I can't believe I fly to Nihon on Monday! I am so beyond excited! It'll be so hard saying bye to the people in my district. We are all honestly best friends and have grown so close over these past two months. We're already planning a reunion at BYU when we get back haha. So we leave Monday morning at 11:35am and fly straight to Tokyo! then we have a 3 hour layover in Tokyo and then fly 2 more hours down to Fukuoka. We get in to Fukuoka at like 11pm Tues night Nihon time- we are going to be so exhausted! I can't wait to get to Japan! I've waited so long for this!
Sunday's devotional was by T.C Christensen, a cinematographer for the church. He was like the main guy behind the movies 17 Miracles, Ephraim's rescue, Legacy, Testaments, and a ton others. It was really neat to hear the back-stories to parts of the movies, like the scenes in 17 Miracles with the wolves. they somehow found a wolf trainer to help them- like how cool is that? haha
On Sunday my district is singing "How Great Thou Art" in Sacrament Meeting, so that should be really cool, im excited. We're going to sing half in English half in Nihongo. I'm excited!!! We practice everyday after dinner.
So we had our last lessons with all three of our PI's this week. It was so sad! In our last lesson with Narita, the Spirit was so strong and I felt such an overwhelming love for him. It was like we were teaching the real Narita. We talked about how excited we all are for his baptism and focused a lot on our Savior. We asked him to share with us an experience of when he received an answer to a prayer and that was so cool. Chapman Shimai shared an experience and it was so special. She talked about how she didn't have the gospel when she was little in Russia and how she wanted a mom so badly. She said she prayed and prayed and then four years later, she was adopted into an LDS family in America! She got the gospel and a mom! God really does answer our prayers! Our last lesson with Mai was so powerful as well, the Spirit was so strong. I felt like I should share John 15:13 with her and when she read it, she started crying and talked about how it is just what she needed. It's, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I told her Jesus Christ is her friend as well as her Savior. He is always there for her, even when no one else is. We asked her how she felt knowing that Jesus Christ died for her and she said that she can't wait to get baptized and never stop living the gospel. She is amazing!
We had Skype TRC again, which was really cool. We taught an older lady living in Japan, in the Kobe mission area. We talked about the power of the Book of Mormon. She shared her really cool conversion story with us. We all bore our testimonies on the Book of Mormon. It was a neat experience to see that you can feel the Spirit even through Skype!
Daniels Kyodai, the 1st counselor in our Branch Presidency had to leave yesterday on a trip so we already had to say goodbye to him. It was so hard because he is literally one of the coolest people I've met. His knowledge of the scriptures amazes me. So as a parting gift, he took our district on a "deep dive" as he calls it where we dive deep into the scriptures about a topic. We studied the Atonement and I learned so much! We talked about the symbols of the Atonement, like the tree of life, a hen gathering her chicks under her wings, and the shepherd. It was so cool to see how often they are used, and to see how the both the Bible and the Book of Mormon begin with the tree of life. Shows how important the Atonement is!
One thing I loved from our devotional on Tuesday was when the speaker said that we are always at least a trio on our missions. We have our physical companion as well as the Lord! He is ALWAYS with us. He is there to provide help and support, we just need to come unto Him. I learned so much this week and my testimony has really been strengthened. I love this church so much and I cannot wait to share it with the people in Japan. This is the Lord's work. The church is true, and this gospel can make us happier than anything else could. I love you all! Next email will be from 日本!
愛しています！
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