Plot twist...

Hola!

Basically, every day I go to bed dead tired and then I wake up dead tired again, but it's all good because we are seeing miracles in Oizumi!

First of all, we started a Book of Mormon challenge with some of our Less Active members, to read the whole Book of Mormon before the end of the year. That equals about 6 pages per day. We will be checking in with them this week, but I know that I have been blessed so far. This time I am marking Christlike Attributes and all the references to Christ and it is amazing to see that his name is mentioned on every single page of the Book of Mormon. It really is a testament of Jesus Christ, every page testifies of him. I know that this book is true. It has changed my life and brought me so much happiness. I love sharing the happy message that it brings!

SIster Pourre and I also started a Sugar Fast this week. Until October 23rd, we will not be eating any sugar/candy/sweets/juice. We are trying to see miracles here in Oizumi, and we know that as we show Heavenly Father our dedication by giving up sugar, he will help us to see these miracles and really help the people here in Oizumi.

Breakfast with Vivi

Funny story, one of our investigators invited us to breakfast the day after we started the sugar fast. We told her we couldn't eat sugar and yet the moment we got into the house she had this super good looking Brazilian carrot cake with chocolate sauce. Oh my goodness, it looked so good. AND she kept tempting us to eat it, even just a bite. It was so funny, but we didn't give in! We took it to the Elders instead. They are getting a lot of sugar this month because we just give it all to them. :)

Are you ready for some of the miracles we have already seen?

First off was Isabelle, a Less Active. We visited her and ended up helping her set up her wifi. Last time we saw her, we tried to download Gospel Library on her tablet, but she didn't have wifi, so we couldn't do it. We told her the problem, and then we showed up today and she had actually gone out and bought wifi! We spent a long time trying to set everything up for her phone, laptop, and tablet. I got to use a little bit of my IS knowledge from last semester at BYU. Haha, the only struggle was the computer since all of the settings were in Japanese...which none of us could read. But we did it! Now she has Gospel Library and she can read the Book of Mormon!!!

Last Week at Shake Shack

Then the day after we started the sugar fast we had District Meeting and the Zone Leaders came. Well, the Zone Leaders walked in and Elder Seeger says "Hey guys, I hope it's okay, but we brought a friend." We were all so confused, then in walks a Peruvian who was actually super interested in learning more. It was so crazy! Apparently he just went up to the Zone Leaders on the train and started talking to them, then he walked with them to the church. It was such a miracle! Then he came to Eikaiwa on Sunday too! Yay miracles for the Elders!

On Saturday, we experienced some more miracles. We found 6 new investigators, that's a lot even for Oizumi. ALL IN ONE DAY!!!

One of these investigators is Mamta. We actually housed into her family a few weeks ago, but we couldn't figure out what language they spoke so we tried Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese before her Uncle told us they weren't interested. She looked a little interested so we were really disappointed. She came out about 5 min later and we were able to talk to her in English a bit before her mom made her leave. That night I prayed so hard that we would be able to have a second chance with her. Fast forward to this Saturday when we were biking past the apartment. I spotted a teenage girl and stopped to talk to her (because I am really working on stopping everyone) and it was the same girl! She remembered us and wanted to exchange contact information so that we could meet some time! It was so amazing! Everything really does work on God's time.

Churrasco from last week

Church yesterday was another miracle. Last week at the Churrasco we were able to talk to Dayane, a former investigator, and she still had interest so we met with her this week. Well, her and her daughters and one of her daughter's friends (who coincidentally was another former investigator) all came to church! Dayane even bore her testimony! It was beautiful! Besides Dayane and her family, we also had another Japanese couple, and a Japanese/Brazilian family all come. They were all members, but just to look out and see almost all the chairs filled, it was such a great feeling.

Last miracle was Karina. Last week we were calling Potential Investigators on the phone and we found Karina and set an appointment to meet her at Beisa (the grocery store near our apartment) on Sunday. Well we met her and it was such a great lesson. She had so many questions and they just fit the Restoration lesson so well. Everything she asked about was part of the lesson so we were able to weave all the principles together with her questions. I've never seen a lesson fit an investigator so well before. It was such an amazing lesson! It flowed so well, the Spirit really guided us to teach her in the way that was best for her.

We are already seeing miracles here in Oizumi and I know that we will see more in the weeks to come!

Now for some funny stories from this week:

All the white dots are caterpillars

We were about to leave an appointment with Laiane when her brother told us that there were these white spiders falling from the trees and that they hurt when you touched them. We were so confused, so we just started biking, but then we got to a tree and he was right! There were tons of caterpillars falling from the trees! We kind of just stood there for 5 minutes watching them fall. There were so many! I didn't try touching any of them though...and afterward we biked in the middle of the street so that none of the caterpillars would fall on us. :) It was so weird.

Also, in the middle of weekly planning we got an email with all of the dates for Zone Meeting and Zone P-day and such and we just kind of died because there was so much. Sister Pourre especially. Haha we were just like "Maybe if I don't put it in Area Book, it won't happen" but it's all good. We are excited for everything and we did put it in Area Book, don't worry :) You should have see Sister Pourre's reaction though, I wish I had a picture!

Our District

Last, but not least, the big news of the week. The craziest of all plot twists. ELDER MILLER IS BEING TRANSFERRED!!!!! He got a call this morning saying he was being emergency transferred to Urawa this Wednesday. He called us right after it happened and we were so shocked, we just kind of sat there for 18 min. Elder Querioz is coming here on Wednesday. It's so crazy! He was in Elder Passos' District, so now two of my Senpai will be here in Oizumi...and I will be the only American missionary here. It's so crazy! He's still shocked, we are still shocked, it's just all super crazy. We will miss him though!

Thank you all for your support and love. See you next week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

We made origiri at lunch.

Aren't they cute.  Guess which is mine?  (Hint: the one on the left.)