I Stand All Amazed: Happy Thanksgiving EVERYONE!

Anne 11-26-13

Happy Thanksgiving EVERYONE!
I hope everyone just eats themself some pure happiness. O shewt. :) Here in Japan we are alreay celebrating Christmas and stuff like that. When I ride my bike past shops I hear Silent night going and I'm like, "They really don't know what that song is about do they?" Haha. Japan is all about having Christmas and they play Christmas English songs and they don't know what they are saying. But hey it's nice for me! This Thursday, the Oyama ward is having a Thanksgiving for us! (The ward is about a 20 minute train ride away) Yay!! They are so nice!!
On Tuesday we woke up at 3:30 to go to Tokyo for the 2 mission conference and it was wonderful! The Spirit was so strong when Elder Evans was talking to us about missionary work. He said he was in the room when the age change was decided on. This is was President Monson said, "This change is going to change the whole church, everything about the way we do missionary work is changed forever. The biggest reason why boys are 18 and girls are 19 is so that they can all come home around the same time and get married to each other." When he said that I was like. Hmmm. I'm gunna be like 22 so yeah. NO. Haha. I am not marrying a 20 year old little boy. Haha. ANYWAY. The conference was wonderful! We had a big mission holiday party afterwards. It was so fun!!! We did a white elephant game with everyone and we watched The Grinch who stole christmas! I love seeing all of my MTC district. Miyaki Shimai is doing wonderful and she lets me hug her tons now. She is awesome!

This week was really good with Noriko! Except she had to go to the hospital on tuesday and is having surgery tomorrow on her ear. So we can't baptize her really soon because, that would extremely painful to get dunked in the water when you just had surgery on your ear drum. But she has the strongest desire to be baptized. She recognizes God's hand in her life and she is always incredibly grateful! We will probably change her date to later in December. One of the blessings of her being in the hospital is that it is harder for her to smoke. SCORE. I love that woman. :)

Kaiyo, oh my goodness, the most amazing thing happened with her this week! I will quote from my journal what happened on Friday with her, "Today would probably be the biggest miracle of my mission. We met with Kaiyo today and she has been struggling lately a lot with feeling guilty and I was really worrying about her and if she could be baptized or not. We were going to set a new date with her today. I am not going to lie was really worried for her. We had been handing out prayer lists to the ward members for our investigators and we had been praying and fasting for them like crazy. When we rode our bikes over to her apartment I met with Karube Shimai and started talking to her then I heard Kaiyo call our names and I turned around and I could hardly recognize her at first. She was GENKI. I mean she was bouncing up and down giddy. I was trying to figure out what had happened to her and why she was so happy. We haven't ben able to meet with her for two weeks because she hasn't been in Utsunomiya. She asked me to say the prayer and I said in the prayer how grateful I was for her wonderful example. After the prayer she said, "I am a good example aren't I" and I said, "Ha yes you are!" and she started talking about how she was going to be baptized on Sunday and we kinda hesitated because she needed a lot more lessons first and she had to keep the Word of Wisdom. She started to smile and bounced up and down. She squealed, "I haven't smoked in 2 weeks! I did it!" We all were taken back and she was just bursting with happiness. I have never seen her so happy! She looked us in the eyes confidently (which she never looks us in the eyes or smiles directly at us) and she had peace in her countenance. I was so filled at the moment, every heart ache and prayer that we have put in for her was worth it. I just cried and cried because I could hardly believe it. She was bearing her testimony to us of how she knew it was by God's power that she could do it. She has changed herself. I told her that I could see the light of Christ in her eyes and it was true. She was radiant. The Word of Wisdom has taken a whole new meaning to me. Karube Shimai said that all of her family had been praying for her and that the whole ward is behind her and Kaiyo was just beaming when she said, "I felt every prayer." She kept on saying, "I have repented! I am clean." and then she said, "I can live with my mom. I will see her again." I have never felt such joy on my mission!

Friday was wonderful and we were hoping to have her baptized on Dec. 1.but we went and saw her yesterday and she relapsed Sunday night because one of her friends pressured her into a smoke. DANGIT. I was so sad yesterday. She seemed really disappointed in herself. But I could still see the light in her. I know that she will make it. Hopefully by Christmas.

I just want to tell you all how grateful I am for you. But mostly I am going to talk about how grateful I am for mom and dad. I already sent dad an email about what I love and grateful for about him. So I will do about mom right now.

I am grateful that you are always forgiving
I am grateful for your strength and endurance through the hard times
I am grateful for the way you love each one of us kids so tenderly
I am grateful for your thoughtfulness
I am grateful that you have made each one of my companions feel like they have another adoring mother on their side
I am grateful for how hard working you are. I try to follow your example everyday
I am grateful for how close you are to the spirit and how you always recognize God's hand in your life
I am grateful that you raise 4 wonderful siblings for me to look up to
Mostly, I am grateful that our Heavenly Mother let me have you. I know we don't talk about her that much, but I know she is there and I know that it is a priviledge to have such a wonderful earthly mother.

I love you all and hope you always remember the wonderful peace the gospel brings into our lives. I know for a fact that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that god is our loving Father in Heaven and that he listens intently to our prayers. Prayer is so important. He is right next to us every minute, ready to listen, ready to bless. I love this gospel and am so grateful to be apart of this great work.
I love you all and have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Love, Stai Shimai

The view of the bridge I go over everyday