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