Sister Crofts-Called to Serve

July 7, 2014

皆さんこんにちは!　元気でしょう？

Well, it has been another awesome week! Although it is July which means it is typhoon season. I don`t mean to say I hate it, but I do. Hahahaha. We ride our bikes in the rain alllll day. Even though we are wearing rain suits, we are still soaked on the inside because you end up sweating and get water in your rain suit. So you just feel wet all day long. It is harder to find people to talk to on the street too! We are getting up at 6 am to go and run every day! I love it.

Yamamoto san is doing AMAZING!!!! Last week we taught her about the plan of salvation and she wanted to take a picture of it. She asked about who the leader was about our church, and if we ever see him, we talked about the prophet and what not and she stood up because she was so excited when she saw the picture. She saw his face and started to rub it and said "ありがたいありがたい”, which is like I want to thank him. She was even more shocked that a person so important was someone we could meet or see. She is learning so much and she ... ahhhhh i love her. It is amazing how much she is growing. In her prayer she asked heavenly father to help her so she can be baptized. She said that the member who is tachiaiing her lessons is her best friend. SO CUTE. I love them. She loved church and is doing so great.

Last week we had a takoyaki party during eikaiwa and lots of our friends/investigators came! Kobayashi san had planned to come, but then at 8 o clock he shows up with this huge boxes of food for us. He told us how grateful he was for our help with his mom. It was SO MUCH FOOD. I couldn`t believe it. Also, do you want to hear something hilarious? So do you remember that man that we tried to get to follow the word of wisdom on the street? Well he came to the eikaiwa party. He talked a lot with the elders and what not, but I guess after what we had said to him he quit alcohol for 1 DAY!!!! but then decided it was to hard and stopped. But the fact that he quit for a day brings utter bliss to my heart.

We had a lesson with kobayashi san the next day. I was soooo excited to teach him. We had a member present for the lesson at the church and it had been really awesome. He sits down and says I want to know why there are so many Christian churches and how I know which one is true. We said how perfect it was because that is exactly what we want to talk about with you! and then out of nowhere this other member comes in and just sits down. Basically... In a nut shell... This member likes to talk. He talked forever and wouldn`t stop and he kept talking about all of these random things. I honestly wanted to start crying. He kept cutting off us and the other member and the lesson ended up being 2 hours... It was terrible. Kobayashi san told us over and over again how warm his heart felt though. When he prayed at the end of the lesson, he told God that what he is feeling is not something in his head, but it is something in his heart. He feels and recognizes the Spirit so strongly. It turns out that the member who came in and destroyed our lesson had actually gone for the other sisters lesson too and it was this man and woman who were together but living separately and he said "you will need this" and gave them a law of CHASTITY pamphlet. !?!? WHAT? WHAT? I could go on for a while about how unbelievable it was, but I am trying to get over it. Since that lesson, Kobayashi san won`t call us back... We are going to try and visit him tomorrow.

It was absolutely CRAZY!!! We go this old folks home every month. Missionaries have been going for months and months. We had to do a companion exchange and it was hard to get back in time for it, but I just felt like we needed to go. So we came back with one of the new missionaries from Czek and went with the other 2 shimai. When we went, we started by singing the American national anthem (HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY) and sung "I am a child of God". There were probably 20 old folks in the care center and 10 workers. So out of nowhere one of the workers said how we have been coming here for a while but they don`t know anything about what we believe. What is the difference between Mormons and Catholics? So we stood up and testified to them about the Book of Mormon and God`s continuing revelation through the prophet. Then at the end they all started doing the little cross prayer that Catholics do. Hahahaha. So then we talked about prayer and how we literally talk to God like he is our Father. So then I asked if we could say a prayer together so they could hear what it was like. So I said a prayer with all of them there. How crazy is that?!?!?!?! This room FILLED with Buddhists who don`t really even believe in God!! Then after that ALL of them were asking questions about the church and they kept saying "Mormon" over and over again. It was seriously SUCH a miracle and the Spirit was so strong. Gahhhhhh. I don`t know if anything will come out of it, but I LOVE opportunities like that where we can just testify and help them to feel the Spirit!

We went housing for several hours and were having no luck finding anyone. It was kind of a nicer area, so nobody really would listen. Then we found this family..... Both of the parents are deaf and they have two of the cutest children. We started trying to talk to them and it was rough, so then they got their 5 year old son and he translated for us. I tried American sign language but it was in vain...... Hahaha failure. But they wanted us to come back so I am way excited to go back! I don`t know how we will communicate, they wrote a lot in kanji when they were writing messages for us. So I guess me and Moore Shimai will have to study more kanji and pray for the gift of tongues.

HAVE A GOOD WEEK!!!!

Love you.