and tights and lotion and tons and tons and tons of food. Including salsa. Yay!! The best part of the night for me was seeing Matsuzaki kyoudai there. He was helping out with the food and participating in the program and having a good time...he is just like a member now! He blessed the sacrament for his first time yesterday. Sadly, yesterday was his last day in this ward because he is moving back home to Tokyo for his job. It was such a pleasure to see him move through the converstion process the way he did!

IT SNOWED ON FRIDAY!!!!! And whoever thinks weather in Idaho is crazy, you should try living in Japan! It was like a blizzard, and then completely sunny, and then a blizzard, and then completely sunny again for about an hour! There is no grass here, so the snow did not stick. But it was so fun! Definitely brought in the Christmas spirit!

Celebrating Christmas in a place where people do not know anything about Christ is definitely different. In fact, for merry christmas they say kurisumasu here (クリスマス）　, but Christ is kirisuto, （キリスト）so it is not even the same! It is sad! And Brandon, I am currently on the hunt for a Japanese nativity. I have seen nativities here, but I do not think they are Japanese.

For the most part, people do not have work off on Christmas. However, next week almost everybody will have work off! Today we did a big deep cleaning of the church, and one of the shimai was telling us that because it is the end of the year people get work off and they all deep clean. I guess that is their Christmas tradition here. And they eat Christmas cake.

Interestingly, we had 3 investigators come to our deep cleaning! We did not invite them, they just showed up!! Mai chan continues to inspire me by how GOOD she is. She is such a happy, helpful, faithful person and I am inspired by her every time I am with her! She came to the Christmas party and I feel like of all the Japanese people, I can be myself easiest around her. We had a good time joking and laughing, which is fun, but then when we teach her, I can always feel God so near. I know He is working along with her right now and helping her find her way to Him. What an honor to be working along with her too!

A few days ago we were streeting by the high school and another man came up to us and asked if we were for the Mormon church. I do not know how people recognize us! Maybe because we are foreign and we wear long skirts and have name tags. Anyway, he came to Eikaiwa that night, and then on Friday he called us and asked if he could come to our worship service, and on Sunday sure enough he came! We taught him after sacrament meeting, and he said that he came to church because he has an interest in learning about God and he want to know what Gods plan is. Every week we have moments like these that make it so clear to me that this is Gods work and He is the one who leads us all. We definitely did not do anything to find this man, he was just put right in our path at just the right time! What a miracle!

Serving a mission at this time of year makes me think a lot about miracles. Christs birth was the beginning of many many wonderful miracles. Today, I see these miracles as the light that comes into peoples eyes when they find out that God is their father, or the smile that comes onto their face when they pray to God and feel something for the first time. These kind of miracles are my favorite! Most importantly, the reason I am doing what I am doing, is because of the miracle of the living Christ, and the joy that can come into each one of our lives as we come unto Him. Thank you for your wonderful example...have a wonderful Christmas season!! I love you so much and I am excited to talk to you!!!!!!!

Love,

Crofts shimai

Dad and mom: happy anniversary!!! i did not forget. well i did, until wednesday night. but happy late anniversary!

Pops: I know you always talked about how every day of your mission you ate beans and salsa. Or something like that. Well today, because we got salsa for Christmas, we are celebrating our *monday before christmas mexican dinner* by eating salsa. It is a special treat for us! We have not found tortillas yet, but we still are going to look more today.

Mom:, to add on to the discussion about families. I think people have families because that is their duty and that is what they do, but showing love is not really something people do here. They hardly ever say I love you. And hugging is weird to them. And fathers for the most part do not participate in the childs rearing at all. They just provide the money. But I feel like lots of people still have families, and there are tons of young couples!

Also, the colorful tape....they use it for everything! Whatever you may want to tape or decorate, just use that colorful tape. And chopsticks...yeah I use them all the time and I still have not quite figured it out. Just practice :)

I love you!!

Jason and Becca: you have the most beautiful baby in the world.

Peach and Jana: enjoy Christmas in Texas! happy kind of anniversary.

Ty: feliz navidad!! i love you!

Sarah: if we see people walking down the streets holding hands, we know they are rebels. PDA is a no no here. Also, once we saw people kiss, and it was the most disgraceful thing I have seen since coming to Japan.

Dan: I love ya!! I would want a hat that turns me into a snowman.

Joseph: ho ho ho!!!!