Sister Harris in Japan!: When God Closes A Door, Somewhere He Opens A Window.

Monday

We went to the Museum again! Because there`s really just not a whole lot of choices of things to do here. We took some funny pictures, made one of the workers` day when we asked if we could be her friend and swap phone numbers, and bought a funny kind of soda called, Ramune, where there`s a marble stuck in the top of the bottle and you have to knock it into the soda to get a swig at it. That wasn`t a very good description of it, but that`s what it is. And then, at the grocery store we ran into a lady named, N********, who was surprisingly good at English and then came to Eikaiwa the next day!

Tuesday

Lesson first with T*****. We taught about dispensations and Christ`s earthly ministry, leading up to the Restoration, which we`re going to teach tomorrow.

After that, we had possibly our best lesson with M*****, just reading straight from the Book of Mormon from Moroni 7 and discussing what was within. I`ve decided that my main strategy from now on for non-progressing investigators is just going to be to read the Book of Mormon with them! Let`s see how this works. We were then slightly late to Eikaiwa, but luckily the Elders were on top of things.

Wednesday

Visited some less actives, had a lesson with a lady and her daughter who ended up being much more severely Buddhist than we had originally thought and then had a lesson with I**********, about prayer! He gets it and he thinks it`s powerful. Which it is. :)

Thursday

A**** Shimai took us all the way out to M***** to visit some less actives, and we got to talk to all 3 of them! One who wasn`t so keen on us visiting the last time we came, was flattered when we brought cookies (it was her birthday on Wednesday) and said we could visit again. The next one wasn`t interested at all, and the next one was an older man who let us in and says we can come back anytime. I`m really glad A**** Shimai was with us, because this man was very difficult to understand. We found out his wife died a few years ago, and we talked about getting her information ready to take to the temple to do ordinances for the dead. (His wife wasn`t a member.) All in all, a pretty good day.

Friday

We had Zone Training Meeting in the morning and stopped in N************ on the way back to visit a less active. He was less than friendly, and as I was grumbling about being tired of less actives, we decided to do a little housing in the surrounding area. Only a couple of doors down, we talked to a lady for a little bit. Apparently her parents and her brother had become Christian when they were living in Brazil, and while they had died, she had been to church with them before, she really admired what they believed. After a little bit of internal debate, she invited us in, we taught setting the table, and she realized that she wants the hope that comes from the knowledge of life after death! I believe this woman is a senmin. She wants to come to church so badly, and would have this week except she was going to take care of her field for a week in another city (such is the way of rural Japan). We prayed, and she felt goosebumps. She said, `This was not a coincidence. You were led here!` True, T************, true. And then at the shock of hearing that we`d walked from the eki, she insisted on driving us home, not just to the eki (train station), but all the way back home. . This woman is great. We can`t wait until she gets back into town so that we can teach her more. :) Moral of the story: Don`t grumble about unresponsive less actives. They might just put you in an area with a senmin. Or maybe Fraulein Maria phrased it a better way when she said, `When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.`

Saturday

We visited some less actives, and then had a lesson with S******* Shimai about faith. I think I`m going to have to pull out my straight up reading strategy with her now as well. She`s one consistent prayer for someone who didn`t want to have anything to do with baptism at first, but reading the Book of Mormon for some reason presents a little bit more of a challenge.

And then, at the beginning of dinner, the A****`s called to tell us that the FIREFLIES were out and they were coming to take us to see them! Which we did. There still aren`t very many out yet, but enough that we could see them, and it was magical! Sometimes not having free range of the internet is really hard for me. If I had been home after this experience, I would have read everything the internet had to say about fireflies. And stars. And all the things. And I might still be reading. First time firefly-er! Apparently they will start to come out in bigger hoards soon. :)

You can`t tell, but there are FIREFLIES in these pictures! Sister Broadhead is holding one.

One is one my middle finger, where it stayed for about 20 minutes. :)

Sunday:

Some of our best less active visits yet with the H***`s! We first went to go visit this lady named K******, who can`t hear and lives by herself, and has to crawl to get around and it was just the saddest little thing ever. Once we managed to get her attention from outside and get inside the house, we wrote her messages, and told her we were from the church and talked to her a little bit. We made this little woman`s day! She remembers the church and loves it. Apparently today is her baptismal anniversary, so we`re going back in a few minutes.

Then we visited K*****, a recently reactivated and then unactivated Filipino teen. After a long conversation that went in a lot of directions, he basically decided on his own that he needed to come back to church ! You go, K*****.

And that was it.

Well, have a good week!

The Church is true!

The Book is blue!

Love,

Sister Whitney

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This is a giant egg with strange random tiles apparently made by Elementary School students in front of the museum.