Anne 12-8-14

I'm serious people when I say that He is the Gift is the best video to
come out this season. I am so excited about it and it has brought the
spirit so strongly into our lessons as we have shown it to people. If
you haven't shared it on facebook I challenge ya to do it now! Mom,
email it to all of your friends. SOOOO GOOOOD!! This week as usual has
been full of miracles and tender mercies from the Lord. I am so
grateful for any part I can have in this work!

On monday we went to the ward mission leader's house to use Brother
Oscarson's computer because Sister Sakamoto has been having problems
with her credit card so we got permission from the mission home for
her to fix it. Well their house is about a 30 minute train ride away
and when we got there Sister Sakamoto forgot something that she needed
in order to fix the card online. So we had to go all the way back home
to pick it up. We felt so bad but Sister Oscarson said that we could
come back for dinner and do it then. She is so nice! When SIster
Sakamoto and I left there apartment to go she felt so bad. But we
realized it was an opportunity for us to be on the street more to find
a miracle and God would put prepared people in our path. So we were
talking to people on the street all the way to the station and we
talked to this really nice girl from Thailand who was so kind and we
talked to her about coming to church and also our english class, as
soon as we were done talking to her we turned around to keep on
walking to the station. This lady who had overheard our conversation
came up to us and asked us if we were english teachers. We told her we
are volunteer missionaries but we also teach people english as a
service. She invited us to come into her business, she also was an
english teacher. We taught her about the true meaning of Christmas and
showed her the He is the Gift video and she was really touched by it.
we had such a good conversation with her and we are going to go and
visit her again! People are prepared!

We had a wonderful time at the temple on tuesday and went to a famous
shrine called Asakusa, I will take you there mom and dad. It was way
fun and I will have sister sakamoto send pictures of it to y'all. On
wednesday we met with a lot of people and gave a book of mormon to our
friend Yuki. We visited Christa and taught her how to share the gospel
online and it was way fun. ILOVE CHRISTA! She is so much fun to be
with. We are praying that we can start teaching her husband soon. We
went to Aiko's house afterward to teach her about faith. We taught her
from Alma 32 about faith is a seed and we need to nourish it and take
care of it in order for it grow. I drew out the pictures of what would
happen to our seed if we took care of it and what would happen if we
didn't. She really liked it and she understands the importance of
keeping her commitments now. She said that she is going to try her
best to come to church every sunday after the new year because that is
when she is free from work on sundays. She is so wonderful and always
says that she loves jesus in english and its quite possibly the cutest
thing ever. I am totally having mom and dad come and meet her.

The rest of the week was a little bit slower and a lot of our plans
fell through so we had to do our back up plans and go finding. We met
some nice people but nothing too promising. Me and Sister Sakamoto
always have fun when we are together. When we were handing out flyers
one time at the train station and it was later in the evening and
thats when all the weird stuff starts happening. It's kind of hard in
the city working at night especially on the weekend because everyone
isn't thinking straight. There were lots of drunk people around and I
have seen A LOT of drunk people on my mission but this one lady was by
far the drunkest I have ever seen. She literally could not hold
herself up and her husband was trying to hold her up. She was puking a
storm on the side and Sister Sakamoto and I were getting concerned for
her because she literally looked like a vegetable. Her eyes were
rolled into the back of her head and was completely limp. We went up
to him and asked him if we should call an ambulance and he said she
would be okay she just had too much to drink. Some people came and
helped her out and I think it worked out. It was so rough though. I
hope she is okay. It made me grateful for the word of wisdom. Very
grateful.

On Saturday night we went with Christa to a Christmas concert at the
mission home. We were praying her husband would come but he didn't.
BUt the concert was sooooo good! I saw a whole bunch of people from
Koiwa that I knew and was soooooo excited to see them again! I made
plans with some of them for mom and dad to meet. I love Koiwa so much!

Sunday was good, Sato san came to church and she is sooo good! She
loves to feel the spirit every sunday and is so good about coming
every week. Her phone was going off for the first ten minutes of
sacrament and she just sat there smiling at the speaker as they spoke
and all of the members were looking at her and trying to find her
phone for her. She didn't care she was just happy to be at church. It
was so funny, I was laughing so hard. We also went to see Chichibu
Shimai and shared the He is the gift video with her and she loved it
and she prayed for the first time with us!!! It was such a powerful
prayer and she felt god's love so strongly. We finally were able to
commit her to pray every day.

Later that night we were planning on going to hand our fliers at the
train station but we decided to go and visit a less active. Kumi
sashida Shimai. A couple days earlier we were trying to visit her and
we met a French lady outside her apartment who said she was really
lonely and depressed we invited her to church, she said she probably
wont be able to come and her family wasnt interested and she told us
she lived onthe 4th floor and that was it. Well we went to the
apartment again that night and we decided to try and find the french
lady, i think her name is silvia. Well we went to a random door to see
if it was hers and it was hers! She opened the door and said, "You
found me huh? How did you find me!?" We just said it was god. She
invited us in and we taught her, her japanese (extremely strong
buddhist) husband, and her daughter about the gospel. She had tons of
questions and we showed her the he is the gift video and she really
like it, she said she had goosebumps. But during most of the lesson
she was trying her best to make negative remarks at everything we
would say. When I was talking about the importance of families and how
sacred and wonderful having a family is, she kind of scoffed and
looked at her husband and said it was kind of a pain. But I felt
really prompted to promise her that if she lived the teachings of
Jesus Christ her family relationships would improve and a new light
would come into her life that will change her heart forever. She was
silent as she looked at me and she didn't fight back anymore and just
looked at me. I was getting kind of uneasy and then she smiled, "I
think we can make time to come to church sometime and the christmas
party." We thanked her and she told us to come over again. We didn't
have a french book of mormon with us so we just gave them a japanese
one and told them we would bring another over. Her husband was kind of
uneasy about it all but we told him it was a present and it started to
look through my japanese book of mormon as we finished our visit.

Today we met with Tsugumi today and taught her more about Jesus
Christ. She prayed again and the spirit was so strong. She is coming
to church again on sunday. I love her so much. I am so grateful to be
able to shared such wonderful sacred experiences with god's children.
It really is such a priviledge! I love you all!

Happy Birthday TJ!!! You are the bomb and I love ya man! THanks for
being a bomb husband to my sister! Get ready for an email next week!
Happy Birthday Daddy! I am going to write you a nice ooooey goooey
email that I will send next week. Happy Anniversary mom and dad! I
LOVE YOU BOTH AND OOOOEY GOOOEYNESS IS COMING UP NEXT EMAIL FOR YA!

Love you!

Love, ANNIE GIRL
ステイ姉妹と坂本姉妹より

末日聖徒イエスキリスト教会