皆様こんにちわ！
今週はすばらしかったですね！あなた様たちも楽しい週があったこと望んでいます！
This week was awesome!
:-) I hope you guys all had a great week too!
First, thank you everyone for your
thoughts and prayers! I really felt the power of them this week!
You all are so amazing and I'm SO lucky to have so much support from
home. I love you all! :-D
So 2 really big things happened this
week... 1: My birthday! And 2: The Announcement. Here we go!
My Birthday!:
I had such an amazing
birthday. It was actually really weird to think that exactly one year
before I was opening my call saying I was going to Tokyo Japan. I
remember thinking that I'd be spending my next birthday in Tokyo and I couldn't
believe it! Craziness! :-)
Thursday night, Long姉妹 and I stayed up really late talking as we tend to do...
(I'm such a bad example... Future missionaries! Don't do that!
:P) We ended up talking until midnight so Long姉妹 sang a half asleep happy birthday and then we went to
sleep. xD Friday morning, I walked into the study room to find a handmade
card from Long姉妹 on
my desk! There's a picture attached to this email of it. :-)
Then, it was time for Companion
Study. We always start off companion study with a song and a
prayer. Long姉妹 and
I have been singing all the hymns in order. When I opened up to the hymn
we were singing there was a big sticky note on the song and instead the words
to "Happy Birthday to you!" were written! Then Long姉妹 started singing Happy Birthday again. xD
But wait! There's more.
;)
After Companion Study we headed to
the church because we had District Meeting. When I got there we greeted
everybody and it was all exactly the same as normal. (I hadn't told
anyone but Long姉妹
that it was my birthday so I didn't expect anything. :D) We sang the
closing hymn and said the closing prayer and everyone stood up to
leave. Then the District Leader (Mori長老) said "We have one more secret announcement!
Today is Grosland姉妹's
birthday!" So everyone sang Happy Birthday and the District Leader
had baked me a birthday cake that we all ate! The other 姉妹 in our District had made mochi so we all ate that
too! It turns out that Long姉妹 called the District Leader on Thursday night while I
was in the shower and told him to spread the word to the District.
:-) Don't I have the BEST companion ever!? Then we went with the other 姉妹 to this DELICIOUS raman shop! Of course we took
pictures... on someone else's camera... We haven't gotten them yet. xD
After that we went into normal dendo
time! The Kichijoji sisters got a referral a while ago that they tried to
contact, but the sister wasn't home so we decided to try her again! Turns
out... she wasn't home again. :P So instead we decided to go streeting
and kubari and such. (I really hope that everyone understands my missionary
language. :P) In the middle of our kubari kai (Handing out flyers
session :P) This guy who was obviously drunk walks up to Long姉妹 and starts babbling at her for about 20 minutes.
xD I asked her later what they talked about and apparently all he wanted
to do was talk about the JFK Assassination...? I laughed so hard.
You should have seen her face. x)
We also talked to a bunch of kids on
the way home who said they knew who Jesus was! (Which is crazy in
Japan...) We gave them some flyers for Eikaiwa (English Class) and church
and they said they'd talk to their parents about it because they really want to
come! Yay! After that we headed back to the apartment to do some
study and follow up.
Back at the apartment, we got a
surprise phone call from Naoko! She said that she was really upset and
needed to talk. She asked if we could meet in about a half hour or so and of
course we agreed. We met at the church and she brought these super expensive
delicious... things. xD They were like dumplings or
something. I don't really know but they were SO good. Then she
started telling us about her problem. We ended up giving her a quick
introduction of the Book of Mormon and reading it together. She kept
saying she didn't know why her life was so hard. She said she's trying so
hard to be good, but she's still miserable. We shared Mosiah 2:41 with
her and as we read it she kept saying "That's exactly right!"
We promised her that by keeping God's commandments and doing what God asks she
would be blessed with happiness. We told her "This is what we do all
day! Teach people about God's commandments so they can be happier!
Won't you let us teach you?" She agreed. :-) So from now
on we're going to start having real lessons with her. YAY!
But as if that wasn't enough to make
an awesome dendo birthday...
All day we were playing phone tag
with the Urayasu Sisters. Finally, after Naoko's lesson, when I called
them they answered... I was surprised to hear a Chinese accent singing Happy
Birthday! HELEN!!!!! :-D :-D :-D I freaked out. x) She did
too though. ;) She asked me how I liked Kichijoji and I said I loved
it! Then the best part of my birthday happened... "Sister Grosland,
will you come to my baptism? I will be baptized on March 31st! Will
you come?" I freaked out more and said "YES
OF COURSE!" Then I paused for a second and said
"Wait... March 31st... Isn't that your birthday?!" She gasped a
little bit and then said "Yes!" Next thing I new Facer姉妹 was on the phone saying "She's crying! We'll
call you guys back when we get home! Tell Helen you love her!" Which
of course I did. x) Turns out the Helen was super surprised when Lundy姉妹 and Facer姉妹
remembered her birthday. They told her "Of course we remember! We
love you and want to help you!" So then when I remembered it was her
birthday too she got a bit emotional. :-) I LOVE HER! :-D
And that was my birthday! Best
dendo birthday ever! :-)
The Announcement:
Now for the big thing! On
Saturday morning we went to a Relief Society activity that started at
10am. When we got there at 9:45 we got an email from the honbu
(Mission... Headquarters?) saying that there was going to be a special
announcment on the Mission Website from President Budge at 10am that we all
needed to watch. We were like, well... that's too bad. We'll watch it
later. :P
During the activity I was standing
around listening to some of the SA's talking (Listening to them talk is like a
real test of your Japanese skills... They use so much slang and such that it's
SO hard to keep up. xD) trying to understand what they were saying.
I understood that they were talking about missions and mission presidents and
stuff... and then they were like "I wonder what will happen to the
missionaries in Tokyo! Sister Grosland! Do you know?" I said
"Huh?" Then they were like "Well, they'll probably split
them too, right?" Then it hit me. I said "Wait,
WHAT?"
With the increase of missionaries
(We're about to hit 60,000 missionaries worldwide!) they announced the opening
of tons of new missions! Including the opening of the Japan Tokyo
South Mission. I'll tell as much as I know which isn't much...
President Budge will continue to be
the mission president of the Japan Tokyo Mission, and his current Bishop (xD),
Bishop Wada, has been called as the Mission President of the Japan Tokyo South
Mission. Kichijoji is going to be made into the Honbu for the Japan Tokyo
South Mission. Some of the missionaries currently in the Japan Tokyo
Mission will be going to the Japan Tokyo South Mission. This is all
starting in July. :-) That's about all that I know.
When Long姉妹 heard all this she started to freak out. July is the
start of her last transfer as a missionary. She's worried that all of the
friends she's made here are going to be sent to a different mission and she
wasn't going to see them again... As for my reaction to the
announcment... I'm stoked. :-) This to me is really just more evidence of
the Lord hastening his work! Every day I'm seeing more and more
manifestations of how close the second coming is. I'm excited because
this means we're one step closer!! :-D I don't even mind where I get sent
at this point. If there's one big thing I've learned so far on my mission
it's that Heavenly Father knows what's going on a LOT better than I do.
He will put me where I need to be. "I'll go where [He] wants me to
go." :-)
And those were the two exciting things
of this week! :-) I hope you guys all had a fantastic week! Again,
thank you for the prayers! I love you all and I'm praying for all of you!
:-D
Love,
Christine
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