Japan week #3

Konnichiwa minasan!! Minasan wa genki deska? Kibo shimasuyo! :) I hope everyone is feeling genki and well!! :) I know I certainly am! I'm already halfway through a transfer, can you believe that! :P It isn't that long, but I can't believe it's already been three weeks about since I've been here in Muroran. I can totally understand what other missionaries say when they say the time flies by. When you're keeping busy, and working hard, and seeing miracles, the days really pick up. Elder Harper keeps us working hard which is AWESOME, and we've already seen lots of good come from our efforts. :) The ward here is awesome, and this last week we've had lots of opportunities to visit them and strengthen them, as well as visiting a lot of non attending members. We have really had a lot of great visits, and we even had one of them come to church yesterday after our visit with her on Friday!! :D Her name is Sato Shimai, and she was so happy that we visited her. She's a lovely little old lady and she has a pretty solid testimony, she just needs to keep enduring to the end, desho! She gave us a present at church, a bunch of writing materials, stamps, prepaid envelopes and things, a NICE present, and not the cheapest too, so we were super grateful for that. The ward is really  awesome, and it makes me happy to see so many really strong members out here in Japan. :) 

  So I mentioned last week how the members don't usually have us for dinner often, well we did have a dinner appointment this week with the Murata Kazoku. That was a BLAST! We had a ton of fun, at some great food, boy do I love tofu, ;) Seriously, I LOVE tofu, and we gave a nice message about our blessings from Heavenly Father, and how we can be aware of those blessings in our lives. We've been giving everyone we've visited with the Shukufu Challange, which is just a blessing counting challenge. To try and write down a couple blessings everyday to be thankful to Kamisama for, and to increase our positivity. It's been going great. :) 

  Last p-day we were doing some dendo in a little place about 20 minutes from our apartment by bike, and we found a SWEET woman who has become our newest investigator. She told us her mother was in the hospital, and how that she felt that she was all alone. So we taught her about prayer and about God, and how he loves her and knows her. We taught her how to pray, and she prayed for the first time ever there with us. We asked her how she felt and she said she felt wonderful, after her prayer, and after ours. So that was a COOL experience, we're visiting her again tonight, so I hope it goes well!! :) I want so badly to bring people unto Christ! She was accepting everything we taught her, so hopefully she's a kinjin, literally gold person, ;) It's how we say golden investigator around here! She was pretty down when we saw her last week, so hopefully she's been praying and is doing a little better this week, and that we can teach her more! Ahh miracles, they're great things. I can't believe I've only been out here for so short a time and I'm already seeing sweet things happening. :) We also had the unique opportunity to help not one, but TWO people with pre mission prep. One is a shimai who knows she wants to go, and so we gave her some advice, things to do to prepare, and the other is Satoshi Kyodai. He's a AWESOME young man, not quite mission age yet I think, but very close, and he's really thinking hard about whether or not he's going to serve a mission, which is great. :) So we have been talking to him and really encouraging him, and I hope he gets an answer for himself. 

   One day to talk about, then I gotta run!

      So we went to Hachodaira on Wednesday really early to visit with a less active recent convert. We had to get up there really early, so our morning schedule was thrown off, so we had a super fun day up in Hachodaira. We visited the RC, and she had a great time, told us she felt the spirit, yoshi! And then we went to go get a convenient store lunch and then do some picnic companionship study. That's where the sweet landscape pictures are from, plus it was that day that I got BURNT to a crisp. It was the single greatest companionship study I think I've ever had, it was glorious. We were on top of a little hill in a park, and after we were done we decided to ride down it on our bikes. Turns out at the bottom of the hill was a little ditch thing that was deceptively deep, and we both went head over handle bars and rolled down another little hill. :P It was SO FUNNY! :D We're fine, my bike is dandy, :) And we're started rolling again. Elder Harper's back tire though is in BAD condition. It needs to be changed, and we have to carry a pump with us all day and fill it up occasionally because it can't hold air!! We're gonna go fix it up today. :)

   One other thing I wanted to tell ya! We eat frozen bananas. A LOT. And they're glorious. I encourage you all to try it! Peel a banana, freeze it, eat it. It's changed my life forever. ;) 

   So, can you guys send me some music stuff? Like the Consider the Lilies motab album, and can you look into Rob Gardener's restoration CD? Sounds like it's amazing, so says Elder Harper.  I am loving being able to listen to music again. :) 

    I love you all!! I am having a blast, and I hope you all are too! 愛しています!! 

      -Dialogue 長老