I LOVE CHRIST(MAS):Nihon Week 40

 If I could use one word to describe Alyssa and her week it would be JOY.  I can read it in her email and see it in her face in her many many pictures.  She is truly happy which makes me so happy.  She loves her ward, her companions, the culture, the people in general, and of course the Gospel and the Savior.  At this time of year I couldn't ask for a better gift.  Now if only I could get names and places to go along with the pictures she takes. :)

I also received an email and pictures this week from another lovely member of the Sakai ward.  I am so grateful for them.  Here it is:

Kristin,

Hello!!

I'm sister Kawakami who are a member of the church attending Sakai ward.

I just wanted to tell you that how much sister Pickering is beautiful and she speaks very good Japanese!!

I'm in primary so I don't have very many chances to talk to missionaries anymore but she is doing really good.

They are going to Kyoto today, I'm sure she is enjoying it! I wanted to go with them but I have work so too bad 😭

Have a good evening!

RIRIKO  Kawakami

Aren't people wonderful?  And of course her group email:

Minasan, konnichiwa!

First of all, I have an onegai for everyone. I received word this week
that my ward mission leader from my first area has been hospitalized
after having a brain hemorrhage this week...if y'all wouldn't mind
keeping a Brother Inamori in your prayers, I would be mighty
appreciative!

This week was so busy and so wonderful! It was a little different
because we had two full days out of our area, but we still managed to
see so many miracles and tender mercies from our Heavenly Father.
So first and foremost...we spent two days in Wakayama this week!
Wakayama is the zone leader area here in the Sakai zone and it is
super pretty and right by the ocean. On Wednesday we had Zone
Conference, and then on Friday we had Zone Training Meeting and both
were wonderful! Of course I loved Wednesday the most because we had
the chance to learn from our wonderful mission president and his wife.
I love the Welches! The theme of this past conference was Faith and
Repentance, and together we really dissected the topic and discussed
what it looks like for us as missionaries and how we can better
improve by using more faith and repenting more. I learned so many
things! It was so neat and as a follow up, as a mission we are all
going through the Book of Mormon together again this time with a focus
on faith and Repentance...I am so excited for this reading and to see
all the things we have to learn!

I know on my mission my perception
and understanding of these topics have grown leaps and bounds and I am
so grateful. I now have a better understanding of faith and how to use
it in my daily life and dendo, and I especially have come to love
Repentance. It is the best! It is just a daily consistent change that
allows us to become more like our Savior. All we need to do is try a
little better to be tomorrow who we weren't today, and that is enough.
Christ will always help us as we strive and make efforts to be more
like Him. We also talked a lot about angels, and how they are present
in our mission every single day. I know that to be true! Whether it is
the mysterious motorcycle dude that fixes my broken bike or a member
that drives us around all day to visit less actives, there are angels
that walk around every single day in the Japan Kobe Mission, and the
only question we have is whether or not we will recognize them.

After the conference I got to go on a nice long walk and have a good
life chat with Sister Welch while my companion had her final
interview. Gibson Shimai will be heading home to America this week,
and I will miss her lots! We have had a good four weeks together and
have seen lots of miracles and I can't wait to hear all about her next
transfer to America where she gets to pick out her next companion ;)
that being said I have no idea where I will be this week! I don't know
if another sister will come to me in Sakai or if I will go somewhere
or if I will become a threesome with the STL's until the end of the
year! Regardless God is in charge and it will be a fun adventure no
matter what happens, so stay tuned to see what happens there! I am
praying to stay here in Sakai because this ward is phenomenal and I
hope to keep working with them until the end of the year to see this
baptism!

So this weekend our ward put on a church open house for the community
and members and everyone to come and see! The ward members did a
wonderful job and our church was literally transformed into Temple
Square for like two days haha. There were displays about Christ and
the Book of Mormon in the gym area and then in the chapel we had a
Nativity and a Christmas tree and Christmas videos playing. The whole
setup was so perfect and everyone loved it! Sister Gibson and I were
so so busy as we ran around like crazy and gave tours to everyone that
came in. I was SO PROUD of the Sakai members! They all did their best
to invite their less active and nonmember friends, and we saw a lot of
success from it! A lot of less actives had super touching experiences
and expressed a desire to return, and likewise we got so many new and
potential investigators from the open house. It literally was just two
days straight of miracles. At the end of the whole thing, we ended up
receiving 14 new referrals that were friends of members that they
brought us to teach, and it was just so amazing! I know with all of my
heart that as we continue to work with the members here in Japan, this
will become one of the highest baptizing missions in the world. That
has been prophesied and that day will come and I feel blessed to see
just a little part of it here on my mission now. It was super funny
though because one of the tours we ended up giving happened to be to
the mayor of Sakai...one of our members is his neighbor and he just
went for it and invited him, and he showed up! They asked us to come
and give him this tour and we had no idea why everyone was being so
formal and bowing so much and using WAY formal speech and then only
afterwards when we were told who the guy is! It was funny though
because we became friends and invited him to church and I am fairly
confident that soon enough the city of Sakai's official religion will
become Mormonism haha.

This Christmas season has been just amazing. I have never felt more
close to my Savior at Christmas ever, and that is just the greatest
blessing of all. As we were giving tours to all these people, members
and nonmembers alike, the Spirit would just testify to me that Jesus
really is the Christ and that He is our Savior and is the light of the
world and the reason for the season. I cannot adequately put into
words the feelings that I have for my Savior. It has grown so much on
my mission and my goal is to develop a relationship here that will
continue to go stronger for the rest of my life. I love my Savior,
Jesus Christ with my whole heart. He is Christmas and He is everything
to me, and I feel so blessed to be His representative during this
special season.

Hope you all have a wonderful week and that you continue to Light the
World! Aishiteimasu, minasan!

Love,
Sister Pickering

P.S. Today for P day we went....wait for it wait for it...back to
Kyoto haha. Nobody in my district has ever been before and Gibson
Shimai wanted to go before she died...so we went with the elders and
Sakagami Shimai (a ward member) and met up with Fujii a Shimai, my
last companion! Such a great day and so much fun!

What a wonderful picture.  This shows love for former companions,  the wear and tear on her missionary clothes, and Alyssa actually looks tall which she isn't at all.

The Sakai Ward Open House

Look at the size of this mural.  The ward really went all out.

Kids are the same everywhere.

Alyssa's popularity continues with her blonde hair.

Zone conference

Alyssa had the opportunity to visit a Japanese hospital to have a Ganglion Cyst removed.  In the end, the outcome was a big needle in her hand, lots of pain and not much success.  A memory for the books though.

Alyssa loves her sushi bars.

Happy December! Nihon Week 39

People always told me that if I could steer Alyssa's determination and strong will in the right direction then it could be a force for good.  When she sets her mind to something there is no stopping her.  I can see how this has been a great benefit in her missionary work on so many levels.  Here is just one example:

"This is random, but the other goal I made a random goal to talk to 87 people and nobody believed that I could do it so it bugged me and then I went and did it haha. I was way tired but here is a classic Alyssa story for you."

Glad to see that she is using her "Super Powers" for good.  :)

And once again my heart is full of gratitude and love for those wonderful people in Japan that are taking care of my daughter.

Group Email for the week:

Minasan, konnichiwa!

Happy December and Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are all
enjoying the snow and the festivities and hearing scary ghost stories
and tales of the glories of Christmases long long ago and all that
good stuff haha. We are working hard here and enjoying the Christmas
festivities we have here as well....as in sharing the Christmas video
with literally everyone and occasionally seeing a decoration
somewhere! Definitely a different world over here, but I wouldn't want
to be anywhere else right now!

So this email won't be very long because I don't have a ton of time
today, but I wanted to share a couple quick experiences with you all
this week! First of all on Monday night I was blessed with a wonderful
birthday present...a shigansha! Our investigator Sayaka finally
committed to a baptism date set for next year and we are so excited.
We still have some WOW and LOC problems to overcome, but as she has
shown her faith to set this date, I know she will receive the heavenly
help she needs to progress and become truly converted!

So the Spirit is a super cool thing. On Wednesday we had the chance to
go and visit this recent convert with the elders named Daito Kyodai.
He is this super precious old grandpa who is blind in one eye and just
has the most precious testimony and we adore him! We really wanted to
go and visit him and as we were leaving I had the spur of the whim
thought to just bring this super beautiful chocolate cake that one of
my Eikaiwa students gave me, because I figured sharing is always a
happy thing to do. I also happened to have candles and everything in
the bag coincidentally, so it was kind of just like whatever. We get
there and are visiting him and we find out that it had been his
birthday the day before and nobody had celebrated it with him or even
knew...at that moment the Spirit just told me what to do and we just
whipped out this prepared birthday cake for him and sang to him and he
was SO overjoyed. He started crying and told us that nobody had ever
done anything like that for him before and he was so touched...he
asked us how we knew it was his birthday, and we just were able to
smile and tell him that Heavenly Father knew and that he loved him. It
was so special to me because once again my testimony was just so
strengthened that God knows and loves each and every one of us
individually. I love being an instrument of that love, it is the best
part of the entire mission.

Another funny thing happened on Thursday....so it was the worldwide
service day for the church and we made all these big plans to go out
and serve everyone and baptize the world and so we set out on our
bikes....and then we were on them for a while before my bike decided
to just die. The chain just completely died and it was unbridgeable
and we were then stranded on the side of the road...and were stuck
haha. We tried to fix it ourselves but it wasn't working and didn't
know what to do...we started joking around about how we needed one of
the 3 Nephites to roll up on a motorcycle and help us...and literally
two seconds later this mysterious dude on a motorcycle rolls up and
starts fixing my bike without saying a word and then just kind of
rides away...it was the craziest thing and such a miracle! Sadly it
still wasn't ride able but I could at least move it...shortly after
that we were guided by these 5 grandmas to a bike shop that ended up
being closed and then after that this college student fixed my bike
for like 45 minutes to the point I could ride it to another bike shop
where they FINALLY fixed it. It ended up being like this 3 hour ordeal
and it was such a hassle and I was so frustrated because we had all
these plans to go and serve all these people but then I instantly
realized that the Lord had spent the day serving ME. It was such a
sweet reminder of the incredible and sweet people that I have the
chance to be serving at this time. The Japanese are truly the most
Christlike people I have ever met...and they don't even know it. That
is why I feel so blessed to be here working with them at this time, so
we can show them the person that they are already following. I am not
teaching anything foreign to my brothers and sisters in Japan, but
merely helping to remind them of their special divine identity that
they just don't remember at the moment.

I love my mission so much. I wouldn't trade my experiences here for
anything, because they are worth everything to me. I know that God
lives and that He loves His children. I know that so much and am
reminded every single day as I get to be an instrument and message of
His love for His children here. It is so humbling to know how He feels
about all of us, and I promise that if you seek and ask Him...you will
come to know of His love for yourself.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all to pieces and am so
grateful for all the prayers and support. You are all wonderful!

Aishiteimasu!

Love,
Sister Pickering

P.S. There is a rich member in our ward who never got married and so
he spoils us like crazy and here we are with 111 Snickers bars (where
he even got those I have no idea) he gave us yesterday!

Daito Kyodai