7/28/2014

Dear all,  

Jess had her baby! Woooo! I prayed for her a lot this week; I'm glad things went okay!! Also, only Otousan [Dad] would send me an email about our two cats and their eating habits haha. I love getting pictures of the cats! Arigato!  

Our p-day last week was so busy. We had a ward activity and 2 NA [non-active] families came! Yay! And the elders brought a bunch of young girls haha that we got to talk with.

The girls the elders brought to the activity. I felt so uncool. Haha.

Although our investigators haven't been coming to church lately, I think it was really good for the members to see these people at the activity. Not that we were seeking recognition, but its nice when members see and participate in the work we are doing. After that activity, we went straight to our district activity, where members took us sightseeing way far away. It was a holiday and obviously everyone had the same idea so it was crowded. But it was beautiful! This is why Hokkaido is famous. It was gorgeous! I kept skipping around saying I love nature! I love nature! My companion was definitely wondering what was wrong with me haha. I'm so grateful for those members.  

This is Biei. Beautiful flowers and we got to eat Lavender ice cream!



Standing in a field. This has been my dream forever. Isn't it gorgeous?
 

The beginning of this week was suuuper hot, and then it poured rain the past two days. I got irritated when my companion kept complaining about not wanting to go out in the rain but I couldn't blame her, everything got soaked. Us, our bags. helmets, everything. We found some new investigators so that was good, but our current investigators we are having a hard time meeting with. It's a little rough right now. We are still visiting NAs and working closely with the RS, and slowly, I feel members are starting to warm up. They ask us about dendo and ask to dendo with us! I think they all have a desire to, they just don't know how to. So that's what we have been working on :)

We taught this girl about the Book of Mormon and she totally accepted all of it. Too bad she lives 1.5 hours away. but she is gold, and so we got a picture.  :-)

The shimai [sisters] in the ward are great though; this week there was a wedding reception and literally the whole ward council and RS pulled together to do. Pretty sure the actual family hardly did anything haha. I've never seen a ward council discuss a reception but hey, that's Japan! Love it! We were asked to help so we helped cook for a couple of hours. It felt so good to serve next to these shimai and feel their excitement and willingness to serve for this new young couple. Also made me think of how the missionaries in Fukuyama also helped for Sho's reception so I was just keeping things going full circle. The shimai were really grateful for our help and while a part of me felt that we should have been outside dendoing, the other part of me knew that this would help us gain the trust of members. And I think it did. Afterwards, the father of the groom told me he wanted to introduce us to his older sister. So yay! 

 

 

I'm tired and sometimes I feel like our days aren't effective, but I keep going anyway. Because there are always people waiting to hear our message and the Lord has so much in store for me that I dont even know.Ｐｌｕｓ，　ｗｅ　ａｌｗａｙｓ　ｓｅｅ　ｍｉｒａｃｌｅｓ． Also, the work I do now will result in fruit later. I have strong faith in that. I keep working hard every day and I keep trusting in the Lord. Thank you for all of your prayers and support. Love you all! Gospel is true!

 

Love,

Sugihara shimai