Elder Kawano, who just finished his mission in AZ. He served in Heber, about 30 minutes away from Snowflake. His family is from Miyazaki, my first area.
Beautiful castle ruins--Don't you love the sweats?
Konnichiwa, kazoku!
AAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhh I just feel like so many things happen every week and I always want to tell you every single thing but I have no time to do it and I forget to tell you about it all! Good news. I am keeping up on my journal, so one day I WILL be able to tell you everything :) Anyway, thanks for telling me about your week! It is so weird to think of all of Logan:s friends getting their mission calls. I am starting to feel a little old. But that is so exciting for all of them! And I swear the entire town of Snowflake is either serving in south america or in England. That is so cool. So I have so many things to say, I:ll basically just go day by day. I won:t say every thing that happened because it would take forever but I will tell you about the daily miracles!!!
Monday - we had zone p-day! It was a party. We had had stake conference the day before, so a lot of the missionaries just spent the night (it was crazy. seriously I think there were 16 missionaries staying at the elders: house for a couple of days. I don:t know how they did it). We all went to the Fukuoka Tower ruins and had a sports day on a field nearby. Sports day basically ended up being a super intense game of ultimate frisbee. Gotta love missionaries. Anyway but it was great! Afterwards, we went to McDs then on to exploring the ruins! Good times. Do the mcdonalds in America have shaka shaka chicken? It:s one of my favorites. Anyway, but on to the exciting Monday news! When we were grocery shopping we ran into someone that we had briefly talked to on the street a few weeks earlier. He had met missionaries before in Taiwan, so he knew a little bit about our church. Anyway, we were able to explain why we came here and a little about what we believe, and gave him a book of mormon and had a great conversation, right there in the juice aisle! His work schedule is a little busy so we weren:t able to set a specific appointment but we have his number and will try to meet with him soon.
Tuesday - Area book dendo miracles! We were going through our area book and were able to find 2 new investigators! We are meeting with Norasan this afternoon, and Yukarisan tomorrow. I was able to meet Yukari san a couple of times when I first came to Fukuoka, but she moved soon after. However she moved back and we can:t wait to meet with them!!!!
Wednesday - We were able to have a great lesson with Miyukisan. The miracle about it is she is the one that likes us but is not very willing to talk about religion. She always closes up whenever we try. However, she asked us a question. She said have you ever been jealous before? What does your church teach about that?, and what are beliefs are on that, and it just really opened up into a really good opportunity to teach and testify. We told her that we are not perfect by any means, but how we get through different problems and frustrations in life is by relying on the Lord:s strength. We were able to share some experiences (hey dad, I talked about how strong you are, and a bit about your hiking accident - hope that:s all good with you!) and testified of the truth of this that we know. The spirit was so strong. She was really touched and I think her heart was softened. It:s still going to be a little bit of little by little progress with her, but I know she is being prepared. It was just one more example of how much the Lord is involved in every single one of his childrens: lives.
Thursday - Zone training meeting! This happens at the beginning of every transfer - the zone leaders and sister training leaders gave awesome training. We:re trying to work together as a zone more and do more and more to progress each week. There is a huge push on getting lesson masteries done as soon as possible. Lesson masteries are a program to help us be better teachers! We have to pass of a short (5 min) medium (15 min) and long (30-45 min) lesson for each of the lessons 1-5 in PMG to another senior companion, and the longs are one to a senior comp, one to a district leader, one to my zone leader, one to the ward mission leader, and one to a ward member. I:m not gonna lie, these stress me out a little more than teaching investigators almost. But it is super good practice, and really helps us to be better teachers. Anyway, I:m going to try to complete all of them this transfer. But let me tell you it is a little scary! Mostly because you don:t have a companion for them. It is just you, passing them off. Anywhosies, confidence. It:s a good thing to have. I really am glad we have lesson masteries. But I need to work on loving them more! がんばります！！
Friday - DANCE DENDO. True story. Messer shimai and I both really like to dance, so we talked to some of the young moms in the ward and decided to try some dance dendo. We made up a simple dance and taught it to a bunch of the young moms in the ward, and they brought some nonmember friends, and we all learned this dance, and ate lunch afterward and were able to BRT, and talk and such. It was so fun. Don:t worry, I got a video. You will love it.
Saturday - remember the Kawano family from Miyazaki - the ones whose son served in Heber? We ran into them at the mission office on saturday when we were getting some more book of mormons. They had just gotten back from picking up their son from his mission in Arizona! It was great to see them for a few minutes. We had an appointment with tamada shimai, but she got sick so it fell through. still a good day!
Sunday. Best miracle day ever. Remember Christina and Karan? The napal-gin that we gave up sugar for, and love to death, that we dropped because they wwouldn:t meet with us and weren:t keeping commitments? They CAME TO CHURCH yesterday. We haven:t talked to them since mid december. At all. And they just showed up. They wanted to say goodbye before they leave to visit Napal for a month this week. It was such a huge miracle to be able to see them. Definitely surprised me, to be sure. Hanzawasan came to church again as well! She loves church. She:s really busy during the week so we haven:t been able to officially start teaching her yet, but we:re meeting with her before church next week, which we are super excited for. The YSA in the ward had a crepe party after church, and our less active that we are working with, Morita shimai came! She is the cutest. We have so much fun together. She is super busy with work during the week too but she has come the past two sundays which is awesome! Last miracle of the day. Because that and studies took more time than expected, we did not have much time to find yesterday. We decided to just go streeting around the area of town where we live and here is the magical thing. We met a lady that is less active! She was baptized when she was 8 but fell away from the church in high school just because she got busy with school and work. Her 7 yr old daughter was with her and they talked to us for a while. She really likes the church but is just busy with work. So we got her number and will try to meet with her soon. She lives really close to us. Anyway, it was sucha big miracle! Goodness it was amazing. That is one observation I have come to learn about Japan. People are SO busy here. Such hard workers, all the kids are in school all day long from a young age and all the adults work all of the time. So busy.
Anyway sorry about the excess of words and whatever but I am outta time. I love you so much - thank you for all of your prayers and love and support - it means so much to me!!!! Have a great week!!!
Ai shite imasu!!
Flake Shimai
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