Transfer 8 Week 1: June 23, 2013

皆様こんにちは!

Guess what!  I'm using the normal computer this week so I can actually type!!!  WHAT!?  ;) Crazy, desho.  Don't faint.

This week has been... Hmm... Fairly boring really. Mostly this week we've been doing a bunch of "Mogi" Lessons.  In English "Mogi" means "Demonstration", but that doesn't seem to fit it quite right.  Basically they're like practice lessons.  We met with about 5 different members this week and had them pretend to be investigators.  They gave us feedback and helped us to get better at teaching. :-)  It was way good.  Other than that it was a fairly normal week.... Except for:

 

SATOさん:

About 2 weeks ago during a kubari-kai (handing out fliers) we met this woman named Sato.  She said that she had an interest in learning English, but wasn't able to make it on Thursday nights to our Eikaiwa(English Class).  We told her about the fact that we can teach one-on-one English Classes, but half of it would be English and half of it would be church things.  She flat out told us that she has no interest whatsoever in church, but if that was okay then she's fine with it.  We set up an appointment, but foolish us didn't get her email or phone number or anything to remind her.  We were SURE she wasn't going to show up, but we found a member 同席(Sorry, not sure what the English word is...) and prepped to teach her anyway...

Miracle of miracles, SHE CAME!  It was crazy!  We taught her all of lesson 1.  She seemed okay throughout the lesson, but then at the end when we asked her to read the Book of Mormon she asked "If I keep taking these lessons from you, do I have to join your church?"  She explained that her husband is very much opposed to all things church related and so it was impossible for her to join...  However, she wants to continue.  My companion and I were pretty sad about it, but we talked about her at DCS (This meeting we have every Sunday with the Ward Mission Leader and the Bishop) and found out that that's how the Bishop was converted.  He flat out told his missionaries "I'm not interested and I won't convert."... Now he's a bishop. ;)  There's hope!  :-D

 

SAWADAさん:

Last week I think I wrote about the member who brought her daughter's friend's Mom to church... Well, yesterday we had our first real lesson with her. Her name is Sawada and she is SO prepared.  Like... It's incredible.  At church they talked about the Priesthood and "The Final Judgement".  Two topics that we don't exactly send our brand new investigators too... but she loved everything about it and even cried a little saying she felt "warmth and peace."  While teaching her she said that since she was little she's been going to Buddhist Shrines and worshiping all of these other Gods.  She said "Is that okay? What are those Gods?"  We explained that they were all the same God. Heavenly Father.  We talked about how everyone can only see bits and pieces of the picture, but because we have the restored gospel we have the WHOLE picture.  She accepted it SO readily.  Seriously it was amazing. :-)  We're meeting with her again in like 2 weeks and I'm way excited. :-)

 

TRANSFER CALLS:

Okay okay okay.  I'll stop putting it off.  Here we go with the transfer calls. ;) The morning of Transfer Calls is always way intense.  Everyone is walking on eggshells all morning waiting for the phone to ring.  This time was almost worse because it was going to determine the rest of our missions!  We were both silent all morning and just did our thing... Then the phone rang.  It was our Zone Leaders!  They told us that we were both staying in Fujisawa for another transfer and welcomed us to the Tokyo South Mission!  That's right. I'M IN THE TOKYO SOUTH MISSION! :-D :-DThen we went into our Personal Study time... I was thinking a lot about this transfer call and what it would mean.  I found out last week that one of my investigators from Urayasu (Helen!) is getting baptized soon.  Now that I'm in the South, I won't be able to go see it... That was probably the hardest thing...

Then the phone rang again...

This time it was from Honbu.  We were way confused because we'd already gotten our transfer calls!  It turned out to be one of the Assistants.  He asked to talk to me and said "Sister Grosland! How is Fujisawa?!  What do you like about it!?  Well... I have some really big news for you and Sister Stankosky... Fujisawa -super long dramatic pause that Elder Olsen loves to do to us- is being made into an 8 missionary area.  There will be 4 Elders and 4 Sisters.  Sister Imano and a new missionary will be moving into the apartment with you and Sister Stankosky!  *Insert screams of excitement*  There's one other thing.  Sister Grosland.  President Budge and the Assistants feel it is the Lords will for you -super long dramatic pause (Oh, and this is usually what they say right before saying "TO TRANSFER TO _____!")-... to be made a Sister Training Leader!!"

AHHHHHHH!  :-D

I don't feel nearly ready to handle anything like this, but I also know that God doesn't ask us to do things we can't do. :-)  I'm sure God is going to help me this transfer, but I could really use everyone's prayers.  :-)  I can't do this on my own and I know that.  I'm relying on God's help.

 

So that's the big news!  Summarized: I'm staying in Fujisawa with Sister Stankosky and being made a Sister Training Leader (one of the first in the Tokyo South Mission).  2 New Sisters will be coming to Fujisawa as well!  I'm officially in the Tokyo South Mission!  My mission address will be changing.  I'm not sure what it is yet so I'll let you know when I do.  For now, keep sending them to the same address you all have right now and they'll get forwarded here.  It will just take longer...

 

I love you guys so much! Have a great week and know that I'm praying for you all!

I LOVE YOU!

Love,

Christine

Transfer 7 Week 6: June 17, 2013

Hey guys!  We:re using the Japanese computers again which have nothing
but Internet Explorer on them...  Internet Explorer isn:t exactly
compatable with gmail, so it:s in like the freakishly old HTML mode.
Yaaada. (Japanese slang for -GRRAAARHGH!- :P) 

Hey everybody!!
I:ve got 15 minutes to fill you all in on my week... meaning I:m only
going to tell you the really exciting bits!  Yosh!

WEDNESDAY:
We went on Exchanges with the Sisters from Hiro-o.  With the new
Sister Training leaders stuff and everything exchanges were a little
bit different.  Both Sister Julander and Sister Jensen came to
Fujisawa to dendo with us!  Yay!  It was a day of miracles.
Seriously.  In the morning we made a goal to find 2 new investigators
and give out 4 BoM:s.  We were able to find 3 new investigators and
give out 5 BoM:s!!!!  WHAAAAAAT!　It was insane!  I learned so much
from the exchanges.  Both Sister Julander and Sister Jensen are
fantastic missionaries.  I loved it!

THURSDAY:
ONE YEAR!!!  That:s right.  This week I reached my one year mark as a
missionary.  Can you believe it?  One year ago I was in the MTC with
absolutely no idea what I was about to get myself into.  ;)  We
celebrated by going out to eat and having ice cream and okonomiyaki.
(Look it up on Google. xD)

SATURDAY:
We got hungry and went to this store called Mister Donuts which is
really famous out here in Japan.  While we were eating my companion
started talking to the girl next to her.  She turned out to be way
good at English and has a real interest in the church!  She:s
seriously a kinjin!  We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she:ll
be coming to church this next week!  Please pray that she:ll be able
to make it!  Her name is Karen.

Other than that it was actually a pretty boring week... And I just
don:t have time really to go into all the details, but yeah!
This week is transfer calls... The transfer calls that decide what
mission we:re going to be in. AHH! Crazy.  I don:t really know what:s
going to happen with me...  So be excited for next weeks email!

I love you guys so much!  I hope you:ve had a fantastic week and I
can:t wait to write you all from wherever I am next week!  Thank you
guys for all of your support and prayers!  They really are felt and
I:ve needed them a lot this transfer.

Have a great week!  I know a year is a long time, but don:t forget
about me, kay!? x)
LOVE YOU GUYS!
-
Christine

Transfer 7 Week 5: June 9, 2013

Hey everyone!  Sorry, no Japanese today... i:m going to apologize
right now for the strange layout of this email...  The Japan Tokyo
Mission(s) is the only mission in the world right now to have laptops
in the apartment so usually I use that to write the email home... but
today we didn:t have time to go back to the apartment for emails...
Why you may ask?  BECAUSE WE WERE AT THE BEACH!!!  WHAAA!  :D  I was
way happy... and I am now officially a lobster.  x)  I:m pretty
burned... My companion keeps asking me if I:m okay because it looks
really painful apparently.  I:ll send pictures.  ;)

This week we saw so many awesome little miracles.

TUESDAY:
We went with the Elders to hand out fliers at Shonandai station.
While there I made friends with this girl named Saya.  We exchanged
contact information and I invited her to come to an activity we:re
having this next Saturday.  We:ll see if she comes or not.  She:s way
sweet though. :)

WEDNESDAY:
Elder Ringwood of the Quorum of the 70 came to tour our mission.  It
was an awesome conference and I really got a lot out of it.  One of
the biggest things we talked about though it seemed like was miracles.
 President Budge spoke and quoted another missionary who he had asked
how he kept working even when it was hard.  The elder said <I don:t
care whether or not I SEE the miracles.  I just work and trust that
God is doing His job up there.  Whether I see the miracles or not
doesn:t matter.>  I thought that was SO cool.  Lately we:ve been
seeing a lot of really little things going on, but not very many big
<miracles>.   I was getting kind of discouraged, but he really
reminded me that it doesn:t matter whether or not your seeing them, if
you:re working your hardest miracles are happening.  ((Thanks so much
for your email about that Dad.  I can:t even tell you how much it
helped. :D))
The other cool thing that happened.  On Tuesday evening we got an
email from honbu saying <Elder Ringwood wants to do interviews!
Here:s the list of those who will be interviewed.>  I was looking
through the list... District Leader, Zone Leader, Assistant to the
President, Me, a bean-- Wait, ME?! ;)  That:s right.  I was really
weirded out.  Like really weirded out.  Stankosky shimai says it:s
because I:m going to be made into a Sisters Training Leader and I said
<No way. Not happening.> :P  So Wednesday was the day of the
interview!  It turned out that it seemed like he was just doing a
follow up on our Mission President.  He asked me things like <Do you
feel like you can talk to him?> and <How would you feel if next
transfer you were sent to the South Mission?>

THURSDAY:
We had Eikaiwa... There:s this HUGE drama going on right now with
Eikaiwa.  They recently changed the Eikaiwa program to be that we
aren:t allowed to talk about church things during Eikaiwa.  Before,
they used to do things like reading the Book of Mormon together in
English, or singing a hymn at the start of every Eikaiwa class.  Now
the rule is, unless specifically asked a question, no disccussion of
churchlike things... Hoooowever.  In some areas, the members have
really taken that to the extreme.  Apparently in one area a class
started asking a lot of questions about the church and the missionary
teaching ended up being able to share the Restoration and pretty much
teach all of Lesson 1. Way cool right?  The whole class was
participating and it was a really uplifting experience for everybody
involved.  Well, afterwards that missionary was approached by their
Eikaiwa Coordinator who chewed him out for talking about anything
religion related during class.  The missionary responded with <Well,
they asked and everyone was participating. Did someone complain or
something?>.  The Eikaiwa Coordinator said nobody had complained but
that he was breaking the rules and was a terrible missionary and a
horrible representative of Christ and such.  The missionary fought
back saying <I am a full time representative of Jesus Christ.  I:m not
going to stop testifying of Him or teaching about Him for an hour when
they are ASKING me to talk about Him.>  Today when I was talking with
that missionary about it he said <I:ve dedicated 2 years of my life to
teaching about Christ.  I:m not going to just take a break from that 1
hour every Wednesday or Thursday.  This is the WHOLE reason I came out
here is to invite people to come unto Christ.  I didn:t come out here
to teach English.>
Well, that experience has turned into this big To-do and we:re not
really sure what:s going to happen to Eikaiwa because of it.
Honestly, I:m on the missionaries side right now... Eikaiwa is meant
to be a tool used for finding people.  The change of policy for
Eikaiwa was just to make it so that learning about the church is not
required, but a choice.  Like he said, we didn:t come all the way out
here to a different country to teach them English.  We came to teach
them about Christ.
But anyway, luckily fujisawa is not one of those areas with that
problem.  Our Eikaiwa was way fun! :P

Skipping a few days......

SUNDAY:
We set a goal this last week to have 4 people come to church... AND WE
MET IT!  YAY!  Miki and Emu (2 of our Eikaiwa students) came, a
teenager who has been coming to church off and on for the last several
years came, and a members friend!  She:s the one I want to talk about
in 2 minutes! :P
Her name is Akiko.
I asked Akiko why she decided to come to church today. She said that
all her life people have tried to force religion down her throat.
People have talked about all they believe and their different gods and
such... She said that this friend of hers had not once in all their 10
years of friendship ever tried to force her into her religion. She
said, <she:s different.  I wanted to find out why.>

I just want to testify to everyone out there reading this that your
example really is seen by all those who aren:t members.  Im SO
greatful for this member who was such a good example to her friend.
When I eventually come back (AHH! Don:t think about it don:t think
about it don:t think about it) that:s the kind of member that I want
to be. :)

I hope that you all had a fantastic week!  Can:t wait to hear from you
guys!  Thank you all for everything!

Love,
Christine

Transfer 7 Week 4: June 2, 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Most of Christine's email this week was mostly to her family, which she didn't really want published for all, but I think most of it is appropriate to share.  I will probably edit it a bit, but I think it has shown so much growth for Christine, and that is what people are always asking me about.  I hope she forgives me.  :)
~Mom

皆様おはいようございます！

This week was... crazy.  Just crazy.  :-)  We saw so many amazing miracles... and of course titled them all.  We're just that cool. ;)

Family: So the biggest thing of this week I don't really want everyone knowing about... So keep this part off the blog okay? :-)  Love you guys.

So this week was probably one of the hardest weeks of my whole mission so far and that really is saying something... I mean you guys remember how I was during my first and second transfer with Kuwahara姉妹. Well, after I got the news about Logan I got really depressed... Not really necessarily about Logan because, like I said, I dedicated a whole personal study time to what happened to him.  He's okay.  No, what I got really depressed about was everyone else.  I'm sure there are a lot of people who worked at the Space Center who were pretty upset about Logan. I realized too that while I've been gone, life is still continuing at home. People are growing up and changing.  When I get back, things are going to be different than when I left... I'm going to be different from when I left.  Then my companion, as you all know, really has a hard time staying focused on the work.  This week she's been working on her college application for this fall and it's been all she can talk about this week... So that got me super stressed out about school and work and just life.  For the first time in a long time, I wanted SO badly to come home... but I didn't want to come home because everything would be different.  I felt trapped and alone.  I felt like I had nobody to talk to.  I mean, what could I do?  Email President Budge and get an email saying "I'm not letting you go home so quit whining and get to work"?  Talk to my companion who is depressed and distracted enough?  Yeah, I didn't know what to do.  And to make everything better, we went back this week to all of those houses we posted last week and found... nobody.  Not a single person... So I had nothing to distract me from what I was thinking either.

Then we had District Meeting.

If there's one really handy trick I learned from the Space Place it's the ability to put on a smile and make people think nothing is wrong so you can get the work done.  That's what I did.  As far as I know, the only one even slightly aware of what I was feeling was my companion.  This District Meeting consisted of a total of 6 missionaries... The District Leader, his bean companion, the two Zone Leaders, and my companion and I.  Well, the district leaders companion stood up to give us all a training.  The youngest missionary among us. :P  He was so nervous, but he bore such a powerful testimony that God was there and loved each of us.  It really touched me.  Then the District Leader stood up and said "I testify to what my companion said.  God is there. He's here. Remember, He's not just standing at the finish line waiting with open arms yelling 'Come on!  Come on!'.  He's with us every step of the way.  He's holding our arms and pushing us forward.  We are not alone."  That really really hit me hard.  I guess for the first time I really realized the truth of that... I've always had this image of God standing at the gate saying "Well done thou good and faithful servant"... Someone watching and cheering, but I really didn't feel... like He's here right now. You know?  Well, I realized after that meeting that what I really wanted more than anything right now is someone to be with me right now.  Someone to listen to me and someone to pick me up because I've definitely fallen down... I went home and prayed.  I felt this... overwhelming feeling of just... love.  I was still depressed beyond all reason and I was so upset... but for the first time in my mission, I didn't feel alone.

"God isn't just waiting at the finish line with open arms yelling 'Come on! Come on!'.  He's with us every step of the way.  He's holding our arms and pushing us forward.  We are not alone."

In my President Letter this week I wrote "This week has been one of the hardest weeks of my mission so far... and I wouldn't have it any other way. I've learned so much from it and I'm so greatful for it."  My companion wrote a song after district meeting that went something like "Every day's a hard one, but I wouldn't have it any other way because that's the way we grow. That's the way we learn He's there for you.  He's aware of you."  Although it's still hard, having a knowledge that I'm not alone has given me the strength to push forward and keep going.  I'm greatful for this trial I'm going through and almost passed.  Because of this I'm growing, changing, and becoming what God would have me be. :-)

Anyway, back to the miracles. :-)

"I've been looking for you!":

A few days ago we were out streeting.  Both my companion and I were EXHAUSTED.  For the last 3 weeks we've done nothing but finding. That's around 8 hours every day of biking, walking, climbing up and down stairs, walking, and walking!  We were so tired.  Well, while we were streeting I noticed this girl in a pink sweater who I thought just looked really friendly.  We walked up to her and I said "Konnichiwa!" She answered "Hello!"  :P I started, and said "Do you speak English?"  She said "A little." Then in Japanese she asked me if I speak Japanese, and I said (in Japanese) a little.  She smiled and looked at my badge and said "EH! I've been looking for you!  I used to go to Eikaiwa in (*insert name of a different area that I don't remember :P*) but I just moved here and didn't know where the church was!"  We ended up talking to her for a minute, not for long because she was on her way to the hospital, and showed her where the church was!  She's planning on coming to Eikaiwa this week so I'm way excited!

"Let's put one!"

So every night we have something we call a daily planning session.  We set a goal for the number of lessons that we plan on teaching the next day.  Saturday night we were planning and trying to decide how many member present lessons we were going to have. As far as we knew, the only investigators we had coming to church was Juna and Sara who are 13 and 11... My companion looks at me and says "Let's put one!  Someone will surprise us and come to church and we'll grab a member and have a lesson with them!"  We both kind of laughed a little and wrote it down.  I said "Wouldn't that be awesome?"  She said "Hey!  It could happen!"  I said "Yup!  It could and it will!"

At church the next day a member came and brought his nonmember mom with him!  He asked us if we'd be willing to teach her.  Crazy!  It ended up being a really good lesson and she had a really good experience at church!  Hopefully she'll be coming next week with her son again!  :-D

"I'm Shantel."

This week we had a dinner appointment at one of the members house.  Since both my companion and I are new to the area we were both sure we were going to get lost trying to find their house... We left about an hour and a half early just to make sure we made it in time even if we got lost.  When we got to the eki, my companion went to charge her passmo. (Passmo: A card you put money on and scan in order to board trains and busses and such.  When you run out of money on it you go to these little station things and charge it. :D)  I was looking around the station at all of the people and noticed a gaijin girl walking around with her suitcase.  I watched her for a little bit and she walked up to a random nihonjin girl and started talking.  They both looke really flustered and frustrated.  We decided to go talk to her and see what was going on!  Turns out she was a bit lost and doesn't speak ANY Japanese.  She'd been in Japan for less than a week and didn't know what to do.  We looked at our watch and said "You know what, we have time.  We'll go with you to help you find the right train station!"  We ended up getting to talk to her for about 40 minutes as we helped her find her way... Oh, backtrack real quick.  Right before this, we stopped at the church to drop off some of the really heavy things we had in our backpacks.  For the first time my whole mission, this last week I've been carrying around an English copy of the Book of Mormon.  I looked at it and thought about dropping it off at the church, but something said "don't do it"... Now I know why!  I pulled out that English copy and gave it to Shantell. She promised to read it!  Yaaaay!  :-D

And that was my week!  I love being a missionary! There's nothing like it!   I hope you guys have a fantastic week!  Thanks so much for everything you guys do for me.  All of your prayers and your support and letters!  I love you guys so much and miss you all a ton!  :-)

Hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Christine