HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what? They dont have turkey in Japan. So I will be eating a lot of pie to make up for that.

Okay so this week was amazing.

We had transfers on Thursday I am still living with Sister Sharp- she got a new cutest bean! Her name is Sister Pinzon and she is from Columbia but lives in TN. My companion is SIster Southworth- she is from Utah and is super cute! She is awesome and never complains. We also got ELDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yayyy so now we are six missionaires in ube. I cant believe it we have been praying for elders so hard. We have been finding so may men for them to teach its crazy. Heavnly father has been preparing Ube for them for the past transfer. We know something amazing is going to happen in Ube this transfer.

We have seen a man at the church on occasion who just sits in the Genkon and reads the church pamphlets or somehting. He never wanted to talk to us. But we got a referral from a member who got his information so we called him and he met with us three times last week! We invited him to be baptized on the 21st of december an he said yes!! What a miracle! He is so prepared. his family situation is a little sad- he works really hard every day as a truck driver. He lives with a sick mother. He also is sick with some other problems. His father passed away. But he really wants to find happiness. Which is exactly what we do in this church! And we have the priesthood. and we use the atonement. The priesthood is such a blessing and I am so blessed to have a father who holds the priesthood and has blessed my life.  We are working on prayer and the Book of Mormon. He wants to come to church- he couldnt this week but will come next week! yayy!

We met with a bunch of less actives this week! they were all positive experiences and we were able to better understand their needs. wahoo! we are making progress!

We had the wierdest referal ever. So we went housing in some appartments and this SGI (an interesting religion) lady was like yeah I dont want to know about your church. So then sister sharp asked her about her church so she started talking about it...then saying how she loved hymns so we sang her a hymn on a prompting. In the middle of silent night she stoped us and said my friend downstairs wants to learn about your church! so we met her freind and sister Sharp and pinzon met with her the other day and are meeting again next week. What! also I might have told you this story in my last letter...sorry.

We had been fasting and praying for direction for our transfer and also for Mori san and to be able to have a baptizm on the 21st. Yesterday at church, 3 investigators came! Mori san didnt but Shinji Kyodai brought his girlfriend, Ken and Nimo came and Ken gave the elders his number and said they could call him! yayyy that is what I prayed for! I love the elders!!!

Being a trainer is scary because you have to be in charge of all the planning so its a lot to handle, but I have been taking it one day at at time. Me and my comp. have a goal to teach a lesson every day, if not to an investigator than to each other so that our japanese and teaching skills can improve. We are also doing tons of role-plays with ward members! They are so on dendo fire right now!

We also had a less active family come to church on Sunday! they had friends visiting from tokyo that helped explain to us why they hadnt been coming but that they wanted to. I know this was the inspiration we needed and we recieved the information and direction we needed to have a purpose to our transfer. We also had the prompting to go visit another less active. We had a really great talk about his value and the value of the book of mormon and prayer. I think we really touched him and the spirit was able to prompt us literally on what we should say or what scriptures to read. After church the less active family called and invited us over for dinner!!!!!! what the heck. Miracle.

We housed into this guy last night who is about 60. He meditated while we told him about the restoration and at the end he said I am interested in what you are talking about, but I dont speak english. If I can hear this from a Japanese person I will listen (okay heres the deal, I was speaking Japanese.....What the heck.) anyway I invited him to church and he said he will come! yayy!

This week I refered a lot to Alma 26 where it talks about how God will never turn us away. So even if you feel like you cant come back- do it anyway because the only person really holding you back is yourself. if you dont feel like praying- pray until you do. It works!! I know that personal prayer every day will help us get closer to God and to have a purpose in life. My goal this week was to have more meaningful prayer. I noticed that when I pray outloud, quietly it helps me to stay more concentrated.

I am thankful for you all and for your prayers!

This picture is me in sasquatches forrest....yes we found him. I am about to give him a book of mormon. We found this awesome hidden pathway that led to this buddhist temple but also sasquatch lives there.

Hello!

Hello! Sorry this email is a bit late- we have transfers this week so we have pday on tuesday with our District. We made squidballs, chocolate chip pancakes, salsa and chips, and 3 different types of popcorn!...obviously boys put together the menu. But it has been really fun! We played games and stuff.

Soo my companion went home to america! I was so sad and dpressed for like three days. But I know that Heavenly father needs her on the home front in california. I have been working with two other sisters for the past week.


OH MY GOSH BIG NEWS..........

I AM BREAKING THIS TRANSFER!!!!!!!!!!!! that means I am training a 2nd transfer bean. what the heck I just barley escaped that! So i am a little bit extremely humbled right now and have no idea what i am doing. I hope she doesnt hate me because I stink.

I went to fukuoka yesterday to the training meeting and I took these pics along the way; fall in Japan is the best! except right now it is freezing and the winds are at speeds of about six thousand miles an hour.　tanoshimi!!!!!!! (this is melissa...i didn't get any pics with this email so maybe she'll send them next week.) 

The trainers meeting was really great- their were only 2 sisters there. Me and Fujita shimai. She is a nihonjin and is the kindest most sweetest person ever. She is 27! What the heck i love her. She is in my district.



yes. this is what I get to look at. Welcome to Japan!

Yay to the Nuckols on being mission president and wife!!!!!!!!!! that is so awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had 2 interesting meals this week. One was a 7 course meal at a super fancy resteraunt. I ate es car go!!!!!!!!!! sick. literally disgusting. I also probably ate a brain and maybe some intestines. IM not really sure. the lady who took us looks like yeezma from the emporeres new groove.



 The second meal was......meat! we ate with shinji kyodai who is in the mob. he made us eight plates of meat. I got food poisoning the day after. fun! It was a fun meal though- he is an interesting guy! I am greatful for his sacrifice to feed the missionaries because he doesnt have a lot of money and meat like that is expensive.


We taught some great lessons this week. we have a lot of wonderful people to teach and I am excited for this next transfer. Also two of our less actives came to church! wahoo!

I learned a really great lesson about the atonement this week. The atonement is like a mom who pays the full price for her child to take piano lessons. SHe doesnt expect the child to pay back the price, she just asks him or her to practice. From this little sacrice of practice she sees that the child is thankful for her sacrifice. Through the practicing, both the child and the mother are edified. THe atonement is the same way. The savior doesnt expect us to pay the full price for our sins, but he does ask us to exscercise some faith in him and to follow his commandments so that we can become the best people we can be because he loves us and can see our potential.

I am thankful for all of you- what are you thankful for this thanksgiving!?

I am really nervous to train but I support the decision and Know it comes from God. Hope you all have a great day!!!!!! Miss you all!


Love, Sister Nelson

I am in with the Japanese Mob!

ohiogozaimasu! (good morning)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope you have a great day! 

Everyone who reads this email should text Parker Happy Birthday.

This week was pretty different. So we still don:t know Sister Smothermans situation aka if she is going home or not but we are hoping to hear about it today.....or at least by next tuesday which is transfer call day! We have had the opportunity to work on our patience! 

So we had a huge miracle in the form of a wheelchair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my gosh it has been such a blessing. Since Sister Smotherman can:t walk around, and crutching is hard on her arms, we use the wheelchair to get everywhere! Its a little bit slower than normal, but I am so happy to be mobile! We have not done a ton of proselyting this week, but I know that missionary work comes in all different forms. We did a bunch of service projects and visited a lot of members. We are working on strengthening the ward and developing better relationships with them so we can know how best to help them do missionary work and grow as families. We also took a lot of trains this week which helped, i just carried the wheelchair on the train and brought the crutches. Sister Smotherman is so great for crutching as much as she can- it is really hard to do and the crutches here (motsubotzui) are not easy to use. 

So we had to send some xrays and ct scans to the doctor in Tokyo, but something hapened with the mail so he didnt get it. We got an anxious call from President and he told us to go to the hospital and take some pics with a camera.  Me and sister Sharp speeded to the hospital on our bikes and took pictures of the xray with my camera. I asked the hospital nurse if this was legal an she was like...no but lets do it! hahaha so I probably broke some laws this week. 

We have a member in our ward (actually 2) that used to be in the mob. Shinji Kyodai is one of them, he is really hard to understand and mumbles a lot but both he and Tateishi Kyodai left the mob for the church. You have to cut off your pinkie if you leave the mob so everybody can know you are a traitor. WHat? yeah so he doesnt have a pinkie. Tateishi Kyodai has all his fingers, so Im not really sure what that means about him. Maybe he was like given an honorable discharge or something...

We were supposed to teach a lesson on friday night at the church, but he never showed up. What did happen though was a manifestation that God knows everything: we ran into the custodian for our building and he was having a really hard time with some buisness stuff becasue it was all in english. We were able to translate it for him and help him get his paycheck. I know that we were supposed to be at the building for that reason, even if we didnt get to teach an investigator we still fufilled our misionary purpose. 

One of our members has cancer and she was in the hospital this week. We went to visit her and were talking about places that our grandparents had served missions and when I told her that G and G went to Africa she freaked out and was like  what the heck they went there! its so scarry and all the people are naked!

.....oh Nakomoto Shimai......

Also yesterday at church Fujitake shimai came up to me and was like hey so I need to talk to all of you sister missionaries and I know sister Sharp is the area sempi but she doent understand me when I talk and you do.　oh man I was like...oh um okay haha. I guess my japanese is doing okay then. (I dont mean to toot my own horn, my japanese is far from stellar) but it was a funny story. 

Well I will let you all know what the situation is when I figure it out, but keep Sister Smotherman in your prayers. Also Mitch and his new bean. :]

As we are preparing for Thanksgiving I just wanted to say that I am so thankful for your support! 

Love you!

Sister Nelson

Yes, I am rocking a scrunchie in this picture. Get over it, im becoming nihonjin! 

This is us at church!

This week was completely nuts!

Okay so here we go. THis week was completley nuts! We had an amazing zone conference training thing and it was like bam! revelation after revelation! I realized that I have a long way to go before I am anywhere near the person that the Savior is. But its okay. I still have time.

Later this week my companion got hit by a car on her bike. She is okay but broke her foot. We are a little immobile at the moment but are finding creative ways to get around! I am a little bit short on time because we currently have to walk everywhere with her ridding on my bike and me pushing her- so we go a little bit more slowley so my computer time is a bit short- sorry! I will try to get more details in next week. I am going to have the best triceps of any person in the world!!!!!!!


So basically we were out in the middle of china trying to find a members house when this lady slams into sister smotherman- she didnt look when seh was turning. So I pulled my companion to the side of the road and basically all these billions of medical people and ambulenses came and I had to speak in japanese like all of this medical stuff so it was not even stressful at all......JODAN! (joke). But we had this cutest member come and help us he lives close. His name is furuya kyodai. I love him so much I cant even describe it. He is basically the brother Daniel of this ward here in UBE. So we went to the hospital and she got an exray and stuff. So basically she is on cruthces for about a month or so and then will be fully recovered in 3 months...so we dont really know what her jotai is (situation) so I ll let you know when I figure it out. Also good thing for that i was inspired to study medical terms in the mtc...what? yeah that was cool. I was like oh yes let me tell you all of these things that I studdied about three months ago! How is the gosple not true?


Okay so this week was nuts but fast sunday was the best thing ever. it was like the windows of heaven gushed on my head! One of our Eikaiwa students came to church! His name is ken. We have been praying for missionary opportunitis with him. Two of our less-actives also came- one of them bore her testimony and said she wants to come and be more active in church! I prayed for that-- what the heck! ahhhhhh!!!!!! also when we coulndt go out and dendo (do missionary work) we found an investigator as I was calling people in our area book and guess what he was exactly the person we prayed for that we could find in a new investigator!! what the heck the gospel is true!

I have changed my mission goal. I dont care if I baptize anybody- I just want to be able to serve anybody in any way I can. This opportunity with sister smotherman being a gimp is a great opportunity to serve! obviously if people get baptized thats great but you know what i mean.

LOve you all- hope you are safe. Dont go outside you will get hit by a car. Just kidding.

ahh mo hitosu (one more thing) this guy came to the door when we went housing and was like I speak english! and I was like oh great! we are missionaries...blah blah normal introduction and then he goes. `No. GET UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!`` hahahaha it was such a funny mistake. He meant get out. We were like...we are up...... its the 9th floor... hahaa

Hope halloween was fun! thanks for all the fun pics of costumes! More next week I promise!
Nelson Shimai