This week we were able to meet with Watanabe san! She is more healthy,
but it could change suddenly. I felt like she seemed happier as well,
which I credit to the fact that she has been reading The Book of
Mormon, that book works miracles. She is still progressing, I think
she will be ready for baptism by the end of the month, as long as none
of the commandments slow her down.
Kimura shimai is wonderful, as well. She finished The Book of Mormon,
and is fitting in more and more as a regular member. The ward has done
a really good job of taking care of her, esp the Relief Society. I
love the Shinkotoni ward members.
We had our first lesson with Kaga san this week too. She is the soon
to be wife of an NA, she was referred to us by the mother in law. Kaga
san was pretty nervous at frist (due to the inlaws, I'm sure) but as
we taught she seemed to calm down. She even made some comment about
how she felt good, thank you Holy Ghost. :) It was a good lesson,
although it was sudden. We had planned to just do an introduction, but
they are hoping to finish the lessons before the wedding next month..
just in time for a baptism! I hope! I wasn't ready to teach though, we
didn't have a plan or anything, so I felt really bad that I wasn't as
supportive as I should have been. But we are going to go back and I
look forward to it!
This week we also had zone conference. A couple mission doctors came
and did some workshops, my favorite was about dealing with mission
stress. They gave is a little booklet to fill out and do some self
evaluations, ha ha. I will probably be doing it, yes. I don't think my
level of stress is a problem, in fact, I feel really great. But I'll
probably check it out just the same.
After the conference we went to the Yuki Matsuri! (Sapporo snow
festival, you know, the giant snow sculptures!) It was so neat! I will
send some pictures! Sadly, my camera doesn't like the cold, so it was
hard to take a lot, and we really were able to see a small portion of
it, so I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked. I will
just have to come to Sapporo again after the mission and get the full
effect. :)
It was a good week, I love my companion and the people I work with.
The other day Amada shimai came into the very chilly study room and
said in a very serious tone, "its a cold world" and continued on with
what she was doing. She has no idea how much I enjoy her! I hope you
all have a good week and you stay warm. We are doing our best here.
Love you all. Have a good Valentine's day! <3
Konnichiwa minasan,
Coldest week yet, but it was great. :)
We spent pretty much all week outside finding too, so their was little
relief from the winterness. Everyone is getting sick too, so we had
both of our lessons this week fall through, but we have them
rescheduled for next week.
We were able to do an after baptism lesson with Kimura shimai though.
Since she has heard the lessons several times, we spent most of the
time going over words mostly used in church, it was a lot of fun. She
is so great, really. Since her baptism alone, she has grown so much.
Her testimony is getting stronger, and her aura is brighter. That's
the power of the Holy Ghost! Our lesson was the highlight of my week
for sure.
A member referral came too, a non attending member's mom set a lesson
up for us with her son's soon to be wife. We're going to teach the
couple together, it sould be really neat! If she accepts the gospel,
we might be part of bringing a whole little family to Christ. :) I am
really excited for that. :)
Amada shimai is doing really well too, I like being her companion a
lot! She has a great balance with her dendoing, and I have a lot I can
learn from her. Also, I'm learing how to make some real Japanese food,
which is a lot of fun as well as delicous! Our switching from English
to Japanese is good still too. Her English is really excellent, and
its fun to be able to help her keep improving. I know I will learn a
lot too!
Love you all so very much. I hope you have a nice, warm week! Thank
you for the constant love and support. :)
Love,
Megan
Helllo all!
So I sent home dear Budge Shimai! She is now in Tokyo with her family!
I miss her, but I know she is still working just as hard as ever. She
is a true lifelong missionary, and she will help so many people come
to know this gospel in her life. I also look forward to hanging out
with her when I get home!
My biggest news this week though, Kimura san is now Kimura shimai! The
baptism was so wonderful. She was really nervous but in the end it was
so peaceful and beautiful. :) Its kind of odd to not have her be an
investigator anymore, Ive been teaching her for as long as I've been
in Japan. No complaints of course. I look forward to continue working
with her though, helping her prepare to enter the temple and do the
work for her husband.
AH, I love this Gospel.
I also have a new companion! She is Japanese! Her name is Amada shimai
and I love her. :) I was pretty afraid when I got the call telling me
that my next companion doesn't natively speak English, but it was in
vain. We both are working to learn each others languages, so it works
out. We've decided that we were going to speak only English or
Japanese every other day. I am so excited to see my language skills
pick up! On the personality level, we really have a lot in common!
It's been neat to see how similar we are is so many ways, ha ha.
Well, I love you all, I hope you are all doing great and giving away
the Book of Mormon to all of your friends. Tessa Daniels is a great
example of that! Until next week!
Love,
Megan
Hello everyone!
Kimura san is getting baptized next week! So far everything is going
great for her! Her interview is next Thursday. I am so excited for
her. :) She came to sacrament meeting and we filled out her
paperwork, and we have one more appointment this week. We are going to
talk about eternal marriage and temple work. :)
Our other investigator, Watanabe san is sick right now. She also is
needing us to slow down our lessons to once a week. I still feel like
she is progressing, but she just needs it slower. It will be
interesting to see how it goes when Budge Shimai leaves. She really
loves her! Im sure we will all get along fine though, with who ever my
next companion is! Speaking of that, I find out tomorrow! I most
likely will be staying though, if I do, I most likely will get to see
Koho Shimai when she gets back! We havent been able to do our skype
lessons yet, but this week seems like it might work out. The member
who we are going to do it with has been very busy! Fingers are
crossed!
We also were able to go to Osanai san this week again. She wasn't there
the first time we went, but when we went back she was! She promised us
again that she would read, and we have another appointment with her on
Saturday! It's neat teaching someone with a Christian background.
We had a mochi tsuki this week too, where you pound rice into 'mochi'
with a mallet that is taller than almost everyone (except me and a few
others, ha...) and eat it in various ways, like filled with sweet
red bean paste, or putting in it seaweed with a soy sauce and sugar
sauce on top! It's all so good! I even got to try pounding the mochi a
bit, ha ha. I was terrible. But mochi is delicious!
It's been really cold! But the snow is beautiful, like always. Hokkaido
is just spectacular! I hope you all have a great week, and if you have
a chance, read President Monson's talk from last conference. Pay
special attention to the poem he quotes, "good timber" I read it today
for personal study, and I have decided to memorize it. It is a good
one. Love you all so much. OH, I hit my sixth month mark too! I almost
forgot!
Today is a crazy pday! I only have about ten minutes to write today, so this will be sparse on the details. Sorry all! We had a lesson today with Watanabe san, she has a new baptism goal for the first of February. She has such a desire to change, and such hope that this church is what she needs to do it, and she is in the right place!
In two Sundays, Kimura san is getting baptized! I am so excited! We had
another lesson this week, and she is still on track. She was even able
to make it to sacrament this week, even though she is super busy. I
will give you another update next week, but as of right now she is
doing just so great. I love being able to work with her, every time we
leave her house I am just filled with joy.
We had spilts and ZTM this week too. ZTM was on goals, and what vision
we need to have in order to become the missionaries we want to before
our missions end. For splits I worked with Parker shimai, she was a
lot of fun! We have a lot of (nerdy) things in common, so it was
enjoyable. We stayed up much too late though. ha ha.
Other than that, this week has been full of finding time. And it is
cold! The snow won't stop falling either. As beautiful as it is, it
sometimes makes being out working more difficult than I thought it
would be, but we will keep on doing what we do.
Love you all, have a great week!
This week was a lot of different! Including the fact that I just
emailed five days ago, so it's not even a full week, ha. We were able
to get back to normal on Friday though, so that was really nice.
Wednesday night, last pday, we went over to a members house, Iwayamas,
and had a little new years party. They had some traditional Japanese
food, like Chawamushi that was basically savory egg pudding with meat
and veggies inside. Really good! I have the recipe too. :) We then
watched Saturday's Warrior, in English. That isn't as random as it
seems though! You see, Iwayama shimai is an English teacher and they
saw Saturday's Warrior once before translated into Japanese. It was
really enjoyable, and really just as terrible as I remembered! We
shared a message that night about the new year, and made some goals
with them. It was a really fun time.
Thursday we spent the entire day cleaning. There isn't really anything
much to say about that, so I am moving on.
We've met a few really great potential investigators on Friday and
Saturday too! Nakamura san has a friend from high school that was
Mormon, we gave him a Book of Mormon and are planning on passing him
to the Elders. (Sooner rather than later.. He recently asked Budge
Shimai if she has a boyfriend! yikes!)
There is also Osanai san, who we gave a Book of Mormon to as well, we
have another apointment with her next Friday. I am really excited to
meet with her again! I think her heart is pure and soft, just right to
recieve this message. :) There was another woman too, she normally is
living in Australia, but was home for the holidays. She seemed pretty
interested, and she speaks English! We wouldn't be able to teach her
for long, but she would get a good foundation for the Australian
missionaries. :)
Kimura san is doing so great! She is just wonderful. I can't wait for
her baptism! The other woman we are teaching, Watanabe san, needs a
slower pace than we were going. Our last lesson ended up not being
about the Plan of Salvation at all, but instead we adjusted and talked
about the importance of forgiving others. It ended up being a great
lesson, I hope she was able to let it peirce her heart. The spirit has
a hard time being with you if you are so full of bitter feelings!
We'll keep working with her.
Budge Shimai is amazing, I'm enjoying being her companion. I learn so
much from her all the time, and I hope she has maybe learned something
from me too. I am so grateful that I got to snag her for her last
transfer!
Other than that, I don't have much. This week has been pretty cold,
and we have a lot of snow! Everything is so beautiful right now, I
really, truly love it here. :) I hope you all keep warm! Love you all.
Love,
Megan
Sorry about this being late, we had to change our schedule around
because of New years! I hope you all had a great Christmas. :) I have
a lot to catch up on, so lets see how I do, ha ha.
Last week we had a big Christmas party with all of the missionaries,
it was a lot of fun! The best part of it was seeing Miller and Smith
Shimai! They seem to be doing really great together. We played a lot
of games and ate some very american food and went caroling! Christmas
itself was a pretty normal day, except getting the phone call. But
seriously, I was in peril mode when the call didn't come when you said
it would. I may have been crying. :) So glad it all worked out! Loved
hearing all of your voices. :)
We taught a lesson that day to a new investigator, she came to church
a few weeks ago because she's noticed a change in her friend who's been
coming. I don't know why these really prepared people keep finding me,
but I will not complain! She really wants to change her life, and be
happier! We have a baptisimal date set for the 19, keep her in your
prayers.
Kimura san is doing wonderful as well, she is just eating up the Book
of Mormon, she loves Mosiah! We are just going to keep meeting until
she gets baptized. :)
I can't think of any other big things, except for yesterday we spent
all day reading the Book of Mormon, I didn't finish (drat), but it was
so neat to dedicate a full day to fasting and reading. I know that
book is true, and I love reading it! Speaking of loving and reading
(in general) I got your package, Auntie, I love you! and your family!
and really everyone, thank you all for the prayers and love and
support. Can't wait to see you all in almost a year!
Hope you all have a great week! Love you all.
Love,
Megan
