It's the middle of January and it is cold! Now I don't have a lot of
room to complain because I'm not in Hokkaido and we don't have any
snow yet, but being cold is not a fun thing! We battle it with layers
of tights skirts, shirts, jackets, and I have yet to layer coats so
that's good! Humidity just pierces through it all and makes you freeze
anyway!
This week was literally probably the best week of my mission so far!
We found and taught two new investigators who are already progressing
making our pool of progressing investigators 4 people! This has never
happened on my mission before! I love each person so much it hurts! We
have Sayuri Itou San and Selena Crespo San from before, and this week
we found Jessica and her beautiful Bolivian family of 5 and Hiroko
Shimizu San!
The Spanish speaking elders actually housed into Jessica in the
beginning of December, and she said the sisters could come back to
teach her. We haven't been able to though because Wallace Shimai and I
don't speak any Spanish haha. But when we went on splits we had a
Spanish speaking sister come to our area and go with me to her house.
She didn't remember the elders at all due to the length of time
between contacts, but she still let us in and let us teach the
restoration! I could barely help teach at all because she only speaks
Spanish but we practiced in the morning and I introduced each part of
the lesson and the Spanish speaking sister then explained everything
after that haha! Whoo! Maybe I'll come back trilingual? (Not) 😉 We
are going back tomorrow to teach her the plan of salvation!
We were handing out English flyers at Chigasaki station later that
night when I met Shimizu San. She has a background in Christianity and
a love for English so she loved the Family English Eikaiwa program I
introduced to her. She told me very strongly that she is not looking
to join a church, but that's okay because when we met with her again
that Saturday, we introduced the church anyway through teaching the
restoration haha! Yes! The Family English program we do is 30 minutes
of English class and 30 minutes of gospel study/intro to our church
and beliefs. When we taught the restoration it literally answered all
of her concerns! She didn't realize we were the Mormon church until
the end when we introduced the Book of Mormon! But that ended up being
a blessing because lately I guess there has been horrible newscasts on
TV saying bad things about our church. 😔 she said if she knew we were
Mormon beforehand she would've never said yes to meeting with us... 😳
holy miracle. At the end we read the promise in Moroni 10 and as she
read it out loud she all of a sudden looked up at us and said, "Do you
feel that!? It just all of a sudden got way hot!" Oh my! The Holy
Ghost filled up the area of the tiny study we were in! AND THEN after
all of that we asked her if we could meet with her again because we
were really ballsy for teaching her when she said not to haha. (We
said that it was an introduction to our church so it worked out) and
she said NO. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. She is so prepared and this
will bless her life so much! So I asked why! And she said when she
studied before she took a lot of time to investigate and we don't
wanna waste our time and she doesn't wanna waste our time either. I
was filled to the brim with love for this woman already, but in that
moment it overflowed and I told her I knew God loved her so much and
he wants her to be happy. And because he loves her, we do too and we
want her to know the truth for herself. The spirit was guiding me
because she paused and said, "Okay, I'll meet with you one more time."
This whole lesson was a miracle but shoot after that I we were so
exhausted we went out to eat cause fixing food sounded like torture
haha! So that lesson will happen sometime this week... Pray for us and
this amazing person!
Though the lessons we taught this week my testimony was strengthened
in this gospel so much! It is true. The gospel answered all of our
investigators questions and the spirit we felt together was so sweet
and pure. I'm so blessed to have this missionary experience. It has
been worth all of the tears and heartache! I can't wait to watch these
two special daughters of God progress on their journey to find lasting
peace and happiness which I testify is only found in the gospel of
Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is
Christ's perfect church once again restored to the earth through the
prophet Joseph Smith. Until next week! I'm sorry that was ridiculously
long!
Love Sister Fordiani
The mission at Christmas conference
Dendo with the nekko chan!
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