One year older and wiser too

Birthday box from my family

1 year older in several ways. Wow, what a week. I turned 20 on Wednesday, then hit my year markon Thursday. Both days were filled with miracles and love and I am so so grateful to be serving as a missionary right now in the Japan Tokyo Mission.

My birthday started out pretty ordinary. We actually had a lot of meetings planned that day, but at District Meeting everyone sang to me which was really nice. Right before Eikaiwa though, we met with a Young Woman named Akane who is going to America over the summer and will be going to Girl's Camp in America! Yay! So fun! But she needs to learn Church English, so we met with her before Eikaiwa and, at her request, did an English Mogi. It was really fun, but also a little weird to be doing a mogi in English. Haha, her mom made us all dinner though and brought us cake too! So sweet!!!!

Eikaiwa was by far the best part of my birthday. I felt really lucky to have my birthday on aWednesday this year because it meant that I got to celebrate with some of my favorite people! Everyone sang to me at the beginning of Eikaiwa, then we split into classes and the Kodomo Class sang to me again! We learned a bunch of birthday words (including surprise party, oh that was a fun one to teach) and then played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. So fun! After Eikaiwa, a few students gave me some gifts and we went upstairs and found a cake that Ishijima Shimai made for me! It was so sweet! Especially since cherries and strawberries are pretty expensive in Japan.

Birthday Cake and presents

Sister Shim also tried to make my birthday as special as possible by making me a fruit "cake" for breakfast and a special lunch. It was so special!

We also saw a birthday miracle! A new Eikaiwa Student came with her adorable 3 year old son (who already knows his ABCs) and she wants a church tour!!!! She has interest in the gospel! YAY!!!!!!!!

When we finally came home for the night, we ate birthday cake and opened presents. It was super special and thank you all for your birthday messages! For any of you that participated in my mom's little picture taking adventure, thank you too. It was a really special day, and although it didn't really hit me that it was my birthday, I definitely felt loved. Thank you all!

The following day, June 1st, was my 1 year mark as a missionary. Isn't that crazy? 1 year ago I entered the MTC! That probably scared me more than the fact that I am now 20! How in the world has 1 year passed by so fast?

We saw so many miracles on my 1 year mark! I was actually on exchanges with Sister Akers. We found several PI's and we saw a huge miracle at a college that we went to.

So this college is about 45 minutes away, so we normally don't have time to go, but we have heard many good things about it, so we decided to go check it out to see if there is potential for finding Mission School students or investigators there. We were just looking around and we found some boards with information about English programs at the school. We wrote down the information and were about to leave when one of the students asked us if we needed any help, IN ENGLISH.

Now, a bit of background. In the Japan Tokyo Mission, missionaries aren't allowed to stop or talk to members of the opposite sex as a safety rule, unless they talk to us first. Well this student was a young man, but because he talked to us first, we just told him that we were looking for an English Speaking Society or English Club. Well, it turned out that he had just met the Elders the day before, and was happy to tell us where to go to find more information. Out of all the people in that fairly large college, we happened to meet the exact same person that the Elders met. Crazy!!!!!!!

Birthday feast

That night, we went to a really special dinner with a member. She had a coupon so she decided to take us both to celebrate my birthday and her birthday which is later this month. It was so fun and there was so much food! It was crazy!!! Every time they brought out a new dish, I was shocked. She is one of my favorite people every though (Kawakita Shimai) and we were able to talk about how to help the Young Women more in our ward as well because she is a YW Advisor. Yay for miracles!!!!!!!!!

Well, right after these two amazing days, my health started going downhill again, and I was getting pretty disheartened. Over the past 2 months, I've gotten sick 3 times, and I was ready for it to stop. Sister Shim, being the amazing companion she is, made me call the doctor again and luckily that helped. I've never had allergies before, but these past two months, I've discovered that I'm probably allergic to something in Japan. I'm just glad that we found a solution so that I can stop feeling sick. Yay :)

Japanese pizza

This really was a week of miracles though! We had a mogi with a Mission School student named Ayako-san. Well it was supposed to be a mogi, but it turned into a real lesson because she just had the most amazing questions. Honestly, from the first time I met her, I felt that she was special, that she really was prepared for this gospel. She originally accepted to take the lessons about 2 months ago, but backed out at the last moment, and since then she has just been asking us gospel questions at Mission School. Then this week we asked if we could do a mogi, and she said yes! It went so well! We asked her to pray and she actually did!!!!!!!!!

We met again recently and she told us about her experience. She prayed on Friday, and on Sunday, when she was scrolling through Instagram, one of the people that she follows (and loves so much!!!!) posted a picture at Temple Square. Apparently they are LDS too!!!!! We've talked about Temple Square quite a few times, so she recognized it right away. She also recognized this as the answer to her prayer!!!!! She then spent a long time studying the church on the internet and learned a lot. We had planned to teach her the Restoration, but she already knew it and believed it, so we were instead able to focus on her other needs. It was so amazing and such a powerful lesson. She really has a desire to know!!!!!!

Flan - My entry in the Zone competition

The funniest thing, was that after our lesson, we went to Mission School and she pulled out her Eiken book and said "I spent all day studying about God. I didn't have time to study this book." It was so funny!!!!!

As for other small miracles from the week:

We met Momoko Shimai who is a recent convert who moved into Matsudo. The first missionary she met was actually Sister Shim's MTC companion, and she knows Elder Paskett who was in my MTC District

An Abiko Sister was working at the Matsudo Church right after Zone Conference, and when we biked past she asked "Are you the Matsudo Sisters? Which one of you is the one who can speak Spanish?" Apparently there is a member's wife who is not a member, and is from Peru that they are trying to work with, so they need a Spanish Speaking Sister :)
We had Zone Conference and I learned so much and got to see the amazing sisters in the zone!!!!

Armor for the Zone P-day battle

Lastly, and the reason why this email is a little bit late, is that on Monday we had Zone P-day. All the missionaries in Matsudo Zone came together for a cooking competition/feast and a battle. I don't even know where this idea came from...it just happened.

Everyone brought food (we made a huge King Pudding and granola rice krispies) and Elder Banks judged it all and gave out prizes. Then everyone made armor out of cardboard and proceeded to have a war. It was crazy...by far the craziest thing I have ever done for a p-day ever. I can't even fully explain it, you really just had to be there. It was a great bonding experience for everyone though and it was fun to see all the new people in the Zone.

I know this was a very long email, but thank you all so much for helping make the past week amazing. I really do appreciate all of you who sent me messages for my birthday whether it was by email or Facebook, or any other means. I felt a lot of love from those of you at home and from the amazing people here in Japan. I feel so lucky to be here right now, serving in the areas that I have served. Thank you so much!

Love,

ブラック姉妹
Black Shimai

Matsudo church - 1 year on my mission