Fujieda, Shizuoka | Week 3 T.6 :: 3 PEOPLE AT CHURCH THIS WEEK

私の愛する家族と友達の皆さんへ

A lot of great things happened this week.

Out of the blue on Friday morning we got a call from a ward member that wants to refer her 19 year old granddaughter to us to learn English and hear our message. (!?) We had a lesson with the next day it was really good. She has good memories of going to church with her grandma when she was younger, and definitely believes in God. Her grandmother was present during our lesson, and I saw her starting to tear up a little as we were teaching her :,) We feel so happy that she trusts us enough with her granddaughter, I cant imagine how the ward member feels trusting 2 American 20 year olds with her non-member granddaughter.

We had splits on Tuesday, I went to Numazu with Duarte Shimai. This was my first time in Numazu, so it was really cool to see another area in the mission. On the train ride there we pass by Mt. Fuji! It looks unreal, I took some poor quality pics on my tablet lol. Anyways, the exchange was good, I went on splits with her last transfer, she's from Brazil and doesnt speak any English, but shes also a new missionary so we could only communicate in super simple Japanese haha. Its kind of hard, but also cool to know that we can get by despite our language barrier.

While I was in Numzau, Sister Barnes and Sister Galdino visit a ward member and got a referral from her as well! We still don't have much info about the referral, so we haven't been able to contact her yet. This week were gonna get all the info and were so exited!

We met with our friend who is searching for happiness, (the one thats a woman we met on the street 2 weeks ago) This time we had a ward member with us. We just got to a near by park and sit on a bench when we teach her. She is still says shes confused when we ask if she has questions, but she likes meeting with us so thats good. We invited her to church and she came! The ward member who was with us at the lesson helped her feel so welcome and loved at church.

Our 2 cute bento box friends we meet with are doing good. One of them has been praying and tells us how clean she feels in her heart when she meets with us. Our other friend is a little more shy when it comes to talking about her feelings and God, but we think its slowly working within her. We gave them Book of Mormons! The one who is a little more shy told us that she has a daughter who might be interested in hearing our message! We didn't even ask her, so we are once again so excited about this referral!

So our friend who we housed into that loves Jesus has unfortunately turned out to be someone we can no longer meet with. There's a lot of reasons I don’t really need to talk about. She really wanted to meet our bishop and talk with him. She brought her friend from her church and it was just weird. They were just trying to prove to us how their church was right in a prideful way. My companion said it was like we were sitting in front of two Pharisees. It was a strange experience, however we were kind to them and didn't argue back or try to prove anything to them, we were Christlike towards them. We left on a good note and just know from now not to meet with them.

Remember the young man we found who is looking for happiness, came to church and read 200 pages of the Book of Mormon? Well, he came to church again! Hes now almost done with the Book of Alma!!?? Honestly we still dont know very much about this guy because he just has no time to meet with us...but hes great at reading the Bom and coming to church. Pretty much the opposite if every person I've taught so far. I wish I could say more about him, both Sister Barnes and I are SO curious what hes feeling and thinking. Hes kind of a mysterious guy... Hopefully this week we can be able to at least call him and see whats up.

I can't remember if I ever told yall about the man we met on the street 2 weeks ago who said he wants to check out our church and was interested because he read some of the New Testament before... Anyways, we got his facebook and hes been too busy these past 2 weeks, but he had time this Sunday to come to church...so he just came to church yesterday!? Hes actually not from our area, hes living in a Hotel for work, Hes really from place called Yamanashi, over by Mt. Fuji. Anyways, it was kind of funny because we forgot what his face looked like (it was night time when we met him, and he has like no pics of himself on facebook) so when he came to church we weren't sure if he was a member or our potential person were going to teach. lol. It was good though, I sat by him in church while Barnes Shimai was by our other 2 friends. He was either really nervous, or really interested, he also really REALLY liked the hymn book. We met with him after church and asked him why he wanted to come, and basically what his expectations are. Its actually really cool, he said he just wants to become a better person. :,) He is coming again next week and also really wants to come to our soccer activity this month! The branch members were awesome, they took good care of him during Elders quorum and even drove him back to his hotel. I love this branch!

So if you got through this (once again) long email, you see that we had a total of 3 referrals, and 3 PEOPLE AT CHURCH THIS WEEK. I've never had 3 people at church like this before. It was pretty stressful trying to balance it all together not knowing what one of them looked like, being able to help with/understand their questions and making sure that they have a good time and feel the spirit. I just gotta put out there that this branch is amazing. They helped us so much. During ward council I just felt so much love and support from these members. This is a pretty small branch, but the leaders are amazing, they sacrifice so much to take care of everyone and build up the Lords Kingdom. I'm so thankful, amazed and impressed by their efforts. I can't even describe how amazing they are.

Well that was my main points of this past week. I know these are super long and idk if they even make sense. I love all these experiences that I'm having, and thankful for them. I hope you all have a great week!

♡堀人姉妹