Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Cloudy with a chance of Marshmallows!

This is actually how they bail their hay. 
It made me hungry for marshmallows!
 Mount Tsukuba is in the background.

That was lots of fun, but I must tell you about the rest of the week...
We didn't have a lot of scheduled appointments so we went out Finding. We should probably call it adventuring though, it was really fun. We streeted and housed and my companion got to know the area. We took some really cool pictures, had ice cream from the vending machine, and there were sooooooooo many dragonflies! 
Anyway there were a couple days where there weren't many people out and only about three men home. There was also one girl. We ping ponged her door, no answer. We left an eikaiwa (English class) flier there and moved to the next door of this run down building. Well, the girl comes up in her bike and goes to the door. Awkward. The shy Chinese college girl looks at us and asks us if we are Christian. It turns out her mom is Christian and she used to go to church with her. We invite her to church, to meet with us and even to eikaiwa and we leave our phone number with her. 
A week later as a mission we did a Daigaku Blitz, where everyone focused on finding College students. Then right before we were going to the church for our Ping Pong activity we get a call from an unknown number. It's a girl. She said that she just got out of class and knew that we were not doing English class right now, but was wondering if we were doing anything at church. Of course! Come on over! So we get to the meeting place and it's her! She comes in and we can all tell that she is interested in more than just English and games.
We took her on a totally impromptu tour of the church building and gave an intro lesson. We found out so much about her. She believes in God! She loves Jesus Christ! She basically taught us about Him! She says things like, His love is so huge, and that she feels it when she prays. She prays when she is discouraged and she feels His support. She said she had been looking for a church since moving to Japan, but didn't know where to look. And she felt like she had been getting far away from Him. She said that she was so glad that we found her and showed her the right church. She was worried that it would be scary or strange. But instead she found friends and love and light. She said that she was so grateful that God had led us to each other. 
One really special thing is that the English name she has chosen for herself is "Cynthia" (my Mom's name)!
Miracles happen!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

I love to see the temple!

We went to the Temple today. Beautiful as ever. I loved it. 
Reyes shimai and Orton shimai in front of the Tokyo temple
It was our mission's Sister Temple day so basically all the sisters from our mission were there. I loved seeing all my old companions and friends!
Sisters serving in the Japan Tokyo Mission
Last Saturday and Sunday we experienced General Conference (one week late due to the time different issues).
We were watching it at a church building (beautiful, big church building pictured below) and a sister from another Ward asked me in the bathroom, "Are you a missionary?" 
Yes, but my hair was hiding my tag. 
She said "You were hiding it." 
After I sat back down I thought about that and realized two things:
- She could tell I was a missionary without my badge.
- I let personal things get in the way of Jesus Christ name showing through.
Thought provoking.
Reyes shimai and Orton shimai

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Chuukese!

If someone asked me a few weeks ago what Chuukese was, I wouldn't have known.
Now I know!
It is a language and a people from the islands of Chuuk in Micronesia (where my brother is serving his mission).
He is serving on the island of Saipan, being trained by a Chuukese companion...and guess what...
I just got a new companion to train...and she is Chuukese!
Reyes shimai is from Hawaii, but she is mostly Chuukese!
Reyes shimai and Orton shimai
We had the opportunity to attend a Young Single Adult dinner with an investigator. It was held at the home of the Tobe family. This is a really great family that is dear friends with my family. I stayed with their family for 6 weeks during the summer of 11th grade. I was able to be reunited with old friends, including some of the girls that I attended Young Women's Camp with that year. It was a wonderful reunion.