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
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