The Craziest Tuesday Night of my Life

(This is Sister Black's letter from last week. We will send her letter for this week tomorrow. - Sister Black's parents.)

Hola!

The weeks are flying by here in Japan! Can you believe I've been in Japan longer than I was in the MTC? Can you believe I've already been here almost 2.5 months? I'm almost done with training! What is this?!

Let's start with Tuesday. Tuesday was crazy because it was Elder Miller's last day in Oizumi! We tried to make Ping Pong super fun and invited everyone to come say goodbye. We even bought snacks and brought some of the youth. It was really fun, and Vivi even got Elder Miller a goodbye present, some magic toys because he loves learning magic and likes showing us all of his card and coin tricks. It was so nice. Then one of the investigators invited us all out to dinner, for one last meal.

The only problem was time. Ping Pong ends at 8:30, we needed to bike home with one of the youth because we promised her mom we would, the Elders were planning on visiting one more family and we had to be home by 10:00. As you can see, not much time. AND THEN Elder Miller got a flat tire. Never fear though, we managed to get everything done, eat in 15 min, take some pictures, and have a really good last night with our amazing District Leader. It was a crazy night, but it was super good, and we made it home on time 😊

The next day, Elder Miller left and Elder Queiroz came to Oizumi. I am officially the only American missionary in Oizumi. Crazy!

We also had Zone Meeting this week and it was so good. I got a lot of really good ideas on how to help promote Mission School (our English and English Test Prep classes) and how to better prepare for Elder Bednar's visit next week! One thing I'm really trying to do is to actually act on the talks that we were asked to read, to try them out now so that I can come up with better questions to ask. One thing I'm focusing on is asking in faith and really taking the time to be thoughtful in my prayers and come to Heavenly Father with plans and actions I want to take, instead of asking him to tell me what to do. So far it's been really good!

In my studies, the Elder Bednar talks, General Conference talks, and the Book of Mormon challenge, I've learned a lot about faith, obedience, and diligence. Everything I've been reading has really focused on those three things. Having and growing your faith, then obeying and acting, then enduring and persevering to the end, no matter how hard it is. Missions are not easy, but they are rewarding. It can be frustrating when someone doesn't keep their commitments because you know that if they do they will be blessed, but as long as we keep having these three things, we can know that God will bless us.

This week really has been a week of miracles (what week isn't?).

On Tuesday, I took the lead on a lesson we had with Lucimara. I was worried because her Portuguese is one of the hardest for me to understand, but it actually went really well. We were able to find her real needs and teach to them. It was a completely different lesson than we had planned, but it was what she needed. It was so amazing!

Saturday was a huge miracle day! We were able to teach two of our new investigators, Sayuri and Adele.

Sayuri is only 13, but she has a lot of questions that she has been looking for answers to. She really wants to learn more about Christ and how to have a happy family. She's the daughter of a former investigator that we just started teaching again and she is so sweet. On Saturday, we were just planning on teaching her the Restoration and seeing where we should go from there, but then she had so many questions that we ended up teaching the Restoration, most of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end) and most of the commandments. She was so prepared and she was so cute! We are really excited to continue working with her and helping her find the answers to her questions.

Then we had a lesson with Adele, a referral from the Elders. She is Filipino and her English is amazing. She loves to learn about languages, people, and religions. She was amazing because she already understands the importance of the Holy Ghost and feeling that confirmation that what she is hearing and learning is true. She immediately believed in Joseph Smith and the First Vision and she said she wants to come to church a few times to see what she feels.

Both of these investigators came to church on Sunday and it was so special. We were watching the Sunday Morning session of General Conference, so they were able to hear the words of the leaders of our church. They had questions, and we were able to answer them, and it was so good!

Speaking of General Conference, it was played in Portuguese, so on Saturday morning, during personal study, I read all the talks in English so that I would be able to understand at least a little bit (or at least remember a bit from each talk). Well, during the actual conference I could barely understand anything, so I just took notes on impressions that came to my mind. It was weird because I couldn't write down things that the leaders said that stood out to me, I just had to listen to the Spirit to know what to write. It was a different experience to me, but at the same time I loved it. I was really able to listen to the Spirit and focus on what was important for me instead of just the beautiful words they said. I will for sure be reading all of the talks again over the next few weeks, but these notes I took during the session will always have a special place in my heart because I know that they were revelation for me.

I haven't had the chance to see or read all of the talks yet, so next week I will talk more about General Conference.

One of my favorite talks that I have studied is President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from the General Women's Broadcast, "Fourth Floor, Last Door." Everyone was emailing me about it this week, don't worry, I've watched it in English and Portuguese, and read it multiple times, it is so good. We actually watched it with an investigator this week because it was so perfect for her. I love it because it is so true, we never know what God has in store for us, we have to push forward with faith all the way to the last possible moment.

This week was hard for Pourre Shimai and I because we have been doing this sugar fast and it can be hard to see the miracles because they aren't big ones. It was really hard for us, but we agreed, that no matter what, we will continue our fast until the very last moment. We have faith that we will see miracles, the miracles we need to be seeing, not necessarily the miracles we want. And we have! I've included a few of them in this email, but there are so many more.

We found two new investigators for other areas yesterday. We have been able to help a former investigator start to progress. We were able to meet with a less-active member that we haven't seen in weeks. So many miracles! This sugar fast is so hard (especially when your Zone Leader makes an amazing ice cream cake for Zone P-day and you can't eat it) but we know it is worth it.

Now for some fun stuff that happened this week: As I mentioned, we had Zone P-day today! The whole zone got together to do Iron Chef in Maebashi, Sisters vs. Elders. We had 45 min to cook and it was so fun! We made gyoza (Honda Shimai's mom's recipe) and Rice Krispies made with granola. It was really fun! Haha the Kiryu Elders weren't cooking because they brought a recent convert with them, and so we sent them out to buy us more marshmallows when we ran out! So nice! They got back just in time for us to finish the Rice Krispies before time ran out.

The Elders made some kind of stir fry that was pretty good, but the sisters still won!!!! Whoooooooo! Haha, then Elder Seeger brought our his ice cream cake and it looked so good! He put in Black Thunder, and ice cream, and melon pan (bread with chocolate chips). Oh it was so hard, but we resisted!

We also played a round of missionary mafia and that was really fun too! Overall, a great Zone P-day! We have such a fun zone, it was great to get to talk and cook with them.

Other funny moments from this week: At Eikaiwa, we decided to play Charades and Kai Kyoudai got Shinkansen (the bullet train in Japan) and he was so funny acting it out! I wish I had a video! He just started running around the room really fast and waving and it was so funny! When Kai Kyoudai does charades, he gets into it. He gives 110% and it is so fun!

On Sunday, some mysterious food showed up in the fridge labeled Sisters and Elders. Elder Passos talked to the lady who dropped it off. Apparently, there is a really nice woman here in Oizumi that belongs to another church, but loves to make food for the missionaries. Mysterious food!!! It was so good! It was real Brazilian food and it was delicious, bobó and esfiha. Bobó is like a soup with shrimp and mushrooms and esfiha is meat stuffed in dough. Both were so good!

It's getting colder here in Japan (like WA weather), but biking warms me up. I can't believe that another week has passed, but I will talk to you all next week!

Thank you!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai