Week 23

Dear everyone,

Happy Monday.  We just got caught in a rainstorm on the way here without any rain gear so I'm feeling a little damp ... but such is missionary life.

Highlights of the week:

1.  Mission interviews: President Sister Budge made their every-other-transfer round to the Chiba zone and we had some nice one-one-chat time.  Sister Budge recruited our companionship to put together a musical number for a two-mission conference down in the South Tokyo mission with Elder Evans next week, which seemed non-stressful until we realized it was with 400 missionaries and a general authority ... I'm trying to remember what I learned in Performance Anxiety / Psychology 293 that I took at BYU.

2. Exchanges:  The lovely Sister Nagamine came to town, and Sister Dunn and McAllister were off to Narita to take her place.  There was lots of pillow talk, cookie dough eating, and some dendo.  But we decided it's significantly more difficult to stop people if you don't look American ... not that there's anything I will / can do about that, ha.

3.  Baptism!  On Saturday we hopped an 1 1/2 hour train back to Tsukuba, Sister Dunn's former stomping grounds, for the baptism of her previous investigator, and I was reunited with my dearest Sister Christensen.  At the baptismal service I ran into one of the elders who used to serve in Sado where Mamako and Papako (grandparents) live, except now he's married and has 2 children.  He didn't really remember me--probably because I was wearing a baseball t-shirt and had some scary looking bangs 10 years ago--but it was the coolest thing seeing how he was able to raise a family in the gospel and just how happy they all were!  

4.  New dendo strategies: we decided that for the sake of stopping people I put the companionship at a significant disadvantage out of the three of us so I hide in the bushes and sit on the phone and call investiators, potential investigators, pretty much everyone in our address book while the other two knock on doors.  I guess I'm not really meant for the phone either because I scared one lady who asked for all my personal information and said she was going to report me.  Good thing I didn't give her my social security number so I think I am safe. 

5.  (See diagram): A little tidbit of knowledge regarding time management from President Budge, who happens to be the previous CEO of Tokyo Star Bank.  (I know, he's so cool!)  Refer to the fuzzy diagram for this to make any sense:

1. High urgency, high importance: lesson plans for that day, eating, going to the bathroom, etc.
2. Low urgency, high importance: prayer, scripture study, studying Preach My Gospel
3. Low urgency, low importance: walking down the street without talking to anyone (aka wasting time)
4. High urgency, low importance: baking cookies for a lesson that day

Most often missionaries think that they should be working in region 1, when the most effective missionaries spend the most time in region 2.  Not that you don't need to eat / sleep / etc., but if we focus the most on being prepared far in advance, then we reduce stress and increase effectiveness of our efforts.  I know all you people reading this aren't full-time missionaries but I think it's completely applicable for college students, doctors, office workers, parents, aka everyone.

So file that away for future reference.  Some wise words.

To close, my favorite scripture of the week:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?" (Moroni 7:27)

NAY.

Have a lovely week!


Love, Margaret

(Monday, November 11)

Picture 1: Time Management 101

Picture 2: Post-planning de-stress session yoga

Picture 3: Yummmmmy

Week 22: and then there were THREE.

Hi.  Family.  Friends.  

It was quite the week.  Sitting here at the computer I'm having a hard time remembering quite what happened ... the blur of time seems to become more frequent the longer I'm out in the field.

I shall do my best.

SAYING GOODBYE.

On Thursday, Sister Christensen and I headed into downtown Tokyo to do a little switcheroo so she could go to Tsukuba and I could meet up with my new companion, Sister Dunn.  Sister Dunn is from California and likes chocolate as much as I do so it will be a smooth transfer I believe.  

We dragged a couple of suitcases and one bundled up bicycle through one of the busiest ekis (Akihabara) and annoyed quite a few people along the way.  Fortunately we ran into some elders who took pity on the poor helpless sisters and carried the bike all the way to the honbu (mission headquarters).  Sister Christensen has become one of my bestest friends, so it was sad but we'll see each other soon!

SAYING HELLO.

Once we arrived at the honbu (a little sweatier than when I had left the apartment), Sister Dunn and I met our brand-new missionary / trainee, Sister McAllister from Texas.  She's a fellow BYU cougar and likes to bake, so I think we will get along just fine.  She's such a doll (and happens to speak pretty well) so we pretttty thrilled.  With the influx of missionaries, the mission has an incredible number of threesome companionships, usually one Japanese and two Americans.  Unfortunately Sister Dunn and McAllister got the short end of the stick because I'm not fluent but I'm doing my best.  I had an incredible number of people tell me this week that my face looks Japanese but when I open my mouth they question their judgment ... haha.  

Working in a threesome has its challenges--it's not exactly comfortable having three strange religious gaijin show up on your doorstep unannounced telling you that "we can change your life!" We also pretty much take up the whole sidewalk when we walk places.  But we are making it work.

Funny coincidence, the Chiba elders also happen to be a threesome and one of the elders happens to be Elder Dunbar (who I have never met till this week), whose family is in our ward.  Small world!  

MIRACLES.

Miracle 1: Yesterday was probably one of the best days of my mission thus far.  The Y------ family, who I met the beginning of my very first transfer, came to Primary!  For the second week in a row!  And Sunday School!  And Sacrament meeting!  That evening, we went to teach them at their home with one of my favorite people, our ward missionary Ramoちゃん who got baptized last July.  We hadn't planned on setting a date during the lesson but she kept saying how she really just wants to get baptized (which sort of felt like smack in the face to extend a baptismal commitment), so I mentioned that December 8 looked like a really good day.  It just happens to be the week before I will likely transfer out of Chiba--call it selfishness on my part or following the Spirit, but she accepted!  Sister Y------, and she is so excited to get baptized so she can begin teaching her family about the gospel!  I almost cried (I know, weird) I was so happy.  

Miracle 2: Someone put a bag of marshmallow mateys in the fruit basket (the food donation bin for the missionaries) at church.

That's the week in a nutshell. I still feel awkward stopping people on the street and asking them their favorite restaurant and then inviting them to church, I still don't really like using the phone (probably something I will never get over), and I'm still not sure what to do when old men at the eki ask me if I'm married, but I wouldn't give this up for the world.  

Hey, go share the gospel today! 

Love, Margaret

P.S.  Spiritual enlightenment for the day:  "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life.  The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life--the life God is sending one day by day."

-C.S Lewis

If we didn't have hard things, this wouldn't be real life.

Pic 1: Meet Sister McAllister.

Pic 2: Meet Sister Dunn.

Pic 3: Meet me and my Justin Bieber hair.  I just don't want to get a $50 dollar haircut.

Week 21 Transfers

Hi minasan,

Picture 1 BEST "FRANDS"

Well, there was another transfer.  What on earth.

I'm supposedly finished being trained.  Which means you are technically prepared to train someone else.

So I am training a brand-new missionary next transfer here in Chiba, with one of my very lovely friends from the MTC, Sister Dunn.  I will miss Sister Christensen something awful, but I'm excited for what lies ahead.  Onward.

Today we had to take care of some dental work, so Sister Christensen and I hopped on a train (many trains) and went to Minato.  A pretty ritzy business-y area of Tokyo.  Since I lack the vocabulary to talk about teeth and cavities and fillings in Japanese, we passed on the dentist who lives downstairs and visited a dentist an hour away per recommendation of Sister Budge.  Dr. Kojima has a specialized clientele of "foreign expatriates, diplomats, and their families," so I got to sit in the waiting room with an ambassador from the US Embassy down the street.  

This past week we had an all-Sisters Conference after attending the temple.  We got to hear from Sister Aoyagi (her husband is a member of the Seventy), Sister Whiting, and Ringwood (whose father is Elder Nelson).  Some training we received:

1. How to take off shoes in a Japanese home: don't step on the genkan floor, don't turn your back to the host when flipping your shoes around so you can easily exit later, and definitely don't kick other shoes out of the way for your own.
2. How to be nice to your companion:  it's like when you step on a chair to reach something--if you step on a chair, you dehumanize the chair.  If you feel for the chair, then you feel guilty stepping on it.  Likewise, you need to feel for your companion.  I'm not sure how I feel about the analogy, but regardless, just be nice to everyone.
3. The Savior loves you.  And don't you ever forget it.

I received a letter from Kristen this week and she shared some sweet insights from an MTC training meeting.  The speaker (a former Stake President) talked how about how someone once asked why his nephew was allowed to die.  The Stake President responded by saying:

1. God is suffering when you suffer.
2. God is weeping when you weep.
3. God will suffer with you till you stop suffering.

As a missionary, sometimes we see other missionaries who can't wake up on time, can't understand the language, etc. etc. and we simply tell them to just "rub some dirt in it."  But we need to love, mourn, and cry with them.  We can't change them.

I think this is perfectly applicable outside of the mission field.

Moroni 7:45 - "And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Tell someone that you love them today!

Love,

Margaret

P.S.  To add to the haphazardness of this letter, an excerpt from one of my favorite hymns:

Ere you left your room this morning,

Did you think to pray? ...

When your soul was full of sorrow,

Balm of Gilead did you borrow

At the gates of day?

O how praying rests the weary!

Prayer will change the night to day;

So when life gets dark and dreary,

Don't forget to pray.

Picture 2: Hey, friend. (spider)
Picture 3: Post-dentist sunset.
Picture 4: We accidentally missed the train.  With no one in sight to talk to, naturally we experimented with the self-timer.

Week 20 - A Lot of Rain!

Hellooooo.

So.  We had our first investigator officially drop us this morning.  That was really sad.  

Oh wait ... she's on the phone right now ... yes right now ...

Spoke too soon.  She wants to meet us at the church this week and have a lesson.  Hallelujah, miracles DO happen.

In other news, we finally had the Halloween Party that has been in the works since August.  (No really, the chairperson rounded up all the missionaries the first week I arrived in Japan for a meeting).  Sister Christensen and I sat in the corner and painted kids' faces with Halloween-y themed pictures.  The same kids kept coming back and pretty soon we were running out of body parts to paint.  We helped the Relief Society make little rice balls with Jack-o-lantern faces made out of seaweed.  

A strange fusion of Pinterest and Japan.  Welcome to the land of the rising sun.

We had a typhoon this week.  Fortunately a couple of weeks back I invested in a pair of dollar-store rain pants.  Unfortunately, my luxury-rain pants ripped in the crotch all the way down to my ankle so I might as well have just worn no rain gear at all.  Good thing I like rain.

I awoke on Thursday morning to have the phone buzzing in the middle of the night (and by the middle of the night, I mean 6am) to hear the bishop's voice on the other end.  We were supposed to evacuate, but neither Sister Christensen nor I could really make out what the announcer over the siren outside was saying so it was a really good thing the bishop called us.  But we were prepared with backpacks carrying our finest missionary wear.  If we're going to evacuate, we might as well look cute.  A few more typhoons are set to hit this week but our apartment is on the second floor so we are pretty safe.  (Don't worry お母さん!)

Sister Nagamine sent me to Narita this week to "train" her two first-transfer missionaries while she went on an exchange with Sister Christensen.  Haha.  It's a little unnerving when thinking about how young everyone is, so I just try not to think about it.  I learned some good Aussie lingo ("heaps" = really, so that was "HEAPS AWESOME") and talked to some nice Buddhist people on the street.  #storyofmylife

We had a lesson with an investigator who's been taking the lessons for about 12 years now.  The whole issue of blind obedience repeatedly kept coming up, so I turned to the oh-so-wise-and-logically-sound words of Dallin H. Oaks for a little direction:

"We all act upon or give obedience to knowledge.  Whether in science or religion, our obedience is not blind when we act upon knowledge suited to the subject of our action.  A scientist is not blind when we act upon knowledge suited to the subject of our action.  A scientist receives and acts upon a trusted certification of the content or conditions of a particular experiment.  In matters of religion, a believer's source of knowledge is spiritual, but the principle is the same.  In the case of Latter-day Saints, when the Holy Ghost gives our souls a witness of the truth of the restored gospel and the calling of a modern prophet, our choise to follow the teachings is not blind obedience."

That pretty much sums it up.  Thank you, Elder Oaks.

And that's about it.  Lessons are far and few in between and some people's eyes pop out of their heads when I pull out the Book of Mormon, but that doesn't make the work any less true.  

Go share the gospel with someone today.  Hey, thanks!

Magi-chan

Pic 1: District photo shoot.  A pretty mismatched bunch.

Pic 2: The fruits of a three-hour seaweed-cutting sesh, courtesy of the Relief Society.

Pic 3: Happy Halloween part 2. 

Merry Christmas from Tokyo Mission Office

Dear Parents,

As we approach the holiday season we wanted to reach out to the families of our wonderful missionaries to thank you for your support, and to invite you to unite your prayers with ours as we exercise our faith for a Christmas miracle during this holiday season.  The desire of our hearts is to have a "White Christmas", i.e., a baptism in every ward or branch in our mission between now and Christmas.  We can think of no better gift to give our Savior than to bring many souls unto Him and to strengthen the wards and branches in this special part of his vineyard.  The Lord said, "whatsoever ye shall ask in faith, being united in prayer according to my command, ye shall receive." (D&C 29:6)  We firmly believe that as we unite our faith and prayers with yours that we can see this miracle.

We have forty wards and branches in the mission, so we have decided to have the missionaries in each area fast on 40 different days during this period.  We believe that the combination of our united faith and prayers and this special 40 day fast will help us draw upon the powers of heaven.

We have also put up a special Christmas Miracle Tree in the mission home.  As each area has a baptism we will put a wrapped present under the tree to symbolize our gift to Christ.  We plan to fill each gift box with miracles and conversion stories that are shared during this period in each area; we look forward to sharing many of these with you.  We also plan to make special ornaments with the pictures of those who have come unto Christ during this season, and will display them on the tree.  We will update the mission blog with pictures of the tree as the number of presents and ornaments grows.

We hope that by uniting our faith and prayers that we will not only have a "White Christmas", but that you and your loved ones will feel a special bond with your missionary while they labor here in this great cause.  As you may know, our mission motto is:  United in So Great a Cause.  It is our sincere desire that as you pray every day as families for every ward and branch in our mission to see a baptism during this holiday season, that you will feel united with your missionary, with our mission, and with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  I testify that this is God's work, that he desires to bless us and the Japanese people, and that Jesus is the Christ.  It is our honor and privilege to be in His service.  Shall we not go on in so great a cause?

Merry Christmas, and thank you for faith and prayers!

Love,

President and Sister Budge

(Monday, October 14, 2013)

Week 19 - This Week We Knocked on a Lot of Doors!

Hey yo. 

Chiba continues on.  

We just got back from Tokyo Skytree, which is this enormousssss shopping mall / tower downtown Tokyo.   

We saw a lot of weird people.  Like men with thick eyeliner dressed up as anime characters. Then Sister Christensen and I got depressed when we walked into Zara and realized most of the clothes would get shredded on our bikes, so we decided to save the money for ice cream instead.  #thatsalotoficecream

No regrets.

Sister Christensen and I have really gotten into housing this week.  We stumbled on an apartment place that was ... a little less fancy, and we somehow found ourselves on the doorstep of an underground tattoo parlor.  We hear the buzzing stop as soon as we hit the doorbell, and some really nice guy with tattoo sleeves and white gloves peek through the door.  I think he was confused to find two little quaking Mormon girls sitting on his doorstep.  He rejected us.  Better next time.

We got a referral this week, a lady who just moved into our boundaries.  She's really excited to get baptized.  We're super excited to meet her.  She speaks Mongolian.  Gift of tongues? #ilikemongolianfood

The highlight this week was surely getting to watch General Conference.  IN ENGRISH.  I ashamedly was 100000000 times more excited to see this time around, not having to pull out the little electronic dictionary and frantically scribbling down words I don't know.  

One of my favorite moments of conference: Elder Timothy Dyches talked about Carl Bloch's "Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesda."  That painting has always had a particular place in my heart (art history I miss you!).  BYU has a copy of it in its collection at the Museum of Art and I would often sneak on over from the HFAC between piano practice sessions and just take a moment to CHILL.  The rendition of Christ is so calming and awe-inspiring, as he asks "Wilt thou be made whole?"  Learn of His grace, His mercy, the redemptive power of the Atonement.  As we learn about the Savior, those burdens feel a whole lot lighter and heaven feels a lot less far away.

It's like was said in another talk.  From Life of Pi (last book I read before I hit the MTC):  "I couldn't get Him out of my head.  Still can't.  I spent three solid days thinking about Him.  The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him.  And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him."

Being alone is a personal decision.  

I'll get off my little passionate missionary platform now.  But it's true!  Life is hard, but it sure doesn't have to be lonely.

Have a stupendous rest of the week, and I'll talk to you again soon.  WRITE ME Y'ALL. 

Love, Margaret

Pic 1:  Post-Conference SLEEPOVER

Pic 2:  Tokyo Skytree, in all its towering glory

Pic 3: Obligatory selfie before the camera died.

Pic 4: Yeah yeah, it's conference time.

Pic 5: Okonomiyaki! (Cabbage pancakes, or something like that?)

(Monday, October 14, 2013)

Week 18

Hi all,

Hope everyone is just well and happy.  Chiba was a tough crowd this week with a whole lot of rain, housing, and streeting.  We've resorted to dancing and singing EFY songs as we hand out chirashis at the eki because a simple "Hi do you want to learn English?" isn't seeming to do the trick.

I believe we got the police called on us as we were visiting a referral from the elders.  I think three incredibly tall American boys freaked out the neighbor lady so she called the police when she saw two short American girls show up the next day.  So we left.  Goooood times.  

On the bright side, it was Sister Christensen's birthday on Saturday.  The big 2-0.  So we celebrated by biking an hour away to track down a referral from a ward member.  We only had the address of the building so we housed the entire apartment building, but there was literally 3 people home in the entire building.  Even more goooood times.  

So we actually celebrated by eating at a burger place as per recommended by one of our hip eikaiwa students.  (Bob Dylan playing over the speakers? I love this place!)   And then we ate a bright purple funfetti cake that Sister Christensen's mama sent all the way from the dear old U.S. of A.  We lit it with a match from the earthquake surivival 72-hour kit.  

We also had a two-zone conference this week which was just the morale boost that I needed.  140 of the 160 missionaries in the mission have come since last April, so ... yeah.  It's crazy.  The zone leaders often call us and make sure we're surviving, but Sister Christensen and I just try to forget that we don't really know anything and just do the best we can.  That's all anyone can ask for, yes?  If you don't know what they're saying, just smile and invite them to church and bear your testimony.  (PS sarcasm not intended).    

My Japanese is slowly but (hopefully?) improving.  One of the ward missionaries lent me her electronic dictionary so now I can actually look up words that I don't know, instead of relying solely on Preach My Gospel to help me decode conversations and emails.  Sister Christensen is a doll and lets me yammer translation in her ear during sacrament meeting, and it quickly lets me see what I don't know.  

Zoachie: Pee day (that's how Zachary spells it, not Margaret) is Monday!  I'm sorry about the idiotic kids.  Don't let them get to you.  Just keep being a good boy.  And yes, I get to watch General Conference.  This coming weekend, I think.  

Heidi:  what's the hubbub about the government shutdown?  I rely on my eikaiwa students to keep me in the know.  One of them tells me about all the latest Apple products.  

Probably the biggest thing I have learned this week: faith wouldn't be faith if it wasn't tested. Is your faith progressing or regressing?

Okay.  That is all for today.  I hope you all loved General Conference.  I am realizing now how much I took it for granted.  Thank goodness I'm in a ward with a fair amount of English speakers so we'll have an English broadcast of it.  And thank you to everyone who writes me.  YOU ARE THE BEST.  I can't even say how much it means to me!  

Love, Magi-chan

Picture 1: Our kids eikaiwa (English conversation) class.  Aren't they the cutest?

Picture 2:  For Sister Christensen's birthday, we slammed some Tim-Tams.  Best grocery store discovery ever.

Picture 3:  I got a mystery delivery of 48 liters of water from Amazon.  Thank you to someone ... ?

Picture 4: Partying the American way.

(Monday, October 7, 2013)