March 24th

Yo what's up?!
Update for the week: Last p day we had a dinner appointment.. The Matsushima family invited allll the kichijoji missionaries over for dinner. So many people! sister Matsushima must have been cooking all day... I have never seen so much food in my life. I wish I took a picture because there is no other way for you to understand that I am not exaggerating. She had like three gigantic trays of sushi, spring rolls, soup, eggs inside meatballs, fried potato things, fruits, probably 10 other dishes and then desserts. Oh my goodness... I didn't even have one bite of everything. So full... I don't know if I actually ate that much or just got full from seeing so much food. Haha they are too nice... Even sent us all home with some groceries like cereal and fruit and snacks. The weather is starting to get really nice... Didn't even wear a coat today! It will probably be rainy later this week but the sun has been shining and there have been cool breezes. Today for p day we went as a zone and with the mission president and some of our friends to hike mt takao. Our investigator, Oikawa Shimai came with us! It was a gorgeous day... It was a pretty easy hike but so beautiful. Lots of tourists and people to meet. It was fun but we were so worn out from a long day! I will send pictures! This week was pretty crazy... A sister in the mission was sick so she came to stay at the mission home. One of the kichijoji sisters had to go to her area and then the other three of us has to take turns switching off to stay with the sick sister, sister Hokanson. It was tough to coordinate our schedules and appointments and lessons with investigators... And it actually turned out that most of our appointments got cancelled on us. It was just one of those weeks... But it all worked out. We learned that we are definitely not in charge of this work and we will always receive the strength and help we need! The other night we had another huge dinner appointment with all of the missionaries in our ward at the Skinner family home. Their son is a recent return missionary and he invited lots of his friends from the single adults to come, too. So it was a big group! And again... Tons of food. But it was fun... She had tortilla chips and tortillas! Stuff that's hard to find in japan... Been missing that Mexican food! Sister wells and I were asked to prepare the message. We decided to share a video about the atonement and share our testimonies of the Savior. We prepared cute Easter treats for everyone and went on a hunt to find chocolate eggs and jelly beans! Success in the import shops :) our lesson was a hit! The single adults were from all over the world... And all had super interesting stories for what brought them to Tokyo. And all us there were either currently serving missions, return missionaries, or had a mission call... So the lesson was a little intimidating haha I will be using Facebook soon... Gotta clean up the old account but once my name becomes sister reeves you will know I'm on again :) let those you know who are reading the blog know that it will be private... And they can receive an invite from Cassie. Thanks for everything, Sal! Today we got transfer calls... Yes, it's been six weeks in the field. Drum roll..... I will be staying in kichijoji and my follow up trainer is sister feist! I'm excited... She is such a great missionary! I'm happy to stay with this ward and the investigators I've started getting to know. Sister wells will be staying too and training a new missionary! I won't be the baby in kichijoji anymore! We are gonna miss sister Sasaki :( she will be heading to Fujisawa on Thursday with sister Hokanson and they will be training a new missionary too! I'm excited for the newbies to come... We are lucky in kichijoji... We get to exercise with them and dendou with them during their first couple days here anyway, that's all for now :) be happy and keep smiling. This life is incredible!
Love love love y'all. It sounds like everything is going well at home... That makes me so happy!
Xoxo, sister reeves

 I'm so sporty. This actually went in the hoop.

 And this actually went over the net.

 BYU is the coolest

 Kids English Class

 High School girls in the park

exchange with sister wells 

March 18th

hello friends
miss you bunches. today was temple p day! so amazing... we got to go to the temple in Tokyo. Beautiful and lovely experience of course.

And we got to venture into the north mission area. the more you get into tokyo.... the more crowded and busy and crazy it gets! it's amazing how many humans there can be in one place. on one city block. Shoved into one train. after the temple we went to lunch in shibuya with yu chan. we ate at this super cool sushi place. you use a touch screen to order and your food comes right in front of you on this electric lane. so awesome. it's like what you always dream of as a little kid. Just press a button and your food appears.

last p day we went to a little beauty school to get our nails painted in honor of my twenty first birthday! and later that night we got crepes. they are really popular in japan. and they have anything you can imagine on them. not just sweet ones with fruit and whipped topping. I got a pizza sauce crepe but they also have tuna and ham and really anything.

Sister Sasaki and me 

 I am going to start using Facebook pretty soon as a missionary tool. I will be making a new account but I will keep y'all updated on how you can add me and be my friend ! There was another baptism this week... a cute little eight year old girl in our ward, eru chan . the 14th was white day. in japan.... the girls give chocolate to the boys on valentines day and a month later if the boys have interest they give back! Sasaki shimai and I gave back to the sisters in our apartment and president wada gave us gorgeous donuts. it was probably the best donut I've ever eaten.

 
Sister Clark and me with our white day donuts (:

sister Sasaki and I have new goals to visit many of the less actives in our ward and role play our mission lessons with them. so excited! it hasn't been super effective so far, but I think it will end up being a good plan! we had a lesson this week with Oikawa shimai. she has been going to church for years but she isn't ready to accept all the church teachings and be baptized. she has lots of doubt. in the last lesson... she really felt the spirit and she agreed to pray about the decision to receive baptism. it was incredible. lots of members have lost faith in her but she is wonderful and I totally believe in her. we had a lesson with Rika San... she is having a tough time right now because her mother has cancer. we shared the miracle of God's plan of salvation with her and I was able to bear my testimony of prophets, prayer, and the Savior's atonement. She said she has prayed just to greet God but she said she will now start praying with gratitude and also ask for God's help. She is so wonderful. She has tons of potential... she doesn't have desire to read the Book of Mormon because it's hard to understand but I know she is feeling the spirit and God's love for her. my birthday was good... we had two lessons! and we went to the single adult activity with a potential investigator. we went to this cool all you can eat Korean BBQ place. you pick up meats and veggies and cook it yourself at a grill at your table. but they also have everythingggg like curry, rice, ramen, udon, sushi, pizza, fries, salad, fruit, popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream, etc... it was way cool.

  
Sister Sasaki, Ruri, Kaori 

 

 

                                    all you can eat place on bday with ruri shimai and kaori san

haha this whole email is about food.... but I'm not done... haha sister Sasaki taught me how to make harumaki (spring rolls) and giyoza (potstickers) this week.

  

 

I'm becoming japaneseee first blooms of cherry blossoms this week! the weather is starting to get really nice. it's becoming a 'one coat instead of two' kind of weather!

  

 

we had exchanges again this week. on the 14th I worked with sister feist in the morning. we went to the train station for salad and cake for my birthday! and we did lots of streeting. we had 32 meaningful conversations together. and we ran into our potential investigator from last exchange! well... actually I saw her and she was kinda far away. I was like ahhhh it's ishiyama San ! so we sorta walked slash ran after her and casually walked into the ATM booth she was at and were like ohhh my gosh heyyy ishiyama right? she wants to meet up with us to study and learn about Jesus! perfect.

Date with Sister Feist for my birthday

we did another exchange in the afternoon and I worked with sister Clark. she taught me how to do my first kubarikai which is where you stand on the street and pass out eikaiwa fliers. we had more meaningful conversations through that finding activity but it was soooo cold and windy. we were in mitaka and wanted to find a place to eat but we sent these two British guys to the only place we knew in that area... and we thought it would be weird if we showed up. then this man who is passing out coupons for a restaurant basically has us follow him and he seats us in the restaurant and brings us this little plate of bacon and a piece of paper... that is apparently the menu but it was all in kanji and had no pictures. we asked him what he liked and he ordered for us. it was a way typical Japanese restaurant... pretty classy place where you order tons of little things and end up spending tons of money. and they have other areas of the restaurant where you cook your own food. so we ate our mystery things that he ordered for us but we knew how much they would cost cause we can read the kanji for numbers. but... apparently the bacon was eight bucks! I did not feel like we ate twenty bucks worth of food... lesson learned... don't follow a random man into his restaurant.

 
Sister Clark and me with our mystery meatloaf!

Haha anyway that's enough for now! love y'all. miss youuu. I think about and pray for y'all often. thanks for your love and support and prayers. you da best

 Me studying and stuck in the futon

Sister Sasaki, Sister Wells, Sister Feist, Elder Crandall, Elder Bradshaw, Elder Call, Elder Konishi, Elder Fernelious, Elder Fukuchi, Elder Nakayama, Elder Yagui

 My district

March 10th

hello everyone!

im on a super ghetto japanese laptop in the family history center at the church so hopefully i can write this email faster than using an ipad!!

this past week was really awesome! lots of miracles.

i was on exchanges with sister feist early in the week. we took a bus to another part of our area to visit a couple less-active teenage girls. the bishop sent us with an address, but we didnt even know their names. just that they were two young filipino sisters. we spent a lot of time trying to find the apartment complex, but in the process of asking for help and directions, we met a lot of wonderful people, had really good conversations, and found two new potential investigators. we finally found the complex and it was this gigantic building with ten floors. then we realized that the bishop had not given us the apartment number. we tried to call him, but he wasn't available. thats when a little boy walked by, sister feist started to talk to him.. she was really honest.. she explained that we were missionaries and we were trying to find the apartment of two teenage filipino sisters... and did he happen to know them? he was like, oh yeah.. i know their little brother. he was no older than 10 years old, just coming home from school, and he didn't act like we were weird at all. he just had us follow him and he knocked on the door of this family's house. he gave a school flier to the mom and talked to his friend through the door, while we explained to the mother why we were there. her girls were still at school, but we were able to leave a note for them and give them our phone number. it was seriously a miracle that we met that little boy and we able to find the home of this family.

another cool story: a few weeks ago, we were walking home and met this sweet old lady. she was out shopping and we asked her what she bought. she had just purchased udon... which is a really tasty kind of noodle. i told her i had never had it before. and that's how the conversation started. we talked about church and left her with a flier and she told us she lived nearby and pointed out where her home was. we never got her name, but after that we always said we wanted to find the udon lady. so... on sunday we did!! she sat with us and talked for a long time. she has so many thoughts about religion. she is buddhist and she loves reading books about religion. she has questions about creation. she did most of the talking and just enjoyed that we were listening. she didn't want to read the book of mormon because its too long, but we left a plan of salvation pamphlet with her and she told us to come back anytime. i couldn't understand most of what she said, but she has such a sweet spirit about her. and as i looked her in the eyes, i could really feel God's love for her.

i gave my talk in church yesterday!! woop! im not ever nervous about public speaking, but i was nervous that nothing i would say would make sense! haha but apparently... it made sense and several members thanked me for my talk and asked if i wrote it myself or if sister sasaki translated it for me. people were surprised by my pronunciation and accent and started assuming that my japanese was better than it really is. but.. it provided good opportunities for me to have conversations with members. i am starting to build relationships with church members and i can really feel their love and support. our investigator, pinko san and her son came to church! and they came to the baptism after church. Sister Wells and Feists investigator, Sister Iizawa got baptized! It was amazing.. the whole ward showed so much support and friendship and really welcomed her into the ward. 

On friday, Sister Sasaki and other leaders had a meeting, so.. their companions went on exchanges. The sisters all happened to be transfer 1 and 2 missionaries. So it turned out to be a good adventure. I was with Sister Dansie in the morning. We tried to visit one of our investigators, but she wasn't home. So we left a note and spiritual thought in her mailbox and invited her to a fireside coming up. I was sad we weren't able to talk with her, but I was pretty proud of myself for being able to find her home! Later that day, I worked with Sister miller and sister wilde.. who both came to the mission with me so we are pretty brand new!! we spent the afternoon, finding.. talking to people on the street and inviting them to english class. we sometimes realize that being a full time missionary is kind of stalker-ish. haha people don't really say hello to random people, so we give so many people mini heart attacks or they completely ignore you. sister wells complimented this lady's purse one time and the lady clutched it close to her chest and walked away really quickly. the sisters in our apartment made a goal to be less creepy! but i can imagine how weird it would be if this random foreigner came and talked to you and barely spoke your language.

slowly but surely i am learning this language... as i hear it more and more, i can understand better how things fit together, but listening and understanding is still so hard. i am grateful for God's help. i surely would not know as much as i do without his strength. 

sister sasaki and i do lots of role plays with members. this week we did the plan of salvation lesson and she had me take the lead and teach the lesson and she would bear testimony and add her own insights. im glad i have a trainer who has a lot of confidence in me and pushes me to do scary things! haha this week we decided that we want to do our role plays with less active members in the ward. out of the 10000 members in the tokyo south mission area, only about 3000 attend church, so there are lots of members we could visit!

random and funny: my name in katakana is Riibusu... lots of people try to figure out how my name is really pronounced in english. sometimes they recognize the name because of christopher reeves, but usually they think my name is sister leaves!

anyway... love yall.

love, sister leaves

 new futon...glorious

 iizawa san's baptism

 sister brown and Sorensen. my doki... means we came at the same time

 working with first and second transfer green beans

 yummy Hawaiian food with kaori San an English class student

 it's snowing (Sister Sasaki and Elder Medeiros)

 japanese donuts for valentines from sister wells and sister feist 

 little door

 japanese people make cooler snow men. lots of snow bunnies... 

and if its a man it only has 2 giant snowballs... not 3

 super cool bike no one in japan wears helmets. we are so dorky

cute umbrella from the $ store

 i want to live in an orange house

MTC Photo Dump

Brother Todd and Bingham

Brother Heaton

 MTC Senseis (Ekins, Cook)

 Heart Attacked Our Cleaning Lady & Found Stuff in the Closet!

 Sister Wakazono & Sister Smith

 More MTC Friends (Sister Maloy, Wakazono, Sorenson, Brown)

 MTC District 

With Elder Barr and Elder... going to Kobe 

 Last Night with Sister Training Leaders (Sister Gappmayer and Sister Roth)

On the Bus to the Airport to JAPAN & WE MADE IT!

March 3rd

dear family,

yay I get to write again so soon! we have a new investigator I am really excited about. her name is yasuda san. she came to the church building asking about the free English class. she isn't available in the evenings for the weekly class so we suggested the half English/half gospel program to her and we started meeting with her last week. we have so much fun with her. she followed through with the commitment to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and she came back with questions for us. when we talk about the gospel she pays close attention and really tries to understand what we are teaching. she downloaded the scriptures to her phone and said she would read 3 nephi 11. she says she has thought before that there might be a god but she gets busy with life and forgets. we talked about how praying and reading the scriptures help us to feel Gods love and to remember him. we talked about how the spirit is Gods messenger and he brings us peace and good feelings and revelation. we shared that when we are baptized we promise God that we will be obedient and he promises us many blessings. one of which is hope... yasuda San says she wants hope. we explained that after baptism we can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and have the spirit as our constant companion. the spirit doesn't have a body... that way he can reside within us. we shared part of elder Eyring's talk from oct 2007 general conference (oh remember, remember) which talks about how the spirit brings everything to our remembrance and helps us to remember God in our busy lives. on Friday night we met with president wada and he did a role play lesson for us. I acted as the member friend in the lesson and he gave me opportunities to share my testimony. we learned so much from him about how to be better teachers and how to focus on the individual and not on the lesson and how to check their understanding and level of desire to come to know the truthfulness of the message. he encouraged me to take notes of the Japanese that I didn't understand. I've been keeping a notebook of new grammar and words while I've been here and it's getting so big but lots of the time people talk so fast that I can't even pick out individual words! my talk got moved up to this coming Sunday! wish me luck! my topic is humility... which is perfect because I'm learning a lot of that right now. haha we have lots of missionaries in the ward because we live near the mission home. we have the mission president and his wife, a set of couple missionaries, the assistants to the president, two sister companionships, and three other elder companionships. It's crazy but I feel so lucky to be in this area. Yesterday we were asked last minute to help teach a youth Sunday school class. It was fun but sort of intimidating. We taught about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the blessings that we receive because of his sacrifice for us. After church we met with an investigator of president wada. He wanted us to be there as they studied the scriptures. I basically understood nothing. It was so exhausting but I was able to share my testimony even if it had nothing to do with the conversation. We read about baptism and she wanted to know if God could really answer her prayers and how she could know if the teachings of the church are true. She said the closing prayer and apparently it was the first time she was willing to pray in front of them!
Yesterday we tried to do some contacting outside but it was freezing and rainy so we got rejected so many times and hardly anyone would even say hello back to us. We came home so frozen and worn out, but hopefully our efforts made a difference to those couple of people we were able to speak to. While we were walking home I said konnichiwa to a group of little kids and they screamed and started giggling and said to each other "that foreigner said hello in Japanese!" At least we got some laughs :) Today we were walking to the church to meet our investigator and on the way I heard footsteps behind us and I kept thinking... We should talk to whoever is behind us but I couldn't think of how we would just turn around and wait for her to catch up and just randomly start talking. Eventually she walked faster and caught up to us and started speaking to us in English. It turned out that she was here from Taiwan visiting her daughter who just had a baby. And she doesn't speak Japanese and she needed help finding the train station. We were able to talk about her family and share in her excitement in becoming a grandmother. I explained what I was doing in Japan and we left her with a card with information about Mormon.org and our phone number. Today we went shopping at a thrift store that had tons of cute stuff for just three bucks! And I had my first experience at a Japanese dollar store. So cute and fun. The other day we were invited to attend our investigator, Yu chan's daughters school performance. Her daughter (Ayana chan) is in junior high and she plays the koto which is a traditional Japanese instrument. So cool. I took a video so I will attach it in another email!
Anyway... Love y'all guys. Peace.

 

                              picture sister Sasaki drew to help explain the godhead to Yasuda Nobu
                               San (so cute)
                                                      picture of あやな's (Ayana's) koto performance

February 26th

okay hiii
finally getting a break to send an email with updates on my week! I bought a bike last week! it's super cool... has really thin tires and it's so light... so that will make transfers lots easier... we have to put our bike in a bag and take it on the train with us!
 
we eat so much good food here. we ate cabbage pancakes at a members house last weekend and we go out to eat with investigators quite a bit. I love curry. and they have the most delicious looking bakeries everywhere here. kichijoji is the place to be for lots of eating and shopping. it's way city-like and has tons of people. and everyone is so stylish!
 
we teach lots of English classes. we have eikaiwa for adults every Wednesday night. and we have kids eikaiwa on Saturday mornings. everyother Wednesday morning is baby English class (ritomic ages 1 to 3).
the babies are soooo cute! we also offer a program where we teach English for thirty minutes and then teach about the gospel for thirty minutes. every Thursday night is sports night. it is so hilarious and sometimes president wada comes and plays basketball with us. I'm definitely the worst but mostly everyone is pretty bad... so it's really funny. on Sunday we went to a baptism in kunitachi and our investigator, Amy san, came! she is part of the half English half gospel program. last night we were able to talk to her about baptism and all the blessings that come from receiving that ordinance and following Christ throughout our lives. She said she wants all those blessings but she was so surprised that it is possible to feel Gods love. we are hoping she shows more interest and becomes a progressing investigator. She is Chinese and so cute.
 
On Sunday I got asked to give a talk in church on March 30th. Ahh that will be fun and scary :)
I've been pretty overwhelmed with all the Japanese I hear allll the time and with how little I can understand and contribute. It's been hard for me to understand why God would send me here to feel so useless and ineffective. But it's been an amazing growing experience and it is definitely humbling. I really am nothing and can do nothing without Gods help. We had exchanges this week and I had the opportunity to work with an American sister. It was so refreshing to hear Japanese on a more understandable level and be able to keep conversations with people we met on a level and speed that didn't completely surpass my Japanese limits. Sister wells was also able to share with me her experiences about feeling the same way that I am right now. She is in her eighth month of the mission and says she still doesn't really understand anything at all and maybe she will never be comfortable with the language, but there are more ways to show love and invite others to come unto Christ than just words and talking. She says it does get better but she found that people feel loved when she remembers their name and prays for them to feel her love for them. Working with her and hearing her testimony and love for the gospel and this work really helped me to get more excited and be okay with drowning here for a little while. I wouldn't trade these tough experiences here right now for anything I would be doing at home today. 

I am learning so much. I am in japan!!! It's incredible. I love the gospel. I am learning to trust more in God and recognize that this really is his work. The weather has warmed up and little bit and that makes me so happy! I'm excited for springtime and the cherry blossoms :) We met with an investigator the other day who is also Chinese... Actually most of our investigators are Chinese. It's really hard to teach someone without a religious background or belief in God about the church, using church words in Japanese that she can't understand. We had a sister from the ward who speaks Chinese to come and help and be able to explain things better. It was also nice to not understand a thing they were saying in Chinese but not having to use all my brain energy to pick anything out! She wants to learn about Jesus but it's really hard with... Sort of a double language barrier. She and the church member got along really well and we were so excited! They exchanged phone numbers and walked home together! We do a lot of contacting with people in the park. we are lucky to have such beautiful parks in our area. We meet such amazing people and see cute moms and little kids and get to enjoy being outside! We have been doing a lot of role plays with church members to practice our teaching skills and get better at explaining confusing principles or new words in a really simple way. It's also a really good way for us to build relationships with members and receive referrals as they
play the part of one of their friends who could benefit from hearing about the teachings of Christ.  

Sister Sasaki and I made a goal to memorize a scripture every week this transfer. She memorizes in English and I memorize in Japanese. I love memorizing scriptures. Elder Scott said, "great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change." These words of a prophet are so true. As I have needed comfort recently, I have repeated in my mind the words of scriptures and have been reminded of my Heavenly Fathers love. he is mindful of me always and he is mindful of all his children. Craig recommended his favorite scripture to me in his last letter and it has been such a blessing to me. Proverbs 3:5-6 "trust in The Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." The scriptures bring so much power into my life. I am grateful for these words from God written by ancient prophets. I am also so grateful for modern day revelation received through Gods prophets today. God is real. He is our loving Heavenly Father. This life is a blessing. As we learn and grow and turn to him we can be prepared to live with him again. And enjoy perfect happiness for eternity.
I love you all. Thanks for your love and support. Xoxoxo