Japan Tokyo South Mission ~ Sister Fordiani: Week 26 Hodogaya Week 5 (July 28- April 2)

Hello Everyone!

This week has been an exceptional week :) I apologize again for missing last weeks email, but now everyone gets two so how can you complain right!? :)

It's so crazy! Brox Shimai only has until August 10th until she flies back to America! What? You mean to tell me that I won't be a missionary forever?! Hahaha sometimes it feels that way! That's why, as we live through the hard and great experiences, we need to enjoy every moment of what we are experiencing NOW. Don't postpone your happiness until "you get that home you've dreamed of", or until "this hard trial passes". No, no, no. When was the last time that you enjoyed every second of the day you were living, good and bad? When was the last time you marveled at all of the blessings God has given you? When was the last time you told every single person in your family, "I love you"? Don't procrastinate your happiness, find it every day :)

This next Saturday we will be receiving our transfer calls! I basically know that I will be staying in the Hodogaya area; however, the Lord has funny ways of always mixing it up on all of our missionary transfer predictions haha. We have one more really hot week to endure before we find out! Another announcement, I'm almost at my 6 months mark! Tuesday the 4th makes me a six month's experienced missionary. :) I feel like I still don't know anything though haha. The work is so complex and I am learning every day! Okay enough rambling :) here's my week:

Monday-- we had our normal P-day of shopping, writing letters, emailing, trying to find time to sleep but never quite getting there; and then we went to a wonderfully delicious dinner appointment with the Elders :) We went to the Saito Family's home. It was really fun to talk to them! They have a daughter who is a very famous movie actress here in Japan. They fed us a super traditional Japanese dinner! It was so delicious! As we were teaching their family Elder Mukai had the impression we needed to sing together. So we sang "I am a Child of God". By the end of the song the spirit was so strong and Sister Saito was in tears :) when we follow spiritual impressions we really are in tune to what people need around us so we can bless their life :)

Tuesday-- we saw two amazing miracles! So we were housing an area for a couple hours after we heart attacked a member. On our way home we were climbing a hill with our bikes when we saw this little frail woman walking her dog. So we said hi to her and we came to find out that she was Brother Sugiyama's sister. She doesn't belong to our church but she has heard all about us from her brother! She had wonderful English so we invited her to attend our Eikaiwa on Wednesdays :) so cool! The next miracle was that we had an appointment with an Eikaiwa student named Jackie :) she invited us and our P.I. (Potential investigator) Hikari chan to dinner at her house! She made us giyouza and sushi which are my two FAVORITE Japanese foods! I was so happy and she is being prepared by the Lord legit. It's so crazy to see how the Lord takes little thoughts everyone has and molds them into experiences that prepare people to receive the gospel :) I'll keep ya'll updated on her :)

Wednesday-- we traveled really far to visit a less active member. It was blazing hot (it has been every day this week!) but it was so worth it. She is incredible. She has a couple hard issues in her family that make church attendance nearly impossible, but her faith is rock solid. She is actually from China! So she made us Chinese food that was so good! People, the food here is so good! And so we talked to her and loved her and just let her cry a little. Life is so hard. Trials are hard, but if we support each other and lift each other up its so much easier to endure when you feel the support of people who love you.

Thursday-- was another day full of miracles :) we had lunch with a member named Hattori Shimai. She told us about all of her concerns concerning her family and her health. She feels so alone. Her family lives in Taiwan but she lives here with her husband and son. She has so much love for her son, I can't explain everything she's going through on email, but I was touched as I listened to her. She reminded me of my mother and I got an insight to how much love my mom must have for me, and if my mother loves me that much... How much does my father in heaven love me if his love is perfect? Everyone! Heavenly Father loves each of you so much. SO MUCH! I am blown away when I even get a little taste of it as a missionary when I meet with and help others. His love is perfect. After we visited Shirai Shimai who is a less active lady we are trying to help come back to church. No houses in Japan have central heating or cooling. It's all done by air cons that hang in some of the rooms in your house.... So we get to her house and she tells us her air con broke.... Me and Handy literally thought we were going to die in her house. We were melting!!! I was sweating so much! And it was SO HOT. People, Japan is so hot. Like I can't even explain to you how insane it is. There is the normal heat which makes it hot, but then you add on buckets of humidity which amplifies the heat times 40 bajillion. And Japan is So Humid!!! So we come out of her home and we took a picture before we wiped the sweat off haha because we were all dripping with sweat. Then we went to the Eki for splits. We started to dendo around the Eki and the first person I stopped was this lady at a light. She asked me what church I belonged to so I told her. Turns out she is already Christian and she can speak some English because she lived in Wisconsin with her husband for work! This doesn't just happen people! That lady was placed in my path and I was there at the right moment to meet her! I kept talking to her about Eikaiwa, where our church was, and about America. She kept asking more and more questions about our church! She asked if we read the bible so I pulled out a Book of Mormon and showed her how Christ brought his gospel to the Americas! Then I gave her the Book of Mormon!!!!!! After talking to that sweet lady I was on cloud nine! :) even when some teenage boys yelled at me that religion was "dame" (or useless), I didn't care haha :) I am so thankful that Heavenly Father gave little ol' me the opportunity to introduce the gospel into that wonderful lady's life!

Friday--we visited my most favorite person ever! Her name is Sakuraba Shimai :) she is an angel. She was less active and out of nowhere she started to come back to church. She's just got the strongest faith and she is so sweet and ah! I just love her to death and I love teaching her and talking to her! We talked about the importance of writing in journals and I gave her the commitment to write her testimony in her journal this week :) I hope she does it! We also went to Baskin Robbins because it was the 31st today and we get cheap ice cream :) well my companions did and I took pictures :)

Saturday-- we had a ward member surprise us with ice cream fruit sundaes at the church! He's so awesome! His favorite dance is the thriller and he loves to listen to oldies music from America :) I totally snuck/dry swallowed two pills when he wasn't looking so I could eat the sundae and not hurt his feelings, but with ice cream, yogurt, and cream all mixed together.. my tummy still hurt all day anyways. Oh well. We also said bye to Don Kyoudai because he is going to America for a month! We went to Horiuchi San's house to teach her about Joseph Smith!!! But she said we'll have to come over later because her husband was home and there were people over working on the house. So maybe I'll be able to tell ya'll about that story next week when it happens! We did give her the talk "Ask the Missionaries! They Can Help You!" in Romanian so she can study it until we teach her. It's from October 2012 conference :) I love it! Saturday night we have game night at the church, but no girl p.i. showed up so we went to the Summer Festival in the park by our house for some まつり dendo :) we talked to so many people! And lots of them knew where our church was which is huge! People here think Christians are one huge group. So we always have to explain that there are lots of groups who are Christian but we are obviously the best option duh! Just kidding, just kidding ;)

Thanks for enduring that insanely long email! Thank you for your prayers and support! One more year and I'll be home!

心から、

フォルディアニ姉妹 (Fordiani Shimai)

1&2 Saito Family dinner!