I Stand All Amazed: Anne 2-9-14: Birthday Blizzard, Lucy, Renee, Indian Curry, IPADs, Tokyo Shut Down, and MAC AND CHEESE.

Well. Helllllooooooooo. How are all you cuties out there? I am great. I am 21 years old. Aging by the year, but hey. Its gotta happen right? Well I got a birthday present for President Budge and it was an IPAD. Yes the Tokyo East and West zones came into the Mission home on tuesday and we had a training on how to use these things and they handed them out to us. We dont have paper planners anymore, we have everything we need on the IPAD. All the videos, lessons, PMG, scriptures, and anything else you can think of on it. I dont know how I feel about it quite yet. I am still using my scriptures. Its not the same on an ipad. I cant part with the physical stuff. Its hard. haha. But it has helped our investigators sooooooo much. We really can teach to needs now. If our investigators have a hard time understanding the spirit, we can whip out some of our pictures that we put together on our ipad about the spirit and then we can better explain the spirit to them. Its so cooool!!! I am so excited about that!

On wednesday after our english class we taught our first lesson to Lucy, this is not her real name but for privacy reasons I have changed it to that. She is 15 years old and has been coming to our english class for the past couple of weeks. She came up to us after class and said she wanted to learn about the gospel. She said that she has been going around to different churches with her friends and wants to know the truth! We were overjoyed and immediately taught her about the Book of Mormon and how it can help her in her life. We taught her how to pray and we all kneeled down together in a room and she said her first prayer. It was beautiful! She felt Heavenly Fathers love so strongly!

The next day while we were at the church doing weekly planning, she came to church! We taught her the restoration. I wish you could of seen her face when I pulled up the picture of the first vision, her jaw dropped and was in awe. I recited the first vision to her and she was completely stoked about it. I extended the baptismal invitation to her and her head was bobbing up and down before I could even finish. She has a baptismal date forMarch 2, but we think that she can make it to Feb. 23! She knows this is the truth!

Friday was quite a unexpected day, we were at the church getting ready to go to a members hosue right before a ping pong activity was about to start when the other sisters investigator showed up at the church early, we decided to wait with her so she wouldnt have to be alone. We were wondering why the others sisters were taking so long and then they came into the church and I saw Lucy with them and she was in tears and all red in the face and she came to me and starting sobbing even more. I cant tell all that happened to her because of privacy reasons, but the summary of it is that her mother kicked her out of her house and the environment in her home is abusive. Her mom took her keys, coat and everything from her and sent her out into the blizzard with only her school outfit and school bag. We hurried and called the bishop and he gave us advice on what to do. We found a place for her to stay at a friends house. On Saturday she came to the church again and we took her out to lunch so she could have some food. The picture of all of us at the Indian Curry Place i sent! The snow was insane that day! We walked with her for about an hour in the blizzard to another friends house to stay with and she seemed to be really happy there. And we ran back to our apartment and got clothes and a coat for her to wear while she was living with her friend.

We have tried the past couple days to go back to her home to see if her mom will let her in, but she consistently locks the door on her. We just got a call from Lucy and her mom just let her in an hour ago. I dont feel good about her being home, but all I ask is that you pray for her. I love that sweet girl. She is so strong, she reminds me of Esther in her courage to do what is right and is patient in her afflictions. She came to church on sunday with her friend Renee, I have also changed her name, and Lucy helped us teach the restoration to Renee. She is such a missionary already. Renee is excited about the gospel! Lucy has given us so many referrals! I am so excited! We are excited to where she can go with this wonderful message!

My Birthday on Saturday was insane! After we made sure Lucy was safe with her friend we made our way to a members house for a dinner appointment. The blizzard was a little scary, but it wasnt bad enough to stop a good ol former BYU-Idahoan. We went to the Funsu couples house. The husband is from Nigeria, Africa and he made us an african meal. We had to eat it with our fingers. It was insane. I asked him what the meat was and he was like, IT IS COW SKIN AND STOMACH ISNT IT THE MOST DELICIOUSNESS THING YOU HAVE EVA EATENN? I said, Oooooookay. He was like, Happy Birthday to youuuuuuu. Yes, happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeee. It was really fun eating with fingers though. The cow skin, not that fun. But hey, I have Nigerian in me now.

After that all of us missionaries ran back out into the blizzard and made our way back to the blizzard. We got to the train station and all of the trains had stopped. We had no way to get home!!! It was 8;00 and we knew it would be a like a four hour walk to get home. And we didnt even know the way. So all of us Elders and sisters were sitting there in the train station trying to figure out how to get home. The bishop called a member to come rescue us and a member drove us to another station about a half away that could take us to Koiwa station. By the time we got to the closest working train station to our apartment it was 10 o clock and we had to run home, their were drunk people erywhere kids. this is why we have 9 o clock curfew in the mission. Maaaaaan. We ran for about 20 minutes and got home at 10;23 and jumped into our futons. It was a crazy birthday. So crazy, and so much FUN!

Thank you for all the love that I have gotten. I love you all and Happy Valentines Day this week!!!

Loves, Sister Staples!!!