What do we do when we are sick? WE ORGANIZE

Konnichiwa!

First of all, Japan is the best! :)

There are more at the bottom

I will start with today because we had an amazing P-day! We went to Daiba to go to the Tokyo Trick Art Museum, basically a 3D art museum where we took tons of pictures. It was so fun! There are so many cool things in Daiba like Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, the ferris wheel, and a Takoyaki museum. We only went to this museum, but maybe some day we will go back. It was so fun to take pictures! We thought it would be funny to do a lot of missionary pictures with our favorite Japanese Book of Mormon. It was great! We also did Purikura, a Japanese photobooth that makes your eyes really big. We also got Baskin Robbins! It was such a fun P-day! In this case, pictures really do speak a thousand words, so I will let the pictures do the talking.

Purikura

Sushi with the Yamashitas

Last Monday, the Yamashitas took all 6 missionaries out to sushi and they let us eat as much as we wanted. With 4 Elders, it really was a generous dinner :) We went to a place where the sushi just goes around like a little train (like Genki Sushi in Factorial Mall) and you just pull the sushi out and its 100 yen per plate. You can also order other kinds of sushi and it will rush to you on the top level. I'll send a video so you can see. It was so fun and we ate a lot of good sushi! Sister Chinain and I were able to sit with the Yamashitas and talk to them. They are so funny! Sister Yamashita actually learned Spanish when she was younger and she wants to come to Mission School to learn more! The Yamashitas are one of my favorite families in the ward, they are so ready to help with everything and they are so warm and welcoming to all the members and investigators and missionaries.

Another fun thing about this sushi place was that they have a place to drop your plates down when you are done. Every 5 plates, a little movie shows and if the character wins, you get a prize! Sister Chinain and I each won once! I got a cute little juice key chain and she got a chicken one. It was adorable! Also, we went way over time, so we had to bike like there was no tomorrow to get home close to curfew. :) But it was worth it!

On Tuesday we were supposed to go to Koiwa to do exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. Last week I mentioned that Sister Chinain has been kind of sick, well on Tuesday she woke up and she was so sick that we had to cancel exchanges and we stayed in the apartment all day. It was both nice and terrible at the same time. Nice because we were able to recover from a crazy two weeks and we were finally able to organize the disaster that was our supply closet, but terrible because we couldn't go out and dendo!!!!! We did get a lot of contacting and calling done though and we were able to have a lesson with Miki Shimai about family history, which was nice.

Funny story, so on Mondays we usually do our grocery shopping in the morning, put all our groceries in a backpack and leave them at the church to pick up at the end of the night. Well, Monday night we had to rush to get home so we forgot our groceries, then we were sick on Tuesday so we couldn't get them, but we needed the food. So, we called the Elders and they were nice enough to meet us at a 7/11 near our apartment to give them to us. Well, the funny thing was that Elder Kenley and Elder Payne met us at 7/11 with our groceries, and as they gave us our groceries, Elder Akagi and Elder Kooyman showed up across the street, headed right towards us as well. How crazy that all 6 Urayasu missionaries would meet on the street? It was just so weird to see two sets of Elders coming towards us from different directions.

Anyways, after our sick day, we were able to continue for the rest of the week at like a 75% level. Sister Chinain was still sick (her voice sounded so funny) but we didn't want to take another sick day. Wednesday was a great day with a great miracle!

View over the water in Urayasu

At about 5:30am we got an email from a member far away (near Mt. Fuji) saying she would be in Urayasu at 2:00. There wasn't anything else. We had no idea who she was or why she was coming. So, we continued with our day and went to lunch with Sakamoto Shimai (ward missionary and the Bishop's wife) and asked her if she knew the lady. She didn't, so we decided to call the lady after our lunch.

Side note: Every Wednesday we have lunch with Sakamoto Shimai to talk about missionary work and how we can improve. She gave us a lot of ideas and gave us a lot of information about the Sisters in the ward that can help with member-present lessons and such. It was great. Also her family lived in Thailand for 2 years so she showed me a cool Thai cookbook (I recognized a lot of the food) and we talked about how awesome Thailand is :) Yay!!!

Free Food from Imaizumi-San

Continuing, at about 1:30, while we were still at lunch, the member called us saying she would be at the train station in about 30 min, and we finally got the full story. She is a member from the Nagoya mission who was bringing her friend, who lives in Urayasu, to the church for a church tour. So we hurried and biked to the church to prepare it for the church tour. They showed up just as we finished and it turned out that the friend was a former investigator! Her name is Imaizumi-San and she is this cute grandma who LOVES to talk. We only showed them the chapel and then they just talked and talked and talked. We could barely get a word in, but the member did a lot of testifying. We also found out that Imaizumi-San loves Christmas songs so we sang a few and it was really great. She is interested though, and it was a crazy miracle! After the tour, they gave us a huge bag of snacks as a thank you! It was so sweet!!!

Ice Cream from Baskin Robbins

Thursday was our last day with Hitomi Shimai. She was the first person I met when I got to Urayasu because she came with Sister Chinain to pick me up from the train station. She is a super sweet recent convert who just moved to Matsudo, but on Thursday we were able to help her pack her things into her car. It was fun and we were making jokes the whole time and she kept trying to give us things :) We got a free mirror from her which is great! Also, after we finished packing her car she played on the organ for us and let me tell you, she is amazing! We had a little organ dance party as she played everything from Pirates of the Caribbean to High School Musical. She is so artistic, it is insane! She made me want to learn the organ again!!! I will miss her lots, but I'm glad that we were able to have that little bit of time with her. <3

We had a great district meeting on Friday all about charity. I have really been focusing on having charity since the moment I got to Japan. My first few weeks in Oizumi, I had such a hard time and I prayed so hard to just be able to feel charity and love towards all the people, and over time I did feel that love for them. Here in Urayasu, I still feel like I barely know the people, but as I continue to pray to feel love for them and to be able to express that love, I have started to feel more charity for each person. Love is such a big part of missionary work. I am here in Japan sharing this message of hope and happiness because I love it and I know it can help everyone. However, it is hard to help others see that when you only get to talk to them for 30 seconds on the street. Sister Chinain and I are really working on showing our love to people even when we barely meet them, so that even if they say they aren't interested, they have the opportunity to feel the light and love of Christ through us.

Along those lines, at the end of the week we decided we wanted to actually talk to 100 people this week. By Saturday we only had about 20 meaningful contacts, so we made a goal to talk to 50 people that day. All day, we stopped every single person we saw and by the end of the night we had 31 meaningful contacts. So Sunday we set the same goal and we ended with 35 meaningful contacts. Overall, we got 89 contacts this week and even though it wasn't 100, we were really proud of ourselves. We didn't get any new investigators from this, but we were able to have really meaningful conversations with people and we were able to give them the opportunity to learn more. We are really focused on not dragging anyone to the church, simply giving them the opportunity to learn more. We met so many amazing people, all with different levels of interest in the gospel and mission school. I know that as we continue to try to talk to everyone Heavenly Father will guide us to be in the right place at the right time to talk to the right person. We know that we have been slacking on talking to people, mostly because we haven't been scheduling in enough travel time to talk to people, but these past two days, as we have taken the time to talk to people, we have seen such an increase in our happiness and we have been able to plant many seeds.

Our favorite approach lately has been to ask people "When have you felt the most happiness?" A lot of people say its when they eat food, which cracks me up. However, even if we ask the question and they say they have to go, hopefully as they walk away they think about when they felt the most happiness and they are able to feel a bit of joy as they think about that memory.

I love this gospel so much! It really does help us feel so much happiness, every day. I am so happy to be here in Japan, as a missionary. There are lots of trials and hard challenges, but the joy and happiness? That makes all those hard times 100% worth it.

I love you all! Thank you so much! Have a great week!!!!!!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

I'm a city girl now!

Konnichiwa!

I am definitely not in Oizumi anymore. Urayasu is different from Oizumi, but I am loving it! Also, today I actually bought something...to wear...from a store! What?

Hitomi Shimai's last Sunday in Urayasu

We had a crazy week since Sister Chinain had to deal with a lot of things this week. She goes home at the end of December so we had to pick her classes for BYU and get her student visa since she is from Tahiti. As many of you know, picking classes can take a long time, and it did. Then we also had to go all the way to the U.S. Embassy to get her student visa. She went inside and I just sat outside the embassy, reading my Book of Mormon, and waiting for them to kick me out, but they never did, so it was all good. :)

This week our whole district also started getting sick. Sister Chinain got it about halfway through the week and it just completely drained her.  We have also been teaching a lot of lessons/spending a lot of time traveling to lessons so we were completely exhausted all week. We were getting really discouraged, but our District Leader is amazing and has really helped us. He gave us a lot of suggestions and he just really showed that he was worried about us and wanted to help us and that was enough.

Some of the craziness from this week that drained us:

In the big city now

We had two really great lessons with Liu San about the Law of Chastity and she totally agreed with it. She really saw how it can help us have the happiest marriages. Her older sister is a member, and I think she has seen how the gospel has helped her sister's family and she wants that for herself too. She also came to church! She used to go to Tokyo First because there was a Taiwanese Elder there who would translate for her, but he ended his mission this week so she said she would come to Urayasu again because she understands Japanese more than English! Yay!

We also taught Bernadette more Japanese. She is learning so fast! She came to church as well and she seemed to like it. We are working with the YW so that she feels comfortable going there since she is 13.

Our apartment

Thursday was a crazy day because we had Zone Meeting. Sister Chinain and I were in charge of a training on Following Up on commitments we extend to our investigators. It was so amazing! I learned so much! Following up to see if the investigator read isn't so much us trying to getting them to actually do the commitment, it's us giving them an opportunity to grow their testimony. Something we learned from the Elder Bednar conference a few weeks ago was that when someone shares their testimony, even if it is just by explaining what they learned/read, their testimony grows so much more. We are giving them an opportunity to act and to be agents and to really learn for themselves.

We saw this a little earlier in the week when we read in the Book of Mormon with Hitomi Shimai. She was confused, but as she started to try to explain what she knew, things just started to click for her. It isn't until we give others the opportunity to act and to grow their own testimonies that they will actually be able to grow.

Mexican restaurant

After Zone Meeting we went to a Mexican place to eat tacos and churros. It was really good. Haha I thought it would be a long time before I got to eat Mexican food again, I guess i was wrong :)

Funny story: so we actually got on the train going the opposite direction, and we figured this out when we got to the next station. We were with the sister training leaders and one of their less active members. Anyway, we figured out that we were on the wrong train so we decide to get off, well half of us got off and the other half were still on the train when the doors started to close...guess who was right in the middle of the doors as they started to close. ME! I got squished by the doors and it kind of hurt, but I saved us all because the doors opened again and we were all able to get off. So I am a lifesaver. Yay!

After all of that, we came back to the church where the members were setting up for the wedding reception of a couple in the ward. We helped out then stayed for the wedding reception. I had the chance to meet a lot of members! Sister Chinain was so so so tired, so I went around and started up some conversations on my own. Nihongo is so hard still, but I feel like every day it's getting better. Yay! Everyone keeps on telling me my Nihongo is way good, I'm not sure if they are just trying to boost my confidence ... Anyway, the wedding reception was such a good way to meet more members and talk about Mission School with some of them.

Our district

On Friday, as we were trying to weekly plan, we got a surprise phone call from Takagi San, the one who called us my first day here and wanted to investigate the church. She told us she read the pamphlet we gave her then saw there was a website she could go to to learn more. She went to the website and read more and she told us that she didn't know yet if she wanted to be baptized, but she wants to learn more. She brought up baptism all on her own!!! It was such a miracle! She is such a great person, she is doing all the work herself because she really wants to learn for herself.

View from our apartment

Well, after that we had to leave to go to Suzuki Shimai. We ended up taking a train and a bus to get to her house (and walked across a bridge with a beautiful view) only to find that she wasn't home. So we ate Italian food then went back to Urayasu.

During sacrament meeting on Sunday I bore my testimony and introduced myself in Nihongo. It was terrifying! I was more scared then my first Sunday when I had to say things in Portuguese. But, Illya Kyoudai (the ward mission leader) was sitting right in front and he was just smiling and that gave me courage to just say things even if they didn't make sense. I guess my challenge to all of you is to just smile and encourage others to act. I've been really trying to help my investigators to act, to think and ponder and share their thoughts, and I've noticed that it makes our lessons a lot more personal and effective because they learn so much more. I've also noticed that as others smile and encourage me, I am more willing to make mistakes and keep pushing forward. I have probably made a million mistakes already while speaking Japanese, but the support I feel from people I barely know has helped me so much. Even if it's just a smile, it can really help someone have more confidence.

So...funny-ish story of the week, so it's getting pretty cold in Tokyo right now, and my companion is from Tahiti, so she gets excited about the cold. We were on the way to an appointment earlier this week and she just stops and looks at me all excited and she's like "I'm making clouds!!!!" then she just starts breathing really hard to make clouds in the air. It was so funny. Later that same day, she turned a corner and biked straight into some tires and got stuck, it was hilarious.


This week was literally so exhausting. We were so tired every night and we were really frustrated with ourselves because we were tired and we were working so hard but we weren't seeing the results we expected. I don't really know how to explain it. The Elders noticed how much we were tired and Elder Kenley actually commanded us to go to bed two days in a row (not that we were being disobedient, we were going to bed on time). Anyway, it was getting so bad that we were doing our weekly call-in report (in person at the church) and Sister Chinain literally fell asleep in the middle of our meeting. It was so bad. Then the Elders asked if we would like priesthood blessings and we said yes. So, last night we both received priesthood blessings, and immediately we felt so much better, more like ourselves. I cannot explain to you how much of a change happened, but it was amazing. I am so so grateful for the priesthood. It has blessed my life in so many ways and last night was just another testimony builder to me. Today we were back to being normal and it is such a blessing.


I know that this Church is true and that the same priesthood that Jesus gave to his 12 apostles is back on the Earth today. The priesthood has blessed me so many times and I am grateful that the power of God is still here.

Urayasu is an amazing area, I love it. The members are amazing, the area is fantastic, the missionaries are really enthusiastic about helping the area. I really do love working here in Urayasu, there are so many great things happening and things that we are starting to do to make dendo even better. It was a rough week, but we are ready to go up and up and up!

Thank you all! See you next week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

The Miracles are coming with me to Urayasu :)

Konnichiwa!

I can officially say that again because I am now in Urayasu! A Japanese area! Speaking Japanese! Whoooooo!!!!

My last few days in Oizumi were crazy! We tried to visit a few people one last time and I had to pack all my stuff. It was rough, but I was able to say goodbye to almost everyone!

Marli and Abraham

On Tuesday, my last day, we had a party at Ping Pong and a bunch of people came by to say goodbye! The Elders even went out and bought food to celebrate a little bit. Dayane and Sayuri stopped by and gave me a cute neck warmer and gloves and everyone signed my bye-bye book with the sweetest messages. It was so fun! We played Ping Pong and took pictures and had a great time. Marli invited us over for one last Peruvian meal before I left and we were able to eat good food and teach her a really good lesson about the Restoration! She really understood it and had some good thoughts and questions about it. I'm sad that I won't be able to watch her progress more, but Sister Pourre told me today that she went to church on Sunday and that makes me so happy!

Wednesday was a strange day because it was the first time on my whole mission that I was alone! Crazy!!!!! On Transfer Day, the missionaries transferring are allowed to travel by themselves. It was so awkward. I'm so used to having a companion to back me up. It took me about 2.5 hours to get from Oizumi to Urayasu. I had to wake up at 5:30 to finish packing, have one last breakfast with Sister Pourre (CRYYYYYY) then walk to the station. It was a sad goodbye, but I look forward to seeing her again someday. She was a great trainer and I will miss her!

Naomi and Duda

I arrived in Urayasu about 10:30 and it is soooooo different from Oizumi. There are so many more people and more buildings, more everything. I met Sister Chinain and Hitomi Shimai (a super cute Recent Convert) at the train station and then we saw the church before going back to the apartment.

FUN FACT: The Church has 3 stories and used to be a Pet Store :) I will send a picture next week!

Another FUN FACT: Every night at 8:30, we can hear the fireworks from Disneyland. :) Also, one of the members in the Ward is a Disney Prince. I haven't met him yet, but apparently he is great.

That day we walked back to the church to help Yamamoto Shimai make Piñatas for the kids she works with. It was so fun because she speaks English (yay!) and we were able to talk about a lot of the people in the Ward. She gave us a lot of good advice, and even though I didn't know anyone at that time, I started loving them anyways!

Pinatas

Partway through making the piñatas we got a phone call. It was a miracle phone call! A woman called us saying she investigated the church about a year ago and she wants us to teach her more about the Book of Mormon and her daughter wanted to come to the Halloween party again this year. We were so excited! Later, we found her in Area Book and apparently she was not contacted earlier because her phone number changed, so it was amazing that she called us because she still has a desire to know! Her name is Takagi-San and she is so amazing! We were able to have a phone lesson with her later that week and she was so excited when we shared our favorite scriptures from the Book of Mormon.

A bike parking lot in Urayasu

Friday was filled with more miracles. We had a lesson with Maria Shimai's niece who just moved here from the Philippines. We had to take a train and a bus to get to their apartment, and then we got on the wrong bus so it was super crazy and we were so late, but they were really nice about it. It's been getting cold here so they made us some hot chocolate! The niece's name is Bernadette and she is so sweet! Maria Shimai asked us to teach her some Japanese so we started out teaching her the Hiragana alphabet, and she picked up on it so fast. She learned the whole thing in like 30 min, it took me a solid 3-6 weeks in the MTC. We were also able to share a little message with her. She is really amazing. Her being in Japan is inspiring her aunt and uncle to come back to church and she wants to come too. It really is a miracle and we are excited to keep working with her as well!

Later that night was Mission School! In Urayasu, every Friday night they have 3 hours of Mission School. Hour 1: Eiken (an English test) Preperation, Hour 2: Kodomo Eiken (children's English class) and more Eiken help and Hour 3: Free Time where anyone can come learn anything. There is a chart with all the missionaries' names and the things they are good at, so people can come in and ask for help learning basically anything. Some people want to learn piano, others want to learn other languages. This week Sister Chinain taught French to two members and I taught another girl Spanish. It was way fun and I realized that I remember more Spanish grammar than I thought I did.

Elder Kenley (our District Leader) told me later "I now know that you actually know Spanish." Hahahaha, good to know that you now believe that I do actually speak Spanish, that I didn't just make it up.

I guess now would be a good time to introduce my fellow missionaries.

My new companion, Sister Chinain

Sister Chinain (Pronounced Shi-Na) is my new companion. She is going home at the end of December. She is from Tahiti (isn't that so cool!), is fluent in French, has been here one transfer, and it amazing!!! She loves to dance, she makes good food, her mom sent her a ton of soy milk so we are really blessed, and we accidentally twinned the first 3 days I was here. Sadly we don't have pictures, but if that isn't companionship unity, I don't know what is.

Elder Kenley and Elder Kooymen are the first set of Elders in Urayasu. Elder Kenley is my District Leader and he is hilarious. Elder Kooymen was in the MTC with me, but he was 1 transfer behind me. We played frisbee a few times when I hurt my thumb.

Elder Akagi and Elder Payne are the other two elders. Elder Akagi was in my MTC district, so that was a great reunion! Elder Payne transferred here the same time that I did, so we are both newbies in Urayasu.

Zone P-day

So those are the missionaries in Urayasu! They are all great missionaries and I look forward to a great transfer with them.

Continuing with the week though, on Saturday we had our ward Halloween Party and it was so fun! There were games on all 3 levels and kids running all over the place. The decorations were spot on, and although missionaries weren't allowed to dress up, everyone else did and there were some great costumes. The missionaries created a Halloween Race for the kids and it was really fun! I met a lot of Ward members at the party. There are a lot of people in this Ward so I really need to work hard to learn all their names. It was great to just be able to talk to people though. It really built my confidence because I seem to remember more Japanese then I thought I would. There is still so much more I need to study though! Ah!!!!! I have forgotten so much!

The Halloween Party was really good though. I'm glad I was able to meet some members because on Sunday I missed church. Why?

BECAUSE I WENT TO SAYURI'S BAPTISM!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

We woke up at 4:40am to get to the Kumagaya church by 8:00. It was so early, but so worth it.

As soon as I got my transfer call last week, I called President Nagano to see if I could still go to Sayuri's baptism and he said yes. I am so glad he did because it was the highlight of my mission so far.

Sister Pourre asked me to give a spiritual thought before the baptism so I gave a little talk about baptism and the Holy Ghost in Portuguese before the baptism. It was hard, but I did it! Then the actual baptism happened.

In that moment when Sayuri was baptized, I felt so much joy, I thought I was going to burst. I think that I was able to feel, just for a moment, just how much our Heavenly Father loves us. I felt so much joy and happiness and love for Sayuri, there is no way to describe it. I truly felt like my heart was going to explode, I was so happy for her. It was amazing to watch her grow over the last few weeks and to have this desire to receive baptism. I am so so so thankful that I was able to see her take this step and come closer to her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It was such a memorable moment. I want to be able to feel like that all the time. Sayuri is such a special special girl and I will never forget her. She is amazing and I am so thankful that she allowed me to be a part of her life.

Sayuri's baptism

After the baptism, we came back to Urayasu and there was another miracle! They were having a shokujikai, basically like a little party after church. Sister Chinain and I were so happy because we didn't have lunch and we were starving. It was another chance for me to meet some more members which was so great!

That night we went to FHE and we were able to eat more and build more relationships. This Ward is amazing! They are all so excited to do missionary work and to help us in anyway we need. They really inspire me to be a better missionary.

I am so so so excited to be here in Urayasu. It is an amazing area with a fantastic Ward. Sister Chinain and I are ready to work hard this transfer and see some miracles! Let's go!!!

Love you all, see you next week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

It's Olá, not Hola

Olá!

Shop Star Brazil

I figured since this was the last week of my second transfer, I should probably write hola the way they do in Portuguese. :) Sorry for lying to all of you for the past 3 months! It was just too fun.

However, it's all good because transfer calls came today and guess what? I'm TRANSFERRING!!!!! Never saw that one coming! This Wednesday I will be going to my new area in Urayasu and I will once again be speaking Japanese! I'm excited to meet my new companion and get to work. I won't be training, but I will be in the same area as Akagi Choro (from my MTC district), Kooeyman Choro (who I knew in the MTC, he is a transfer behind me) and Tokyo Disneyland (although we aren't allowed to go there).

I have loved my time in Oizumi and I am grateful for everything I have learned. It has been an amazing experience and I have met so many amazing people. They have truly changed me and I know that I have become a better missionary because of these people. I am grateful for all they have taught me!

Now let's talk about what happened this week because it was a crazy one!

Visiting one of our investigators.
She was sick so she insisted we be protected.

First of all, I am no longer a trainee!!! I have finished my training! Isn't that crazy? I have been in the mission field 2 transfers, 12 weeks.  I learned so much and I really think that it helped me become a much better missionary.

On Tuesday, we went all the way to Tokyo for the combined Mission Conference with Elder Bednar and the Tokyo South Mission. We woke up extra early to be there 3 hours early, so we were seated right in front. It was an amazing conference! The whole 3 hours was a question and answer and we were able to learn from Elder Bednar and from each other. I had the chance to stand up and share a little thought at the end and it was so amazing. The Spirit in the room was so strong and I learned so much.

The main things that I learned were that we really need to listen to our investigators and that we need to constantly be building our faith so that we can help others build their faith. Faith is something that I have been focusing on a lot these past few weeks and I feel like as a result, my faith has gotten so much stronger. One thing that Elder Bednar taught us was to take a question we have and read the Book of Mormon with that question in mind, marking everything that answers that question. When you finish, write a page about what you learned and put it in the book. He talked about that in the MTC, so I tried it and it was a great experience. One thing he added this time was that once you did it 1 time, do it again, and see what else you notice. I really liked that and so I am going to implement it in my Book of Mormon study. I really have a testimony that the Book of Mormon answers every question we have. There are answers on every page if you are willing to look for them.

Outside the Mission Home
at the Mission Conference.

The whole conference was amazing and I was able to see a few of my Kohai, as well as Elder Handly and Sister Morris who were in my ward in BYU and are serving in the Tokyo South Mission. We had to run out of the conference to catch our train back home so I wasn't able to talk to them, but it was so nice to see them.

We got home and only had time to go visit one person before Ping Pong, so we went to visit Sayuri and the greatest miracle happened! She took our challenge to heart and prayed to know what path she should go on, if baptism was right for her. On Tuesday night, after already having an amazingly spiritual day with Elder Bednar, she just told us "Sisters! I have a desire to be baptized!" It was the greatest news ever! And she wanted to be baptized this Sunday!

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to be baptized this Sunday. Throughout the week, we worked with her to receive parental permission.  Now she has permission from both parents, and she is excited to receive baptism this Sunday. We are so excited for her! She has an amazingly strong testimony that is just so inspirational. Her testimony has grown in leaps and bounds since we started teaching her and it has been truly an honor to teach her and watch her grow.

Dinner with Camilla

This week we also had the chance to meet with a less-active named Noriko. She actually lives in Maebashi and has been meeting with the Takasaki Sisters, but she works in Ota sometimes and loves the Oizumi sisters, so she takes us out to dinner every now and then. She is so sweet and she has the cutest little boys! We had a really great time talking with her and seeing how she is. One funny story was that at the end of dinner she kept saying "We have to get dessert. We can't leave until we have dessert. You can't say you are too full for dessert." Well we couldn't really argue with that and she was very adamant about dessert. There was no way we could tell her about our sugar fast, so we just looked at the menu. It all looked so good! Oh it was so tempting, luckily they had a "healthy" dessert option and I just looked at it and was like, oh that works! It was chia seed yogurt with fruit. Yogurt and fruit were both on our OK list, so we both got it (and then Noriko decided it looked good so she got it too) and it ended up being so good. Yay for healthy, sugar fast decisions!

Saturday was an interesting day. We had so many people we needed to visit, we were afraid we wouldn't make it to all of them. We didn't need to fear though because no one was home. We had so much extra time, we decided to call PI's and we were able to find 2 new investigators! Yay!

Halloween cake from Adriana.

That night we had the Halloween Party in Kiryu. We managed to get rides for all the youth in Oizumi and we were able to go and have a really good time. There was a haunted tunnel and at first everyone was terrified of going into it, so Sister Pourre and I led the way. After that first time, all the girls went through it like 10 times and then they decided to be a part of the haunted tunnel and scare others. It was so funny to watch!

There were also piñatas and Adriana made an amazing cake. It was a really fun night, and I think it really helped the youth to bond more. Next week is the Kumagaya Halloween Party, hopefully they have fun at that too. Sadly, I won't be there :(

At the Halloween Party

As for today, it was transfer calls, so we just kind of sat and ate breakfast/studied all morning as we anxiously waited for the call. We honestly had no idea what was going to happen and it was such a shock to me that I was going to Urayasu. After I got the call, I spent the rest of study time packing. It has been crazy, and I'm sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I'm also excited to see what is next.

I have seen a lot of miracles this last transfer in Oizumi and it has been amazing. I think the sugar fast helped with that. We finished the sugar fast after church yesterday and ate a lot of sugar...so good...but I think I learned some important lessons. It wasn't the actual "not eating sugar" part of the sugar fast that helped us see miracles, it was the fact that we worked even harder because we weren't eating sugar. We promised Heavenly Father that we wouldn't eat sugar so that we could see miracles, and so we worked even harder to find and teach people that would be ready to receive baptism, and as a result we found Sayuri. Not eating sugar was so hard, but I am really proud of us. I feel like our companionship unity increased and we were really able to see some amazing miracles in OIzumi.

Oizumi will always hold a special place in my heart. It was where I was "born" and it was a place where I really grew a lot. I will miss it! Thank you Oizumi!

See you all next week, from Urayasu!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

Is it Halloween or Christmas?

Hola!

The Halloween Train - so festive, so fun

Tomorrow we get to see Elder Bednar!!!!! I am so excited!!!! It's like Christmas!!! Even though it's almost Halloween!!! :)

I am so so so excited to see him and to hear the words he has to share with the Japan Tokyo and Japan Tokyo South Missions tomorrow. He asked us to read 4 of his talks over the past month to prepare for his visit and I re-read all 4 this morning. They are amazing talks and even just reading them and applying the things I've learned from them has helped me be a better missionary.

This week, we spent a lot of time in other areas. Besides Zone P-day, which I wrote about in last week's email (sorry that it didn't send last week, double emails for all of you this week!), we also went to Maebashi on Tuesday for Interviews with President and Sister Nagano and we went to Oyama on Thursday for Exchanges.

Interviews on Tuesday were so great. It is so nice to be able to have time to talk to President and Sister Nagano one on one. They help me so much, and give me so much strength. I have the best Mission President! The only sad news? Sister Nagano brought amazing brownies and cookies, but we had to say no because we are still on our sugar fast. :( It was so nice to see them though.) The Zone Leaders were doing iPad checks while we were being interviewed and when we came out, Elder Watabe (who was checking my iPad) just asked "So there is this video of caterpillars falling from the sky, what was going on?" Haha, good times.

On the way home from Interviews, we got to ride this super festive train, it was completely decked out for Halloween. It was amazing and so fun! Haha, not many people actually celebrate Halloween in Japan, but sometimes you will run into things like this and think "Wow, they are more festive than America."

Ping Pong

That night, we ran Ping Pong by ourselves again because the Elders had exchanges in Takasaki. Four young women showed up and it was chaos. They were just taking selfies all over the place! It was crazy! Haha, they were so fun though. Sayuri, an investigator, and Naomi, a member, both came with two friends and it was really fun. We play church music while we play Ping Pong, so you know it's a party :)

Two amazing lessons we had this week were with Dayane and Sayuri, a mother and daughter that we teach separately.

Dayane has such amazing faith. She is trying to do all she can to live the gospel, to come to church and to help her children. At the end of our lesson, we only had to ask her once if she would pray and she agreed! Then she gathered her two youngest daughters and said the prayer and it was the sweetest prayer I have ever heard. She was praying for us and the other missionaries around the world. It has been such a blessing to teach her. She really wants to be the best and to live the gospel every day. She wants the best for her family
.

Sayuri is just as amazing as her mom. She has such enormous faith as well and wants to participate in all of the activities. She is excited to go to church and learn about the gospel, and she always has really good questions. This week we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she was asking about the Celestial kingdom and she was understanding everything. It really is amazing.

I feel so lucky to be teaching this family. It was such a miracle that we found them a few weeks ago at the Churrasco, and I am so glad that we did. They are so strong and they have such a desire to learn more. I can't always understand what they are saying, but I can always feel the Spirit as we share our messages and they share their thoughts.

Exchanges with the Sister Trainer Leaders

This week we also had exchanges in Oyama with the Sister Training Leaders! I got to go out with Sister Coughanour and we had a blast! She finishes her mission at the end of this transfer, so I was able to learn a lot from her. She really helped me to be confident enough in my Japanese to survive one day in a Japanese area. When we started this exchange, I realized that my Japanese has gone down so much, it was so hard. I had almost no confidence to speak to people, but over the course of the day, I was able to rebuild that confidence and although some people would just look at me weird when I talked, I was able to communicate with people and help share this amazing message.

After dinner, we were waiting for an investigator to show up, but she never did, so we decided to call some PI's. Well, Sister Coughanour had the brilliant idea to use my ability to speak Spanish and Portuguese and have me talk to all the Spanish and Portuguese PI's. It was so weird because I felt so much more comfortable talking to those PI's than I was talking in Japanese. Portuguese feels so much more natural now. Who knew that I would ever say that? I was able to set up two appointments for the Oyama Sisters, so it was a miracle that we decided to do that! The Gift of Tongues is real! It has helped me so much on my mission so far, and I know that my testimony of it will continue to grow for my whole mission.

At night, our last lesson of the day, we were working with a mother and her daughter. Sister Coughanour was helping the daughter with her English speech and the mom and I just watched. After a few minutes, I decided it was probably a little awkward to have two of just just watch the daughter, Kamuri, so I moved over to the mom, Kaori, and started talking to her. It was very slow and it took a lot of hand gestures and dictionary help, but we were able to talk a little bit. She even showed me pictures of her and her daughter at their baptism. I showed her pictures of my family and we talked about families and how amazing and important they are. She was so patient with me, and I know that we both were able to feel the Spirit as we talked.

Exchanges were amazing and I learned so much. I will be sad to see Sister Coughanour go home. She has been an amazing missionary and Sister Training Leader to me. She has such a strong testimony and she is fearless when it comes to talking to people on the street.

Now for the highlight of the week...Mutual!!!!!!

Sister Pourre and I really want to work more with the youth in Oizumi, getting to know them and helping them, and all the youth here are Young Women, so we decided to have a Mutual activity on Saturday for all the girls ages 12-18. We invited the members and investigators and told them it would be a fun Halloween activity. We were so pumped for it! We bought all this cute stuff (Daiso has the cutest Halloween section) and we prepared all morning for it.

Our Halloween Costume Challenge

That night, only two girls showed up, Sayuri and Miki, both investigators. We had so much fun though! Dayane was there too, waiting for Sayuri. We did introductions then we had our Halloween Costume Challenge. We split into two teams (Sister Pourre and Sayrui, Me and Miki) and each of the girls had 30 min to create a costume out of plastic bags, toilet paper, napkins, body paint, and origami paper. It was so fun! They got really creative. Haha, Miki and I had a blast! It was so much fun, such a mess, but so much fun. We gave them all Choco-pies and Pumpkin Kit Kats at the end, and it killed me that we couldn't eat any, but it's all good. We hope to be able to have more mutual activities in the future with more of the girls to help them get to know each other better and to help us get to know them too.

Overall, it was another crazy week, but it's also been a fun week. We are starting the last week of the transfer, so next week is transfer calls! Will I stay in Oizumi or will I go? Who knows? We will find out next week!

See you next week!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

The Craziest Tuesday Night of my Life

(This is Sister Black's letter from last week. We will send her letter for this week tomorrow. - Sister Black's parents.)

Hola!

The weeks are flying by here in Japan! Can you believe I've been in Japan longer than I was in the MTC? Can you believe I've already been here almost 2.5 months? I'm almost done with training! What is this?!

Let's start with Tuesday. Tuesday was crazy because it was Elder Miller's last day in Oizumi! We tried to make Ping Pong super fun and invited everyone to come say goodbye. We even bought snacks and brought some of the youth. It was really fun, and Vivi even got Elder Miller a goodbye present, some magic toys because he loves learning magic and likes showing us all of his card and coin tricks. It was so nice. Then one of the investigators invited us all out to dinner, for one last meal.

The only problem was time. Ping Pong ends at 8:30, we needed to bike home with one of the youth because we promised her mom we would, the Elders were planning on visiting one more family and we had to be home by 10:00. As you can see, not much time. AND THEN Elder Miller got a flat tire. Never fear though, we managed to get everything done, eat in 15 min, take some pictures, and have a really good last night with our amazing District Leader. It was a crazy night, but it was super good, and we made it home on time 😊

The next day, Elder Miller left and Elder Queiroz came to Oizumi. I am officially the only American missionary in Oizumi. Crazy!

We also had Zone Meeting this week and it was so good. I got a lot of really good ideas on how to help promote Mission School (our English and English Test Prep classes) and how to better prepare for Elder Bednar's visit next week! One thing I'm really trying to do is to actually act on the talks that we were asked to read, to try them out now so that I can come up with better questions to ask. One thing I'm focusing on is asking in faith and really taking the time to be thoughtful in my prayers and come to Heavenly Father with plans and actions I want to take, instead of asking him to tell me what to do. So far it's been really good!

In my studies, the Elder Bednar talks, General Conference talks, and the Book of Mormon challenge, I've learned a lot about faith, obedience, and diligence. Everything I've been reading has really focused on those three things. Having and growing your faith, then obeying and acting, then enduring and persevering to the end, no matter how hard it is. Missions are not easy, but they are rewarding. It can be frustrating when someone doesn't keep their commitments because you know that if they do they will be blessed, but as long as we keep having these three things, we can know that God will bless us.

This week really has been a week of miracles (what week isn't?).

On Tuesday, I took the lead on a lesson we had with Lucimara. I was worried because her Portuguese is one of the hardest for me to understand, but it actually went really well. We were able to find her real needs and teach to them. It was a completely different lesson than we had planned, but it was what she needed. It was so amazing!

Saturday was a huge miracle day! We were able to teach two of our new investigators, Sayuri and Adele.

Sayuri is only 13, but she has a lot of questions that she has been looking for answers to. She really wants to learn more about Christ and how to have a happy family. She's the daughter of a former investigator that we just started teaching again and she is so sweet. On Saturday, we were just planning on teaching her the Restoration and seeing where we should go from there, but then she had so many questions that we ended up teaching the Restoration, most of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end) and most of the commandments. She was so prepared and she was so cute! We are really excited to continue working with her and helping her find the answers to her questions.

Then we had a lesson with Adele, a referral from the Elders. She is Filipino and her English is amazing. She loves to learn about languages, people, and religions. She was amazing because she already understands the importance of the Holy Ghost and feeling that confirmation that what she is hearing and learning is true. She immediately believed in Joseph Smith and the First Vision and she said she wants to come to church a few times to see what she feels.

Both of these investigators came to church on Sunday and it was so special. We were watching the Sunday Morning session of General Conference, so they were able to hear the words of the leaders of our church. They had questions, and we were able to answer them, and it was so good!

Speaking of General Conference, it was played in Portuguese, so on Saturday morning, during personal study, I read all the talks in English so that I would be able to understand at least a little bit (or at least remember a bit from each talk). Well, during the actual conference I could barely understand anything, so I just took notes on impressions that came to my mind. It was weird because I couldn't write down things that the leaders said that stood out to me, I just had to listen to the Spirit to know what to write. It was a different experience to me, but at the same time I loved it. I was really able to listen to the Spirit and focus on what was important for me instead of just the beautiful words they said. I will for sure be reading all of the talks again over the next few weeks, but these notes I took during the session will always have a special place in my heart because I know that they were revelation for me.

I haven't had the chance to see or read all of the talks yet, so next week I will talk more about General Conference.

One of my favorite talks that I have studied is President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from the General Women's Broadcast, "Fourth Floor, Last Door." Everyone was emailing me about it this week, don't worry, I've watched it in English and Portuguese, and read it multiple times, it is so good. We actually watched it with an investigator this week because it was so perfect for her. I love it because it is so true, we never know what God has in store for us, we have to push forward with faith all the way to the last possible moment.

This week was hard for Pourre Shimai and I because we have been doing this sugar fast and it can be hard to see the miracles because they aren't big ones. It was really hard for us, but we agreed, that no matter what, we will continue our fast until the very last moment. We have faith that we will see miracles, the miracles we need to be seeing, not necessarily the miracles we want. And we have! I've included a few of them in this email, but there are so many more.

We found two new investigators for other areas yesterday. We have been able to help a former investigator start to progress. We were able to meet with a less-active member that we haven't seen in weeks. So many miracles! This sugar fast is so hard (especially when your Zone Leader makes an amazing ice cream cake for Zone P-day and you can't eat it) but we know it is worth it.

Now for some fun stuff that happened this week: As I mentioned, we had Zone P-day today! The whole zone got together to do Iron Chef in Maebashi, Sisters vs. Elders. We had 45 min to cook and it was so fun! We made gyoza (Honda Shimai's mom's recipe) and Rice Krispies made with granola. It was really fun! Haha the Kiryu Elders weren't cooking because they brought a recent convert with them, and so we sent them out to buy us more marshmallows when we ran out! So nice! They got back just in time for us to finish the Rice Krispies before time ran out.

The Elders made some kind of stir fry that was pretty good, but the sisters still won!!!! Whoooooooo! Haha, then Elder Seeger brought our his ice cream cake and it looked so good! He put in Black Thunder, and ice cream, and melon pan (bread with chocolate chips). Oh it was so hard, but we resisted!

We also played a round of missionary mafia and that was really fun too! Overall, a great Zone P-day! We have such a fun zone, it was great to get to talk and cook with them.

Other funny moments from this week: At Eikaiwa, we decided to play Charades and Kai Kyoudai got Shinkansen (the bullet train in Japan) and he was so funny acting it out! I wish I had a video! He just started running around the room really fast and waving and it was so funny! When Kai Kyoudai does charades, he gets into it. He gives 110% and it is so fun!

On Sunday, some mysterious food showed up in the fridge labeled Sisters and Elders. Elder Passos talked to the lady who dropped it off. Apparently, there is a really nice woman here in Oizumi that belongs to another church, but loves to make food for the missionaries. Mysterious food!!! It was so good! It was real Brazilian food and it was delicious, bobó and esfiha. Bobó is like a soup with shrimp and mushrooms and esfiha is meat stuffed in dough. Both were so good!

It's getting colder here in Japan (like WA weather), but biking warms me up. I can't believe that another week has passed, but I will talk to you all next week!

Thank you!

ブラクラ姉妹
Black Shimai

Pictures from Sister Black

(We didn't get an email for the blog this week, but we did receive pictures.  So we are sharing those with you. - Sister Black's parents)

A giant bug.  Japan has so many huge bugs.

Eikaiwa Charades - We give them such nice words.

And they give us this.

I got a cute monthly planner from Daiso this week.
This is also how I look after a busy, productive day.

Sayuri and Dayane after church - they are so cute.

Suri and her son Myles at his birthday party.
They had some good Filipino food with the chili sauce I love from home.

Beautiful view from an investigator's home.  The mountains are so beautiful here.

Our Zone P-day

Making gyoza.

The final product of a contest between Elders and Sisters .



The winning Shimai team!