Hello!!
Ooooookay. I got transferred from asahikawa to kotoni!! Leaving everyone was really hard, especially the members and investigators, but I know that kotoni is where God has called me to be. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve here and have a part in gods work. Those people in asahikawa helped me more than I can even say and they were always supporting me way beyond what would be considered kind. I love them so much.

Kotoni is part of Sapporo and is pretty city! We don't walk nearly as much as we did before in asahikawa. There aren't really progressing investigators but I'm excited to be able to work here with morishita shimai! She is from Osaka and is an angel. It's peaceful being with her and I'm already so thankful for her and her help. It might take a bit to adjust to a new area but I love it here so much already. We're also a 4 person apartment because there are two sister sets and that's been way fun!

Love you guys! Sorry I don't have a ton of time today BUT I love you!

Hello everyone!

This week was kind of all over the place again haha. Wo shimai and I were literally running around everywhere for three days. We had a joint zone conference in Sapporo and I learned so much. Kaicho gave this one workshop about trials and the plan of salvation and he was teaching us how to teach it to answer some of life's difficult questions. He taught a really cool lesson using kanji! So the kanji for difficult is 辛い and the kanji for happiness is 幸. He showed us that when we put a little more effort in, the hard times can turn into happy moments. Truth.

He also talked about being saved and that "saving is not a finish line at the end of life but everyday." Loved it so much and it's so true. He asks us to do our best, but Christ has already made a way for us to come back home in the end. Such a good zone conference! (Also got to see free shimai again and meet Welch shimai (who was trained by free right before me) for the first time! They're so beautiful and good. I got to see a lot of other missionaries I love so that was really nice! Especially because they got rid of transfer spot... So now we'll be traveling alone to our new areas and I'm a bit stressed about that BUT it's okay. Karaka choro is going home in a couple of days and that's been really sad, but it's been such a good three transfers working with him.

Tomorrow we get our transfer calls and it's been making me kind of sad thinking of leaving all these people I love and this area and our investigators but I'm also excited for whatever is next.

This week we didn't spend a lot of time in our area because of zone conference and traveling and splits but we were able to find a couple new investigators and had good lessons when we had them. The elders passed an investigator who's blind and accepts everything we teach her. She's such a good person and we love her so much. So much.

And I love all of you!! This week there were definitely hard moments but we got closer at the end of them.

Love you guys. Stay safe and happy.


Massey shimai

Hey everybody!
The week was kind of all over the place. BUT we saw lots of miracles and really enjoyed this week together, especially because this next week is going to fly by since we're all going down to Sapporo for the winter festival and zone conference.
We were able to meet with a new investigator who is really really cool and is way more interested and knows way more about Christ than we thought she did. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to read 3 nephi 11 this week and she's like okay what should I be looking for?  What should I be thinking about when I read this? And we asked her if she would just pay attention to how she feels when she reads it and what things stand out to her and what she learns about Christ, or like questions she has from reading it, and shes like, that's it?  We're excited for her! And it seems like her daughter likes us too because she runs up to see us when we pass by her shop so that makes us happy because we weren't sure if she liked us at first haha. Love those two.
One thing we've been thinking about lately is how to help our investigators progress more, because sometimes it seems like we're just saying the same thing. It's sad because we want them to come closer to God so that they can have the opportunity to feel his love and that he has a plan for us.
We also met with another investigator who has these three dogs who won't stop barking unless you hold them. So I FINALLY got a hold of the loudest one, and I was like YES now we can teach her! And we talked about the faith and Joseph smith and it was really great until her dog leaped off my lap when she left the room and I looked down at my skirt and found a little surprise. Mm. But it washed out so its all good haha.
ALSO we met this CUTE couple when we offered to help them shovel snow, but they let us into their home after like 5 minutes and gave us all these Japanese snacks and talked to us. I think the husband is probably the cutest person I've ever met in my life. He's just so good and kind and his laugh lines are proof that he is a happy man. They're not interested but they were very kind to us and we were able to talk a little bit about the gospel.
We just got back from the winter festival here in asahikawa! It's smaller than the one in Sapporo but it's apparently prettier because this one has ice sculptures. They're really breathtaking actually. It was a lot of fun! Asappi is our town mascot (every city has a mascot) and he's like a seal with ramen wings... Anyway he's a cutie and we found this taiyaki booth at the festival that made them in the shape of his body and I nearly died it was so cute.

こんばんは！

Hope everyone is doing well! Sorry you New Jersians with 2 feet of snow. Hope you're all doing alright and enjoying it! It's still cold here haha surprise. It gets down to -20s in the early morning, and we wear 3 pairs of tights and our legs still sting sometimes. But there are a lot of really nice people that give us rides around so we don't have to be outside too long. Angels.

This week was really, really good. I feel like I'm finally starting to have more patience with myself and I felt really happy again this week. My first transfer our zone did this thing where we each wrote a talk to build the faith of our zone, and then the zone leaders compiled them and sent them to everyone. I was reading through them the other day and one really stood out to me. She said, "the missionary who tries to do everything right and the missionary who tries to do everything for others are hard to tell apart. But God knows." And reading this helped me refocus on what is most important, because as hard as we try we will never be able to do everything perfectly. I hate that feeling of always falling short, but I realized that through those moments is when we grow. And it would be quite a sad life if I didn't grow at all and learn about the power of the atonement in my own life. And without learning it, I wouldn't be able to share that with others. So I can either stress myself out and feel guilt about not being all that I feel I should be and want to be for these people, or I can choose to have joy in every minute I am with them and enjoy these precious moments with them.

The other day we had a really good lesson with our investigator who is really close to baptism. It was at a members house and the elders were there too! And we all shared our favorite scripture and explained it, but while we were all flipping through the pages trying to open up to the place, our investigator was like, "well in the mean time I have a scripture I've been liking lately and when I first read it last year I didn't know what it meant at all but I feel like now I've started understanding it more." And it was the same scripture that my companion and the member had. Too ichi. She also talked about how she felt the spirit stronger than she ever has before, like it was inside her, and it was the same feeling she feels when she goes to church and is with the missionaries, so we testified again about the spirit and that it teaches truth. It was a really good experience!

We also found more young investigators that are our age and that's really exciting. One of them wants to come to church and as we testified about prayer and what is has done in our lives, she was like, "I want to start praying more!" She's a cutie.

We also invited one of our investigators to baptism! She was happy and receptive and said she wants to do it, but she has a far away image of it and didn't want to make a date. She has so much potential and we're excited.


Thanks for all your love always.


Love
Massey shimai