You can never have too many Christmas miracles!

Merry Christmas!!

Our District

It must be Christmas because we saw so many miracles!!!! Christmas miracles!

There have literally been so many miracles that they can't all fit in this email, but I will do my best!

The beginning of this week was rough because we had to walk everywhere until Sister Bede's bike came and we also needed to do a lot of caroling prep including making posters about our message and practicing our songs. We had plans to carol with the primary kids on Saturday and the Single Adults on Friday so we needed to be ready. Therefore, the first half of the week wasn't very exciting, but it was all in preparation for our Christmas miracles!

The start of the miracles happened when we went to Meikai University this week and found three people who are interested in studying English with us. Two girls even invited us to their English Speaking Society Christmas party. We couldn't make it, but we hope to meet with them soon!

Sotodate Shimai and Christmas Eve Crepes

We also started having our member meals this week. Basically the Urayasu Members are the nicest people ever! They signed up to feed the missionaries lunch and dinner until Jan 3rd. So every day we get fed two meals and it's really dangerous because they like to feed the missionaries a lot...good thing we have been doing some crazy biking lately!

The biggest miracle we saw this week happened on Christmas Day. We had the craziest morning because Sister Chinain and I both Skyped our families before church and we ended right before church started. We were having a special musical program and the missionaries were asked to sing a song. Well, Sister Chinain also had a baptism in Chiba at 11:15, church was from 10-11:30, and we had a lunch 30 min away at 1:00. How was this all going to work? We decided that right after our song, Sister Bede and Sister Chinain would leave and go to the baptism and I would stay and go on splits with a Young Woman and hold down the fort in Urayasu.

Aoi-san

So, that's what happened. They left and I stayed in Urayasu and it was crazy! I was all by myself (with Aoi-chan as my companion) and I had about 10 different people I needed to talk to after sacrament and it was insane. What made it even crazier was that the moment Sacrament ended, every one started handing presents to each other. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. But the good news? I was able to talk to everyone I needed to, set some appointments, and taught a few lessons, all on my own! Then Aoi and I left together to go to her house for lunch (her family was the one feeding us). We arrived late and the other sisters weren't there yet and we couldn't get hold of them. They were super late too and I thought it was going to be a disaster because we still had to go all the way back to the church to make it to the next meal on time. I was super stressed about it all, but then Yamagata Kyoudai offered us a ride to the church! That was the start of this huge miracle.

Christmas lights in Japan

Well we get to the church and we decide to use the bathroom before getting on our bikes and going to the Yoshihashi's for dinner. Well, while we were in the bathroom, Aoi-San showed up! She thought our lesson was at 4:00 instead of 7:00. So I walk out of the bathroom and the Elders are talking to someone and I go up to introduce myself and she says "I'm Aoi Shimada" and I just freaked out. She is so nice! We invited her to come with us to the Yoshihashi's for dinner and she said yes, so we headed over there and we had the most fun time. Aoi had so much fun too. She opened up to everyone and was telling stories and talking and we all just had so much fun. I'm so glad she showed up and that everything worked out so that we were at the church right when she showed up so at she could come with us. We weren't able to have the lesson we planned, but she was able to bond with the Yoshihashi's and have a really good Christmas dinner.

(Side note: I was personally dying because we had just come from a meal and I was so full. The food was delicious, but yeah, it's a rough time because everyone just wants to feed us! Then everyone gave us even more food at Sacrament Meeting to take back to our apartments! It took all three of our baskets to get it all home.  The ward members are so generous.)

The other huge miracle happened yesterday. We had plans to meet Jessica and Shan Shan (from Meikai) to go to lunch because it would be the last time they would see Chinain Shimai. Well, they told us a few weeks ago that they wanted to go to church, but they had work so we planned to do a church tour for them. However, they came late and so we didn't end up giving them the tour.

With Shina San

However, later that same day we had plans to meet Shina-San. Sister Chinain met her on the bus about 1.5 months ago and gave her a meishi (business card) and a few weeks ago she emailed saying that it was so funny that they had the same name and she wanted to meet! Well, we met at the Eki and went to Starbucks together. We weren't expecting much since Shina-San and Sister Chinain had talked about Tahiti and nothing about missionary work/our purpose so we thought she had the wrong expectations. But to our surprise, our conversation turned to our purpose as missionaries a bit. Then she mentioned that she loves to play the piano but doesn't have one at home. We mentioned that we have one at the church and we asked if she might like to go see it and she said yes! So we went to the church and gave her a church tour and she was so impacted by it. Apparently she's always believed that God existed and has been praying to him since she was little even when her mom and grandmother said it was weird. We gave her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and she started tearing up. She was so excited!!!

I know that for both of these miracles, Heavenly Father was really looking out for us. He trusted us to be in the right spot at the right time and to do what we came to Japan to do. The day Chinain Shimai met Shina San she had been sick so it would've been so easy to have not talked to her. It would have been easy for us to have not invited Aoi to dinner but because we were prepared, we were able to see amazing miracles!!!

Christmas Eve Lights

Now for my Japan Christmas experience.

It was a crazy time!

Christmas Eve, we went caroling with the Primary kids at nursing homes and it was so fun. The little obachans and ojichans were so cute! They would sing along and play the little hand game with us and they gave us all candy and juice. It was so fun!

The primary also asked Elder Richards to dress up as Santa. We had to bike to the last nursing home and so all the missionaries lined up behind Santa and we did Santa dendo, aka ringing bells and yelling Merry Christmas to everyone we saw. It was so much fun and we made so many people smile! I really felt like I was helping to bring these people a little bit of joy. Christmas is not a big holiday in Japan, but I feel like we were able to help bring a little bit of the Christmas spirit to some people by doing Santa Dendo.

Later that night we Santa Dendo-ed to the Eki where we caroled and handed out flyers. We had just done it the night before with some of the single adults, but Christmas Eve we had a lot more success (maybe because we had Santa?). We just sang fun songs and Christmas hymns while handing out flyers and ringing our bells. It was so much fun and there were so many people who walked away smiling. The point of caroling was not to convert anyone or to look for new investigators, it was to bring a little bit of joy to the people of Urayasu on Christmas Eve and I think we did just that.

Disneyland on Christmas Eve

Funny story: earlier when we were Santa dendo-ing, we met two girls on their bikes who thought we were hilarious. Fast forward to that night when we were caroling the Eki (30 min away from where we were that morning) and the same girls come barreling towards us! It was so funny! Haha

After caroling, Sister Bede, Sister Chinain and I biked to Ikspiari and ate crepes with a member for our Christmas Eve dinner. She showed us all the beautiful lights too and it was amazing! On the way back home we stopped and watched the Disneyland fireworks and it was just so perfect.

Disneyland Castle

Christmas Day was filled with all those huge miracles that I already told you about. I felt really blessed to Skype my family as well. I felt so much joy as I was able to talk to them and see how happy they were. It was sad to say goodbye, but the moment I entered the sacrament meeting and saw the Ward, the investigators, and all the people I've gotten to know and work with here in Urayasu, I was filled with so much love.

Skyping with my family

Christmas is a time for love and joy and I definitely felt that this year. Thank you all for your cards and your love. I can't write everyone's names here, but I put all your cards up in front of my desk and every time I look at it I feel your love. This will be the only Christmas I have on my mission here in Japan, but it was perfect. I feel so lucky to be serving in such an amazing place, sharing this amazing gospel of Jesus Christ.

It has been a crazy, miracle filled week and I am so grateful for my calling as a missionary. I love Christmas so much and I'm sad it's over, but I know that I have the special chance to continue talking about Jesus Christ and the amazing gift he gave us all year long.

I love you all and I hope you had an amazing Christmas!


ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai