NOTE: Sorry, but before I forget can someone please get ahold of Anthony? I think he moved and I need his new address. Thank you.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day full of family, friends, and gratitude! If it happens to include a large feast as well, great! For those who may not be aware, Japan does not celebrate Thanksgiving, and when you say the word "Thanksgiving" they have no idea what you are talking about. They DO know what 感謝祭 is, however, and that roughly translates to the same thing (Gratitude Festival).
I wasn't planning on celebrating Thanksgiving this year as I am in an area with no foreigners, but then the military base called and asked if some missionaries wouldn't mind attending their Thanksgiving feast. Well, who am I to say no and disappoint all those hard working service men and women? So it turns out I'll be eating turkey on Thursday after all. Huzzah! I will let you know how it goes. If I remember to write about it.
This week we had some very neat things happen. First, a General Authority came and spoke to us. He kinda woke up the mission and reminded us that we TOO can see miracles, and we really do need to be more bold about our message. It was a great conference. He told us that we should be extending baptismal commitments after the first meeting and made us promise to do so at our next lesson. "You extend, they choose to accept or reject it. If they say no, that's their choice, but you should give them the choice." It was interesting and we agreed to try it from now on.
Well, the next lesson we had was with a high school student. We teach her English and the Gospel in her home. She wants to go to BYU-Hawaii someday in the future, but for now she just wants to learn as much as she can. Her family is really interesting. Her mom will often wander in and out of the room during lessons and change the subject while we are in midsentence. That's...yeah. But the girl is really sweet and wonderful.
Well, we explained the doctrine in the first lesson (oops, for those that don't know the lessons: the first lesson discusses God as our Heavenly Father, the importance of families, the role of prophets, the existence of Jesus Christ's church, the Great Apostasy, the Restoration through Joseph Smith, and a brief introduction to the Book of Mormon and prayer.), and then we explained that when you know these things are true, Heavenly Father wants you to act. We explained in very simple terms what baptism was and told her about how important it is. As we were in the MIDDLE of asking her to be baptized when she knew these things were true, her mother walks into the room and places some images on the table. And I can remember EXACTLY what she said (translated):
"Can you BELIEVE that they have adult comic books in the elementary school library?! Look at this filth!"
And yes, there on the table were some scanned covers of some very not-child-appropriate books. Not-anyone-appropriate books, for that matter.
...So, uhm, yes. Spirit GONE. It was bizarre and I almost wanted to start laughing, the timing was so perfect.
And for the record, once her mother left the room we were still able to commit her to baptism.
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In other news, my birthday is tomorrow! Somehow the other missionaries found out. Before the conference last week we stayed with two other Sisters in their apartment as it was much closer to the conference than ours. That night they threw a surprise birthday party, and they pulled out this amazing homemade cake that they had made just for me! It was awesome and I wish I could show you pictures, but just suffice to imagine a white two-layer cake with chocolate, "Happy Birthday Sister C" written on top, candles, and strawberries for filling. I was incredibly touched and very happy.
I am also very thankful to everyone who sent me birthday well-wishes. Thank you. You are all wonderful and I love you all very much!
