NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Good Morning everyone!!!!!!

It is such a beautiful day in Kariya.  I honestly am so happy that I am staying.  I love the area  and the people so so much. Yesterday,  I was just sitting in church completely overwhelmed by how special these people are and how much I love them!!!

This last week has been really busy and filled with lots of planning!  Since the other sisters moved to Fukutoku, we have to take care of all the people they worked with. We figure- get organized; work harder the rest of the transfer.  They had 1 person they were teaching, she is super sweet and Philipino. This past week, we have found several new investigators and they are such amazing people. I am super blessed!  Two of the people are Brazilian,  so Saturday 7 hours was spent teaching people in Portuguese.  7 HOURS!  It was really good though.  It was hard, because I can`t really help Silva Shimai with the Portuguese because I can only learn Japanese unless otherwise authorized by my mission president. So the entire time, I was just praying so hard "Heavenly Father PLEASE help her. PLEASE let her be guided by the Spirit."  I could follow sometimes what they were saying so I knew what they were talking about, but I couldn`t say anything in Portuguese... So one of the people read a verse from the Book of Mormon and said "I believe." The Spirit was so strong during the lessons.  If I ever was unsure, I would just pray and feel the Spirit so strongly and I KNEW that she was being guided and what she was saying was true. When I told that to one of the investigators, he was speechless.  He said, you don`t know Portuguese, but you can understand and FEEL it is true???" And that was the case. Miracles are real and the gift of tongues and the gift of the spirit really work in incredible ways.

We found one former investigator that we are beginning to teach and she somehow knows all of the people who are less active in our area. So Saturday,  she was trying to visit less actives with us even though she isn`t a member! Cool huh? She just kept saying "I know how important your work is and I want to help you!" We went to a Brazilian chuhascaria, soooooooo yummy!

It is AMAZING because the members really love the missionaries and are all trying so hard to work with us and help us in any way. We are SO CRAZY BUSY, but it couldn`t be better. There are so many people who are slowly coming back to church and the work is really progressing in our area with reactivation and finding investigators.

This past week,  I met my ULTIMATE challenge with chopsticks: Eating CRAB.  It was quite possibly one of the most challenging things I may ever have to do. Hahahaha,  I was crying from laughing because it was so hard. I was sitting by one of the members, who is about 14 and she was laughing so hard because I was like a child. My food was splattering everywhere as I just tried to eat and ... Uh... It was so hard. Hahha NEVER AGAIN. SOooo embarassing.

The mission conference was AWESOME!  We went to Nagoya and Elder Evans was a misison president in our mission about 15 years ago. It was so great because the whole time he just focused on being reliable, diligent missionaries so that we can work together with the word.  Me and Sister Silva are trying every single day to have a change of heart and become better missionaries. There were 4 sisters that spent the night at our apartment the night before the conference. Kariya Shimai is still a relatively new apartment so there are only 4 blankets. So there are only heaters in 2 rooms of our apartment so the other ones are like walking into a freezer. So me and Silva Shimai gave them the blankets and the futons/pillows and what not because we wanted to be good hosts... Hahaha,  so I started out wearing a thermal and a hoodie and some socks. Ya know, the standard.  However after laying there blankly by the window in the room with no heater for an hour and realizing that it is utterly FREEZING I decided that wouldn`t fly. So I tried getting gloves, another scarf, extra socks and an extra thermal. Laying there.... 2 hours later... I go get another thermal, warmest winter coat and more socks and ear warmers and a hat and I was still shivering. So I had gotten up several times in the night by this point and Silva Shimai asks me if I am okay.  She touches me and sees that I am loaded with layers and says SISTER,  YOU ARE FREEZING. So then she says get in my futon. (she was also freezing so she had geniusly unzipped her futon cover and laid in it. So then I get in, shivering. And she puts my pad on top of me and the futon and just lays on top of it to tries to get warm.  It was one of the coldest nights of my life, but the next day me and Silva Shimai were laughing so hard because we were like THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Hahahaha we were so tired the next day and we cannot stop talking about how bad that was. It is kind of funny because last p-day we had been thinking about buying blankets, but we were like nahhh, lets save our money we don`t need it. Hahaha dangit.

It has been an awesome week and I wish I could stay here forever. The power of the Atonement is real and He gives me complete comfort and strength every single day.  It is amazing to see miracles every single day, but most importantly to see miracles in myself. I love this gospel and I will spend my whole life sharing how important it is to me and to others happiness. God lives, this church is TRUE. I love you! Happy Thanksgiving! I will probably be eating some form of questionable raw fish on Thanksgiving... THINK OF ME and eat extra turkey okay?

Love,

クロフツ姉妹

We practice teaching to Hello Kitty everyday.