April 22nd

Hello everyone! Such an amazing week.... So I have tons to update y'all on! Here it goes :)

This week we had zone conference. It was combined.. Musashino North and South zones. The day was so inspired. Nothing that was taught seemed obvious or redundant. It was all new counsel and really opened our eyes to remembering our purpose: who we are, what we represent, what our responsibilities are. We talked about showing our love for the people by seeking to understand their culture and how they show and receive love... The Japanese culture is beautiful and there is so much to learn! As a missionary we are often the first to teach some of these people how to pray. And we get to be there the first time they pray to their Heavenly Father since they left his presence. We talked about making this a comfortable and spiritual experience and resolving concerns surrounding baptism, and setting baptismal dates with those who desire to receive it. My district performed a musical number! I'll try to send a clip of the video. The testimony meeting was incredible. As I took notes from the thoughts they shared, I felt it was so inspired. It felt like they were the main speaker! The conference was an answer to prayer. I really felt God's love for me. I felt that he was proud of me and I understood more of what he wants me to sacrifice and what I can do to continually improve. This mission is not for me at all... It's for him and it's for his children here in Japan. But how blessed I am to be here and witness his work in action! We also talked about the concept of nigemichi. Which basically means an escape route. Often we invite our eikaiwa students to come to church or receive a Book of Mormon or take lessons, but if they are uninterested we don't want them to feel that they can no longer be our friend or that they can longer attend free English. We need to allow them an escape route. Which leads me to a story about a lesson we had with an investigator this week...

Best Zone picture ever

Musical Number: Sister Feist, Sister Reeves, Sister Merstrand,
Sister Wells, Elder Leftwich, Elder Kuniyuki

Kobayashi san. She is the coolest lady. She took us to Yakitori. Which is meat on skewers but she also ordered like tons of other things for us... Yakisoba, giyoza, and other things I can't actually identify but all were delicious. We think she must be rich. Her job is as a ticket salesperson for the horse race track. But apparently it pays for trips to Hawaii and Sri Lanka twice a year. She has lived in this area for a really long time. She kept telling us about way classy places to eat. We had another English and gospel discussion after lunch. I extended the soft commitment to baptism as I challenged her to pray about the message. Good thing we learned about nigemichi because her response was that she is Buddhist. But not just the kind of Japanese person who just says that. She is a believing and practicing Buddhist which is incredibly cool. But she wanted to make it clear that she was uninterested in Christianity. But.. Luckily we provided her an escape route. She really likes us and will continue to study with us each week! Whew!

Dinner at the Stevenson home. Sister Feist, our kinjin (golden investigator) AYA,
Sister Reeves, Sister Merstrand, Sister Hathaway

A couple random anecdotes. We experienced a mini earthquake but apparently you don't really feel them if you're walking so.... I missed it. I've always wanted to experience an earthquake, but sort of knock on wood. Yikes. The other day we were asked if we were models and the people who asked us were completely serious. Perfect lead into... Well no, but we are church missionaries! Haha sister Feist and I want shirts that say "I'm a ten in Japan." People are just fascinated by foreigners here. It'll be a bummer when I'm no longer asked if I model.. Haha We also got stopped by police twice this week. They wanted to see our gaijin ID cards to see if we could legally be here. One of them had a great impression of the church. He was like "oh the one that has free English?" He wants to learn English so we invited him to come! Talking to other missionaries... That like never happens! Let alone twice in a week?!

Visiting Okuno Shimai in the hospital.
Sister Merstrand, Sister Reeves, Okuno Emiko, and very nice couple from Tokorozawa Ward

My companion is the best. This transfer really has been amazing and so full of miracles. We are working hard and enjoying each moment. Sister Feist is way cool. She is from Meridian, Idaho. She grew up on a pumpkin farm. She is the oldest child. Tall, blonde, smart, sweet. She went to BYU, too and studied accounting. I've already told her about the weird family and she wants to become BFFs with mom and dad. And she said I can have my wedding at her farm and her mom will cook me pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. It's fun to do missionary work with a friend! Only two and a half weeks left of the transfer and we are way nervous to find out what's gonna happen.

Beef bowls with Moeka(:

I had a kokan with sister Hathaway this week. She is the new sister  training leader so she does exchanges with each sister in the zone for training purposes. She is so fun! We went out in the cold rain and did a Kubari Kai at the train station. We were able to pass out tons of free English fliers and were able to stop and talk to lots of people. The miracle was that we were SO cold and wet but we enjoyed it! A lady tried to give us her umbrella as we walked home. People are so kind here. I learned a lot from sister Hathaway. She is a great missionary and her Japanese is way good. She only has 2 transfers left... Crazy! We were able to teach kids English while she was here. We decided to do an Easter theme. We taught them the peter cotton tail song and played the game where you hide candy and sing louder when the child gets close to the candy and softer when they are further away. They loved it. We also did an egg hunt and sister Merstrand taught them a Danish Easter traditional craft. Successful eikaiwa and we had some fun new students!

Easter was way interesting. For the most part, even church members didn't even know it was Easter. I wore the bunny pin that mom sent and got lots of questions about Easter traditions in America. If y'all haven't heard, the church made a site for Easter. Easter.mormon.org and it has the most incredible video about the Savior and what his sacrifice does for us. Go watch it! Or you can find it with other  Mormon message videos. It's called because of him.

 
Ice cream at the park with Moeka

This weekend president Wada did another questions of the soul fireside. This one was so good and had an amazing turn out. He showed clips from the movie, the dead poets society and compared it to the beatitudes and teachings of Jesus Christ. Our friends, Moeka and Kyoko and Amanda and several others from eikaiwa were able to come. President Wada talked about individuality and how it is often hard to have our own beliefs and take the road less traveled and he discussed the Saviors sermon on the mount and how he invites us to take that straight and narrow path and let our light shine before men. It was a topic that I think really resonates with Japanese people. A lot of great insights were shared by those in attendance.

This Sunday we got to attend the coolest devotional. This week was just stacked with so many inspired meetings! Sister Burton and Sister Oscarson from the general relief society and young women presidencies came to speak! They came to kichijoji and members and friends from non Tokyo mission areas were invited to attend. The fellowship and unity of the saints was so wonderful. I could feel their love and faith so strongly. The talks were so great.. Helped us to remember to put godliness at the forefront of our lives and cheerfully keep our covenants. Elder Aoyagi, the area 70, spoke also. He spoke of his own conversion and asked us to consider our own motivations for the way we live our lives. My favorite part of the meeting was the musical number by the Fuchu ward choir. They sang I am a child of god and signed in Japanese sign language. The spirit was so powerful. I felt so at home as they sang from their hearts. We really are God's children. The church is true all over the world. I am so grateful for my membership  in the church and the love I feel from church members in every ward and stake I've visited. We are so blessed. We had invited a less active member to come to the devotional and sit with us. Kakimoto Shimai came and she was so touched by the experience. She really values her covenants and wants to really prioritize God more in her life. She asked us to meet with her and teach her the lessons.

Musical number at Zone Conference

This week during weekly planning we really discussed the status of our investigators and it was actually way sad to see how many of our investigators are really uninterested and not progressing. We started out the transfer with a large teaching pool and taught tons of lessons! We set lots of expectations and found out where they stood too. We taught lesson one so many times. We couldn't help but wonder if our efforts were being fruitful. But we realized they really are. The teaching experiences have allowed us to improve in the language, become better teachers, and work in unity better to be prepared to teach one who is ready to accept the message of the gospel.....

We met a wonderful girl named Aya at a stoplight a couple weeks ago on Wednesday. She is a college student at a nearby Christian university. The next Monday she agreed to come with us to dinner at a member's home. She had such a great experience. She loved being in a member's home. She said she wanted to have a Christian family. We told her about eternal families and she asked us to teach her more about our church. She accepted the Book of Mormon and began reading it right away. We met her again a week later... Last night. We went out to dinner and had so much fun. We just love her so much!

  
Okonomiyaki with AYA

Cabbage Cakes with Aya

We then went to the church for a lesson and Sister Winkler came to douseki. We taught the message of the restoration and it was so amazing. The spirit was there guiding the lesson... We could not have planned that. Aya really understood the message of the restoration and she cried as we all bore testimony. She bore her own testimony of feeling the Spirit as she reads the Bible and recently as she has read the Book of Mormon. We extended the commitment to be baptized and also extended a specific date to work towards. She accepted it so happily and hugged us all! She said a beautiful prayer and was so excited to meet again. She kept asking if we could meet every day! I feel so blessed to be able to witness miracles like these. This morning we woke up to a text from Aya. She had spoken to her mom about meeting us. She said her mom wants her to focus on school and she will probably be baptized in the church she was attending before meeting us. Really hard news to take, but today in study we discussed the Lord's timing. I stand all amazed at our mighty God and his perfect plan. He truly does know, love, and watch over all his children. This is his work. It will not fail. We are exercising faith and our efforts are fruitful. The Lord is blessing us and guiding his work. I have faith that he is in charge and he will continue to watch over and bless Aya and us, too. Sister Feist and I had chosen a theme for this week: sunshine and rainbows! We are going to enjoy all the sunshine and rainbows of each day. They are bestowed upon us daily. Sometimes they are hard to recognize but they are always there and as we go forward with faith in the Lord's timing and a grateful heart, holding on to the beautiful knowledge we have that we are children of God, we will be able to see the sun shining brightly. Just like today when we walked outside to gorgeous weather to start our morning run!

God is so good. I thank him daily for each of you and the impact you have made on my life. I love you!

"THAI" party in honor of Sister Merstrand's Birthday

April 14th

Hello! 
Update on another week that just flew by! The days go by slowly and
the weeks pass in a blink. We are already half way through this
transfer! 
We weren't able to watch General Conference last week because it hadn't
been translated into Japanese yet. So.... Conference was this weekend!
I LOVE conference. We were able to watch it in English as long as our
investigators had friends to sit with. Conference was perfect. I
really felt my heavenly Father's love for me as I watched it. I came to
conference with questions and other things I was pondering about and I
left feeling comforted and feeling like each message was meant for me!
I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who continues to speak to
the world through modern day prophets and to us individually through
the Holy Spirit. Some of my favorite take aways from conference....
Our God is so merciful and loving and gives us so much... We are
eternally indebted to him.. We can show our gratitude for his plan and
the sacrifice of his son  through gratitude and choosing to be
obedient. He never fails us, so we have no reason to doubt. We have
every reason to trust and to obey. We can choose to be happy through
continuing to accept the plan... The atonement of our Savior, Jesus
Christ. We can find happiness through love and kindness and service.
We can strengthen our families through righteous actions and committed
worship. We can serve The Lord by serving his children... Those we
meet each day. We can create connections with our families in
eternities by getting to know our ancestors and allowing them the
chance to accept proxy ordinances and by living and loving and
teaching our families today. Our Savior is the example we should
follow if we want peace and joy in this life. His love covers all the
sorrow and pain we experience... It is never too late to turn to him
and receive of his support. Living the gospel doesn't mean we will
never experience challenges... It just means we will have the hope to
carry us through and the perspective to realize the great spiritual
strength and blessing it is to pass through this earthly test. We have
such divine potential. I'm so excited to continue to study and apply
the messages of general conference. The messages were truly meant for
the world. Share your love for the gospel and for God with your
friends! Help them along the way and serve others the way Christ
would. This conference helped me realize that God loves us no matter
what. We are doing great, but we can do more and become more than we
are today. 
So the whole stake comes together for general conference and watches
it at the Kichijoji ward building. It was so fun to experience the
love and fellowship of the saints. In between sessions everyone pulls
out their bentos and eats together. On Sunday all the wards grouped up
in the gym and ate together. Brother Inagaki made a gigantic pot of
spaghetti for the entire Kichijoji ward and we sat at a Ping pong
table to eat :) it was so cute.
 
Elder Leftwich and Sister Merstrand and the ward table! 

 
Paella... made by the lovely Sister Feist and Sister Reeves
(We love shopping at the import store and making exotic food!)

 After conference, Sister Merstrand and I were on a split and we went
on an assignment to visit a sister in the hospital. She is from the
Hibarigaoka ward but the hospital is in our area. We took the bus and
went to the hospital to visit this lady we had never met. She had just
had hip surgery. She was so sweet and really appreciated our visit. We
shared with her our favorite talks from conference and prayed with
her. She really wants to receive lessons from the missionaries. She is
a recent convert and still feels like she doesn't understand a lot
about the gospel. Members from the Tokorozawa ward were there to visit
her, too. It meant a lot to her to hear uplifting messages and receive
the support of members.
 
Sister Feist and me at Inokashira Koen while the cherry blossoms were in full bloom! 

 Sister Merstrand and I were on another split earlier this week. We
took the trains to visit a recent convert in the ward and to teach her
about temples and family history. She is such an amazing lady with
such a strong testimony. The gospel has really been a blessing in her
life. Sister Merstrand and I felt way successful to be just transfer 1
and 2 and to successfully use the public transportation system to find
our appointments and fulfill our missionary purpose without relying on
the experience of our trainers. Whoop!

 
Sister Harper and me, hiking Mt. Takao! 

We were able to meet with Sayaka San this week. She won't be able to
make her baptismal date, but she is doing everything she needs to do
to be prepared to receive baptism soon. She is reading her scriptures
and praying and prioritizing church attendance. She really wants to be
certain of her decision. She has great faith. She is still a little
uncertain about the existence of God, but she believes that it is a
miracle that the missionaries have come into her life. She loves
studying the Book of Mormon and the Bible. She really wants to follow
the prophet and she is coming to learn that obedience brings happiness. More happiness than finding success in her job or through other ways she would usually seek happiness. She is a deep thinker and
really intelligent. She really wants religion in her life. I feel like she is teaching us when we meet with her!


CUTE helmets, with Sister Sasaki.
 
Selfie with Sister Sasaki on Mt. Takao!

Really cool experience meeting with a lady named Oomura San this
week... Sasaki Shimai and I tried to meet with her last transfer but
she was never feeling well enough to meet. She is battling cancer and
she feels like she has gone through a lot that is unfair. She doesn't
have a lot of confidence in herself and has a hard time accepting
love. We had just met her but we expressed our love for her. She was
so shocked. We explained that we could also feel the love that her
Heavenly Father has for her. She asked if she could pray and ask God
for an answer to why missionaries who just meet her always say they
love her! She doesn't have faith in Jesus Christ, but she has a desire
to repent. The word repentance in Japanese has a slightly different
meaning or connotation than the word in English. It's "kuiaratameru"
kui means regret or guilt and aratameru means to change. And that's
what repentance truly is.. Change for the better. It doesn't
necessarily mean we have committed something terribly wrong. It means
we have the desire to do better and be better and improve our lives.
As we prayed with her she said she could feel God's arms wrapped around
her. She says she feels really good in the church building and when
she meets with missionaries. She is beginning to recognize the Spirit
and that is so exciting! I felt so much love as we visited with her. I
asked her to pray in her home as well so that she could continue to
feel that love. She said she is really stubborn so it will be hard for
her to develop faith, but she says we can certainly meet her again. It
was a miracle! 
Wednesday was Sister Merstrand's birthday. She turned 22! Reminds me of
my favorite Taylor swift song :) we had a "Thai/tie" party during
lunch for her. We wore ties and mustaches and made Thai spring rolls!
It was cute! We love a good themed party :) 
One of the recent converts the other sisters are working with gave us
the most awesome present this week. Her boss's daughter apparently is
really classy and updates her wardrobe often so she was getting rid of
4 white coats. So each of us sisters got a barely used white coat.
They are so cute and all the nihonjin are always wearing white coats.
I don't know if I'm classy enough... The arms are a little short and
maybe I'll get it dirty, but we love them. Pictures to come later...
We go out and street and meet people and Sister Feist and I call it
"white coat dendou". Kichijoji is a classy place.. I think we are
getting more people to talk to us these days ;) 
I'm grateful for all of you! I think about you and pray for you. Thank
you for keeping me in your prayers, too. I love you!! Peace out 🐭


 President Wada on his scooter...haha


Taco Rice. This is Japanese Mexican food. It's good.

At Mt. Takao with Oikawa Shimai.


Elder Call, ME, Oikawa Shimai, President Wada, Sister Sasaki

BIKE PARKING and a TEMPLE

April 7th

Hello hello hello hi hi hi hello hello hello HIIIII
This week was pretty fabulous. Kept ourselves busy for sure. I'm so
relieved its p day and I can get some rest! We filled our schedule
with appointments and met with so many investigators and PIs. We got
lots of teaching experience. We taught 7 lessons and worked with more
members this week. Perfect to work side by side with the members...
Their fellowship and testimonies are so powerful in the conversion
process.
Tuesday we went to get sushi and check out some local shops with a PI,
Amanda. She is gaijin and super fun. Sasaki Shimai and I had met her
on the train before and she seemed preoccupied, but Sister Wells and
Feist met her another time and hit it off. Amanda has dated a Mormon
before and investigated the church for a little bit, but right now she
isn't super interested but she really wants to become our friend. She
is one of those fun health nut organic produce eating fitness gurus!
She wants to show us how to make chocolate with coconut oil.

Wednesday was a big day. Taught baby eikaiwa and adult eikaiwa. We
also taught three lessons to progressing investigators. It makes me so
happy to see them progress and change and have a desire to know more
and understand and apply the scriptures to their lives.
We have a few brand new investigators this week. One is Kobayashi San.
She signed up to meet with us for half English and half gospel
lessons. She really doesn't know English at all but she is such a
sweet lady and really fun to meet with. We got to know her religious
background, introduced the Book of Mormon, taught her to pray, and had
her pray to close the lesson. I think she was way surprised by how the
meeting went, but also really enjoyed it and had a good impression.
Another new investigator is Sayaka San. She is actually a referral
from the north mission. She lives in Suginami which is right between
the two missions, but actually in the Kichijoji ward. She is
fantastic. She is so ready and so prepared for the message. She has a
baptismal date for the end of this month. She has received almost all
the lessons, is reading the Book of Mormon and praying, and having
spiritual experiences. She is close with president budge of the north
mission. And.... One of the sister missionaries who taught her in
Nakano, is my friend from BYU, Sister McAllister!! Sister McAllister
and my companion, Sister Feist, were also friends in the MTC so it was
such an exciting referral and we are excited to meet at the baptism.
On Saturday after kids eikaiwa, we had a fun baking activity with the
kids and their moms. They wanted to learn how to make American
desserts so we did brownies, cake mix cookies, and ice cream sundaes
with crushed Oreos and Reese's and Hershey's shell chocolate sauce.
Baking in Japan is complicated but it ended up working out and being a
lot of fun. One of the mothers and her children recently started
taking lessons from the other sisters. A few ward members came to the
activity and it ended up being such a good experience. They all
thought the desserts were way too sweet and I had to agree after
eating only fluffy 'sugared air' type desserts in Japan. I actually felt
kinda sick after eating something that rich. Long time no see,
brownies!
We had an interesting lesson with Pinko San this week. We found out a
lot about her that I did not know previously. She apparently has been
an investigator off and on for 10 years! She comes to church almost
every week, but she hasnt been reading the Book of Mormon. She is
Chinese so she has a Japanese and Chinese Book of Mormon. The sister
missionaries and members of the ward have always given her the
scripture references to review at home in English or Japanese so she
spends her time trying to translate the reading assignments and is not
able to find them in the Chinese copy. Instead of just starting from
the beginning of the book and just reading it in Chinese, she gives up
because she can't find the exact chapter or verse that was suggested
for her to read. Now that we know this we can better prepare and book
mark her scriptures for her! The message of the priesthood really
clicked with her this lesson. She was like... "Wait.. I have to
baptized again into this church?!" She said she is not ready for that.
The member who was present gave a powerful testimony of how she came
to know the church was true by reading the Book of Mormon. We know
Pinko is receiving answers and feeling the Spirit, she just doesn't
know quite yet how to understand the responses she is receiving.
This week was full of miracles. We were busy, but we made our goal of
having 100 meaningful conversions with people on the street. 101! Talk
to everyone. Invite everyone.
We met this really nice nun today. She said she sees us running every
morning. We spoke with her for a little bit and she said we are always
welcome to visit the convent. I would love to visit!
We aren't allowed to stop men and talk to them on the street but we
can talk if they stop us. Today this man literally stopped in his
tracks as we were leaving the grocery store. He was so shocked to see
two tall Americans. He literally asked, "What is this?" Haha
Just a couple of our dendou experiences for ya! Pretty typical.
Love y'all lots. Always love hearing from ya! Peace and blessings.
Don't forget to find joy in the little things and thank God for
everything! This life is incredible. Grateful to have all of you in my
life!

March 31st

Hello!
Another busy p day, but I have a couple minutes to write an update for
y'all! It's been a fantastic week. Transfers were on Thursday so I had
my last couple days working with sister Sasaki. We had a couple really
wonderful lessons together. Bi shin San explained that because she
grew up in china, it's really hard for her to believe in God.
Everything there is explained by science and chemicals and religion
isn't really allowed. She says that she really wants to continue to
study with us. Her Christian friends who believe in God all seem
really happy. I explained that her desire for happiness is a sign of
her faith. We shared the scripture from Alma 32 about "experimenting"
on the word. We shared with her the experiment that would help her
strengthen her faith: prayer And study of Gods word. We asked her if
she wanted to test it and she agreed. We taught her to pray and she
prayed in mostly Chinese and a little English at the end of our
discussion. She has so much that she is grateful for. Wonderful lady!

Our lesson with Amy was also great! She had lots of questions about
Joseph Smith and receiving answers to prayers. She prayed with us and
in her prayer mentioned her desire to learn about the church. She is
stellar. Started as an English class student but she came with us to a
baptism and then expressed interest in understanding more of what we
believe in.

The new missionaries came in on Tuesday night. I am lucky to be in
this area cause I got to see them! Lots of friends from the last
couple weeks in the MTC! We got to run/walk with them in the park on
Wednesday and Thursday and guide them through their first proselyting
experience on Wednesday afternoon. They were all so excited. Sister
wells, in our apartment, became a trainer and so we have a new
missionary with us! Her name is sister merstrand. She is from Denmark,
but she has spent some time in Germany, 5 years in Texas, and a couple
years at BYU. So. She is tri lingual and now working on Japanese!
Incredible. Part of her time in texas, she lived in league city and
went to clear creek high school. League city stake! Crazy huh? I don't
know how to say her name, but she is great!

This new transfer is gonna be crazy. Sister Feist and I are so
excited! She is great at Japanese and is such a great missionary. She
has a strong testimony and a lot of enthusiasm for the work. We are a
little overwhelmed taking over for sister Sasaki who has been in this
area for 9 months! This area is old and our apartment is ancient. We
have a goal to get our area organized and busy! We spent some time
organizing our ancient area books and found records from 1998. Luckily
we have an area book app on the iPad so things are so much easier
these days. Sister Feist is also an organizing freak like me so we
were in heaven getting everything all cleaned up. We are organized and
have proven to already be super busy. We have so many appointments
this week! everyone just wants to meet with us! We also are seeing
great miracles. We are meeting incredible people in our finding
activities. People who want to meet with us again to hear our
message... Not just to eat curry or hang out. It is so exciting to
experience these miracles. I feel so grateful and so blessed.

Sister Feist and I also want to work more with the members and with
less actives. This past Sunday was great. The meetings were combined
and all were about member missionary work. We split into groups for
discussion and I was with this sweet sister named kanaya Shimai. She
explained how she came into contact with the church awhile back
through English class. She is the only member her family. Her
family is pretty opposed but her mother is showing interest little by
little. She shared the Book of Mormon with her younger sister, but
they are so busy that they have not had the time to study together.
She talked about Japanese views of religion and why it's hard to be a
missionary at her workplace. I really didn't understand everything she
said but I must have made the appropriate comments and understood
enough because she really opened up. After the meeting I thanked her
for talking with me. She said she had one more thing to say and she
began to tear up as she spoke about her mother. She is so sweet and I
am excited to continue serving this sister and working with her. We
also spoke with sisters who want to participate in our lessons and
fellowship the friends we are meeting. Sacrament meeting was hilarious. It was sort of a farewell for one of the young men in the ward leaving on his mission this week so the
other young men sang called to serve. One played the piano and two
sang. The pianist was struggling through the notes and was so funny
about it and the two others were just like any typical teenage guys
who don't sing. No one in the congregation could keep a straight face,
even the bishopric was dying. Almost as good as the primary programs
back home :)

We met this awesome lady from Poland who is living here while she does
her doctorate program. She is the sweetest and has the most amazing
values. She asked us for our email before we could ask for hers! She
really wants to meet with us again and she lives way close so we ran
into her at the grocery store today! We are excited to present her
with a polish Book of Mormon!

This week we had a lunch appt with a potential investigator, okada
San. she is 17 years old and pretty tom boyish. Sister Feist and I tried
to keep a conversation going in our best Japanese but this girl was
sort of anti social so we had to do all of the talking! It was pretty
awkward. The food was incredible though. We hope she had fun.... We
are not sure if she will want to meet again... We think she was
expecting sister Sasaki. She apologized for not talking very much...
But it was a good experience to survive the awkward... In another
language. Haha we are sometimes happy we aren't English speaking
missionaries... Cause at least we have an excuse for not being perfect
at the language or not being perfectly socially acceptable. :)

We are meeting so many amazing people. We have faith that God will
lead us to those who have been prepared. I wish I had time in these
emails to tell you about everyone! But I will keep you updated.

Today was a fun p day. We had a lunch appt with a former
investigator...she said she doesn't read the Book of Mormon because
it's hard to understand. She doesn't have a lot of interest in
Christianity but she said she would want to read the Book of Mormon
with us. We ate the most delicious pizza and the restaurant manager is
genuinely interested in meeting with us to learn English and learn
about Christianity. She basically was like "duh! Of course I believe
in God!" So friendly... We are excited to meet with her again!

We met with a new potential investigator and taught a quick lesson
about the Book of Mormon. She said she had thought about some of the
questions of the soul that are answered through study of the Book of
Mormon. She said she doesn't have a lot of interest in religion but
she is excited to become our friend and study English together and
read a little together. Her story is cool. Sister Feist met her in the
park. Her name is moeka and she is 16. She lived with a Mormon host
family for a study abroad in Montana. She has been to church and she
wears a CTR ring. She is so good at English and loves hanging out with
us. She showed us her favorite place to shop in kichijoji after the
lesson and we took pictures in the Japanese photo booths.they are a
million times more fun than the ones in America!

 

We met with another PI, Kaori San. She is a fashion designer.  She
makes all her own clothes and sells clothes. She wanted to show us how
to sew. She literally made two dresses in one hour just right there!
Sister Feist and I will be twins! We shared the Book of Mormon with
her and talked about her ideas about religion. She is pretty cool...
She wants to be monk in India. She wants to be free and live an almost
homeless type lifestyle and only eat vegetables. Surprising because
she is super fashionable and cute! But she is silly... She loves
horror movies and anything crazy... She thinks I am so funny for
liking Disney princesses.

I'll send lots of pictures. Sorry for not writing you individually
often or ever. This big email is all I really have time for. Just
remember you are in my prayers and I love you all and miss you!

<3 sister reeves

 This is croissant taiyaki. Normal taiyaki is like sweet bean paste
inside a waffle type thing and always In a fish shape. So yummy. But
croissant bread instead of waffles is divine. It's a new thing in
Japan and kichijoji has one! Just imagine the taste. We went as a
celebration for a great last transfer.

 Cold at Sports Night (Sister Feist and Wells)

 Sister S is little

Mt Takao Pictures:
Musashino South Zone