One scary thing about time passing by so fast is me wanting so badly to see one last, amazing Christmas miracle before I go home. At our last zone meeting, we talked a lot about focusing on "the one", and made a goal of each missionary helping one of their friends be able to get ready for baptism by Christmas. Sister Reeder and I were a little worried because even though we always have plenty of people to teach, nobody really stood out as that "one" who was ready. We want so badly to use our time well and follow God's will, so we decided to fast together in order to know who she should focus on. We saw an amazing miracle that day when we ran into Yu, a 15-year-old girl we'd previously met at the eki and become friends with on Facebook. She saw the Book of Mormon Sister Reeder was carrying and said, "you have one of those? So do we. My mom got it from a friend and reads it." We have no idea who the friend is, but are so excited to meet Yu's family and talk about it with them! We were actually supposed to meet them all on Thursday, but they cancelled because of the rain. Hopefully that will get rescheduled for this week!
Another cool moment happened when Sister Reeder and I were discussing how we wanted to try to teach Tomi, the unbaptized daughter of a less-active member. We've ran into her a few times lately, and she is very kind and has fond memories of going to church when she was younger. I remembered that a few months ago, I was convinced that my two focus people were Tomi (mother of 2) and Yu (mother of 4), and was so disappointed when they told us they didn't really have time/interest for church right now. I couldn't figure out why Heavenly Father would let me be SO sure it was them. But then I realized that now, our two new focus people have the same names - Tomi and Yu. But they're students instead of moms. I still don't know God's plan, but maybe He just wanted me to remember those names so that I could recognize their significance later.
And so, again I was humbled and learned that when I think I have things figured out I usually don't. Every major life decision I've made in the last few years has been different than my former "set-in-stone plan." Who knows what I'll even be doing in a few years?
The weather has fluctuated the past few days, but we did have one really rainy, cold day. Actually that was the day that Yu cancelled... I will never understand why people think they're doing us a favor by canceling for bad weather. Thanks a lot, now I'll be knocking on doors in the downpour. Actually that's exactly what we did, and poor Sister Reeder's hands were so numb that she couldn't feel this one doorbell. Thinking she kept missing it, she rang it at least ten times, and the look on the people's faces when they came outside was priceless. Actually we could see through a window later that their daughter was studying the flyer pretty intently. Wouldn't that be sweet if they came to church after that? It'd be a hilarious conversion story.
I got a pretty scary phone call yesterday from one of the assistants, asking me to translate during tomorrow's zone conference. I've never translated before and am beyond nervous. I don't know who's bright idea it was to nominate me, but I would like to ask for any and all prayers. I tried to practice a few times today, watching conference talk videos in English and muttering what I thought they would be in Japanese, and it was a royal disaster.
Love you all! Have a very happy Thanksgiving, and I hope I can show you pictures of the delicious holiday pies we make this week. We bought lots of flower, shortening, nutmeg and other supplies at the grocery store today in preparation.
No new pics this week. Enjoy some throwbacks - this is Tomi (dyed hair) with her mom and a friend at the Halloween party.
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| Anna and Jones Shimai with Yu, Yu's mom and a friend at Halloween |
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| Reeder Shimai and Anna |
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