Fwd: 2nd Transfer, Week 2

From: Lindsay Sanders <lindsay.sanders@myldsmail.net>

Date: December 14, 2014 6:54:39 PM MST

Subject: 2nd Transfer, Week 2

Konnichiwa from the Land of the Rising Sun!

Today it is SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We rode our bikes to the church and we were freezing! We have the heater turned on full blast! I am super genki and happy! PLUS it is the Christmas season, so we get to talk about Christmas and Christ to everyone! We are having so much fun!

My Candian companion, Sister Smith is super fun! She is really outgoing and loves to talk. We are completely different, but we are figuring out how to work together. I have a lot to learn from her.

I will tell you how Yamaguchi Kyodai is doing since he`s been baptized... HE IS DOING SO GREAT! We are helping to prepare him to receive the priesthood. We are teaching him the After Baptism lessons. He comes to all the ward activities and is making friends with the older people in the ward. It is so cute. I am so proud of him. I sat with him during Gospel Principles and he was looking through the book, so I asked him what his favorite Chapter was... and he flipped through it and scanned over each page, and at the end of class, he shows me The Atonement chapter and says, `This one is the best!` His English is getting really good too! 

We do Mogi lessons with members (practice lessons), and this week we went to my favorite member`s house: Tsuchida Shimai! She is the sweetest most beautiful japanese grandmother I have ever seen! She is really helpful with the things I need to learn. During this lesson, I got to bear my testimony about the Savior. This was the first time I feel like I did this well! Ah she was so excited and then made us eat all of her fruit!

The thing about doing things with members is that they always want to give us food! It is so sweet though. We are so blessed to have a lot of support from the members.

This week I did a junkai with Sister Doi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is an amazing misisonary. SHe has so much love for everyone! We did a service project by singing CHrstmas songs at the Childrens Hospital. It was so fun!!! 

We have 2 progressing investigators this week: Aki san has muscular dystrophe and uses a wheelchair. She is a referral from an investigator. She has been praying and keeping her commitments! She is starting to see God`s hand in her life! There is also Goto san who I stopped on the street. She is super cute and LOVES Perry the Platapus. We really bonded over that! We gave her a Book of Mormon the first time we contacted her on the street, and when we met, she had read to 1 Nephi 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That`s a huge deal! She said `You know that feeling when water is completely still? That`s how I feel when I read this book`. AHHHHHHHHHHHH she is amazing! She is extrememly Buddhist, but she still wants to meet with us! 

We are having lots of CHristmas parties in the upcoming week! OH We also sang at Tenjin and the whole program went perfectly!!!!!!!!!! It was super stressful, but it all worked out. We sang SIlent Night to close, and it really brought The Spirit. I got to talk to a lot of people who were walking around and we found some really cool people that we are meeting with this week!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for your support and prayers! I feel them and i am seriously so thankful! I am so lucky to be a missionary this Christmas. I have been super busy, but I think about how much I love my family. Christmas time is normally the time when families can be together. It is hard to be half a world away, but I know I am supposed to be here. I get to help other families be together forever! I LOVE YOU FAMILY! Dad, Mom, Jackson, Ben, Ryan, and Meredith! I hope you are all having so much fun and that you talk about your cool older sister serving in Japan. Tell them I ate PIG BRAINS this week. Usou ja nai. Haha! (NOT a lie!) But seriously, I love you so much! Please watch He is the Gift. I get to share it with people everyday and I get chills EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Remember the Reason for the Season.

Ai shite imasu. Iesu Kirisuto ga watashitachi no Sukuinushi da to akashi shimasu. Watashi no mokuteki wa hitobito ni Kirisuto no susumeru koto desu! Iesu Kirisuto ni shitagau toki ni motto shiawase ni naru koto ga dekimasu.

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Your missionary

--

Sanders Shimai