God Loves All Of His Children.

MONDAY!

was busy.  We had two lessons, which cut into preparation day considerably, but what do you do?  We`re not here to prepare; we`re here to do missionary work!  We first met with the lady that H***** Shimai and Eddy Shimai taught a lesson to during koukan`s (exchanges) last week, K********* Shimai, and talked about God. She loved it. Unfortunately, however, she`s travelling with her husband to Kyoto until August, so we`ve got a little bit of time until we can meet with her again.  But she`s a good one, I tell you!

Then we had a lesson with D******** at FHE at O*** Shimai`s house.  This poor man is just a slightly odd duck who kind of scared me when I got here, but he`s taught me a grand lesson about charity.  When I left the MTC, I got a priesthood blessing that said, `God loves all of his children.` Which puzzled me when I heard it, but has become more meaningful throughout my mission as I have encountered more and more people the world has just thrown away.  As I`ve met with D********** more and really come to understand that he just truly wants friends and does truly want to be a better person, I have come to feel God`s love for him more strongly than I could ever have imagined and been able to interact with him as a friend to give him some of the love he needs.  And, he`s come to church three times in a row now! 

Tuesday:

We had a lesson an investigator.   I`m not proud to admit it, but I got mad. I get mad when people disrespect this Gospel which is so sacred to me and make light of the answers and testimony I am trying to return back to them.  And I get frustrated when people are too hard-hearted to have any desire to know, even when we`re giving them every reason to want to know.  And obviously this is bad.  Anger and frustration are bad. But I`m working on it.  So I testified that the things we were talking about are true, and that we are here not just to teach but to bless, to bring these blessings and these truth to those who truly want to know, and that it would help neither us nor him to continue in such a way as we had during this lesson.  And then Eddy Shimai stepped in and shared a sweet testimony about something or other.  And during his prayer at the end, he mostly just said he wanted to continue meeting with us.  So we`ll see where this goes.  Any ideas on how to help someone want to believe in God?

Wednesday

Taught a half of a lesson to a lady we found on Tuesday, who said she had a lot of interest in our message, but then when we actually began teaching interrupted every sentence with `Muri! (Impossible)`  `Chigaimasu! (You`re wrong!)`  I tried to say a few times, `We`re just sharing the things we believe, Ma`am, like you asked us to, because we`re seen the blessings from this message in our lives,` but after continuing for about 5 or 10 minutes, we realized this was not an atmosphere that the Spirit could dwell in, so we ended the lesson early and headed out to try to find someone who really would listen.  And we continue the search. Because we`re missionaries. And that`s what we do.  (And so do members.  Members do that too.)  Then we taught Eikaiwa.

Thursday:

We played ping pong with D**********, and then taught a lesson to O*** Shimai, a less active. We went in with a lesson about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and then immediately realized that was not the lesson she needed with she told us she was going to start opening her shop on Sundays so she wouldn`t be able to come to church.  I was right in the middle of testifying when a customer came in that she had to tend to (grr), but it gave us a chance to scrounge up a scripture story lesson.  We read from the scriptures about Lehi getting the commandment to take his family into the wilderness.  What an impossible seeming commandment, right? But then we reviewed the blessings they received in 1 Nephi 17:2 and 3 (I think) and discussed how obedience ALWAYS brings blessings.  She then prayed at the end, thanking the Lord for us guiding her way of thinking to be more like His.  And she came to church on Sunday!  For the first time in months!  She got there after the sacrament had been passed, and left right after to open her store, but still.  Baby steps, baby steps.

Friday

District meeting in Niihama!  The senior missionary couple brought us all lunch!  Spam onigiri rice balls and watermelon.  What wonderful humans. The N******`s are wonderful.

And then some housing.

Saturday

Visited a PI, tried to share a message, but then went housing after she didn`t want us to because she had no interest.  We`re just knocking all of these no-interest folks out of the park!  Soon, there will be no one left we haven`t tried but those who are ready to be baptized!

Sunday

Church!  D****** came again as well.  What a champ. And then we visited less actives with Active member O*** Shimai (there`s about 5 O***`s that we deal with regularly here.  It`s confusing.) for the rest of the day!

And that was the week.

The church is true!

The book is blue!

Love, 
Sister Whitney

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Yay!  Me and my package (which I loved) from Nana Rose (whom I love!)

And that`s actually all of my pictures this week.