Things are going super duper well!

President Nagano is an amazing man!  I love every chance we get to talk and am really looking forward to our Zone Conference this transfer!  Sister Nagano is THE BEST.  She makes the best home-made treats, is so nice and caring, and is the most selfless lady in Japan.  Sometimes she's a little funny though: you know how in Japan everyone goes to the hospital if they feel a little off?  Well a few weeks ago I was pretty dehydrated, which caused some weird effects.  When I called her about it she exclaimed in a tone horrified enough to make me think I was on my death bed, "OH MY GOODNESS!  That could be... (Something in Japanese) YOU NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL!" Luckily the mission Doctor called me the next morning to say, "Your fine, drink more water, don't eat bananas." (I'm not gonna lie, I've missed those bananas so bad...)

Anyway, I'm so lucky to have them.  President Nagano always reads and answers my emails and cares so much for our needs.  But he is very busy!

I still absolutely love my ward, but find myself getting more and more frustrated getting to know and love them so much and not being able to speak to them at all, because everything I can say was said my first transfer.  They're all the kindest people and are so much fun to be around.  I'm really so blessed!  But I feel useless among them.  Before my mission my best tool to help others was my ability to talk with people and listen to them, and I simply can't now.  We have some special needs members whom I adore, and yet I can't speak Japanese simple enough to make them feel like I'm interested in what they try to say to me, so I mostly just sit with them and play dumb jokes on them so that we can laugh together... The rest of the ward has kinda given up on talking to me, or talks super fast assuming I'm already fluent cuz it's been 3 months. Mama, how did you learn this language?  I am struggling big time.

That said, I'm about to share a miracle that should make me feel better about my current state... (;

Well, firstly, Takahisa Kun!  The boy-miracle from when Hibino was still my Doryo!  He came to Eikaiwa and afterward agreed to get lunch with us.  We were headed out the door when I saw a church member, Brother Mogi, and stopped him to say hi when he responded, "Hey!  Come help me clean the church, it's the sisters' day and they left early." When we objected saying we had a lesson, he put his hand on Takahisa's shoulder and asked, "Will you vacuum the floor for me?" AND HE DID!  He is seriously the nicest kid ever.  Afterward, Mogi Kyoudai (Brother Mogi) told us to get in his car and did a Doseki (or member present) lesson at the sushi place he took me to my first pday here!  And it went SO well!  Takahisa kun wants to take the lessons, and though he wants to think about baptism, he wasn't opposed to it.  He is SO 金人! (kin-jin "gold person")

We'll meet with him next Saturday cuz he's busy with school, but please keep Praying for him!

Second, Frank.  I don't know if I mentioned him last email, but in a nutshell he finished all the lessons and wanted to be baptized but wasn't able to because of some worthiness issues.  It threw him so hard that he stopped talking to the missionaries.  Elder Kitagaki knew him from last year, and we went to visit him.  Now, he's a progressing investigator hoping to be baptized on the 27th!  It's been hard teaching him, in a way.  He felt God "rejected him," because not passing the interview was really difficult for him for obvious reasons.  He's had a few smaller failures in the past followed by a divorce leading to a powerfully dark time in his life.  We focused on teaching him about Alma 34:31, how the moment we begin our journey back to the strait and narrow, the atonement begins working for us.  But we need to open our hearts and let the Lord help us.  Then we talked about Elder Hales talk specifically about being the person you want to become and marry.  The spirit was so strong and that's when he said he wants to come back and be baptized.  He's so awesome, but he's so hard on himself and really needs strengthening.  Please pray for him!

Lastly, not a person, just an experience that has changed my mission.  

Our district leader is training his first greeny! But he still has to go on exchanges with every missionary.  Guess what that means?  I was a trainer for 24 hours.  I prayed more fervently for those days to be a successful learning experience for both of us and for it to be an effective day of dendou (missionary work). During study I did my best to lead a good companion and new missionary hour of study.  It went pretty well!  Also, new missionary fire is real, he taught me so much!  Anyway, we decided that we'd do faith dendou like Elder Hibino and I did: that's when we found our golden investigator, and that's when we're most open to the spirit.  We set a goal for 10 people talked to and 2 Books of Mormon given out, prayed, decided to talk to the first person we saw, and struck out!  When I saw the old couple, I wanted to search for someone younger and less probably Bhuddist, but we'd made a commitment!  AND GUESS WHAT?!  We ended up having an awesome conversation I didn't know I was capable of, shared a Christmas message, and gave him a Book of Mormon to which he said, "I love the Bible, I'll read it!" (In Japanese.)

As we followed this pattern of fearlessly pursuing the spirit despite inadequacies, we made exactly 10 contacts and gave away 3 books!  That is by far the most successful day I've had so far, and I was with someone who spake 0-no Japanese.  But he did his best and our most amazing contact was when we taught these two middle school kids who promised to read the book and got a tad emotional learning what we could say about the true meaning of Christmas using the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon.

I'm sorry for my rant on the language earlier, things are going super duper well!  It's easy to see your inadequacies when you're constantly trying to represent the savior ;) I think my invitation this week is for everyone reading this email to prayerfully find a Christlike attribute which they need to improve and when you begin seeing your weaknesses, know that's because you're drawing closer to the Lord, not farther away.

-スタウト長老

Elder Stout

This was us just before eating a very late thanksgiving dinner with no meat ;).  The strange looking but delicious egg salad was Elder Kitagaki's work. My Doryo is an AMAZING COOK!!  Don't worry, after he continues to teach me, I will be well fed my whole mission!