Sister Harris in Japan!: So Here`s To Another Week of Focusing on Christ!

Not too much to report this week.

Lots of housing. The only investigators who are really meeting with us anymore are U** and H*****, but they`re making some progress. Apparently it`s always like this in December. Everyone is really busy and no one wants to meet. But hopefully come mid January they`ll want to meet again!

Monday, we did preparation day things. I bought new running shoes, we went housing for a few hours...the works.

Tuesday, more finding, and a lesson with U***! It was probably our best lesson with her. One of her biggest problems is that she hasn`t really desired eternal life. But in this lesson, we retaught the chart. It goes like this:

The Goal: Return to God`s Presence

Obstacles: Sin and Death

The Solution: Christ and His Atonement

The Way

1) Faith

2) Repentance

3) Baptism

4) Gift of the Holy Ghost

5) Enduring to the End

But we focused mostly on the goal. We were like, `U***, this is HEAVEN. HEAVEN. You live with your family and your friends forever! What do you think it`s like? I bet it`s beautiful. We`re going to be so happy we can`t even imagine! Perfect bodies! So happy! Live with God!` Etcetera. But better. And with scriptures and the spirit and stuff. We also had a lot of examples, a picture we drew, and stuff to keep her attention. It was pretty great.

We also found a new investigator Tuesday night! Her name is M*****. She`s really young and has a baby and is actually interested in learning about God. When we asked what her image of God was, she said, `すばらしい!‘　(Subarashii! Super!) And she wants to know if God is there. We can help with that! We`re excited to start meeting with her. We`re going to visit her again on Thursday.

Wednesday...housing and Eikaiwa. For some reason, only one person from the advanced class came, so we combined with the beginning class with the Elders. On Wednesday we had the great joy of teaching how to pronounce L and R. They don`t have an L sound in Japanese, and their R sound is only like a Spanish R. Say `Really.` `Reeree.` Then they`ll get it for a word and go right back to not being able to pronounce it in the next word. I love Eikaiwa. :)

Thursday: We met with H*****! We also probably had our best lesson with her too. She says she`s finally starting to believe in God. Wow! This is really such a HUGE step, the biggest, hardest thing to overcome in Japanese. When we first started meeting with her and asked her about God, she said that whenever the weather is nice, she thinks, `Well, the Gods must be happy today.` She really has made a lot of progress. This week, she`s going to pray to know if God really is her Father who loves her. We really just did leave that lesson feeling the Spirit so strongly!

Friday: District meeting and housing

Saturday: We got spoked for two lessons. (People weren`t home at their lesson times.) But that`s okay. It really was a super good week. (I`ll explain more about why in a little bit.)

We also taught a crazy guy with the Elders. He seemed super nice until we went in. He wouldn`t let us talk very much and started yelling. Super scary. There`s a benefit to not being able to understand much. It was SUPER freaky. Mostly I looked down and typed the words I did understand into my translator. (Society, ridiculous, rude, airplane, etc.) And apparently, after Maeno Choro testified really powerfully, he ended up `cursing` Maeno Choro that nothing good would ever happen to him again. And then he said it was rude when we said we had to go. We went back home and listened to MoTab to get the spirit back again. It was seriously freaky. But God`s watching out for us. We somehow made it out alive and we`re SAFE to do another week of the Lord`s work here!

Sunday: Church (where Anderson taught a beautiful lesson about the Savior) and more housing.

This week was a lot better for me personally than last week was. Sister Walker and I decided to try to focus more on the Savior. While we housed, we talked about the Savior`s miracles. In my Christmas package, my Mom and Dad also sent me a calendar with Greg Olson pictures of Jesus, so we`ve been looking through that every spare minute we`ve had. We`ve been trying to just talk about Him. And think about Him. Because He really is the reason. This is still really hard, but that`s okay, because He knows it is. Because He felt it too. And He loves us. And if I can get just one person to understand that one day, then it`s all worth it. So here`s to another week of focusing on Christ!

The church is true! The book is blue!

Love, Sister Whitney

Our Christmas tree with Nana Rose`s presents under it.

Me with my package from my Mom and Dad!

Me and Sister Walker with the lovely note from the package.

The get well soon present we brought our investigator who has been sick for a long time.

It was a big mug with soup packets and a couple of hot chocolate packets. And a picture of Jesus.

This morning we ran up to the Azuchi Jo (castle ruins). It was about a half an hour run each way. But when we got there, we found out it didn`t open until 9! We were so sad! We`ll have to try again next week. It looked super cool. We did get to take some pictures in front of it, though. And in the building next door with a model of the ruins. And that sign I`m in front of that has stuff written in Kanji? Yes. I know one of those kanji. It says 5. :)