How many languages are you planning on learning Sister Black?

Konnichiwa!

This has been a crazy week, how did it all fit into just 7 days? We are starting the last week of the transfer and it is insane to me!

Relief Society Activity

If you all remember from last week, we were able to set a baptismal date with our investigator, Aoi. Well, she had been a little unsure about what day she wanted to be baptized so we encouraged her to pray and we followed up with her the very next day. She told us that she felt like Heavenly Father really wanted her to receive baptism soon! She kept praying all week and she had some amazing and powerful experiences with feeling the Spirit and wanting to be baptized. We finalized her baptismal date and so she will be baptized on March 19th! Less than a month away! AHHHHHHH! She is so excited though and we are too! We were able to contact her every day this week and it was so amazing to hear about her experience and see how her testimony has grown every day. We have another lesson with her tonight and I am really excited!

This week we were also finally able to get in contact with another investigator, Liu-san. She wanted to call us on Monday night and during that call we were able to set an appointment with her on Wednesday morning. That was a powerful lesson. We started out talking about the Book of Mormon, then finally just asked her if she still wanted to learn more. Her answer broke my heart. We said one last kneeling prayer and her words, even though they were in Chinese, were so powerful. The Spirit was so strong, but afterwards, she still had the same thoughts and so we won't continue to visit her. It is so hard to meet these people, teach them, feel the Spirit, and then have to leave them. Sometimes it just isn't their time yet. One day, she will be ready to accept the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and when that day comes, Heavenly Father will help her and the missionaries meet again.

The gospel is a beautiful gift, but it also requires us to change. Heavenly Father and his commandments don't change, they are eternal and unmoving. We are the ones who have to change in order to receive all the blessings. I guess that's the hard, but also most joyous, part of being a missionary. Helping others to change their lives so that they can receive all the blessings that God has for them is amazing. I can see the change. Over the past 2 months, as I've been teaching Aoi-chan, I have seen more joy and light come into her eyes. Seeing her change her life, one step at a time, has been a joy.

Zone P-day - Ultimate Frisbee

Our last investigator, Nemoto-san was also able to meet this week. We taught her and her 6-year old son the Restoration. She enjoyed it and we took it as a good sign that she kept explaining what we were teaching to her son. He really liked when we used the Children's Book of Mormon to teach him about Joseph Smith. We then taught him how to pray and he said the sweetest prayer to end the lesson. It is so humbling to hear a young child say a prayer because they just ask for the simplest things. As a missionary, I pray all the time, I need the guidance that Heavenly Father has. Before my mission, daily prayer was a struggle for me. I would constantly forget, but now I have a strong testimony of prayer and the help it can bring us. Heavenly Father does answer prayers, I promise that he does. Sometimes it comes as a feeling, or a little thought, and sometimes it will come through someone else, but he always answers. We testify about this to our investigators ALL the time, and we can do that because we have put it to the test. We pray many, many times a day, but Heavenly Father always answers all of our questions.

Valentine's Day

This week we also spent a lot of time doing mogis with members and trying to figure out how to help Mission School grow. Luckily, the two go hand in hand! When we mogi with members, not only do we get to know them and they get to know us, we also improve our teaching skills, and have the opportunity to invite them to Mission School. Personally inviting the members has been more successful than anything else. We are at least able to help them understand what Mission School is and how it can help them. Although not all of them come, we have been challenging every one to come once next month. I love mogi-ing with the members! Seeing their faith and hearing their testimonies strengthens my faith!

This week we had a chance to mogi with Miura Shimai and it was amazing! We got lost for 45 minutes trying to find her apartment building, but when we finally got there she was so sweet. She gave us chocolate cake because it was Valentine's Day and she said we were her Valentines. So sweet!!!! We were able to mogi the Plan of Salvation with her and the Spirit was so strong! I love the members here!

One other thing to love about the Miura's. Their oldest daughter, Sarasa, is marrying Tadashii Maeno, so sometimes the Maenos (from my first area, Oizumi) come to visit and it makes me so excited! I love their family! And now the Miuras want to learn some Portuguese because Maeno Kyoudai doesn't know much Japanese. So cute!

This week's Mission School was amazing! We had 3 new students and many of our regular students came again! We had a really good Eiken class where Makoto (a regular who is fluent in English) actually helped us teach some of the other students. It was really helpful and I think she really liked it, so we might involve her more in teaching in the future. Then during free time, one of the students taught me the colors of the rainbow in Chinese. He also taught me how to write the.colors in Chinese and Japanese. So how many languages will I know when I come home? Hahaha, Chinese is way hard for me though. I'm just learning Chinese for fun. I really like learning the Kanjis though so maybe he can teach me more of that.

Mission School

For the spiritual message at Mission School this week, we shared a video about a boy who gives his coat to a really poor boy on the street. It was a beautiful and simple video, that had no words, just music. The amazing thing was the Spirit that was in the room as we shared the video. Everyone definitely felt the Spirit and they were so reverent as we asked them questions afterwards. It was the most powerful message that I've shared at Mission School so far. It was such a special experience to see these people who don't know about Jesus Christ, who aren't actively learning about the gospel, feel that special Spirit.

One last miracle for the week. Elder Jeffery R. Holland was in Japan and so he had a few special broadcasts. There was one on Sunday night, and Sister Atkinson and I were contacting everyone to see who could go. I really felt like someone needed to hear the words that Elder Holland was going to say, I just didn't know who, but I told Heavenly Father "If someone needs to hear these words, let them come and we will stay and listen with them, but if there is something more we need to be doing, don't let anyone come." And no one came. We went back to the apartment and started calling people on our Eikaiwa list on the phone, and we saw so many miracles! We definitely needed to be doing that last night! Out of 7 people that we called, 5 answered and 4 of them have interest in Mission School. That's so amazing! It's amazing what happens when we keep up our end of the deal. Heavenly Father will always bless us.

The city at sunset.

It's been a good week, sorry that there aren't many funny stories. I have been remembering too many of the miracles, not so many of the funny things. Today's p-day wasn't too exciting either since we decided to go shopping a bit and then take a nap. The wind was so strong today though that I had to change gears on my bike just to move forward! It was insane!!!

Oh I remember one!

So we were biking to a Less Active's house and we stopped at this huge intersection and there were about 20 elementary school kids there. So I was a little further away, but Sister Atkinson stopped right by them, and this one boy goes up and says "Hello!" She was zoned out a bit so she didn't realize that he was talking to her until all the kids started laughing and he said hello again. Haha, I was just watching from 5 feet away and laughing. The kids started asking her where she was from and the one boy kept saying "They don't speak English, but I'm from America too!" It was so cute! Then the light changed and all the kids started jumping up and down and saying goodbye. It was hilarious and adorable and it made our day!

Well, that was the week! Next week are transfer calls, so we will see what happens! Have a great week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai