It was so good to see you yesterday!!! So fun. Still feels like the same family, except that Grayson’s voice has dropped an octave. Haha.
I think you’re already updated on everything but as a quick recap...
We invited our English student M san to do family home evening with us, we made tacos with her and her husband and 2 kids and had a great time! The next day she brought us a DVD of Heaven is For Real, and we obviously couldn't watch it but we asked why she liked it and she ended up sharing a lot of things about her life and beliefs in God and Heaven and such.We saw her almost every day after that, sometimes for planned activities and sometimes just coincidentally! She started crying one day after we felt impressed to just stop by and say hi, and shared some struggles with us. We invited her to church and she came, and was in tears during the testimony meeting! But for some reason it was super hard to get a real gospel conversation going. We invited her to watch the Restoration video with us that night, but it just didn't hit home quite like we were expecting. She thought it was a nice story but wasn't really touched. We tried to do a more personal approach, so we sent her personalized
excerpts from the Book of Mormon that we thought would apply perfectly to the struggles he was sharing...but it was basically the same, didn't quite get to the heart.
Then a few days later, randomly, at like 5 in the morning, she sent us a Facebook message saying she had some burdens from her past that she really felt like she needed to share with someone, and that we were the only ones she felt comfortable enough to tell! She sent us a detailed essay over Facebook messenger that took us probably over 30 minutes to read it all and look up kanji we didn't know and finally get the whole meaning. She was obviously burdened down by her past, so we explained to her how taking lessons with the missionaries works and invited her to officially do lessons with us, and she gladly accepted!
Saturday was the first lesson and we taught about God, Christ, and prayer. The spirit was so strong! She told us after that she felt very strongly during the lesson that God loves her personally. I was sharing an experience with prayer and started tearing up a little bit which made her start crying which made me really cry which made her cry harder, and so on until we were all just crying and laughing at ourselves crying while laughing which made us cry even harder. She told us she doesn’t know why, but she has just been so much happier and enjoyed life so much more since she met two guys with white shirts and tie pass by her on the street and offer to help snow shovel and invite her to English class. She said she used to have a lot of ups and downs, and prior to meeting missionaries she was kind of a longer depression streak, but since meeting us she has been on an especially long happy streak! At that point the spirit was like a megaphone right in my ear...”invite her to be baptized!” It was only the first lesson, and she didn't even really know who Christ was, let alone what baptism is, but with every excuse to wait that I thought of, I just felt more strongly prompted to invite her to be baptized. So, we explained to her that the feelings she has had are from God, that they come from His Holy Spirit. We told her that through the Gift of the Holy Ghost she can always have these feeling with her. She immediately asked, “how can I get this gift??” We just had to teach her what baptism and confirmation were and she basically committed herself. Right now she’s on date for the 2nd of June!
She came to church again the next day, and it was a great spiritual experience! Then we had the 2nd lesson yesterday, we taught about faith and repentance and started into the commandments as well. She committed to pray and read from the Book of Mormon every day and to keep the Word of Wisdom!! She already doesn't drink or smoke, she said she’ll be totally fine without coffee, and as long as she has mugicha she’ll be fine without ocha!! She likes English, so she asks us to call her シスター美恵, and each time we extend a commitment she just says “うん, アイ カン デゥ イッテゥ!!!” (Yes, I can do it!)
Anyway hope there are some new details in there for you, if not then I’m sure everyone else will enjoy the story ;) Other than that we have been working hard, knocking doors and meeting with some other investigators, but it has been hard to help them progress. I wish everyone had faith like M san!
Love you so much Momma!! Please pray for us and that M will be able to get her husband’s permission to be baptized!
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パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
Going up to visit Shichinohe!
Ft. Mariko, Koharu, Iroha, Rui, Yuuto, Elder Mateaki, Elder Paskett,
Mie, and Hisashi! (Roughly in that order...haha). They are all our
English students!
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