Come Follow Me: Little Success is Coming

June 27, 2016

Hey Hey People of America,
How are you all doing? Where did June go? I can't believe it's the last week of June, like what.. But sounds like all is well I hope you all continue to stay close to the Lord and your life will be blessed. Well I guess onto the week. So we will start off with Tuesday. It was such a good day!! We did a lot of finding and such that day but wow we met so many great people. It's a goal in our mission to strive to get 20 lessons a week which can be hard here and in Toyooka it's so small and country side it can be a hard task but Tuesday we just spent all day talking and knocking and we were able to teach 7 lessons that day. I haven't done that once since being here in Toyooka so that was so good to see Gods hand helping us when we try and work hard. We also had an ice cream party at Ekaiwa that day, boy was that crazy! We are poor missionaries so we bought only three big cartons of ice cream thinking for sure it was okay and wow the kids just inhaled it but it was the biggest turn out we have had since I've been here so it was great for the work. Wednesday we had to travel to Kobe because we had a trainer trainee meeting since she's a 2nd transfer and new etc we have a meeting with Welch Kaicho and the assistants. I love this meeting! It was my 4th time going now and wow I love it, I always learn so much and receive so much help. And they feed us which is always American food because Costco is close, so yup that was great, ha but they focused a lot on obedience there and wow is EXACT obedience so important. God will bless those who try their very best to be exactly obedient I promise and know that. So we actually found 2 new investigators this week! Matsuoka San and Hama San. First Matsuoka San, so he's about 30 something and has one kid and we knocked into his house. We told him we teach about gods love and we know it could help him. So we asked if we could share a short video of gods love and he agreed. After the video, we asked him what he felt and he said such a warm feeling. We were able to talk more about how God loves us and we lived with him before and we can live with him and our family again. We asked if we could come back and he said yes so we gave him a pamphlet and asked him to read about prayer and to pray whether or not God loves him. The spirit was crazy strong during they lesson and I'm just grateful for the spirit because I'll be honest, I don't even remember half the stuff I said or if it
was right Japanese but he felt the spirit and knew there was something different. Next was Hama San. We were knocking on some apartment doors and all the other doors before were no or not home. It was getting discouraging, but the last door we knock on opens the door and let us share our message. We talked about God loves us and we asked to show the video but she was feeding her kids dinner so she said to come back so we can talk more about gods love. Yes! Toyooka is growing, seeing more success every week. Oh also, another miracle. So do you remember Saki the high school girl I met on the train and gave a Book of Mormon too, well she hasn't been replying for weeks, well today she text and said after her test she wants to meet. YES!! I love blessings. But the work is coming, it hasn't been an easy few months but it is coming. So this week I've been thinking about how wonderful it is that God blesses us missionaries families so well. I just love how God will always provide us blessings for serving him and I'm not there obviously but I feel our family is being blessed for my service here and it brings so much joy to me. I know God is blessing you back home and I'm so grateful for him and his unconditional love to you and everyone. Lastly, just a thought that I learned from President Welch this week that really opened my eyes. He said "Did you know that you worrying about what others think about you is a sin?" And I went wow, wait huh? Ha and he said "That is pride everyone, we need to be humble and worry about what our God thinks." Wow, I had to change. And I was so grateful for that opportunity to learn that. It's not easy to overcome that but I challenge all of you, if you are still worried about what others thinks over what God thinks, then repent, change, and I know God will help you do that if you rely on Him. He's helped me so much this week. It's been crazy. I know God cares about all of you individually and he loves you. Never forget that, the simple knowledge of God loves me has come so close to my heart. People here don't even know they have a loving Heavenly Father who loves them, so please never forget that and just worry about what he thinks not others. I love you all and miss you like crazy! Keep being you. #RELY #GODSOPINION
Smith Shimai スミス姉妹