June 24th

Dear Family and friends!

Hi, writing a day late because we just got our washer and dryer and
fridge today so it made the most sense to have p day today.
our house is 3 stories tall. It has two study rooms upstairs, living area,
kitchen and bathroom on the second floor and a sleeping room down
stairs. It's way nice and we are so lucky.

Bratwurst/Pretzel Dog          Sister Kakimoto

So... Really funny. We don't have keys to the church yet and the
building is locked so we connected to the internet from outside..
Luckily it has stopped raining for the time being.

Last day at Baby Eikaiwa

This last week has been crazy! We taught 4 lessons on Tuesday and so
we were rushing back and forth between all our appointments and trying
to make time for finding and meal times in between. It was wonderful
to be able to teach and meet with everyone!

Nemoto: really cool story. Sister Feist and I met her during my second
transfer. She has lived 2 blocks from the church for 15 years and has
seen so many missionaries but never talked to any of them before until
we said hello and complimented her cute bag. We got to talking about
religion and she mentioned that she knew some about Christianity from
singing in the messiah and studying on her own. She wanted to study
the bible with us so we exchanged numbers... We weren't able to
contact her for the rest of the transfer. Then... Monday night I felt
like I wanted to call Nemoto. I hadn't seen her again since our first
meeting on the street. I called her up and she said she could meet us
the next morning! She said she had always been curious but this was
her first time in the church. We gave her a tour of the church and
taught her of the restoration. She loved it and loved the Book of
Mormon and agreed to come to church and meet for another lesson to
continue studying! New investigator!


At McDonald's with Hara San

Hara: we had met her a few weeks before. She belongs to a Christian
church with a really long complicated name. She said she had met
missionaries 7 years before and actually had a Book of Mormon, had
been to church a few times and taken lessons. She gave us her contact
information. We found out she lives in the north mission area but she
wanted to meet us again before agreeing to meet with the sisters in
her area. We met and she explained how she new it was meant to be that
we met her that day. She really felt that it was God's love. But she
said she didn't want to learn more about our religion. She tried to
give us some books about her religion and teach us about her beliefs.
It was actually really interesting but way sad that she had recognized
God's guidance but still decided to not follow it.

Bi Shin: it was actually way cool that we got to meet her. I hadn't
seen her since my first transfer except for one day when we had an
appointment and she showed up and then quickly got awkward and said
she had to go home after we hadn't said much more than hello, how are
you? But anyway she came and we studied about faith. She said her
Christian friends are so happy because they have faith even if they
don't have lots of money. She wants faith but says she isn't
progressing and knows it's because she isn't reading and praying, she
has prayed before and hasn't felt any different but also admitted that
when she prays she doesn't believe she will get an answer. We
testified of how we know God is real and encouraged her to pray
sincerely and study the scriptures at home and meet with us often to
strengthen her faith.

End of the transfer, celebratory croissant taiyaki!

Kakimoto: she is a less active we have been working with, she is so
nice and awesome! We met in the chapel and had the sacrament table set
up with the tablecloth. We reviewed what she read in 2nephi 31-32
about enduring to the end.. What we do after entering the gate by
baptism. We bore testimony of the cleansing power of the atonement and
how partaking of the sacrament weekly reminds us of our covenants,
helps us to receive forgiveness and gives us hope that even though we
make mistakes daily we can become clean. It was an amazing lesson!

Wednesday: last day in kichijoji! We taught baby eikaiwa and normal
eikaiwa. And ran with the new missionaries and went with them on their
first dendou experience! We had a lesson with Amy. She has tons of
interest. We finished teaching the plan of salvation and she loved the
idea of living with her family forever. She said a really heartfelt
prayer. Love her!

Bi Shin and Sister Winkler after the lesson

Thursday: transfer day! Woke up at 5 and went to the train station. It
was so weird to be on a train by myself! We made it to Hibarigaoka and
went to the apartment and studied. Then we went finding! We went to a
fun park and met this cute lady, Jennifer on the way. She is from the
Philippines and is our first potential investigator for the area! We
got super lost on he way back and it was hot and we were exhausted...
But we just kept wandering and met tons of people on the way. We met
this young couple from the Philippines, Genki and Regine. They really
wanted to be our friends. We exchanged contact info and gave them a
flier with a map to the church and information about eikaiwa. We
finally made it back and then headed out for district dinner! Way cool
that our district leader is all about district unity. We each shared
our stories for what brought us on a mission and it was way cool to
hear about each person's decision to serve.

Friday: moving day! We had district meeting in the morning. We planned
all sorts of unique ways that we can work together as a district to
teach investigators and to serve and find together. We want to do fun
activities like a free lemonade stand or sidewalk chalk in front of
the church, teaching about the importance of families. Church tours
may be included ;) we also talked about working with the ward to plan
an activity for the summer that would be fun to invite friends to. We
spent pretty much all day moving but I made my goal of finding the
station and the church from our new house!

Saturday: my luggage and bags arrived at the new house! After study
time we headed out for some finding and to visit a less active whom
the bishop asked us to work with. I have the easiest bike in the world
to transfer. It has like just a couple parts to remove to take off the
front wheel and put it in the bike bag and thet he bike itself is super
light. I pulled the bike out to put together and realized I was
missing one piece! We decided to make our finding activity be a walk
to the bike shop. We make it there and they don't have the piece
because... Well... I didn't buy my bike there. But we met tons of
people on the way and also realized we didn't have the correct phone
number or address of the less active. We left early for stake
conference in kichijoji to try to get the part from the store where I
bought my bike. We go and the man just gives it to me for free! Also I
was way proud that I could explain my problem in Japanese. Haha
miracles! We grabbed dinner real quick and went to conference. It was
fun to see ward members and companions from kichijoji and the
conference was way good, the emphasis was member missionary work and
family history. Hastening of the work of salvation! On the way to the
conference I talked to this lady on the train. She was complimenting
my Japanese and asking if I could also write. I told her I didn't
really know characters and couldn't really read either unless there
was furigana over the kanji, but I told her about a book that I read every
day! I showed her the Book of Mormon and we got talking about church.
She had so many questions. She asked how our church was different. She
asked about Joseph smith and asked if it was an American church and
how many people there were like me who go about explaining these
things. She was curious but not interested in learning it for herself.
She wouldn't accept the Book of Mormon but I invited her to attend
church if she had the chance. It was so cool to teach the entire
message of the restoration just on a quick train ride! On the way home
I sat by a lady on the bus. She works in kichijoji but lives one
station away from Hibarigaoka. She has met tons of missionaries in
kichijoji and they have invited her to church often. She can't go to
church because she works on Sundays. We had a wonderful conversation
and talked about her family and her hobbies. It was cool to be one of
the contacts that woman has with missionaries... Average of 7-8 before
they agree to learn more! She said she hoped we would meet on that bus
route again.

Lesson with Nemoto San

Sunday: stake conference in the morning! We got to watch it in
English. We heard from elder walker, sister Oscarson, the presiding
bishop and elder Christofferson. Elder walker and the presiding bishop
spoke in Japanese so it was double translated. Way interesting. It
was a good meeting and fun to understand every word of church! We had
our ward missionary coordination meeting afterwards and our ward
mission leader is awesome! We traveled back to Hibarigaoka and
submitted our stats for the week at the church. As we were leaving,
Genki and Regine showed up! They just wanted to see if we were there
and wanted to see the church. We invited them for a church tour. Way
funny though cause we have never actually been to church in that
building so we were discovering it with them! We talked about the
importance of families and how God is our Heavenly Father and how we
can make promises with him through baptism. We ended the tour in the
chapel and taught them how to pray. We prayed together and talked
about the spirit. They want to meet again and come to various
activities! Hopefully they will become investigators. One problem..
Regine doesn't really know Japanese. Just Tagalog! But they are so
awesome! Little miracles!

Monday: we were able to find kagata shimai's house! We left her a note
and our phone number and she called us back! Another miracle!
Apparently missionaries haven't been able to contact her for a long
time but maybe having two brand new missionaries is less threatening!
We met some fun ladies at the park but the finding was slow... It was
a quiet day and not many people wanted to talk to us. We were able to
set up an appointment with a member to do a role play lesson this
week. And she invited us over for lunch, too! So sweet. I was happy
that she was nice because another member we called was way blunt and
seemed put out by us wanting to meet her and implied that my Japanese
was rough and asked if I was the senior or junior companion... She
didn't actually end up agreeing to help us. It was rough and I felt
sort of down about it, but it's not about what others think. The
question is: is God pleased with me? Am I doing my best? Yes!

Tuesday: first day of ten week turnaround! Awesome training! I'm way
excited. And p day. We had some yummy Indian curry and went on a
dollar store shopping spree!

Love y'all!