Broseph #1

Konnichiwa minasan! 

So this week was really fun. We got to help out one of the members memorize a speech for her English club and it was super fun. Jones Shimai rapped it to help her remember it better and it was super funny. And hey now we have way good kankei with her so it was way great.

Tuesday we taught a couple of recent converts, and we were very surprised to find that one of them had completely forgotten that the word of wisdom was a thing that we believe. Slightly worrying, but we read D&C 89 together and it ended up being okay. Also there was a worldwide problem with the tablet filters and so none of us could access wifi without our tablets getting wiped. It was a hard day. We also got to do a way good mogi lesson with Wilkin Kyoudai. We determined that we direly need to improve our teaching skills and also have to repent about using the book of mormon more in our teaching. Also we learned some way cool teaching tools so that was fun. 

Wednesday we walked six kilometers to Sanda and annoyingly enough there wasn't a soul to be found (probably because it was ridiculously hot). But hey Eikaiwa was fun and we had lots of time to bond so that was good.

Zone conference on Thursday was also really great. We took to heart the counsel to clean out the area book so we've been doing that hardcore and now we've got a whole list of potential people to try and contact now so it's nice to have direction for once. Current favorite "former investigator" is "Broseph #1. " It's horrendous. But soon it will be gorgeous and beautiful and ready for wonderful new investigators.

We taught Nakamura-san and Kunitsu-san this week and they're progressing slowly but surely. Honestly, what they need is the Book of Mormon. Once they start truly reading it, they'll progress much faster. 

Also our dendo shunin is changing soon because Uekubo Kyoudai is moving so who knows what's gonna happen there. But because of that we've been told to focus on individual members over the structure of Ward council and stuff at this point because the system takes too long to move and we need to be working effectively. The current idea is to try to make mini activities to do with members and their friends, so we're putting together a list of all the old referrals in the area book that never got followed up with. We're really excited. Hopefully this week will see much better results.

愛しています！ 💕

Sherwood 姉妹

1.) my companion, the burrito 

2.) my companion, the cat

3.) we went to Takarazuka, home of the Takarazuka Revue, aka reverse Shakespeare where instead of everyone being played by men, everyone is played by women. めっちゃ行きたい

4.) the view from our apartment

5.) it was a hard day. We lost access to wifi and all dendo related to it. I had a breakdown. Almond milk, oreos, and Milo were necessary

Suddenly Edmund in Chronicles of Narnia Becomes Relatable

Konnichiwa minasan! 

Well this week there were several adventures here in the inaka (countryside) of Kita Rokko of varying degrees of ridiculousness, but I'll start with the investigators.

Maho: So we met with her twice this week and it's been going both very well and very not. Like she's willing to listen and has a lot of questions. Like the "wait this doesn't make sense in my current view of the world" sort of questions, which is a good start I guess, but she may well be too stubborn to change that view, which for obvious reasons may prove problematic. But she's made friends with Wilkin Kyoudai which is way good, if not a little stressful because he low-key judges our teaching skills and it gives me minor anxiety.

Kunitsu-san: we got to do a lesson with her again finally. Turns out she was slammed with work and studying for this exam that'll let her get a new, less taihen job. So we rushed in there with the Spirit and challenged her to read and pray everyday with the promise that if she did so she'd be able to focus better and get the job she wants. Hopefully she rises to it.

Matsumoto-san: so we visited her this week in an attempt to set up an appointment to teach her family history, but what ended up happening instead was we bonded over cute family photos, jamming for a second on a traditional Japanese harp, and set up an appointment to make tacos together because Jones Shimai went to culinary school and is Jouzu(TM). Also she gave us super expensive fancy soumen it was insane. Like you know how there's like different color belts in tae kwon do and stuff? Well apparently soumen is the same. We had black belt soumen. 🥋 I feel like my taste buds are not equipped to properly appreciate it. (they were, however, more than equipped to appreciate the $7 grapes we were gifted by an eikaiwa student. I've never eaten a more delicious grape in my life) 

In other news, we've been trying really hard to find new people to teach but finding through our own efforts has been particularly difficult as of late. Maybe we just need to be better at stopping people when they are there, but also we can walk for 45 minutes and see maybe three people. We decided to walk the hour and a half to Sanda (because okane (money) is sukunai (few) and we didn't wanna spend $5 on a bus and also we still don't have bikes) and we saw exactly three people that whole time. I don't know where the people are. It's kind of frustrating. We want to do more service, but we're struggling to find a good place to start. We're working on it.

But hey this next week we have quite a few appointments so that's exciting, and hopefully we can find some more service opportunities at a community center. Not sure how those things really work, but we'll see how it goes.

Now for some adventure stories! 🎉

So last Sunday night, Jones 姉妹 was ranting to me about how men as cool/wonderful/nice/beautiful/etc as her favorite TV show characters don't exist so she's always disappointed. (incorrect, incidentally) And the next day (P-day) we went to this huge mall in Kobe called Harborland with Maho. It was jamming and there was this Turkish ice cream stand. And lo and behold turns out Heavenly Father has the best sense of humor because the guy running the stand just so happened to have the looks and vibe of two of her favorite characters, Tangled's Flynn Rider and Transformers' Knockout combined into one person. We saw this dude and just looked at each other like 👀👀👀👀👀 trying not to laugh super hard. So we talked to the guy for a bit and I bought ice cream because it looked way good (it was delicious btw) and APPARENTLY according to Jones 姉妹 he totally flirted with me and it went right over my head like a fly ball over a six year old baseball player on a Major League field. I didn't find out until Jones 姉妹 started dying of laughter after the fact. She calls him the Turkish Delight now (thus the email title). We laughed about this for like three days straight. Also nihonjins get a kick out of it when we tell the story. #sistermissionarylife

Also recently we were housing a bit and ping ponged into this lady who came out and spoke fluent English to us. But she gave off this really creepy "I will come and suck out your soul in the night" vibe and was like "ah, young people can remember things so easily. It just sticks in your braiiiinnnnnn~" We were very uncomfortable. 

Also we made lots of takoyaki this week. None of it was real. The first time was a powdered mini takoyaki kit and the second time was an experiment with TACOyaki. @levi:❤️❤️❤️ it's all for u bean. 

When we visited Matsumoto-san we got to jam with her on this way cool traditional Japanese instrument that I don't know the name of. She let us take videos. 

愛しています！ 💕💕
Sherwood 姉妹

1.) my new favorite recipe found in the apartment

2.) us + Indonesian girls + Viatnamese dudes

3.) the harbor! 

4.) we live in the inaka

5.) #squad

6-7.) best comps

8.) Maho takes more pictures of us than we do

9.) lookin good😉

10.) took Maho to indo curry for the first time

11.) new sunglasses! 

12.) life is good

13.) we have matching anklets

Missionaries! Transfer and Roll Out! 🚛

Konnichiwa minasan! 

So this week was TRANSFERS! 🎉🎉🎉 Hattanda Shimai has gone off to my beloved Shikoku to be the sister training leader in Marugame with Eyring Shimai! Omedetto! Meanwhile, I'm still here in Kitarokko with Jones Shimai! She's like me but less mellow. Also turns out we both share a deep and abiding love and appreciation for animated robots that disguise themselves as various vehicles. She's a fifth transfer which makes me the SENPAI aka I'm the one in charge of understanding everything now and it's only extremely stressful. I don't know what I'm doing. "Average missionary knows what they're doing 3 times per day" factoid actually statistical error. Missionary Georg who lives in Brazil and knows what he's doing 10,000 times a day is an outlier adn should not have been counted. 

But anyway, this week we've had lots of really good lessons! Might as well just go through them by investigator.

Imanaka: We had a couple lessons with him this week. We had a phone call lesson actually on Monday. We read Enos together, and interestingly the main thing he got from it was that Enos was able to obtain forgiveness through prayer. (Gospel of Jesus Christ anyone?) He said he'd try praying, but when we went and followed up with him on Saturday, he hadn't, and seemed a lot more down and depressed than usual. He also said a great many things that neither I nor Jones Shimai were able to understand due to the fact that gamer Japanese is impossible to understand. But the fuinki (vibe) we got was that his mental and emotional health status is making it difficult for him to even accept the idea that God is there. Unfortunately, we have neither the Japanese nor the stewardship as sisters to really help him through it, so we may need to stop teaching him. He probably will struggle to progress until there are Japanese elders in the area.

Sofiah: We met with her on Tuesday and wow what a great lesson! Naganuma Shimai dousekied for us and we were able to help Sofiah resolve a lot of her concerns. She didn't understand the connection between the events of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, so we went through an overview of the contents of the Book of Mormon and watched the Restoration movie with her. By the end of it all she was really excited to read the Book of Mormon again and said if she received a witness of its truth she would get baptized! (that conversation ended up involving a more in depth discussion of the priesthood than I've ever needed to teach ever before in my life. #DendoInACountryWithoutAChristianBackgroundWoo) We're way excited.

Maho: We met with her again on Friday for a 30/30 but the gospel discussion part ended up taking longer than expected because she had so many questions! She said that she doesn't think God exists but is really fascinated (like a large very huge rock in her figurative mental view of the world shoe #Ravenclaw) by the fact that we keep telling her we know He exists. She's super willing to try things out for herself and has set up appointments with us for the next three weeks! Also we're going to hang out with her today for P-day. It's a good time. 

Aside from all that we've been walking everywhere because Jones Shimai's bike hasn't come yet and also I would rather go out Abinadi-style than bike up a hill. (which actually isn't too far off from what could actually happen because it's blazing up in here🔥🔥) So we've had lots of time to bond and talk about our investigators and also life in general. I have accidentally reached High Elder Sister Role Model status within a matter of days. Idk why. I don't actually know what I'm doing. I'm just pretending I have my life together and hoping it works. #FakeItTilYouMakeIt

But yeah so that's the gist of this week! More to come as things and investigators progress!

愛しています! 💕💕
Sherwood 姉妹

1.) Walking through a jungle path to Imanaka-san's house

2-5.) Japanese filters with Maho-chan 

19歳 20歳

🎶Secret Tunnelllll Secret Tunnellllll🎶

Konnichiwa minasan! 

Many apologies but I have zero energy so the flavor of this email will probably be much like that of a pretzel stick. This week we managed to schedule a couple of solid appointments with investigators, most of whom, I am noticing, are very tired and sad individuals. Good thing the Balm of Gilead is quite the salve. Now if we could only get them to realize that they want it, our work would be much smoother.

We got to go hiking on Tuesday with this one eikaiwa student, Suenaga-san, and that was way fun. There were many many 🎶secret tunnels through the mountains🎶 (not actually secret. they were old railroad tunnels that became obsolete) and no hills so I was very happy. It was still really hot though and my hand still hurt from last week's wasp sting so I was a little out of it. But a member came with us too and it was some pretty jamming kankei building time and I got to omoidasu (suddenly remember) a funny song from the best TV show so that was good. 

Taniguchi-san became a real honest-to-goodness investigator this week. We taught her about the Restoration and even got to use the cool time-line thing. A lot of things about the history of truth throughout the years seemed to click in her head, so that was way good. We zoned in way hard on prayer and understanding answers from God through the spirit, and I'm at 103% sure she felt the spirit in high voltage for a second there (mostly because we invited Him, He came, and I told her He was there. A fail-proof formula indeed). She, at the very least seems to be willing to try things out, but she seems to be lacking the confidence in her own ability to forge a relationship with Heavenly Father. Baby steps.

Also we found out this week that Nakamura-san watches that TV show, Family History, and he was very surprised when we told him that Christians care about their ancestors. It's a good thing too, because he likes to pull the whole "I'm an ojiichan it's impossible for me to learn new things" act (300% untrue) and this way we can help him realize the gospel is in fact going to make his life better.

Imanaka-san is our other almost-investigator who needs a very strong dose of happiness in his life. Poor guy has a hard time with people so he turns to videogames. (incidentally, gamer Japanese is ridiculously hard) I visited him with Ishikawa Shimai on our koukan and turns out he's actually way nice and kinda like a blank slate, down to listen and absorb stuff. Whether or not he actually acts on the stuff we give him is a whole other story that we haven't read yet but we'll see how that goes.

Speaking of Ishikawa Shimai, we visited this friend she had when she was in elementary school in Japan, and not only was she home, she remembered Ishikawa Shimai, invited us in, told us she'd talked to missionaries in the past, and gave us way cool hair pins. It was away good time. She told us to come back another time, so now that's in the works for next transfer.

The week's crowning miracle, however was probably that Maho-chan came to church this week. Now you see, I have never met Maho-chan before. Hattanda Shimai has only. Met her twice. Yet when we texted her and said "hey wanna come to church?" she was just like "sure" and then actually came! And then the members were the Best, made good friends with her, invited her to come with us to lunch, and then at said lunch, we talked a whole lot about Jesus Christ and faith in God and the Book of Mormon, and how by exercising faith and learning, she can learn for herself whether or not all this stuff is true. She seemed a little overwhelmed, but she responded well, and said she'd think about it when we taught her about baptism. Honestly, it was the testimony of the members that really made the difference. They were so good at relating to her and making her feel loved. Also they used a bunch of way good easy to understand tatoes. Hopefully the seeds planted on Sunday will take root and start growing. 

愛しています! 💕

Sherwood 姉妹

19歳 20歳

1-3.) Maho-chan + her Japanese camera filters

4.) an ancient Australian relic from the time Wilkin Kyoudai was a missionary (aka like three years ago) found when helping Ito 長老 and Courter 長老 clean out the 長老 apartment.

5.) the training we gave on teaching to meet needs and helping people resolve their concerns at district meeting. Olive trees are tricky little buggers man

6.) 🎶Secret Tunnellllll secret Tunnellllll through the mountainssssss secret secret secret secret tunnellllllllllllllll yeah🎶

7.) Jones Shimai plus yours truly as our companions were busy doing something that I don't remember

8-9.) the cool river that flows alongside the secret tunnels 

The Epi Pen Retreats to Fight Another Day 🐝🐝🐝👋

Konnichiwa minasan!

So we had a koukan this week with the Kobe shimaitachi and that was fun. We finally met up with Nakamura-san again and taught him about the atonement of Jesus Christ and prayer. Interestingly, in previous lessons he had been really kind of jaded and not super willing to even want to believe because he thinks ojii-chans can't relate to religion, but this time we focused on sharing experiences and just testifying really boldly, and it actually made all the difference. He prayed for the first time and he said he wants to practice more. Honestly the only way to teach is through testimony. Any other way just gets in the way of the Spirit. 

Also we got to do a real proper service project! Wilkin Kyoudai asked us to help him weed his backyard (it's literally a jungle out there) so we went, and took a whack at pulling the forest of weeds. A great many rolly polies were very distressed by our aggressive removal of their homes, but none were more distressed than the two ground wasp nests we accidentally unearthed. The first one was uncovered by Wilkin Kyoudai. His glove was thrown an an impressive twenty feet over the fence in his adrenaline fueled reaction to bring stung by the little buggers. All seemed to calm down though and we went back to work. But alas this was not the end of our troubles. As we were going at it, I unearthed another nest, getting stung twice in the process. This time we sought shelter inside because the wasps were very not pleased with us. Now Idk how many people are aware, but I happen to be allergic to bee stings, which has now caused my hand to closely resemble a small balloon. I've lost sight of my knuckles. Benadryl is proving to be not particularly helpful. I was also subject to a solid two hours of being fussed over by like twenty members at church, and while I deeply appreciate the concern, I'm pretty sure it just made things worse and also I had to miss the dendo meeting third hour because of it. Not fun. My hand hurts. Wilkin Kyoudai is okay though so that's good. 👍

Also we talked to Fukuchi Kyoudai (he used to be bishop) about how past missionaries have found success, and his main advice was kaiin referrals and service (yappari). It seems to me that people have lots of friends they're trying to dendo, but either they're too scared to invite them to meet with us, or they just feel they're not ready. But kaiin brought a couple friends to our Hawaiian night activity and we were able to swap LINEs with one of them. Slowly but surely. I think we need to be more bold with them.

In other news, I kind of accidentally made friends with Souta-kun, one of the youth in the ward. (still not really sure how that happened, I have literally only talked to him like twice) He's going to be 18 soon, so we want to help him get more pumped up about the gospel and dendo so he can go on a mission. He could be a way good missionary if he makes that his focus. I really feel like one of the keys to this ward's future progress is going to be the youth, but I'm not sure how to help them out just yet. Japanese high school is apparently the literal most awful. Like that's the path to outer darkness right there if I ever saw it. But supporting youth in the midst of their bondage to school and cram school and clubs is on the list of goals now, so woo yay for direction.

We also got to go to a natsu matsuri (summer festival) at one of the Shinto shrines on Wednesday after eikawa! Straight up y'all, it was probably the most Old Testament thing I've ever experienced. I'm in a land of a lost tribe of Israel yo. Even the shrines look like the ancient tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites traveled with. I'm attaching videos so you can see for yourself. 

But yeah I think that's the basic gist of the week. Doing our best, but also slightly dying from wasp poison and also a cold.

愛しています！ 💕
Sherwood 姉妹

Videos:

1. Way cool hula performance by one of the members

2. Us doing the hula to Pearly Shells

3. Lion dance at the matsuri

4. Explanation of how Jewish Shintoism is by me

Photos:

1-2. Normal hand versus balloon hand

3. War picture of us with our battle scars

4-5. Hawaiian Night dessert table yo (so many pancakes but not a single haystack to be found) 

6. Still of us performing 

7-12. Marching with the shinto version of the ark of the covenant "そーれい!" ("whoosh" Idk either. I asked why we say that whenever the flute stops and no one had an answer) 

Great☀️Flaming ☀️Balls ☀️Of ☀️Fire

Konnichiwa minasan! 

It's been really hot this week. Like 90°F weather. Now I realize that this is nothing in comparison to Arizona but you see in Arizona the humidity levels are -40% so 117°F weather is fine. In Japan, the humidity levels are 4000% percent. Therefore it feels like you're swimming in a 300°F pool the moment you step outside. Shade does nothing for you. A solid brick of ice water bottle becomes water in less than 30 minutes. No one is outside. If by some miracle they outside they look at you like "why are you preventing me from going inside where I won't melt" when you try to talk to them. If I don't send an email next week it means I've died from heat stroke. I want the typhoon back. 

As for interesting and astounding progress made by our investigators, there is not much to report. Natsuki is still floating in the doldrums of "I'll just wait til I'm twenty to get baptized" and Kunitsu-san is taking a nap in the plains of "maa I just haven't gotten an answer yet". Low-key (high-key) I want to pull an Alma and cry repentance with the voice of an angel and be all "do not procrastinate the day of your repentance the time to act is now" but we can't always have what we want, ne. 

But maa anyways Sunday was probably the most effective day this week. We tried to visit Nakamura-san (no dice) and then biked up Mt. Everest to visit Ooba Shimai. I cried and also lost all ability to breathe due to biking up Mt. Everest in 90°F weather. But anyways by the tender mercies of the Lord Ooba Shimai was home and talked to us for quite a while. Turns out she has a literal pet owl. It was way cute. Fun fact: owls don't hoot. They actually sound like a 1 year old baby saying "ow". She also gave us some way good black bean tea and chocolate. She's a way nice lady. #kiseki 

Then we biked about halfway down Mt. Everest and visited this waaaaay nice less-active guy who hasn't seen missionaries in 30 years (probably because he lives on Mt. Everest) but he was down to chat for a sec and gave us some mugicha cos the heat probably would have killed a small cat. #kiseki We invited him to our cool Hawaiian party this weekend. 

Then we visited a potential potential investigator named Matsumoto-san. She's way awesome. Gave us lassi and invited us inside. She apparently is way good friends with the guy who runs the indo curry place in Okaba and told us his whole life story and basically long story short we got a referral (technically). Also turns out she has a TON of way old family photos (literally no one has old family photos in Japan) and she showed us this way huge scrapbook of them all and told us stories about it and said she wants to be able to put it all on the computer so now we have a solid family history investigator now. #kiseki 

But anyways. Completely unrelated but Smoot Kaichou directed me to 2 Peter 1:5-10 a couple transfers ago and hey its interesting so why not share. Basically 2 Peter 1:5-10 is the literal stairway to heaven with a way cool promise y'all. Now, I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but there's like a literal actual thing called making your calling and election sure, or obtaining a more sure word of prophecy. (see: 2 Peter 1:10; D&C 131:5-6) In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 

"After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints...

Now what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and this is the sum and substance of the whole matter; that when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even He will manifest the Father unto him, and they will take up their abode with him, and the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him, and the Lord will teach him face to face, and he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; and this is the state and place the ancient Saints arrived at when they had such glorious visions—Isaiah, Ezekiel, John upon the Isle of Patmos, St. Paul in the three heavens, and all the Saints who held communion with the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn"

This is the goal of every disciple of Jesus Christ. To truly know Him and attain an assurance of an inheritance with Him in His kingdom on high. Is this easy? Not even a little bit. We may call attention to the incomprehensible tribulation that Joseph Smith and the prophets of old endured. "Deep water is what [we] are wont to swim in" as Joseph Smith so eloquently put it. (impressive for a young man with a third grade education, ne? The Spirit truly is a mighty teacher) Nevertheless, as disciples of the Lord God Almighty, this end is possible in and through the grace and mercy of Him who bore all things. 

Oh the joy of this calling I am privileged to have been entrusted with. As a missionary and servant of my Lord and Savior, it is my duty to bring the children of God closer to this end which is most precious and desirable of all things. There is no nobler work to be engaged in than this of the gathering of the Lord's scattered people into Zion. This joy is what enabled Christ to endure the infinite agony of atoning for the sins of the world. It is what enables me to continue in the days that seem endless and when I feel like I might actually melt in the heat or drown in the depths of emotional anguish. One day I will see my Redeemer in the flesh. And not just after the days of my probation are finished. No, I am determined to make my calling and election sure and join the ranks of the Lord's noble and great ones in whose footsteps I am wont to follow. And in doing so, become a living epistle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the Lord God Omnipotent, here to bring the world with me to His presence. 

This is my commission. If you've been baptized a member of His Church, it's your commission too. How great is our calling! 

愛しています！ 💕

Sherwood 姉妹

(gomen pictures won't load this week) 

Sister Sherwood wasn't able to send pix with her email, but she loaded a couple to Google Drive for me to share. However, I don't have any captions for them.

Achievement Get: Evil Spirit Encountered 👻

Konnichiwa minasan! 

Well it's been a long week and I am very tired. 

Sofiah: she's a way nice lady we met on Tuesday. (the fruits of typhoon phone dendo are rich) She moved to Japan from Indonesia and is friends with Naganuma Kyoudai. She's way cool and let me just say it's nice to teach people with a Christian background. It makes our lives easier. Her faith is way strong and family is really important to her. She's really busy for the rest of the month, but we have an appointment with her on the 7th of August so our plan is to message her every so often until then because we swapped Facebook with her. (all of her posts are in Indonesian tho lol)

Kunitsu: we met with her Tuesday evening and we're beginning to think that she's not reading the Book of Mormon as much as she says she is because her levels of understanding are suspiciously low. Currently the plan is to just continue on with the lessons and read the Book of Mormon with her as we do so rather than trying to keep drilling daily study like beating a dead horse. We'll see how it goes. 

Natsuki: She's 100% ready to get baptized and it's immensely frustrating. Why? Because even though we've been ganbaruing for ages, because her mom is still really hantai she wants to wait until she's 20 to get baptized, which, for obvious don't-procrastinate-the-day-of-your-repentance reasons, we're trying to discourage. But I don't really understand her situiation. One, because we still aren't able to meet her mom, and two, because I can't understand Japanese and not only am I currently the only one in the Kita Rokko Dendo Squad who isn't fluent in Japanese, I'm also the only one who speaks English fluently. Annoying. 

Kusaka: Okay so this was actually insane. Privette Shimai and I went to visit this former investigator on our koukan and I'm like 90% sure we encountered the influence of an actual literal evil spirit. Kusaka-san is a perfectly nice lady, but let me tell you her house gave us the weirdest heebie-jeebies when we went there. The bajillions of fish in the genkan didn't help. At first we thought it was just weird but then she started talking about how she can't go anywhere or meet with us because there's this mysterious group of nihonjins who're watching her and gossiping about her and can see everything she does even at that moment in her house. Privette Shimai and I were way spooked. It was dark and scary. We offered to pray and ask for a special blessing on her house and she was like "yeah sure" but she wouldn't let us do it inside, we had to pray on her porch. It was way weird. I'm pretty sure here house is actually possessed. But then on Sunday Hattanda Shimai and I visited her again with Ooshima Shimai and the fuinki (vibe) was 100% different. She didn't talk about the weird mystery group at all and was relatively normal. I wonder if she didn't talk about it because Hattanda Shimai and Ooshima Shimai are nihonjins and the weird evil mystery group is composed of nihonjins...wakaranai. Idk what the protocol is for literal demons. 

In other news, we had zone conference this week and it was great! We received a new Book of Mormon reading challenge focused on the Savior! Here's how it goes in case anyone wants to do it too! 

Read three chapters a day and mark

Red - roles of Christ

Dark Blue - words of Christ

Green - attributes of Christ

Light Blue - doctrine related to Christ

Also our new Eikaiwa program is on its way to becoming a thing that's happening! I'm excited. Also the mission is starting a new online proselyting campaign and I'm way excited cos all the services we provide are gonna be in one place on a cool website that's an extention of Mormon.org. More to come as that happens. 

Also let me just say I love the Okada family they're great I love them they spent $80 on us after our lesson with them so we could eat at a buffet together. Best members ever. They saved our tummies. We are eternally grateful. 

Also there was a funeral in the ward on Saturday. It was interesting. Very different from the funeral I recently went to in my family. At my great-grandma's funeral I made the joke that my dad's family puts the fun in funeral. I mean, it wasn't anything even remotely like a sad event whatsoever. Everyone told stories about grandma and how cool she was and how she's probs giving grandpa an earful for leaving her so early. All the family got together and ate dinner and chilled and I got to meet the Guatemalan side of the family that I had no idea even existed for 19 years of my life. I figured that was just normal for LDS funerals. But this one wasn't really like that at all. It was like way serious. (granted that's part of Japan culture but still) Then again, the responses of the family members who were active and those who were less-active were suuuuuuper different. The members were sad, but like maa there was still hope and light in their faces, but the non-members were like super crazy grieved with zero hope whatsoever. And then on Sunday it was like nothing happened. Everyone was all happy and smiling again. The Plan of Salvation really is the only thing that gives people lasting happiness. It's way sad when people don't know about it. But hey that's why we're out here. Gonna spread all the joy. 

愛しています！ 💕

Sherwood 姉妹

1-3.) koukan with Privette Shimai (and the biggest spider I've seen in my whole life) 

4.) Hattanda Shimai got a ridiculous amount of Popsicles in the mail

5.) the dream team aka me and Hattanda Shimai

6-7.) festival dendo with Rina chan (I understand all the animes now. Festivals aren't this cute fun thing. It's like a fourth of July festival level of crowded nonsense) 

19歳 20歳