教会員！

こんにちは！

Hello everyone! Thank you for all of the wonderful emails! This week
we have been working with a lot of members! It has definitely
strengthened my testimony of how gaining a good relationship with the
ward can bring forth so much miracles. The following are all of the
experiences we had last week with the members. I seriously want to
video everyone's conversion stories and make a movie of it. *shout out
to Clay - Here's a movie idea*

On Tuesday, we visited Kawamata Shimai and had lunch with her and then
shared a spiritual thought. Afterwards, we challenged her to give out
a couple of pass a long cards to her friends. Then she all of the
sudden said she wanted to introduce us to her friend Hatakeyama San so
we went! She was so surprised to see us because we are gaijin but she
was so nice! (I'm not so sure if she'll become an investigator though
because she is 85 years old and well.. You never know!) We told her a
little bit about what we do as missionaries and she seemed to have
some interest. She said she likes reading and studying and said we
could come back anytime!

Wednesday, we visited the Morita fūfu and we had a great time. They're
an older couple and kind of quite but it was nice getting to know
them. The have a few kids and the mentioned that one of them is less
active. We shared a message about Joseph Smiths first vision and they
bore their testimony as well. We challenged them to bear their
testimony to a family member or friend, whether it be a letter or a
phone call or anything, just a simple testimony. Afterwards, Morita
Shimai said how during that lesson she felt prompted to write a note
to her less active daughter.

The next day, we traveled out to a far away member, Ōno Shimai. We had
a great time bonding with her but then yesterday at a relief society
activity I talked with her more and she told me her full conversion
story. It is amazing and her and I were both crying in the corner just
out of feeling the spirit so strongly. Her testimony is so strong and
I have been learning so much from the members.

We taught Kodomo Eikaiwa and had a fun time and afterwards we talked
with Nozaki Shimai (the Bishops wife) and set up an appointment to
visit her next week and teach a fun lesson to her kids and she is
really excited!

One of my favorite member miracles was with the Tsuru fūfu. We planned
s mogi with her at the church but she decided to also bring her
husband. We were busy that day and didn't have a whole lot of time to
prepare so we were a little worried but I kept feeling like we should
talk about prayer, but specifically family prayer. We finally both
agreed and taught it. We decided to not really do a mogi but more like
teach them as they are to help build their testimony. The lesson was
going really well but when we brought up family prayer they got s
little uncomfortable. I knew it was because they have some less active
children. I was hesitant to testify of the power of family prayer
because I didn't want to feel like I was offending them but I followed
the spirit and did it anyways. My companion shared her testimony as
well and we committed them to do family prayer. Afterwards, Tsuru
kyoudai said how that was the best lesson he's ever been in because we
followed the spirit. He said how that was exactly what they needed to
hear and how he wants to find people for us to teach! (Sorry im not
trying to be prideful by writing this, it was just a great
experience).

So, members are amazing and I love getting to know them better and for
them to gain our trust. But, on the down side, we have like no
investigators... Two of our top three aren't texting us back and
Nakamura San just doesn't have interest.. She just wants us to tutor
her daughter.. But we have faith that we will find, or people will
find us, soon who are prepared and willing to hear the gospel message.

I love you all so much! Thank you for all your love and support! 愛しています！

Love,
レイシー姉妹


Sent from my iPad

Earthquake?

She was so excited to find a Mexican food stand in Tokyo!

They had a rough day so they got Indo Curry

Garden across from the temple

Hello everyone! Thank you for all of the emails, don't worry, I didn't
even feel any earthquakes so I'm all good! Please keep the people down
in Fukuoka in your prayers.

This week was busy busy busy with traveling. We had temple Pday, zone
meeting, companion exchanges, and interviews with the Naganos.  For
temple Pday there was a miscommunication so we were late for our
session but we were able to do initiatories instead and that was my
first time listening in Japanese so it was a really neat experience!

I love meeting with President and Sister Nagano. They have so much
love for the missionaries and always help me so much. I'm not sure if
President was joking or not but he said there are a good amount of new
sisters coming in next transfer and I shouldn't be surprised if I
train again... Bring it on. It was also crazy because President was
also talking about what will happen my last week in Japan and things
like that. But he was mentioning how he was proud of all the work I'm
doing and can tell I'm working hard. (I didn't add that part to be
like "look at me" it was just a good reminder that I'm working
diligently and I need to not be hard on myself. Sister Nagano told me
I need to make sure I do everything for the Lord and not for myself
and they will help me focus on the work and endure to the end.

I just want to share one thing I learned this week. Lately we have
been trying really hard to talk to everyone and just open our mouths.
We haven't been seeing success.. As a matter of fact things are
declining and tons of our appointments have been falling through.
Well, on Sunday we had a lot of dendo (proselytizing) time and we had
no idea were to go. Everywhere we planned on going just didn't work
out do we finally prayed and decided to head towards a college. We
weren't having any luck the whole time. We finally decided to head
home. We had stopped housing and our main focus was home but then
something stopped me #thespirit and I turned and walked to the house
next to us. We talked to the lady and turns out she took lessons when
she was in high school years ago! But then she said she's super busy
but would come to church if she had time. After that I just was so
amazed and said a prayer of thanks and just went in a rant to Sister
Solomon about how great and powerful and kind Heavenly Father is.
Then, we stopped a  Philippino lady and turns out she knows one of our
members and she willingly gave us her phone number and said she'd like
to meet again! I said another prayer of thanks in my heart. Then we
were kinda tired and amazed by the two little but great miracles we
saw so we sat on a bench in a little park. Then an older couple walks
by and kept smiling at us so of course we jumped out of our seats and
talked to them. They've studied about religion before and seemed to
have some interest. We gave them our phone number and invited them to
a ward activity we have coming up.

So. Lesson learned was the power of prayer. But not only that, it's
prayers of thanks. I know the Lord knows where every single prepared
person is in my area. He could lead me to every single one of them if
He wanted. But, what good would that do me? I wouldn't learn how to be
humble or rely on the Holy Ghost or recognize the Lord's hand. I know
I'm learning slowly but it was a powerful lesson for me. A scripture
that explains my experience perfectly is in Alma 26:12.

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore
I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his
strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we
have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."

I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your love and support! I
miss you all! Have a great and safe week! 愛しています！

Love,
レイシー姉妹

Sprint to the End!

Kairakuen

Kairakuen

The found black swans

She made her first burrito in over a year!

She found this while we were in Hawaii!

Hello everyone! Thank you for all of the emails! So much has happened this week! 

This email is going to be really long, I'll break it up into categories so you can choose which topic you'd like to read. 

Things I've Learned

This may have been one of the best weeks of my mission. I feel like I've really learned why I'm on a mission and what Heavenly Father expects of me. The beginning of the week was really rough and I was having a hard time just knowing the fact that I haven't seen much of the "fruit of my labors" during my mission. But I'm just going to try and focus on who I can bless one day at a time. I was reading through my setting apart blessing and in it it says several times that the Lord is eager to watch the people I will influence, or if I open my mouth the people will be grateful for the feelings I help them feel. Things like that, so I want to make sure I am touching people's hearts one by one. 

General conference was so amazing. My heart was seriously swollen with the Spirit the whole time. It's interesting how sometimes we forget about or take lightly the most important and spectacular truth of this gospel: We are children of a loving Father in Heaven. I'm great for that knowledge in my life. 

Miracles

During P-day last week, we were riding our bikes and just talking about how since we are trying to talk to more and more people we are getting more accustomed to rejection and how it would be funny when someone actually says yes because we'd freeze and not know what to do. Let's just say Heavenly Father has a sense of humor. We had talked to about four people who had no interest and then we saw a lady getting ready to cross the road and I thought why not. She knew exactly who we were when we started talking to her and she was saying some negative things but then I testified of the truth and told her what we believe and how we have a loving Father in Heaven. Long story short, she said she'd like to learn more and willingly gave us her number! 

Recently, I haven't been really good a train dendo (talking to people on trains as we travel)... I know. I'm terrible. So again, Heavenly Father has a sense of humor. We were on our way to go teach family eikaiwa and then our train broke down. I was somewhat upset because then we were going to be late but then I turned and looked at a lady who sat a few seats down from me and I instantly knew I needed to talk to her and that's why the train broke. I spoke with her for awhile and turns out she used to come to eikaiwa and church parties like 30ish years ago! The church building had changed locations so she never knew how to get there so she stopped going. She had questions about the word of wisdom and I was able to read through the word of wisdom pamphlet with her. I testified of Gods love to her and she said that meeting was fate. I agreed and asked if we could meet again and have her number but she said no... She said if she meets missionaries one more time she'll know it is a sign from God and then she'll meet. I was a bit bummed but I could tell she felt the Spirit and I think she knew it too she's just not quite prepared all the way. I know she will soon though. She thanked me for helping her and talking with her. It was definitely a special experience and I'm grateful I was able to bless her life even if it was small. 

We are working with the ward a lot better now! We're just focusing on loving them and gaining their trust and today we did a thing called Zion dendo where we went on splits with members and went out to less active's and invited them to a church barbecue party we are having soon. It was really fun and we bonded really well!

Updates

We met with Saito San and talked about baptism. She said she believes in Christ and wants to follow Him but is Buddhist and her family is Buddhist and she wants to respect them. I told her she doesn't have to change her culture and she can still respect her ancestors and we testified if the blessing that can come from this gospel. She got really emotional saying how much she loves us and how much we've helped her and she would like to be baptized but just needs more time. Next time we meet with her we want to set just a baptism goal and also talk about the adversary and how he will try to lead her astray but she can find happiness through Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Mayumi came to church with the member she likes. I flat out asked her if she'd like to take the discussions and she said not really but she likes coming to church. I mentioned to her that before she wanted to be baptized and she still said she kinda does but I told her she can't get baptized whenever she wants and there's more she needs to learn. She said she'll think about it. 

Analogy

I've thought of an analogy about mission and running. During a race you usually start off strong and then settle in your pace so you can sprint to the end. In my experience I've always had the best races when I do that. You need to leave some energy to finish strong but, you don't want to take it too easy or else you'll look great finishing strong but you'll come in dead last if you were lazy. I've compared that to my mission. I started off great by getting good training in the MTC, I worked hard the beginning of my mission, but then I kinda fell into a slow pace. I got comfortable and was scared to push myself, afraid of being burnt out. But I've realized that I am capable of so much more. I need to make sure I'm pushing myself, I'm ready to start sprinting to the end and making sure I give it all I can. I know the Lord is on my team and "Heaven is cheering [me] on." 

I love this work so much! I'm grateful for everything I am learning and experiencing. I love you al, so much! I hope you have a great week!

Love Sister Lacey

Sent from my iPad

Another week in 日本 \(^o^)/

English class for the little ones :-)

皆さん、おはようございます！

This week has, like usual, flown by! To answer a lot of your
questions, no I haven't been able to watch conference yet, my ward is
doing it Saturday and Sunday but I'm tempted to read ahead!

I can't remember if I told you but last week we were doing some bike
dendo on the way back from the eki and I decided to stop and talk to
this one lady sitting on a bench smoking. We introduced ourselves and
asked if she had interest and she said yes! We were somewhat surprised
because we had been talking to just about everyone before and it was
just rejection. I'm grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. We
exchanged contact information and she had been texting us back! We set
up an appointment with her for Saturday to do a church tour and a
shokai lesson. She came and it went well! We gave her a church tour
and she had a lot of questions. We introduced the Book of Mormon to
her and explained some of its teachings. She said she wants to come to
church but had work on Sunday so she wants to come on the 10th! When
we were finishing we should her the baptismal font and talked a little
bit more about baptism very simply. I asked her if she wanted to
follow Christ would she be baptized and she nodded and said yes but
asked if it was okay to be baptized if she had tattoos haha. It was
such a great experience for us and to see how God is preparing people
everywhere. But.... The next day we got a text from her saying her
husband (who happens to be twice her age) told her not to meet with
us. So that's really unfortunate but she said we may be able to meet
sometime soon and talk again. I'll keep praying!

I really want to show more love for the ward. We had lunch with a
single mother member in the ward. I can tell she just doesn't have
much hope and she's struggling a bit. We shared a video with her and
talked about God's love and how we can't bear all things right now and
He will help us and we are not alone. She cried a little after the
video we showed "None were with Him" and then I cried bearing my
testimony to her that she is not alone and we love her and most
importantly God loves her.

We are having fun doing Kairakuen dendo! (Talking to people in the big
Japanese garden in our area.) Sometimes it's a little difficult
because a lot of people get mad that we are interfering with their
family time but we did have some good conversations. We met some
people from England who said missionaries knock in their door every
 Saturday but since they are a different religion he doesn't want to
listen. We encouraged them to just listen to their message next time.
We also met some people from Taiwan and earlier that day I felt I
should bring a Chinese Book of Mormon and then we were able to give it
to them!

A few days ago I read a scripture that really hit my heart. I read
Jacob 5:71-72 and it says,

71 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to, and labor in
the vineyard, with your might. For behold, this is the last time that
I shall nourish my vineyard; for the end is nigh at hand, and the
season speedily cometh; and if ye labor with your might with me ye
shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up unto myself against
the time which will soon come.

72 And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their
mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they
did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things.

It just really hit me that "the nigh is at hand" for my mission and I
need to make sure I am serving with all my might and working along
side the Lord.

I love you all so much! Thank you for everything! Have a great and
safe week! 愛しています！

Love, レイシー姉妹

Love Sister Lacey