"I Mean We've Practiced it Once..."

Konnichiwa!

This was my first real week of STL-ing...is that even a word? Haha, this week we had both Mission Leadership Council (where all the Sister Training Leaders and Zone Leaders go to honbu to receive training from President Nagano and the Assistants) and exchanges!

With Mikumi Shimai

MLC was so great! I GOT TO SEE SISTER POURRE AGAIN!!!!!!!! Aka the best trainer ever. ^^ She is a Sister Training Leader back in Kiryu, my first zone, and I was so happy to see her! I also got to see Sister Bede again. So basically, half of my former companions are Sister Training Leaders too, so it was one big party. I was also asked to play this song called "I'll Find You My Friend" and it is a beautiful song and everyone sings it a million times on their mission, but this was my first time, so I was sightreading it, but it was beautiful and very nice.

Also funny story. So flashback to about 6 months ago. Elder Merrill (who was in Maebashi at the time and I was in Oizumi) calls me the day before Zone Meeting and tells me he has been asked to do a musical number and asks me to accompany him. He says the song is "Lead, Kindly Light" so I say okay, even though it's super last minute. Well, this week, 1 day before MLC we are having a meeting with the Zone Leaders (the same Elder Merrill and Elder Lewis) and he says that he has been asked to do another musical number. He said he would get back to me about what song though because I told him I could accompany again. That night we call and he says "Well, since we've already practiced it once, we can do Lead Kindly Light again." All I could do was laugh. We had practiced it once...6 MONTHS AGO!!!! It went well though. :)

At the temple

MLC was amazing. There was such a focus on keeping our faith high as missionaries to continue to see amazing miracles. We have set an Easter baptismal goal as a mission and we are working to help keep the faith in the missionaries high so that we can reach the goal. I loved hearing everyone's ideas. One thing that really helped us have a lot of faith during the White Christmas goal was when we used lots of creative dendo. President Nagano is all for creative dendo. We don't just do the normal streeting and housing in this mission. He is always encouraging us to get creative and to get people excited about the gospel.

Some things we've been doing include Mission School, playing basketball with the youth and their friends, planning lots of activities, using Facebook to dendo, visiting colleges, getting involved in other Eikaiwa classes outside of our church, doing service all over the community, and the Free English Challenge.

This week was the first time I've ever done the Free English Challenge even though missionaries have been doing it since Christmas and seeing a lot of success. Basically, we print out some simple English tests (just 4 questions) and go to a crowded area with lots of youth and ask them to take the test. If they get it all right they get a candy, and regardless we get to promote our English classes. We also have a huge photo frame that they can take pictures with, that we post on our Facebook page. It is really fun and the youth love it! Back in Urayasu, we actually got 2 new students because of it.

More Free English Challenge

I love being in this mission where there is such a focus on the youth and on creative dendo. We really want to be effectively using our time and President Nagano really emphasizes helping people pull the gospel into their lives through their own questions and interest in who we are as missionaries and what we teach, instead of us trying to push our way into their lives.

Another big game changer that was announced at MLC was that LINE was approved for our mission! LINE is a lot like Facebook Messenger, but in Japan almost everyone has it! This is such a game changer! In the past we would try to get contact information especially from youth that were interested, but they never had Facebook, only LINE, but we didn't have LINE. Now we can get in touch with them!!!!!! YAY!!! We spent a lot of time at church on Sunday getting all the youth's LINEs ^^

I also had my first set of exchanges as a Sister Training Leader. I was with Sister Fossa, who is an awesome Sister from Italy and she was actually companions with my MTC companion Sister Hill. <3 She is an awesome missionary and we actually did the Free English Challenge together and met a lot of cool people.

We also visited Rosa this week. She is so sweet!!! She always says that we are her daughters and she gives us really good advice too.

Seeing the temple from a nearby park

On Sunday we had some miracles happen! We weren't 100% sure what to plan for after church, so we made some kind of half plans and then headed to church where we were invited to YW New Beginnings and to a member's house with our Recent Convert for dinner. Such a miracle! I got to work on memorizing the Young Women's names some more, talked to some of their parents, got to know the leaders, and build relationships with the ward. It ended up being a perfect Sunday. We were really able to help the ward and I am slowly starting to feel a little bit more like this is my ward now. Last week was a little rough since it was Stake Conference and I was meeting people from all over the stake, but this week I was just meeting Matsudo members and that helped me focus. Yay! Matsudo is seriously amazing though. There are so many members who are slowly getting more and more dendo fire. I love seeing the change as they realize the important role they play in missionary work and then actually take action to fulfill that role!

Cherry Burger

Today was Temple P-day and it was an amazing opportunity. Last transfer, we weren't able to go, so this was the first time in several months and it really felt like coming home. I felt the Spirit so strongly, and it was really special to be there. I love the temple so much! We even met a missionary who went home last year and is now visiting with her family. That was really cool!

Sakura Frappuccino

We spent our P-day at a gorgeous park near the temple and we ate these amazing cherry burgers at Burger Mania. It was so good. It was a pretty relaxing p-day. Hehe...and we got Sakura Frappuccinos (i don't know how to spell that, sorry) from Starbucks. I am so excited to see the Sakura (cherry blossoms) soon!!!! We saw some ume (plum) blossoms but no sakura yet.

Thank you so much all for your love and support! Have a great week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

Plum Blossoms