Come Follow Me: Little Miracles

October 19, 2015

Hello Hello Everyone

First off, DADDY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY お誕生日おめでとうございます! (Happy Birthday) I hope it's s great day. I love you to death. Also it's my amazing friend KJ Harrison's birthday, I love him and miss him but I'm grateful for his example and I feel his love as I'm out here serving with him. How is everyone?! I hope all is well. I only heard from Mom, Brooke, and Dad this week from the family but from what they said it sounds like everyone is just living life and all is well! Keep just owning life and being good examples to all those around you! This week has been so good! So many miracles and good things starting to happen here in Takamatsu. So Tuesday we decided to heart attack two families in our ward. First was the Oomuras, the cute family that fed us a week or so ago. Just a little thank you for all they do. We get to their house and their gate is locked so you bet we just went ghetto and decorated the gate! I'll send a pic of the gate and stuff haha it was too good! Then we did this other lady who is kind if less active, it was her birthday. So funny/weird story... While we see speeding to heart attack her and not get caught this business man walks up to us and like ask us what we see doing so we tell him it's our friends birthday, well in the middle of decorating her door, HE KNOCKS! Dude WHAT ARE YOU DOING? So we just stopped right there and ran hahaha so I have no idea how it ended up looking so that was fun.. Thanks guy! I'm not sure if I ever mentioned Asuka before or not but she is one of our investigators, she has been taught for q basically starting over with her. She is very shy and doesn't like being around people so she is a hard nut to crack.. But Thursday we taught her about Joseph Smith and the restoration. She seemed like the wheels in her heads were starting to turn more and more. She agreed to pray to know what we taught is true.. She told us her worries are that she isn't diligent in prayer and reading like us missionaries haha oh boy.. So we explained to her like we aren't perfectly diligent in it either and how before we came to Japan, we were for sure far from being perfectly diligent in that.. So we hope that helps her realize... Fukumoto Shimai is a less active. She is a message therapist and her business was affected because of her being a member and it made her less active. So we have been visiting weekly, she is the such a sweet lady and just talks and talks haha I'm not kidding, she has a brain problem because of an accident she had in the past and she doesn't realize she goes off on tangents and so she "choto matte or wait just a second" and grabs us some type of drink that is in like a juice box thing it's the cutest! But anyway, we have just been visiting her and talking with her and sharing short thoughts about faith and inviting her to church and the visit we had on Friday she told us how ever since we have been visiting her she just has this desire to change. It felt so amazing to hear that our simple acts of just talking with her and giving her little thoughts on faith can change her heart. I hope that she continues to do so.. Oh and her husband came to District Conference and he hasn't been forever so that was a little miracle in itself. So Saturday was Zone Training with Welch 会長 , Welch 姉妹 , the AP's and the zone. It was the best. We talked a lot about the BOM and the doctrine of Christ in Alma 5-40. But the thing I want to share is from Barr 長老 the AP. It's a quote, "You can become who you want to become by being that person you want to become a little bit each and every day." I'll leave it at that and let you all think about it and apply it. So Saturday after zone training we had a baby shower for a lady in our ward who had a baby about 3 months ago.. Yeah here in Japan they do it after and it's a little different than baby showers in America but it was fun haha we did a quiz about the baby at birth like weight, blood type, middle name, and also how long the labor was ha the only thing I guessed right was the labor haha but then Weber 姉妹 and I played pin the binki on the baby ha they loved it. we drew a baby poster and binkis then blind folded them and let them put it on ha it was s fun time. We also had District Conference with weekend which is just like stake conference but a lot smaller haha it was so great to see all the people there. Our district is Marugame, Takamatsu, and Tokushima. So people come a long ways to come and they are awesome. President Welch and Sister Welch spoke. I didn't understand all of his talk but theyboth have such sweet spirits and really focused on members working with the missionaries. That is HUGE, I didn't realize it till I became the missionary. But please everyone do all you can to help the missionaries around you, we missionaries move and aren't permanent but you members are and can keep those new members active and close to Christ. So we have these AMAZING new pamphlets that we just got on the iPad's a few weeks ago. They are for non-Christian people. First one is What to expect when meeting with the missionaries 2nd who is God and 3rdwho is Jesus Christ. They are THE best. They explain all these things so simply and perfectly. So with Kana we have been struggling cause we feel the only reason she meets is to learn English so we decided to use the what to expect pamphlet and tell her our purpose and it was such a good lesson. She explained all her concerns and we answered them and now she is going to strive to read more, pray everyday, and try to come to church. So those pamphlets are a blessing for, our Heavenly Father. It helped her progress and learn so much about why we are here and how we want to help her become happier through Christ and his gospel. So improvement. Last but not least our best miracle of the week. WE HAVE A NEW INVESTIGATOR! Her name is Tsugiyama San. So we went housing for an hour or so on Tuesday and after a whole apartment building of ZERO answers we decided to knock on these few houses by the apartments,well the first house this cute mom opens the door and I introduce us and ask her if she has met missionaries before and she said yes but not from your church because there are a lot of Christian churches haha so we just started right there and asked her if she thought about why there are so many churches and she said yeah I actually have been searching online for sneers to that. WOAH! Best answer ever haha so we taught her the restoration about Joseph Smith right then and there. She thought it made perfect sense so we made another appointment with her for this Tuesday. We are so excited. She was so prepared and ready to hear our gospel. Such a tender mercy from the Lord. Well lastly, I'm checking up on everyone. Did anyone share their testimony this week? If so PLEASE share your experience small or big. If you didn't, do it this week. Find someone who needs it and bare a simple testimony to them of what you know is true. And my other commitment is from what I said earlier, be a member missionary. Help out the full time missionaries because missionaries won't always be there. So please do both of those things. you will feel so much happiness I promise you that. I love you all very much and miss you lots. The work is moving forward here and I'm so grateful I get to be a part of it. Have a wonderful week. #TRUST #RELY
スミス姉妹 (Smith Shimai)