Hello!!

Hello!! 

I am so happy you made corokke!!!!!! its so good!!!!! I actually made it this week too! haha. Its also really good if you substitute the meat for pumpkin! 

Okay so today we went to this awesome bakery and It was so good- this is what I ate! A spinnach asiago roll thing that I made into a pesto and egg and spinnach sandwaich and a chocolate eclair- I think I just gained 25 pounds because im pretty sure they just put butter as the frosting. SO good. 

 sorry I just had to put in a pic, it was so good! I miss wheat bread though, they dont really have it here. Well they do but is not like normal wheat bread its like white bread with wheat kernels in it... its good though! 

 

Ps I love this scarf!

Okay so this week was awesome! but first I have a question about D&C 130 v. 12. Did that already happen yet??? (Grandpa, if you would kindly shed some light... :] )

Well our investigators are doing well- We had a great lesson with Yoshioka san! She is such a great listener. She just listened to the Restoration lesson and I was like do you think this really happened about the first vision and she was like yeah definitely- and then she was like I love praying because I get to have a conversation with God and he listens to me. We dont do that in the SGI religion. She is awesome. Ps. she has a baptism date!! Miracles! We invited her to be baptized at the end of the lesson and she accepted!! We have this fun thing where we pray with her every night over the phone. Her prayers are so powerful! 2 nights ago lasted five minutes! and it was mostly things she was thankful for! What a good example!

Tsugumi san is a nutball- we had a good lesson with her about the BOM and prayer. The next time we were supposed to meet she canceled bc she was busy so we went out to Onoda which is a 45 minute bike ride. Well she calls and is like where are you guys, im at the church! and I was like ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you said you couldnt meet!!!! so I said okay give us 30 minutes and then meet us at the church (she lives like 2 seconds away from the church) so we BOOKED it back to the church in 30 mintues - I prayed so hard for green lights and we only had one red light! (there are probably at least 30 stoplights on the way). MIRACLE. We watched the 1st half of the testamaents movie with her. She really loves learning about Jesus. 

Ami is doing so well- I could talk about her for ever but I dont think its okay to discuss her personal life. All I can say is I am so proud of her. We have a fun scripture study every week. Its nice to teach in english sometimes. 

We ride on the train about once a week. But ive never taken the bus while ive been in Ube.  THis week we took the train to do family night with a member. At the end of our lesson the mom was like so there is a half an hour between now and your train. do you want to look at pictures from my mission, or dendo? it was really funny. We looked at the pictures...sorry if I am a wamp. 

We had our last lesson with Hayashi san- he just wasnt progressing and refused to pray or keep commitments (well he read the bom assignments but without the right intent so it was kind of like nulled out.) but we left on really good terms. he said I want to appeal for peace! in english bc he thought we were mad at him. haha hes funny. 

We found a cute new investigator last night who said she has been searching for the true church! She said she didnt know how to pray so we taught her. It was way awesome.

We had the rich ladies lunch this week. I will include a picture of yeezma. 

We had fun heart attacking several of our ward leaders houses- we got to be super sneaky it was fun! It is also so cold. It snowed on tuesday and I couldnt see anything when we were biking! But today was pretty warm. 

Here are some pictures from this week!

Love you all!!!

Thanks for your letters and stuff!!!

Sister Nelson

This is the other sisters at the rich ladies lunch! 

This is Yeezma.(Like from Emperor's New Groove) I had to be sneaky so she wouldnt know I was taking a pic.

The elders put dum dums on our door with a note that said we would be dum dums without you! It was funny. Also they gave us cupcakes! yum!

This is some okonmiaki I made this week for dinner! 

Look! its Zak in Japan!

Oh HELLOO Pet..you may call me Aunt Vickey!!!!!!!

Hello I am doing great except is freezing but you know what? The church is true. if The pioneers can do it with no shoes and no food, I can do it with boots and lots of food. Even if its Senzai. (sick, I just threw up thinking about eating it.). Seriously Dad, its worse than Babybarf Cheese.

Okay this week was so awesome I dont even know where to start. I might just make a list.

- Tsugumi San is getting Baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!! She came to church the other day and had a really spiritual experience, felt members love, and built faith in Christ. We met with her 2x this week and taught about the restoration and about Christ. She loved hearing about the prophets and loved looking at all their pictures. She kept asking who is next!!? when we were talking about the ancient prophets in the bible. It tested my knowledge of the old testament for sure!  We had a young womens class for her where we talked about the spirit and how to recognize it. It was so good- she is getting better at praying and has a desire to read the Book of Mormon. She really likes Moroni. (Who doesnt!) Anyways, please pray for her because she needs it! 

-Yoshioka San is an avid SGI member but she recently called us and wanted to meet (she came to the Christmas party and loved it!) So we took a member and had a great lesson/ chat session about church and various things (okay they started talking about how tights make your stomach fat show....what the heck sometimes I wish my Japanese was bad. wellll...more bad than it is haha. ANyway she came to church on sunday and LOVED IT" she was like oh my gosh this is so easy to understand! So we have a lesson with her tomorrow. wahoo

- I sang How Great Thou Art in Sacrament meeting. Its called Waga shu yo Waga Kami in Japanese. Waga means my and Shu means lord and Kami means god. 

- We had an awesome lesson with Ami about the Plan of Salvaion and read from Moses 5. It was awesome. Moses five explains the POS so simply and it makes it into a real story- ( i mean because it is, but you know what i mean.)

- I basicaly joined the secret service and felt like the Von trapp family escaping from Austria- okay this cutest girl wanted to her our message and totaly was into the Restoration thing but her mom was a huge opposition and was like no way. So since we had already made a meeting with her, obviously we went to that appointment. It was dark and we went to her house praying her mom wouldnt be home. She wasnt and we got to teach a short lesson and Give Naru Book of Mormon and stuff. Just as we were leaving, her MOM PULLS UP IN THE CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!....my stomach literally fell out of my body. But so the mom comes up and DOESNT EVEN RECOGNIZE US! she was so nice and just said oh you are church people? no thanks!. And then went inside. What? yeah. The Spirit of God like a Fire is Burning. It was way cool. And scary. But mostly just cool and I totally felt like I was an anti Nazi person delivering secret mail. 

- We got this way awesome list of Vocab from the APs that is like 200 of the most used words. It has helped my vocab so much!!!!! Especially my Passive vocab. 

- We had interviews with President this week. He said that we are doing a Good job and called me a stinker because we rode out fifty billion miles to reactivate the Tateishis. I am also area sempi.... no pressure. That just means that Ive been in the area the longest. So basicaly if anything goes wrong I get fired. Just kidding. President is the best. He had us read in D&C about Different names Christ uses for Joseph Smith. He then asked us to decide what name we wanted and what we need to do to be deserving of that name. It was really impactful and I loved seeing that side of Christ, the one where we get to be equal (kind of) to him because we are all children of God and have known each other for eternities. 

-We taught this cool lesson with a new investigator family yesterday. We all knelt in the Genknon and talked about the Plan of Salvation. This NEVER HAPPENS. its usually just one person. But it was the whole family! They have really similar values to our church. They are shinto but I know that we totally prepared them to recieve the Gospel someday even though they aren't ready for it right now. Its a lot to think about you know?

- We had fun Nabe (soup) party for relief society and Tsugumi san and Yoshioka san came and had fun!!!!  I love Nabe!

- We had a ward game night- here are some funny pictures. The tateishis are the ones with the bows. Love them. Their grandson passed the sacrament for the first time this week! Yay reactivations!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats about all I can think of at this moment. Love you all and thanks for your letters and stuff!  Always remember who you are...you are my son and the one true king!....Remember! (insert picture of Mufasa)

Have a great week and stay warm!

Love,

ネルソンねるそん姉妹

Hello Family!

Okay you guys look way old in your pictures. I am going to come back and you guys are going to be taller than me and have like drivers licenses and be graduated and stuff. 

I am glad that nobody died in the fifteen feet of snow- that sounds fun but scary to drive in!

This week was great- we had some nice freezing rain that we housed all day in. Basicaly I was not dry the whole day. But it built some character. We also found FIVE investigators this week which is a personal record I think. I just know that as we show our faith, God will provide. Keep doing what you are doing and you will see miracles if you believe! 

We had a wonderful lesson with Ami Shimai, she is so great. We are doing a weekly scripture study with her to help her get more familliar with the church because she was inactive for so long. She is such a good missionary too- she tells all her friends about the church and posts stuff on facebook about it. She took us to see the ube illumination light thing that was really fun- we went with her Aunt Iida Shimai. It was fun! I love them so much. 

So this cutest lady we met a while ago called the other day and set up an appointment for herself! She was like yeah we arent going to talk about religion,,,but literally thats all we talked about. It was way good BRT and we are meeting with her this week to talk more about church- she is coming to church on Sunday! 

Tsugumi San came to church this week which was a surprise! SHe said she couldnt but she did. THere just happened to be three young women from another branch there for a special meeting so they totally fellowshipped her and told her all about Christ. It was awesome. She was totally into the pictures of Christ Sister Miura used in the lesson- especially the second coming. We have a real lesson with her this week!!!!!!!!!!

We were able to contact a less active 21 year old girl who I had a prompting to go visit- she is never home but she was home! We had some good BRT and hopefully will be able to meet this week or next week. She is a music major! yayy! but lets be real, you know how much time music majors have..aka none. So I will be praying hard for her to be able to meet with us! or just to come to church!

We had some deep cleaning to do this week so we had fun cleaning and reorganizing the apartment. it looks way good. We passed our cleaning check. Yay! (Yatta!)

So Ive started putting foot warmers into my shoes- they literaly save my life! It is so much easier to house and go tracting at night when you have warm feet!! 

I have been studying about Solomon and how awesome he is- I read in 1 kings 8: 13 which says ``I have surely built thee an house to dwell in. a settled place for thee to abide in forever``. I love this scripture because as we are building our faith and exercising the atonement, we allow the Spirit to dwell in us and at the same time, the Savior is preparing our mansions in heaven that we will be able to dwell there forever! 

King Solomon was blessed with an Understanding Heart. He knew how weak he was but yet he just asked for knowledge of how to help others and he turned out pretty awesome. I am thankful for his example!

Have a great week! Stay warm! 

Love,

Sister Nelson

I want this car! its so cute! 

ami and Iida shimai!

 this garden is so cute!

Happy New Year!!!

This week was really fun! We had dinner at members houses almost every day- sometimes lunch too!! Because of the New Year holliday, not a lot of people were very receptive to our proselyting so we just spent a lot of time with our members and less actives. Some fun things we ate were...

-Sushi! There was this huge bowl of rice and then a plate full of different types of fish and veggies that you could make your own roll with. It was so fun!

- Nasty Pizza bread! So basically it was boiled cheese, tomatoes, hot dogs, pineapple, roast beef, onions, and avocado served on white bread...intersting. so much boiled cheese. so much. They like dont really care to chop things into little pieces so its kind of like oh hey do you want some pizza with your onion slab?  Sister Southworth Hates onions so I ate hers. It was fun! We had oreo ice cream for dessert- the elders were not feeling up to eating a lot that day so, yes of course I took one for the team and had three bowls. If you dont eat everything its very impolite. 

- Pizza from costco!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so good! Real peperoni and olives from AMERICA! our bishops mother illegaly sent him peperoni. If the govermnent (seifu) had found that they would have probably been shot or something. DONT SEND ME ANY MEAT ITS NOT ALLOWED!

- A ginormous bowl of ramen followed by 2 different types of okonmiaki followed by kaki (persimmon) followed by Icecream followed by cupcakes. OHMYGOSH. I wanted to throw up it was so much food. That meal was with our Elders quorum president who is kind of like Kuzco from Emporers New groove. Just in the way he talks. He is very nice and loves missionaries and his kids are so cute- he showed us a video about missionaries and gave us the spiritual thought instead of the other way around.

This was at our bishops house- his daughter gave me all of her toys and I was holding her stuff for like fifty minutes it was cute I love her! the awkward boy is elder Alger. Hes really funny!

- Nabe! I love nabe. its a really yummy soup- basically you just put in whatever veggies and meat you want, boil it and then put a nabe sauce in the bowl. so yummy! I make it all the time in the apartment. 

- Senzai. okay so take a piece of toilet paper, soak it in some sugar water, add some refried beans, warm it up and you have senzai! LIterally the nastiest thing I have eaten on my mission. Apparently its a delicacy. Also it would be okay to throw in the toilet.

But it was all good times and laughs- everybody thinks I am a nutball so I guess thats okay. 

Oh yes, before I forget. We had Transfers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im still in Ube. Forever probably. This is my fourth transfer in Ube. My companion is still Sister Southworth. Yay! Sister Sharp transfered to Kagoshima where they have a volcano that erupts every single day- so you have ashes like everywhere and probably nobody has eyebrows cause they get singed off or something.

We have a new sister in our apartment- sister Suzuki! She is Japanese! But she is fluent in English. She is so awesome and cute and I love her! She is on her ninth transfer. She has already inspired me to be so much more obedient and I am thankful for her good example. 

After church yesterday I recorded a new primary song for the primary kids! Its the one about eternal familes. I dont know what its called in english. I had to romonji all of the words because there was a syllable for every note and it was all syncapated and a wierd melody but thats okay it was good practice and good to know Im not loosing all my musical skills!

SO our district split in three ways so now ube is our own district! yayyy ube!!!!!!!!!! Elder Alger is our District Leader.

these are my cleaning shorts! I found them in our house. They are like sweater shorts...They sell them everywhere. I guess you wear them over your tights and under your skirt?　I dont know Ive never actually seen anybody wearing them. If this isnt a modest picture you dont have to put it in my blog haha. 

We went through a lot of rejections and appointments that fell through but It made us a stronger companionship and it made me thankful for the blessings I have recieved already. I know that heavenly father answers all of our prayers, it is just in his timing. keep praying even when you dont feel like praying. I just always think of the scripture that says `Father forgive them, for they know not what they do` and I am able to have peace in my heart. 

Some good news is that the Tateishi fufu stayed for all three meetings and they want to come to our mission coordination meeting and they brought their grandchildren!!! yay!!!!!! (previously they didnt want to come to meetings even though they are set apart as missionaries..its a long story but now its happy! wahoo! they are the ones that live out in china.)

Love to you all- hope you have a fun rest of your winter break and a good semester!!!!!!!!!!

Break legs to those of you who are in shows! Ps can I like get a vespers CD or something? how did that go?!?!?!?!?!?!

Thanks for the letters and presents and things! I feel my saviors love through you!

Good luck to KL going into the MTC soon! (I think?)

Sister Nelson

Happy New Year!!!! Yoi Shoogatsu!

Okay so I just want to talk about a lesson that we had this week. with this man named hayashi san. He wanted to start meeting with the missionaries because he said he didnt have a purpose of life and he felt a power from us. He didnt believe in god.. he believes in SIIEENNCE. (guess the movie!) anyway so a while back we read 2 nephi 2 about the plan of salvation and opposition and he said it didnt make any sense and it was made up. Last week at our first lesson he admitted he has a little bit of interest in religion (he always says he isnt interested in religion). WHat! miracle! and then we read the same verses in 2 Nephi again and he said yes this makes a lot of sense. we need god and satan. Whatt?? so awesome!!!!!!! HE TOTALY BELIEVES IN GOD NOW!  He was really cute and was like are you guys mad at me for the questions I ask? I really want to keep meeting with you and dont want you to be mad at me.

He is so humble- he admitted he is totaly ignorant and he really wants to learn. ALthough this is a slow progression he is legitametly progressing and I am so thankful!!!!!!! All in the Lords timing, my friends. (thanks sis, neuberger for that farmer story- totally relevant to my life!)

We gave mori san to the elders to start teaching. HE IS PROGRESSING SO MUCH. it was totally the right thing to do. He needs priesthood leaders to teach him. (shinkensha - priesthood holder). He is all about faith in Jesus Christ right now and has a baptism date of the 25th.

We have had 5 reactivations this transfer. I am so greatful for this miracle. It wasnt what our goal was for the transfer but it was what the Lord wanted. I know that if we try our best with what we have and do all we can do- the Lord always makes up the difference.

So we got an all day pday on christmas which was fun- we went out to dinner with the　elders and other sisters and then went to see some christmas lights at tokiwa park with a member and his nonmember friend. It was fun!! there was a huge rainbow tunnel of lights! Thanks for all the cards and presents and stuff! you guys are aweosme and made my christmas so special- especially that huge banner from the ward. You guys are the best! I miss you too!

Its really easy to get stressed out or to not think we can do things- but just remember that we arent commanded to be perfect or to be the best- we just have to do what we can. Mosiah 4: 27 says to not run faster than we have strength. If we go like a road runner we will run out of gas real fast. Slow and steady wins the race to eternal life with our heavenly father. our progression happens by degrees-mostly miniscule little incraments but as we progress and become better people those little increments influence the lives of everyone we meet, bringing happiness to others lives as well. Thomas S. Monson said *courage, not compromise brings the smile of Gods approval.* Dont give up on your standards. Dont. You are worth so much more than somebody elses oppinion of you. The world is getting crazy and it needs you guys to be strong! THank you for your courage- it does not go unnoticed.

I love you all and hope you have a great New Years Eve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dont get crazy.

Love,

Sister Nelson

Christmas gifts!

William and Parker with some gifts from Olivia

Talking to Olivia on Christmas Eve!!!

This is Ami- she was reactivated this transfer. She speaks English! She's from Michigan. And Sister Southworth.