The Kiseki to end all Kisekis

8 transfers!!!! That is insane! This week I will be celebrating both my 20th birthday and my 1 year mark as a missionary. Crazy!!!!!! Thank you so much to everybody who has sent me birthday wishes! They really mean a lot to me!!!!

This week was a little crazy. It ended with some huge miracles though!

Looking at maps on the way
to the Wakabayashi family

Starting with last Monday, we went to a Family Home Evening with the Wakabayashi Family and it took us 40 minutes to bike there, along some really sketchy roads. But we made it! And their kids were adorable! We had so much fun! The funny thing was that we had eaten shabu shabu for a late lunch (so we were decently full) and then we got there and they had a ton of meat prepared to cook for us. Wakabayashi Kyoudai started cooking a lot of vegetables and meat and so we started eating, but literally no one else was eating. Apparently, they had also had a late lunch so they weren't too hungry, so there was this huge pile of food (enough to feed 4 hungry elders) for us two Sisters. Hehe. They even bought kimchi and chicken because those were our favorite foods. I felt bad that we weren't able to eat more! (The greatest guilt I feel as a missionary always has to do with not being able to eat more at members' homes.) We made a decent dent in the food though and had a really great lesson with the family.

We talked about sharing the gospel with our friends and Wakabayashi Kyoudai shared an amazing testimony. He said that even though he works in the church offices and all his friends are Mormon, he can do a better job of sharing the gospel on the trains. It is easy to talk about the gospel since his job involves working for the church, so he made a goal to talk to people on the train. His testimony was really powerful and it was a great example for all of his kids who were a little wary about talking to their friends. It turned into a really great lesson and we were grinning as we biked quickly home (to be home in time).

As for the rest of the week. On Tuesday, we had planned to do a church tour with one of our Mission School Students who had some interest in learning about the gospel. Well, she ended up bringing 2 of her friends and all three of them said they wanted to take the lessons! That brings us up to 7 new investigators from Mission School so far. I really have a strong testimony about Mission School and the potential that these people have to be open to the gospel. This is just one way that we find Heavenly Father's prepared people, but it is a very effective way. Recently we haven't been finding new Mission School Students so our Mission School has kind of plateaued so this transfer we really want to work as an area to fix that :)

With Sister Pourre (my trainer)

The rest of the week was a little weird because we didn't really have many appointments. It was a little discouraging because we had all this open time in the middle of the day, yet we also had a lot of new investigators that we weren't able to meet. I was getting a little frustrated because I just wanted to work with our new investigators, but they weren't answering our messages, so we had to make other plans and it just didn't feel productive. I just worked through it though and Heavenly Father sent us some amazing miracles.

The first one happened on Friday. At the request of the Stake President, we were planning on leaving Mission School early to go to Institute and meet this nonmember girl who had been coming to institute every week for a long time, yet had never met the missionaries. Because institute is a heavily doctrinal class, everyone was wondering why she still came. The Stake President wanted us to meet her and talk to her about taking the lessons. Coincidently, she is also the friend of a recently returned missionary who I actually met when I was in Urayasu. This return missionary came to a zone meeting while I was in Urayasu so I met her, it was really great to see her again and to be working together to help this friend. Anyway, we went to Institute, but it turned out that the friend wasn't able to come this week. We knew that our time could be used in other ways, so we said goodbye to everyone and said that we would be back next week.

We didn't really have any back-up plans, but when we went downstairs we found the Young Women having an activity and we were able to join in. This transfer we really really want to work with the Young Women more and become their friends more, so this was a perfect opportunity to talk and get to know them better. It was a struggle for me because their Japanese is sosososososososososoososo different from the Japanese I use. Haha, casual Japanese used by teenagers is way different from the super polite Japanese we use as missionaries, but I tried my best and it all worked out. :)

Mission School

This was good preparation for Sunday because we had a Mission School Fireside after church (we wanted to explain it more to the members and tell them how they can use it to invite their friends) and all the Young Women came! I know that our little interaction on Friday helped prepare them to come on Sunday. Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways sometimes, but he always leads us exactly where we need to go :) The Fireside was also really good. All the youth came and their parents really love the idea of Mission School, so hopefully more youth will be coming soon (whether or not they will be coming voluntarily is another question, but hopefully they will see how fun it is and invite their friends).

Sunday we saw the kiseki to end all kisekis. There were more coincidences involved in this miracle than any other miracle I have ever seen. But with Heavenly Father, there are no coincidences.

So, as I mentioned earlier, we are really trying to focus on the Young Women this transfer by visiting all of them and maybe doing mogis with them. Because of that goal, we were recently looking at the list of Young Women and we noticed one who was less active, with the last name Murata. We didn't know who she was, so we were going to try to find out some more information about her.

Picture from the church
We live in front of the building
with the white rectangle

Well, on Sunday, I was sitting with an investigator towards the front of the chapel because I had to give the closing prayer, so Sister Shim was sitting in the back. At the last minute, a new sister came in and sat next to Sister Shim. After the meeting, Sister Shim introduced herself and it turned out that this sister was Murata Shimai! The Less Active Young Woman's mother!!!!!! Murata Shimai is also less active and just recently started having a desire to maybe come back. What a miracle that she sat next to Sister Shim! Anyway, she had to leave church pretty quickly, but Sister Shim was able to give her our phone number and ask her if we could do a mogi lesson.

Well, she called us 3 times while we were in the fireside. :) We were really busy so we weren't able to call her back until about 5:30pm when we finally sat down to plan for the day. We were exhausted from the day already and we still had to plan what we would do in the next few hours. We had no ideas, but then we realized that we hadn't called Murata Shimai back yet. We called her and she wanted to mogi that night! It was perfect!!!!!!

When we met her at the church, she brought her husband (an active member) and her 9 year old son who hasn't been baptized yet. We were able to have a lesson with just her and it was amazing. We started out teaching the Restoration in a way that I have never taught it before. We were focusing on completely different things than what I usually focus on and it really felt like we were being guided by the Spirit. We then reached the part where it talks about the life of Jesus Christ. The pamphlet briefly mentions the Atonement and Sister Shim was prompted to share a powerful poem about the Atonement. Murata Shimai started crying and the Spirit was so strong as we both bore powerful testimonies about the Atonement. It was such an amazing feeling to be in that lesson, to really feel the Spirit being the teacher.

Ice cream and shabu shabu

At the end of the lesson, Murata Shimai really wanted to change her life. She really wants to study about Jesus Christ and come to better know him.

I a
m so grateful for Heavenly Father and all the little things he inspired us to do this week to prepare us for that moment. It was so amazing. I can't fully describe what it feels like.

I just want to share with you all my testimony that I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. In Relief Society this past week, a sister shared a beautiful version of "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" in English. I'm not sure the other sisters fully understood the words, but as I listened, I felt the Spirit so strongly. I felt the Spirit testifying to me that this was true. I love at the end how it says "Oh sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeemer lives." I truly know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that through him I can be forgiven of all my sins, all my mistakes, all my inadequacies. I know that I am no where near perfect. I know that I can't be perfect in this life, but through Jesus Christ and his Atonement, I can be perfect one day.

It really has been a great week in Matsudo. I'm looking forward to another week of miracles. I hope you all have a great week too!

Love,

ブラック姉妹
Black Shimai