Protect the Prince(ss)!!

皆さんこんにちは！Hello everyone! It's time for another really long and really detailed update on my life. As I mentioned in my last email, this past week was transfer week. Which means I got a  new companion. Luckily, I am still in the lovely land of Toyohashi, so I don't have to deal with moving yet, haha. But it also makes me area senpai, which essentially means I lead us everywhere and have to pretend like I know where I'm going. It normally goes well. Only sometimes do we end up totally lost. Great fun! 

My new companions name is Sister Prince. She is from Colorado and served in the Gifu area before coming to Toyohashi. This is her 5th transfer. And she's hilarious. Haha, we pretty much laugh constantly. We both have no idea what we're doing, so it's a fun adventure. But we both have a very laid back, positive attitude, so things have been going really well! I'm excited to see what this transfer has in store for us.

So, as it turns out, I might actually be decent at Japanese. I am still far from being good, but I can actually keep a conversation going without being totally confused, so that's nice. I also got the wonderful opportunity to talk in church again last Sunday. My topic was faith and I spoke for about 13 minutes (including a testimony in very bad Portuguese). I made the genius decision to translate my talk on the spot, so I'm not completely sure what I said in Japanese, but here is what I wrote in English: 

"Hello everyone! Today I would like to talk on Faith. In Alma 32:21, Alma defines faith. He says, "And now as I have said concerning faith, faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." And in Hebrews 10:1 it says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." In these scriptures we can learn that faith is gained when we believe things are true, but have not seen them with our own eyes. 

Now we have defined what faith means. But who do we have faith in? The scriptures repeatedly talk on having faith in Christ. Faith is not just some abstract concept. We frequently say "have faith!" But it is important to remember to have faith IN Christ. 

Now we know the what and who. Now let's talk about why? We talk about faith a lot in the church, but what is it about faith that makes it so essential? To find an answer we can once more go to the scriptures.  Now in my preparation for this talk I found many reasons why faith is so important, however due to a lack of time, I will focus on just 3 today.

First, in 1 Nephi 7:12 it reads, "Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to His will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in Him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to Him." From this we learn that faith is the source of Godly power. Because Heavenly Father loves us, He always wants to help us. All He asks first is for us to have faith in Him and in Christ. If we have faith, then nothing will be impossible.

Second, Faith can make us whole again. In Enos we see an amazing example of being made whole. Enos wrestles before God in prayer to be forgiven. After this prayer he receives a remission of his sins. He questions how it was done and the Lord says, "Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole." Sometimes in life we sin or make mistakes. And that's fine! Because we are human we are going to have times when we stumble. But because of Christ's Atonement, if we just have faith, then we will be able to become whole and clean again. We can receive peace and comfort as we exercise our faith through repentance.

Finally, it is through faith that we can attain salvation. Our one and final goal in this life should be to attain eternal life and live forever with our Father in Heaven and with our families. But the only way we can achieve that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Mosiah 3:12 says, " 12 But wo, wo unto him who knoweth that he rebelleth against God! For salvation cometh to none such except it be through repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ." In order to reach the Celestial Kingdom we must constantly be working to strengthen our faith.

Now, those are only a few reasons why faith is important. But I'll leave it up to you to go and find the rest.  To end, I would like to talk on one more point. The how. How do we use faith? Alma 32:27 says, "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." In order to gain Faith and in order to keep Faith, we must act. Whether that be through scripture study, prayer, fasting, church attendance or something else, we need to act. I invite everyone to try hard this week to strengthen your Faith and look for the ways it can bless your life." 

And then I bore my testimony. And at one point (can't remember when) I started talking about how this is my third transfer and I'm really happy to still be in Toyohashi. And then I started crying? The Spirit was very strong and apparently I love these people a lot more than even I realized. I am really looking forward to working this next transfer with the amazing people of this ward. 

On a lighter note, here are some of the hilarious and fun adventures that we got into this past week. 

-First, we got yelled at by a very angry Japanese man on a crosswalk. He was in a wheelchair so we decided to say hello. That was apparently a mistake, because he immediately started angrily yelling at us. Translated roughly into English, he said, "By no means did I ask to hear your voice, you idiot." And then proceeded to call us idiots a couple more time. If he wasn't in a wheelchair, I would've been terrified for my life, haha. So that was fun!

-Next, we were riding home from the train station one night and passed a man with his dog. I've seen the man and the dog many times before, so I say hello. Again, a mistake. The dog (a large, scary, angry dog) starts barking and pretty much attacking us. If the owner hadn't held him back, I doubt I would be writing this email. We hurried away very, very quickly. Yet another fun experience!

-On a less scary, more adventurous note, totally saw monkeys in the mountain. We were housing next to a mountain when I saw movement out of the side of my eye. I said, "Oh my goodness, that was a monkey. Either that or a very small child." But it was in fact a monkey. And not just one monkey, but an entire family of monkeys. Probably about 15 monkeys, all hanging out in the trees. It was a really blessing and we were real excited at the time. Still kind of not over it. Haha, so of course we took about a million photos and only almost died once. There was a mom with a baby and she eyed us down for about a minute, but then probably decided we just weren't worth the effort and left us alone. They were all decently sized and at one point one the size of a small dog ran across the street in front of us. For a moment I forgot I was in Japan. Turns out in some areas they just have monkeys hanging out. Who knew?

-We also saw a horse at a park this week. It was white and very pretty. Sadly didn't get a photo, but know that it was a highlight.

-Speaking of parks, this morning we biked 30 minutes to a park in order to do yoga. One of our potential investigators teaches yoga in the early mornings, so we decided to give it a go since it's p-day. It was really fun up until it started raining on us, haha. But we gave out English Class Flyers to everyone there, so it turned out really well!

-Less fun thing (but still really funny), was at church on Sunday after the first hour ended. I was talking to one of the members and she very calmly asked me if I'd gained weight since I'd come to Japan. I very confidently told her "Yes, yes I have." to which she responded, "I thought so. You used to look thinner." Hahahaha, so there's that. Japanese people legit don't have any filter when it comes to weight. They will tell you exactly what they think, even if it's totally false. (Fun fact, I have actually lost weight since coming to Japan). But luckily she meant well by it, so I still love her ;)

-One goal that we have for this transfer is to "heart attack" every members house. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, a "heart attack" is when you make paper hearts and write cute notes on them and then tape them to the persons front door without them knowing. Then you run away and they (hopefully) see the notes and feel love <3 In the past week we have gone to 10 different houses, so we've already made quite the dent. It's been really fun so far and we're excited to finish. We also take a selfie outside every door, so expect a lot more selfies in the future. The best one so far is probably when we went to the Bishop's house. We got all ready and were just starting out when it started POURING rain. But we'd already started, so we decided to just push through and finish. It turned out well and is a hilarious memory that I will laugh about for years.

-We went to something called "International Club" this past week to try and find some new investigators (which we totally did). They had a potluck and because the club is made up of people from all around the world there were some very interesting dishes. Some of them were very delicious. Some were...terribly spicy and I'm not sure if my mouth will ever fully recover. We brought peanut butter cookies, but turns out only Americans like peanut butter? Haha, they were not a fan, but were nice enough to at least try them. We will definitely not be making those in the future.

-2 Celebrations from the week: 

1) Got 6 phone numbers from random people on the street. Really hoping to meet up with some of them and talking about the gospel. One of them is even on one of the Japanese soccer teams so...that's pretty cool. Wish I knew more about soccer, but I'm sure I can learn!

2) We were able to bring 2 less active members with us to church this week! It was really amazing being able to give a talk and knowing that I could create an atmosphere where they could feel the Spirit. Being a missionary really is amazing.

That's pretty much it for my week. It was a little bit slower, but we're excited to meet with a lot more investigators over the next few weeks. All prayers, emails, letters, and packages are deeply appreciated <3 

愛しています！

(PS, this Thursday we're going on the radio to talk about our church and a festival we're having this month. All in Japanese. While countless numbers of Japanese people listen. So that'll be good... Haha, if anyone feels like tuning into FM Toyohashi on Thursday at 3:30, but that's where I'll be ;) )