May 19, 2014

It was so awesome to talk/Skype to everyone last week on Mother’s Day. It is super crazy that it was my last!  This week, I hit my ONE YEAR MARK.  I actually only have 5 months left in my mission. Also, I am officially 21 as of this week too.  Whoa.  It is so crazy to think how much my life has changed because President Monson changed the missionary age.  SERIOUSLY a miracle. :)  There are good things going in our area, but this last week was actually really hard for us.  Two of the people we are teaching committed to start preparing for baptism two weeks ago, but now we haven`t been able to meet with them. NOOOOO!   We taught one of them about the Word of Wisdom and she totally understood the logic and everything about it, but she has absolutely not even an ounce of a desire to quit smoking and coffee.  So we are really praying for a miracle.

 So last week we were doing TONS of finding.  We were talking to every single person we saw about God and about our message. On Saturday, we talked to over 60 people within just 2 hours, but we weren`t able to find one person who would listen or who had interest. But, I guess the miracle is that we gave 1 cute girl a Book of Mormon, talked to 60 people about God and Jesus Christ, and did the very best that we could.  It was a little bit discouraging when last week we were just working our hearts out and weren`t able to see the difference it was making.  But we have no regrets and all that God can ask of us it to try!  

Also my skin is absolutely wigging out... I have like this giant rash that is covering my entire body.  It started small in March, and I thought it would just go away and was no big deal but now it is seriously everywhere.  I called the mission doctor and he sent the images to a dermatologist in Utah. Pending... My body is literally dying. Hahaha.  

It was absolutely pouring rain, but we went out to visit some people away from our apartment. We started housing and found this cute lady who we thought was Japanese, but she was actually Brazilian. She wanted nothing to do with religion. She felt like all religions were not teaching what Jesus Christ taught.  At first, she didn`t want to listen, but we kept talking to her and then talked about Joseph Smith.  We pulled out a lesson 1 pamphlet. It was absolutely pouring rain. We could barely see, the pamphlet was totally kawai sooo..... But the spirit was SO STRONG! She was speechless. She couldn`t read kanji, but she wants Portuguese and we are going to go back.  It was cool to see how much she changed from the beginning of our conversation to the end. 

Well, we are working hard, no regrets, doing the best that we know how to do.  Also, it is fun to be a Sister Training Leader because we get to go do comp exchanges/training with other girls in our area and help them get STOKED about missionary work and opening our mouths. Last week, I went with a sister who hadn`t been able to find anyone to teach for weeks and weeks, then we went on our kokan, had an awesome time, found some new people to teach and then she found a bunch of new people the rest of the week! She was sooooo excited!  It is easy to get discouraged, but I know that God is helping us every single day, we just have to keep pushing through and showing our faith. We had a crazy experience last week where we visited lots of members that aren`t coming to church, nobody was home of course. So later that night as we were returning to the apartment, we ran into a lady who was a less active member for over 30 years. But, she had been feeling super depressed that day and thinking about why she was here, and of course.. SHE MET US.  She hasn`t had contact with the missionaries because she moved, but she wants to learn more. Yayyy. Anyway, I love being a missionary. I will tell you straight up. It. is so hard. It makes me appreciate so much more that Jesus Christ knows what it is like. I love you, always praying for you! 

Love, 

Sister Crofts

Trying to teach the Brazilian lady in pouring rain

Our pamphlet didn't survive the pouring rain

Japanese rice fields

An arukokai with our ward. We went hiking and one of our friends came

This is called an onzen. They are the rage in Japan. Usually, it is a giant bath that everyone goes naked.  We took the beginners level and just had to put up with people's "naked feet"