Being an STL makes me so exhausted but I love it so much. I honestly feel like a big part of my mission was meant to be here helping all these sisters, and I have just gained so many new friends and learned so much about Christ like love and am just so grateful for this chance I have had to grow and to try and help others along the way as well. I love serving other sisters and missionaries! We have follow up phone calls every night which is fun but also makes me so tired haha, and exchanges are so fun too but also make me so tired...basically I am just way more tired but am also way happy and with more friends. It is super neat to serve in this capacity and I am grateful. I guess that really just sums up the majority of all my feelings lately, just a large bunch of gratitude. Literally I am so blessed, and we as church members are just so blessed. When we take a second to step back and think about it, how can we not feel and recognize love from God every single day?
Group Email:
Minasan, konnichiwa!
Hope that you all had a wonderful week in whatever part of the land
you might be in! Special shoutout to lots of my friends who are
receiving their mission calls and getting engaged and all that good
stuff, so happy for everyone and to see life going so well for so
many! The blessings of God are just so good.
So I am not gonna lie, I am struggling to think of anything SUPER
notable and specific from this week that happened. It was the first
week of the entire transfer that we were actually able to stay in
Kawachinagano and just do work, and it was so happy! I loved getting
just get to work with my companion and visit members and less actives
and meet up with all our investigators. Traveling for lots of
exchanges and meetings is super fun, but sometimes it also makes me so
tired! It is nice to just be home sweet home and working in this
choice part of the vineyard.
The investigators! First of all we have Kana, who is our cute 24 year
old that we found through the new Eikaiwa program. We had a meeting
with her on Wednesday and we were able to teach her the Restoration,
and it was so neat. The Spirit is ALWAYS so strong during that lesson,
and it was neat to see her having one of her first experiences
recognizing the Spirit and loving it. She is reading the Book of
Mormon and praying about it to see if it is true right now, and we are
excited. We were also able to teach her how to pray and have her first
out loud prayer with her, and that was neat. One of my favorite things
about serving a mission here in Japan is the chance to experience so
many "firsts" with my investigators...first prayers, first church
attendance, first recognized experience with God.. honestly it is the
best and so special and not something I would ever change for the
world.
Kim is also doing super well. We are gonna have to push her baptism
date back to allow her to come to church more and to still get things
settled with her husband, but her desire to be baptized is just so
strong and exciting, it makes me emotional like every single time she
talks about. I haven't met someone so prepared in ages, it just kills
me and makes me want to shove her in the font haha. We are going
through all the commandments with her right now, and it is cool to see
things clicking in her brain, like how we have commandments to bless
us because God LOVES us. She still has some concerns about stuff with
her husband (I.e. Like having to pay tithing on money if her husband
says no, etc.) but we are slowly working through it and so are excited
for her. I just love her so dang much, we had a lesson the other day
and it just hit me how special she is to me. I just know I met this
woman before this life and I just feel so humbled and blessed to be
one of many wonderful missionaries who has had the chance to work with
this amazing woman. She is such a dear friend to me now, I know she
was then, and I know she will be for the rest of my life.
Thursday we had a great chance to have a companion exchange with the
Sakai sisters! They came to Kawachinagano for the day and I had a
chance to work with Sister Polatis, and it was so much fun. She is
such a bright and bubbly person and a fantastic missionary, and I
learned TONS of stuff from her. She is a great teacher and was able to
help me improve a lot, and we saw lots of miracles and overall just
had a great time. I love exchanges so much, it is just such a humbling
and great experience for me to work with all these wonderful sisters,
it makes my entire life. We focused on teaching repentance and then
helped her make some baptismal plans for investigators back in Sakai
(my last area, so yay!) and so it was a super fun and successful
koukan.
Other than that...things and life are just good. I adore Sister
Manwill, my sweet companion, to the end of the earth and back and I
feel so blessed to be here working with her, because I learn tons
daily and yet we always manage to have a great time. Getting to work
with her in this area at this time is such a privilege. I also adore
the Kawachinagano church members so much, they are all trying so hard
to help us and so we continue to work hand in hand with them to bring
back less actives and find new people to teach, so overall just a
happy day in the life here for us.
So another crazy thing is that today I turn 10 in Transfer ages...nooo
haha, how did this even happen to me? Time here has gone so fast and
yet I am so grateful for every single moment. I will be spending this
next transfer here in Kawachinagano with Sister Manwill again, and I
am so happy and excited to see all the blessings the Lord has in store
for us! This is the first time in a YEAR that neither me or my
companion have transferred, so this should be a super fun and happy
time, and we are planning on just baptizing the world for Manwill
Shimai's last transfer here in the mission.
So quick story time...the other day we were in a lesson with an
investigator and we were trying to explain how church members are just
normal people and they aren't scary or weird and how when we go back
from our missions, we will just become normal members again. My
companion and I both took off our badges for a second to prove a
point, and then we just looked at each other and just had tears come
to our eyes because the reality of how fast our time is going just hit
us way strong and we didn't know what to do. We both kind of just put
our tags back on and didn't talk about it, because it made us too sad.
The next day in personal study I was drawn to the talk by Elder
Holland a few years back in conference entitled "The First Great
Commandment". It talks about how the Savior appears to Peter after the
resurrection and kind of gets on his case about how he went back to
fishing after everything he had done and experienced as a disciple.
What he says is so powerful (in interpreting the scriptures that is)
which is "What I need Peter, are disciples, and I need them FOREVER."
It hit me so strongly in that moment, that the Lord is still making
that call to all of us today. It was such a tender reminder to me that
even though I won't always be a missionary forever, the biggest and
most important calling I could have is to be a disciple of Christ, and
that is calling that will last forever and will bring us all more joy
and blessings than we can ever imagine if only we accept the
invitation.
Right now, as an authorized representative of Jesus Christ, the
reminder and invitation that I would like to give all of you is that
what Christ needs, especially now, is disciples, and He needs us
forever. He needs people who will defend Him and His gospel and who
will help the poor and needy and who will try everyday to be
charitable and kind and to follow the commandments from our Heavenly
Father. In so doing I promise that your lives will change and that you
will experience joy and a closeness with our Savior you couldn't find
anyhow else other than on the path of true and lasting discipleship.
I know that our Savior lives and that He loves us and that He needs
all of us to do our best to help feed His sheep. He wants us all to
come home, of that I can most assuredly promise.
Well everyone, I hope that you all have a wonderful week and that you
recommit yourself as one of His disciples for me :) thanks as always
for all the love and prayers, they mean the world! Talk to you all
soon, okay? Aishiteimasu!
Love,
Sister Pickering
Photos: Our awkward family district photo, exchanges with Sister
Polatis, random Japan pictures, and Manwill Shimai and I after some
long days haha.
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