Last week of Feb!

Hello to the other side of the world.

Well this week was pretty full of miracles. First one.

We were trying to contact this referral that lives about a 2 hour bike ride away. And because I am so good at directions we obviously made it there in no time. NOT. We probably get lost at least once or five times every day. So we got lost. And nobody knew the area we were trying to go to so they couldnt help us. So what did we do? We tried our best to keep going. BUt then when our hearts were depressed and we were about to turn back...just kidding Im not going to pretend like I am the sons of Moronai. They are way better missionaries than me. Just wanted to add a little scriptural humor. Okay anyways we prayed and I had this overwhelming feeling of peace and the spirit said Dont worry, you are in my care. So I just started peddling and taking random roads. In about 15 minutes we were in a familiar area about 10 minutes from home. Okay here is the deal, we were 2 ours away from home and had crossed a huge river. We didnt cross a river on the way back and made it there in 15 minutes. 

I have no Idea what happened. All I know is, the Lord makes up the difference after all we can do.

Another thing to share; We were about to turn onto this tiiiinnnnyyyy road that immediately goes down a 90 degree hill when I heard a voice say `theres a car`. I stopped my bike immedetly and right after that a car came speeding up the road. If the spirit hadnt told me about the car I would have probably died. It was pretty cool. Sister Southworth was like what how did you know that! But it wasnt me.

Here is a top ten favorite things for William:

Here is the deal, I am really bad at favorites so Its a good thing there are ten options!

1. The gardens! Everybody has awesome cutest gardens with beatuiful flowers. I also love terrace farms. 

2. I love the trees! 

4. I love the pastel cars. Almost everybody has a tiny pastel car. really cute! 

5. 90 year old grandmas that wear leather suits and ride motercycles. We see this daily.

6. The food! I love tempura the best I think. And Nabe! Except not mochi. Its nasty. 

7.The daiso. its this dollar store that is basicaly target and michaels and pier one except its a dollar!

8. The donuts. SO good. And the chocolate candy stuff. So yummy Ill have to send you some! look for a package soon! Everything is individually packaged though. Its frusterating at points. immagine all of the famous amous cookies in an individual wrapper.......yes. Well at least it will maybe keep me from getting fat or something.

9. The people are so nice and selfless and giving

10. The fashion here is insane- its awesome. You can wear a toothpick and nobody cares. Everybody is very fashionable becasue everything is fashionable. Its nice. Except for I still think its wierd when I see boys carring purses. THey are like fannypacks that you wear over your shoulder. Except for one of my english class students has a for real fanny pack that he sports every week. he is my favorite. 

All the historic sites are really cool too. You should look up a picutre of a tanuki. Its everywhere in japan.....Immagine walking up to a house to knock on the door and then BAM one of those things is on the front porch-life size. that is a daily. 

Good luck with your report william! it will be great! 

This is us at the mochi tsuki!! I AM WEARING JEANS YAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is us at the rich ladies lunch. We had that last week.

Our lessons were good this week- we had a great lesson with Yoshioka san and taught six commandments and reviewed the baptismal interview questions! I dont know how we did that. SHe is seriously the most prepared person ever. She was like yes I will pay tithing and fast and do everything else! ANd its not jsut to make us happy- she is for real. She totally understands the atonement. (okay nobody totally understands the atonement but you know what i mean).

I am so happy the snow is gone!!! I hope william gets my birthday card- let me know if you dont and I will send a new one!

Love you all, have a great day! Dont worry- the winter is almost over!!!!!!!!

Sister Nelson

This is us pounding the mochi 

Yes I ate that. 

Peek- a - boo. yeah I had to eat this little friend too. There were like fifty of them in my pasta! actually they are really yummy.

Normal every day goings on...

ANNNNND JAPPPPANNNN TAKES THE GOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yayy for figure skating!

that is awesome. I wish i could watch them- everybody has been talking about them here. How is america doing?

Yes of course you can use my sewing machine! i am saddened to hear of bushenkas passing. What should we call mine?

This week we were able to meet with Yoshoka San and Ueda San. We had a huge miracle- Yoshioka san was like yeah totally! when we asked her to keep the word of Wisdom! She is so awesome. I love prepared people. We are teaching about tithing and fasting this week so keep her in your prayers please! Her baptism date is next friday.

She has recognized that since she has started coming to church and praying and reading the book of Mormon that her husbands health has improved. he lives at the hospital and I think had a stroke so they cant talk. Its sad. But she knows that it is because of her faith in this church and in Heavenly Father. When we ask for something with sincerety and real intent he will give it to us!

This week I learned a lot about being thankful for what I have. It is difficlut because we are not very good at Japanese- it is probably the hardest language ever. But I have been so blessed to have recieved blessings like the gift of tounges and stuff. I am doing my best and I need to learn to be proud of myself instead of just beating myself up for not doing better.

We had a suprise- Okada san became our investigator again when the elders contacted into her and asked us to help teach her a lesson. We were able to bond over cats and art. We explained to her about tithing and fasting and she seems to understand way better. We are meeting again this week.

It has been METCHA SAMUI!!!! *so stinking cold!  But its okay.

We had a fun ward activity- a Mochi tsuki. We made mochi and pounded the rice and stuff. it was fun!!!! A bunch of investigators came so that was awesome. Mochi is nasty. but i like it if you just eat the chocolate that you put inside and not the mochi. so mostly I just hung out by the chocolate table.

People were really disinterested this week. I would love to say that being on a mission is happy and fun every day but its not. you can make it fun if you want to though! I am so thankful to have a good companion who is supportive and funny and makes me laugh.

We deep fried oreos last night after a hard day. SO GOOD. Dont judge. if you ride your bike for a billion hours and walk around in the cold for fifteen days and dont crave some deep fried oreos, then you can judge. if not, keep your comments to yourself. thank you. I also made some cornbread an honeybutter that was so good- it reminded me of the casa grill corn tortillas and honeybutter. yummmmmm

So Ueda san is kind of a hippie. We were talking about baptism and she was like oh yeah! one day I dressed up in a white kimono and went down to the river in the middle of winter!.....um okay? haha

Yoshioka san was actually at ueda sans lesson so she was able to teach her about the gospel it was awesome! they are neighbors- udeda san is a referral from Yoshioka san. She was like yeah I am sixty but when i get baptized it will be like i am 1!! she totally gets it. this is so cool.

When is general conference??????

How is the ward doing? anything interesting? I heard seminary is totally changing and is way pmg based- awesome!!

I am happy you all are trying to have missionary experiences! it is a good idea to come up with things to do as a family and have a family mission plan. Like reading the BOM in public places or using Mormon words around friends like mutual or seminary or sacrament. In family night you could role play things or play games like who can explain a certain gospel principle in 5 sentences or less? Stuff lie that is really good preparation for missions because often we don't get a lot of time. Youre right mom, people love to talk about themselves. But if you listen with love they will tell us something that we can use to help them relate to the gospel! Thanks for being a good example Mom!

Thanks for your prayers and stuff- love you!

Sister Nelson

Happy Birthday Mom and Happy Valentines day!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Valentines day!!!! in Japanese, we say HaPi BaRenTainSu Day!!! In Japan, girls give chocolate to boys on valentines day. In March, they have white day where the boys give chocolate to the girls. Cute huh? I will probably give chocolate to myself on both days. 

Okay HOld the phone! Bibba is E-N-G-A-G-E-D???? I Need to see pictuers and I need details!!!! Congratulations I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How about you get married after I get home? 

Ps. Big When is your big day?? 

Okay is anybody else getting married?? Any big news? I live half way around the world here- not much information gets shared. I also live in Ube aka the middle of Kansas. But its a good Kansas. Kind of like Neverland combined with Kansas. Except in place of pirates there are statues of Naked Racoons everywhere. Its a Buddhist thing. We call it a tripple B. It is a boy and a girl racoon. 

We had transfers. I transfered to the Moscow, Russia mission so Im actually in Russia. 

NOT. Im still in Ube! for my fifth transfer! Sister Southworth is my same companion! 

So this week was insane. We went to teach Yoshioka san and guess who was there? The prophet! Just kidding. She brought her BFF to study `mormon`. Let me just preface this story a little. We booked it about 30 minutes on our bikes to get to Fujitaki Shimais house so we could drive to the lesson cause she was jointing. In another life she was Yeezma from Empoeres new groove. okay anyways so we get there and she was like here is some hot chocolate! it was about as hot as the devils bathtub and then shes like okay we have to go! drink up! so I downed this enormous cup of cocoa in about three secconds and now I have to use a straw as an esophogas because mine burnt up. 

Tonikaku. We go to the lesson and Ueda san is there! We were like oh shoot...this is wierd. because we were going to teach about the atonement. You cant just teach about the atonement on the first lesson ya know? So we prayed really hard. Fujitake shimai was great- she helped us so much. We asked Ueda san how she felt about religion andn she s said I love religion and families are important so we talked about eternal families- from that point we did the Plan of Salvation and the atonement- it was so good! She was so receptive. THen we gave her a book of Mormon and she KISSED IT! she was so exited! SO that was a huge miracle! She also was like yeah I totally want to get baptized!

We had a lesson with a new investigator named Mohhamed san. He is a grad student studying engeneering. So he brought 2 friends to the lesson- Ami Jointed and did such a good job! I am so proud of her! ANyway the freinds were totaly trying to contend with us. about the validity of the Book of Mormon. But we just kept smiling and testifying of what we know to be true. The spirit totally guided that lesson. ANyway we invited them to read the Book of Mormon and they said they would- and they want to bring more friends next time!!!!!!!!!! I got such a powerful testimony of how important it is to contend without being contentious. We are already on the winning side, so we dont need to send out snipers to attack the other side when they send out invesgitators to try to see what we are up to- we want them to be able to sneak over to our side because if they do, they will see by our works what kind of people we are, and that we have the truth, and that no matter what Satan does, we have already won! 

Keep up the good work troops! 

Love you!!

Sister Nelson

Just some things I ate this week....and this is Yoshioka san! and uede san is in the background. they came to a salsa class our bishop taught this week. oh yeah, you see those little squid guys? yes i ate them. This is called sashimi. It means raw fish. One of our investigators named Satoko (sugar child) took us out to lunch where she works at this traditional restaurant

This is a picture with aoyagi choro- can you see me? :)

It's ground hog day!

Happy Groundhog day! 

 And Happy Birthday to Grandma Doman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Janice is 70 Everybody! wahoo!!!!!!!

This week we had a great lesson with Yoshioka San about the Plan of Salvation. She is such a great listener!! She just sits and absorbs everything. She can feel that this is the truth and she trusts us. But what we want is for her to trust in Heavenly Father. We had a Zone training with an Area General Authority; Elder Aoyagi. he was so awesome! I learned a lot of great things. He talked a lot about what we can do to become Ideal missionaires. He also emphasized the Atonement. Teaching everything with the Atonement at the center is one way we can retain our converts. Because people here dont know anything about Jesus Christ, it is ESSENTIAL that they develop a testimony about the Atonement before they are baptized, otherwise they will just go less active.  Ive been feeling some big pressure on m shoulders latley. But I realized that Heavenly father will always make up the difference for my Weaknesses as long as I am trying. And he also does it even when I dont do my best- because he loves me. He loves everybody else just as much and they all quallify for his grace and mercy. That is the power of the atonement. We reach our goal of becoming godlike a lot quicker as we strive to understand and use the atonement, but regardless of what we do, the atonement is always there.

Tsugumi San came to church which was great! We had a young womens class for her  with 2 members. She really listens to them way more than us. Which is okay with me! We are like her friends and the members are becoming her spiritual advisors and teachers. This is good- she will be converted to the church and not the missionaries! Heavnely Father answers all of our prayers. She still wants to get baptized but we have to change her date because she has a band concert. She also isnt really ready quite yet. She needs to understand about the Atonement more.

I had a great experience in a lesson with a Recent convert who has been having some hard times. The member we jointed with was so amazing she said We are going to heaven together- dont give up! I wont give up on you and neither will god! 

I think it was the most beautiful moment on my mission. Dont give up on your less Actives. they can teach you more than you can teach them. 

How is the missionary work coming in your areas? What opportunities have you had latley? I would love to hear some experiences!

Also Dad, If you can I would love to hear some mission stories. I love when you talk about your mission it always inspires me to be better!

We almost got killed this week by a rabbid dog. Okay so we both had this feeling like dont go into the house. but we were both like no! we have to contact everybody we can! just because this house looks nasty doesnt mean the people are nasty!....Well we should have listenend to the spirit becuase there was a huge wolf dog without a chain guarding the door. We booked it back to the fence and barley made it. I think we had some help from the Angels on this one because there is no way the dog shouldnt have ripped off my flesh. He was running way faster than us!

Speaking of running. I want to do a half marathon when i get home. I biked 40 miles one day this week-m ost of it uphill. If I can do that I can totaly do a half marathon. We were trying to find our bishops new house. He lives about an hour and a half away by bike. We thought he lived close to the Tateishis but it turns out its not actually close. So it was a biking adventure. He made us dinner though which was nice! He told us to ride the train home and bring our bikes on the train. We both knew this would not come to pass but we were like okay! becuase we didnt want him to feel bad. The guy at the station was like uhh you guys are dumb. you cant bring your bikes on the train, only if you can fold them. ANd I was like what? who can fold their bike? So we BOOKED it home! It took like three days to recover haha. 

That was some hilights of this week! Transfer calls are next tuseday and we are going to the TEMPLE this Saturday! 

Everyday is an adventure- good thing we can repent anytime we want. 

Love you all!! 

Sister Nelson

some mtc friends at zone conference and a really cool terrace farm!