It's sure been quite the week! I'm alive thanks to the superb efforts of my district, especially Stein 姉妹's massages of death and suffering and the Book of Hatchett 長老. Being an STL is harder than previously expected but it's fine. Also we're gonna get pants relatively soon so it'll all be okay.
But even though there has been a significant amount of stress this week, including various items of missionary business, Ooyama-san deciding to not come to church until the 20th of January because of New Year's (still salty about that), and my tiny Canadian daughter getting lost in the catacombs of Amagasaki with Stein 姉妹's daughter, the mini, sassy family that is Nishinomiya District has opened a wide path for miracles and blessings to flow through. Not the least of which is the blessed opportunity of getting to hear Pionita 長老 experience snow for the first time in his life over speakerphone held out for us by our fabulous district leader. (it's a sound more pure than a chorus of baby angels) Pionita 長老 wanted to build a snowman really badly and it's the actual cutest thing on the face of the planet. My heart exploded. He's my tiny baby son. #blessed
Just yesterday, we had a disappointing no investigators at church, but I always like to see times like this as a message from God that one of the members needs my help. And we found the member that needed us. We sat next to her in sacrament meeting, and during second hour we ended up just kind of having a discussion with her about the work right now in the mission and in the area. We told her about how despite the stressors of the mission, our district unity is making it easier to bear and we're able to be more effective because of it. In talking about this, I told her something Hatchett 長老 had told me and Stein 姉妹 when we were stressing out about MLC and low-key feeling like we were failing as STLs. He told us, "Imagine Jesus Christ came to you right now and just gave you a hug. And imagine he just said 'Thank you. Thank you for working so hard and trying your best, for sacrificing every day and giving me everything you have. Thank you for loving these people. Thank you so much. I'm so proud of you.'" Now when Hatchett 長老 had said this to us, I just started crying (as l do) and it helped me a lot, so I shared this with this member. And her response was essentially just "wow what a wonderful district leader" and the conversation moved on to our goals and hopes for the area. We expressed our desire to work more with family history and less-actives, and during that part of the conversation, we asked her the Smoot Kaichou Super Shitsumon of "who do you want most to sit next to you in sacrament meeting" (which by the way is a miracle question that always results in amazing things) and she told us about her less-active little sister. We asked her if her sister knows why she goes to church, and she said probably not. So I asked her to tell us why she comes, and she gave us fluffy primary answers. So then I shared my testimony of church and the power of the sacrament and the support that comes from fellowship in the ward and she got really quiet. Now I, being a Little Miss Chatterbox, decided I needed to take a page out of the listening chapter of the Book of Hatchett 長老 and Stein 姉妹 and just said nothing and let it be quiet. And then miracles happened. She said "this is kind of a question I'm scared to ask but how do I make the sacrament more meaningful? Everyone says they come for the sacrament but I don't think I really understand." and I shared my experiences from that day in sacrament meeting asking Heavenly Father to help me turn my stress and worries about the zone over to Him instead of storing them in my shoulder muscles. And then Pilling 姉妹 shared her experiences and it got really quiet again, and then the member just said "I think I'll try that next week." But it doesn't stop there. It gets better. She followed up that with the question of "if Jesus Christ came down and said you could onegai him for anything, what would you ask?" Pilling 姉妹 talked about asking how to have faith like the Brother of Jared, and I talked about asking how to know Christ more fully and what to do to make my calling and election sure. Then I asked her what she would ask and she basically just told us her entire tragic backstory about how before she probably would have just asked Him to take away all of her bad feelings and struggles and fix her weaknesses, but now she wants to ask Him to teach her what He wants her to do to become better. And then it was quiet again and I felt impressed to tell her that the Lord is proud of her. And then she started to cry and said that when I had told her about what Hatchett 長老 had said to me and Stein 姉妹 about Jesus coming and giving us a hug, she wondered if Jesus would say the same to her. So I just put on my figurative Friendly Neighborhood Missionary hat that Hatchett 長老 taught me how to make and told her essentially everything that Hatchett 長老 had just told us in district meeting a couple days before, and it was such a special experience, and it made the whole day worth it.
If that was the only thing that happened this week, I would have been satisfied, but the Lord is kind and there were lots of other tender mercies too. The ward council is really hyped up about family history and we have a lunch meeting with the new Family History Shunin on oshogatsu about how to get the cool new bingo chart circulating through the ward. And even better, we were given two new less active members to start working with with the Fukuchis, and a former investigator wants to plan a musical number to perform in sacrament meeting hopefully soon because she found out I like to sing and she's been working on a big music project.
And that was just Sunday! Earlier this week for Christmas we were able to spend the evening with the Bishop and his family and we had an awesome conversation about family history and the new mission goals for the year, and he's really excited to start drafting a ward plan to help contribute to the goals. Also we had a Christmas party in eikaiwa that straight up felt like a real American ward activity and ended in a really awesome spiritual message by the assistant dendo shunin. It was great. I'm really optimistic about the work in Kitarokko going forward, despite the fact that the place where our investigators are at doesn't show up in a way that we can report in the form of numbers. But it's okay because as Hatchett 長老 so eloquently put it at district meeting, we're the heroes in every celestial storybook, and the angels are counting our efforts in the records of heaven. I'm confident that miracles are close to blossoming in ways we've never before seen, and I'm ready for the upcoming year.
愛しています!
Sherwood 姉妹
Pictures are few gomen
1.) the mtc shimai are backkkk
2.) for Christmas the cute little pink alien friend on the area phone became Christmas themed and it made me happy
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