Happy Mother's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day! Here in Japan, Mother's Day was yesterday and we had a special meal after church where the men all cooked and brought food for everyone. However, today, I had the chance to Skype my family at home and it was so nice to see them and talk to them! As a missionary, I only get to call home twice a year, at Christmas and Mother's Day, so this was a special opportunity for me. :) I love my mom so much and I am so thankful for her amazing example every day!











This week we saw an amazing amount of progress! All of a sudden, all of our investigators just started progressing like crazy. First of all, we were able to set a baptismal date with Shizuko-San who has been investigating quite some time. Looking through her previous lessons, we noticed that there wasn't much of a pattern, so we decided to just ask her why she hadn't received baptism yet since she has a strong testimony of the doctrines. She said that she thought she had to be perfect before being baptized, which absolutely is not the case! We helped her understand that the purpose of baptism is to cleanse us of our sins and help us to repent every day of all the mistakes we have made. We are not perfect people, only Jesus Christ is perfect. If we had to be perfect before baptism, there would only be 1 baptized person. She understood and is now excitedly getting ready for her baptism!

Break off top of toothpick and
you have a rest for the toothpick

We also saw both Setsuko-san and Miwa-san progress a lot. We taught Setsuko-san the Restoration this week and she immediately knew it was true. Miwa-san has been progressing a lot on her own even though we haven't been able to meet her. We also ran into another investigator on the street the other day and it was just so amazing! So many miracles in one week! Matsudo is really progressing and I love it so much!!! I feel so blessed to be here working in Matsudo right now.

The members are also getting really excited. They are inviting us to their homes more which is perfect because we want to work with members as much as possible. This week on exchanges with Sister Phelps from Tsukuba, we did a mogi of the "Who is God?" Pamphlet and the Spirit was so strong. The member couple that we were mogi-ing with immediately had a name of someone that we could go visit because they knew that this person needed to hear this message about God.

Members are powerful. I've noticed that this past transfer, as we have focused on working with members, they have really opened up. When members open up, new opportunities open as well. Matsudo members are powerful! We are slowly, one by one, connecting with the members and its helping the overall desire to dendo increase! Yay for member missionary work!!!!!!

Clock in Mito - small dolls come out and
dance every hour

One little surprise came from this week though. President and Sister Nagano went to the Mission President's Seminar for training and when they came back they announced that we will no longer be having Zone Meetings. We had our last one last week and it was amazing. We used to have Zone Meetings once per month and now that we also have Zone Conference once per transfer (every 6 weeks) it's a lot of time and money being spent by all missionaries. We will now just have Zone Conferences. I know that Heavenly Father is hastening his work right now in Japan and he needs us out working as much as possible. I'm excited to see the miracles he has in store for us!

One thing that is talked a lot about in Japan is a prophesy that President Eyring (1st Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church) gave in Japan about 20 years ago. He said that once the members of Japan truly begin to change their hearts and stop being afraid to share the gospel, there will be no way to stop the work in Japan. He promised that the work would change overnight and millions would be converted. I truly feel like this prophesy is being fulfilled right now while I am in Japan. In Urayasu and here in Matsudo I have seen dramatic changes in the members and their desire to do missionary work. Their desire has completely changed missionary work and it is becoming much more effective and more people are coming into the fold. Double Yay for member missionary work!!!!!

Now for a few funny things from this past week.

Matsudo church building 

On Thursday we were invited by a Mission School student to her English Circle. We went, not really knowing what to expect, but the Elders have gone before and they told us that many missionaries have gone too. It was actually really fun! It was about 10 grandmas and 1 grandpa in one room all sitting (they can all sit on their heels, I was amazed!) and just talking in English. Well they had us introduce ourselves and they could not get over the fact that I was half-Thai and that my mom moved to America by herself. The funniest thing was when they asked how our parents met (this is a favorite question of Japanese people and I've gotten pretty good at explaining it in Japanese) because my parents met on a blind date. The grandmas and grandpa were laughing so so hard. Anyway, we stayed for the whole 2 hours just talking about ourselves and lots of gospel things as well. These ladies had no fear of asking about religion, missionary work, and anything else. They were so funny! They also somehow knew that next week was transfer calls (ward members don't even know that) and they said that they hope we both stay. (ME TOO!!!!)

Korean and Thai Ramen

Second thing was at Mission School this week. Ayako-san (one of our favorite students) came up to us after class one day and said "I thought you both might like a taste of your home country, so I bought these" and she hands us Korean Raman and Thai Raman. It was so funny!!!!!!!! When she gave me mine, she just said "I don't know if it's good...or real Thai Raman, but it has Thai on it." She is so funny and cute! I love our Mission School Students!!!

Anyways, next week is transfer calls and I really hope I get to stay here with Sister Shim. I can't believe how fast this transfer has gone. They just keep going faster and faster! AHHHHHHHH! But I hope you all have a great week!

Love you!

ブラック姉妹
Black Shimai

Indo Curry