Anne 5-26-14

Family!




This week has been very busy and wonderful! We have had some set backs

but the Lord has been helping us find more new investigators. Yuko

Shimai has temporarily dropped us for a little while, she says that

she is not mentally stable right now and needs to take a break because

of the stresses of school and family. We love her.




We had a practice lesson with the Sugawara family (members) on Tuesday

night and their daughter Nanoko has been struggling with wanting to

come to church and her testimony has been wavering in whether or not

this church is true or not. We taught the restoration to her and we

shared our experiences with finding out whether this church is true or

not when we were younger. She told us how hard it is to be a youth in

Japan. We promised her the blessings of following Joseph smith's

example by asking god herself if this church is true or not. She

seemed to be very excited to do just that. It was a wonderful night

and we committed all of the kids to pray whether or not Joseph smith

was a prophet of god.




Our eikaiwa (english class) is getting bigger and bigger. Three weeks

ago we only had one sometimes no kids come to eikaiwa. This week we

had 23 kids show up to eikaiwa. It was crazy! The moms were so

helpful. 9 moms were there and we did not have enough things prepared

for 23 kids because the weeks before we had about 12 kids come so we

expected about that much. There were about 5 nonmember moms there that

we are excited to work with. One of the moms Ayako is a single mother

of 2 and she was kind of skeptical of our church at first but then we

brought her up to the chapel and sang I am a child of god to her and

she just cried and cried. We showed her the way to pray and she wants

to learn more.




We also met with a woman on Friday named Tanaka. We found her in our

investigators list on our phone a week before and I asked if sister

Kinghorn had ever met her before and she said that she had never. We

called her and she had no idea who we were and what we were doing

here. When we met her on Friday we told her about what we do and she

said that her cousin is actually married to a member and lives in Las

Vegas. Tanaka has actually been to church 10 years before in Las Vegas

and remembered taking the sacrament. We gave her a Book of Mormon and

had her read the introduction and she said that she knew who Joseph

smith was and that she wants to learn more about him. It is so

exciting. She actually has family that lives in Utsunomiya so I was

able to relate to her on that.




Saturday was so wonderful. We left at 5:30 in the morning to go down

to the Tokyo South mission to go and hear from Elder Cook and Elder

Maynes. They brought heaven down to make it short. So many answers

received and I found so many more ways in which I can improve on

helping my investigators. I often throughout my mission have struggled

with the feeling if I have let down The Lord. I am giving everything I

can, I am not perfect but through Christ miracles happen. I haven't

seen as much success as most missionaries here. But I am so grateful

for the experience I am having right now. I am trying harder and

harder everyday, I can honestly say that. I will do whatever The Lord

and President Budge want me to do to help God's children come closer

to Christ. I love the what Elder Cook said about when we invite and

testify we succeed. He promised us the blessings of why we are here in

this misssion with this mission president right now. He said that we

might get emails from our friends and family in serving in South and

Central America with all these baptisms every week and it can be

disheartening. It can be hard serving in a non christian country. He

said Japan is ready, these people are a clean people who want a clean

society to raise their children up in. What a privilege it is to

introduce Christ to such a wonderful people. I felt a confirmation

during the meeting that The Lord accept me and my offering to him and

tears came to my eyes. I saw President Budge look at me from the stand

and he smiled at me. It was so relieving to me to feel the support of

my mission president.




One of my most favorite scriptures is Enos 1:27. Whenever my

investigators have a hard time envisioning Christ's character and they

don't understand what judgement day with be like and they don't

understand the true doctrine of Christ. I read this scripture with

them and promise them that if we have done all we can and tried our

best this is what will happen. After they read it they just look at me

and smile and they say, oh that is what it will be like, how wonderful

that will be.




I love you all so much!




LOVE, ステイ姉妹