Sister Crofts-Called to Serve

Konnichwa!!

So i:m staying in Nagano with Sister Smith for this next transfer. I am super stoked, it:s starting to get cool- which is absolute bliss since we ride our bikes outside all day. This week I went to heaven. yep, you guessed it. preschool eikaiwa. It was only 30 minutes but quite possible some of teh happiest 30 minutes of my life. I was in a room of 30 plus japanese children. they were so cute. We sung songs with them and did the abcs and ring around teh roseys, ah i loved it. We went to the alzheimers care center again and there was this 99 year old man who hates foreigners. he invited elder tsukamoto over to talk to him because he is nihonjin, but when he found out that he has lived in america he completely stopped talking to him. So our mission leader went over and was trying to get him all riled(?) up by saying he is in the military and stuff. Hahaha it was so ridiculous. I was eaten by mosquitos this week. I will send a pic of the horror. We met with one the investigator who has been in and out for 10 years to go to lunch. We let her choose, which seemed harmless enough... So we go to down town Nagano and take a right on this sketchy alley and a left on sketchy alley number 2. There is this little building with a peter rabbit type door, totally harmless right? It looked like it would be the perfect situation to give a lesson about the gospel... Right? Me and Smith shimai had no idea what we were getting into. SO we open the door and it is this dimly lit, creepy, vampire house type of restaurant on the inside. There is a bar no the left, blood red walls, hundreds of creepy clowns decorating every inch of the restaurant, this spooky echoey music that brings shivers to my soul, and of course, a man dressed like mary antoinette in the corner. I honestly felt like I was going to cry. (I swear I am not being dramatic, it really was THAT SCARY). So here I am freaking out, and I look over at Smith Shimai... she is kind of frantically walking back and forth, sheer terror on her face, and watering eyes. She comes over to me and says *crofts shimai, we HAVE TO LEAVE. I am so scared. WE HAVE to leave.* There was this indian man cooking curry behind the counter and she was like *Is that chicken- PLEASE SAY THAT*S CHICKEN.* I almost wanting to laugh because she was freaking out so much, but then I realized.. Oh crap. I feel the same way. We were going to ask to go somewhere else, but we didn:t want to offend our investigator because she is easily offended. FInally we go towards are seat. We go up this creaking staircase to the 2nd floor, I honestly was praying to not die. We sit down and it is just this chamber type thing with a stage? I was waiting for them to start donig human sacrifices on it. SO SKETCH. So we:re both sitting there, petrified, kind of the *heh, heh, yeaaaaahhh... this is greeeaaaat...* Sort of thing. I:ve never been so freaked out. Hahaha. THe curry ended up being yummy and we ended up making it out fo there alive. We left and were lkikem *WHAT ON EARTH JUST HAPPENED?* SO we were kind of in shock from that all day. We went to go bowling for a YSA activity that night- 3 geijings, 1 guy from kenya, and 4 japanese people. We got quite the plethora of weird looks. Way fun though. RIght now, it feels like none of our investigators are progressing, they just don:t have the desire. We:ve been trying to get together with the lady who studied in Arizona for the past week and a half. She was planning on coming to church last sunday (we waited outside for her for over an hour) and she never showed. Her coworker got in a car accident. She is so busy and works crazy hours at work, so she can never make time for us. It makes me really sad, becasue I know that she is ready to hear the gospel. Our one investigator who we received through eikaiwa... We:re starting to wonder if she is just interested in english or if she actually has any desire to hear the gospel. We haven:t been able to teach her about the gospel since we invited her to hear the lessons.. She keeps avoiding the topic of the gospel. We found this old teaching record from 14 years ago that says she was an investigator, but only had a desire for english. We are kind of praying that it isn:t her... So we:re currently investigating that one. We:re trying to find people who will listen who actually have teh desire..

Me and grant shimai went on companion exchanges together. Hahahaha it was honestly hilarious. it was pouring rain, but of course we went out anyway. So we decided to go house this area. we were dripping wet, but just knocked on the doors smiling and testifying about the gospel. Usually when we go with our comps they are SO RUDE to us. But I think they felt bad for us because we were a bunch of gaijings, terrible japanese, dripping wet. What an image. So all of them were SO NICE to us, and we felt like above anything we made an impact on them through our kindness and respect. We went to one house where we asked the lady if we could share a message about eternal families, and it sounded like she wasn:t interested... BUt then she opened the door wide open.. of course, we have no idea what she said. So we just gave her a pamphlet and walked away. We might go back to her later when we have someone who can actually speak japanese. Hahaha. We were saying, this is awesome! THey are being so nice to us! But then we realized.. Dangit- we wouldn:t even know if we had an investigator or not because we don:t understand them. It was way fun though!

Saturday we had this craft activity and we spent all this time inviting people, preparing for it, and we honestly thought it would be a huge success. Only our relief society president showed up... We had probably passed out 500 flyers. Uhhh. I was super bummed about that.

It was a really hard week! Sometimes it is hard not to be discouraged, but there are people ready to hear the gospel. I have faith that God has a purpose for me here! All i can do is try, work hard, and continue in faith. THis gospel is true! Love you!

愛-Sister Crofts