Miracles Everywhere!

Happy new year everyone!

So new years in Japan is way bigger than Christmas so we were expecting it to be really hard to dendo but apparently Kamisama had different ideas because we found a miracle kyuudousha named Shinji in Starbucks. We just asked him a gengo question when he sat down next to us and he basically invited himself to church after a brief chill conversation. (he actually kinda has a kain feel it's awesome) Then when he came to church yesterday we discovered he'd already downloaded the quad on his phone with the side by side eigo and nihongo study mode. He made friends with like half the kain and was super into everything that went on at church. He even started family history in third hour! He's literally the most independent kyuudosha I've ever seen. (though to be fair I am still just a bean). It's been so amazing to see this awesome person come so close to God in such a short amount of time and we're trying really hard to follow the spirit's prompting so we can help him have the best experience. Man. I'm just so excited to dendo right now. It's been such a good week. God is so good. We're so blessed to be able to witness these things.

Also we had Trainer Trainee Training this week and that was really fun. I got to see my MTC district and meet other bean-chans. Like Rangel Chourou. He's cool and from Brazil and can play piano by ear. We're bros now. It's a good time. Also I'm not the worst at ping pong. Also there was a house on the street to the church that became a parking lot in a week. It was amazing.

But that's about it friends. See you soon! 

愛しています！

Sherwood 姉妹

    

Merry Christmas!

Yeosh it's Christmas on a P-day!

So last week we did lots of stuff but I'm also the worst at remembering things so ganbarimasu.

We had a couple lessons with kyuudosha. Riho-chan and Mako-chan. They're awesome and we love them very much. We're working slowly to help them build their faith, but tokidoki it's hard to teach when they don't feel like they're "missing" anything in their lives. Nevertheless, we just do our best to love them and be an image of Christ in their lives. 

District meeting was also pretty chill this week. We've been focusing on improving our efforts with family history and trying to involve members more in our work. Also afterwards we ate yakiniku, which is super oishii meat and veggies that you grill yourself and we just ate and ate and it was basically the best thing. 

Last night for Christmas Eve we ate dinner with the Kaizakis and had Christmas cake and super good fruit and a Japanese pear as big as Eaton Shimai's head. I was very happy. We shared a message about Jesus' names and how our understanding of the atonement helps us to understand his titles. It was a good time. 

Today we're hanging out with a recent convert, Madoka, and she's super awesome. Basically it's a great Christmas. I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas with your families and friends. Be happy, ne! 

愛しています！ 

Sherwood 姉妹

We went to the Kyoto Aquarium last P-day and it was awesome!

Christmas Conference

Konnichiwa!

Gomen nasai everyone our P-day got switched around a bit because of interviews with the president. Forgive me onegaishimasu. I don't have a ton of time today because we're going to the aquarium, but I'll write what I can.

Last week we had both our Mission Christmas Taikai (conference) and our ward Christmas party. Needless to say, there was much food and singing and spending time with lots of wonderful people. I made a bunch of new friends with the other missionaries, (weirdly though they're mostly the Brazilians. Go figure.) and we learned lots of cool things. We talked quite a bit about using our new online proselyting tools, Facebook and Line, and ways we can use them to fulfill our missionary purpose. It's been a blast. Also, a couple girls we stopped on the street a week or so ago actually came to our ward Christmas party! It was so awesome. We all ate cake and chicken (bc that's the Christmas Thing here) and got to watch so many cool talents and performances. One of the sisters in our ward is awesome at ventriloquy.  It's so cool.

But anyway, we've got a busy week ahead of us with people to teach and love. Our investigator, Mako-chan is meeting us today and we're going to teach her about the restoration and Joseph Smith. She's super awesome and super good at English! We really hope to be able to help her progress in the Gospel. 

Love you all! Ai shitteimasu! 

Sherwood 姉妹

P.S. Gomen there's not lots of photos bc we've been so busy. I'll repent next week. But in the meantime see the awesome Japan Costco cake and my new adorable socks! 

Seiko no Chikara

Konnichiwa!

This week has been really busy! We've been pressing family history and eikaiwa (English class) really hard, so hopefully our efforts will pay off this upcoming week. We have a few new investigators, but it feels like they're more interested in English than they are in the Gospel, so we're working hard to try to help them feel the Spirit and gain a desire to come closer to Christ. 

The other day we had a tiny awesome miracle while we were trying to visit a less active. While we were over there, we saw a girl crying, so we stopped to comfort her and help her out. It turns out she's a college student named Riho-chan and she had just done really poorly on an English exam. She asked us to teach her so we're planning on doing our best to help her with English and to promise her that as she reads the Book of Mormon, she'll receive help and support from on high in her studies. So yeah I'm really excited about that.

I got to teach eikaiwa for the first time this week and it was super fun. There's only three students right now (two of which are members so it's low key kinda sad) but we're doing our best and we're hoping that our challenge this week to bring a friend or family member will help increase our numbers and the breadth of our message's reach. English is actually one of the best finding methods here because so many people want to learn. It's mostly younger students that want to learn, but there's also lots of adults that want to learn as well! Most of the time, our lessons are half an hour of English and then another half hour of gospel principles. It's a super good time. 

Also the members here are super wonderful. Eaton Shimai and I are super good buds with Tahara Kyoudai bc he's the bomb. He loves to help us learn nihongo and he loves to learn English. He likes to call us the "missionary of missionaries" and he's just really good at making you feel like a million bucks. What a guy. Super Christlike. We're super grateful for his support in our efforts to build the Katsura Ward. 

Also fun thing we did this week: we discovered that "Scripture Power" doesn't exist in the Nihongo children's songs so we decided to fix that and translated it into nihongo ourselves! As it is, the song goes like this:

Iesu no youni naritai kara
Kare no kotoba taisetsu ni suru
Kotoba no chikara ga hoshii kara
Watashi no jinsei ga kawatte iru.

Seiku kara chikara morau
Tsumi o makasu youni.
Mainichi sore tsukai.
Sono yomu toki no kimochi.

Seiku kara mitama no ken mitzukeru.
Peiji kara shinkou no tate o toru.
Subete Shu no bugu o mi ni tsukete,
Hibi no tatakai norikoeru.

Seiku kara chikara morau
Tsumi o makasu youni.
Mainichi sore tsukai.
Sono yomu toki no kimochi. 

We gave it to the primary presidency yesterday for our ward's kiddos, and we're giving the sheet music to the rest of the Kyoto zone missionaries today, cos we're gonna sing it at the mission Christmas thingamajig because yes. It's gonna be awesome. 

愛していますよ！

Sherwood 姉妹

The view from our apato

 Our cool Japanese bedroom

 Scripture power pg 1

Scripture power pg 2

Finally in the field!

Konnichiwa!

So I finally made it out here! Despite a slight delay in my visa, I made it to Japan safe and sound! I met the mission president and his wife, and they are so wonderful! The Kobe mission is really focusing on family history and less actives so we can get a temple here! Even more awesome is our mission scripture: Moses 6:34, which is incidentally my personal favorite scripture!

I only got to spend one day in the mission home because of my delay, but it was great anyway! I got to meet up with the rest of my district and spend one last day with them before we all parted ways. I love them all very much, but now I'm here in the Katsura area of the Kyoto zone with my awesome companion, Eaton Shimai! The members here are awesome and strong even though there's only about 30 of them. The chouroutachi serving with us (Emerson Chourou and Slack Chourou) are also super amazing. Everyone is raring and ready to work! I can tell that miracles are going to happen here, especially because Eaton Shimai and I are the first sisters here in a really long time!

We've actually already got five new investigators already, all with appointments with us next week! Interestingly, one of our best finding tools is teaching English. Lots of people here really want to learn! So we do this thing where we teach English for half an hour and then lesson for the other half. It's super exciting!

Also fun story, yesterday Eaton Shimai and I got locked out of our apartment! Our key wasn't working so we had to go on a huge adventure on lots of trains with the chouroutachi so we could stay with another pair of sisters. It was a little stressful, but the Lord was with us, and I knew he had a plan for us, so it was all okay. We talked to some awesome people on the trains, and I feel that somehow, we needed to be there, even though I don't know exactly why. Also we got a new key today so it's all fine now and I get to sleep on my own futon again tonight!

In other news, the food is soooo oishii~~~~ 😍😍😍 Shibata Shimai had us over for dinner yesterday and I almost died it was so yummy. We ate yakisoba and curry and vanilla mochi ice cream with chocolate in the middle. My yummy was very happy indeed. Today Eaton Shimai and I went to go eat shabu shabu, which is basically a boiling pot of soup/sauce that you cook meat and veggies in and then you dip it in egg and eat it and it's basically the best thing. I just wanna eat food constantly. 

I don't have a ton of pictures this week because they're all on my camera and we don't have access to a computer (yet) so gomen nasai. Demo, I'll include what I have and send you all the rest next week! 

愛しています！

Sherwood 姉妹

 

The best district ever (愛していますよ)

 The coolest Kobe bean chans! 

Shabu shabu (aka happiness you can buy) 

 Our last gym takedown in the MTC

The squad overlooking the city of Kobe