Week 25

Dear everyone,

What a crazyyyyy week.

You probably don't want a day-by-day account of my life, but in case you do, here it is.

Tuesday: 2-mission conference down in Kichijouji with the Tokyo South Mission.  Elder Evans came and spoke to all the missionaries.  He talked a lot about the decision being made to lower the age change for missionaries, calling it a revelation change, not merely just a handbook change.  It's one of the greatest miracles of the Restoration, he says.  And we get to be a part of it.  Whoaaaaa.  We then had a Christmas party at the Honbu (mission home) and partied like a bunch of missionaries (aka watched the Grinch Stole Christmas and Budge family home videos).

Friday: We streeted ALL DAY near the church building, stopping people everywhere and trying to share a message with them.  Just when we were about to turn home, a lady called out to us (unusual) and asked us if we were the Mormons (also unusual) and then asked us if we knew Sister Nagamine (I almost fainted).  "SHE'S MY BEST FRIEND!" I said.  Turns out this lady was an investigator we had been trying to contact for 2 months but was impossible to make contact with.  She lives far away from us so I don't know what she was doing in our neck of the woods with a bottle of sake ... but let's say it was a miracle.

Saturday: We were handing out chirashis at the eki and a random lady came up to me and handed me two loaves of bread.  That was nice.  Sister McAllister heard a scary story about sisters receiving treats with tracking devices in it so we froze the bread, I'm not worried.  Also, we had Thanksgiving dinner (which I had not been counting on at all--after all, it is a very American thing).  Some families from the ward held a mini shindig at the church with the missionaries.  Turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, in the most American way possible.  #exceptweatewithchopsticks #thankgoodnessforcostco

Sunday: Sister Nagamine called with a self-referral that she had met two months ago in Chiba and had randomly received a call from, saying she wanted to meet with the missionaries.  Super pumped, we headed off to Chiba, only to be met by two 20-something-year-olds who wanted to show us their temple and for us to pray to their god, who actually is not a god but some sort of aura that floats around.  I realized very quickly that they were trying to convert us ... some offshoot of Buddhism that I really didn't really get the jist of.  Pretty gutsy, I'll admit.  Trying to convert 3 Mormon missionaries and a ward missionary?  I appreciated the effort because they were trying to just to do what we do every day of our lives, but we just bore our testimonies and were out of there.  They declined our church tour, haha.  So that was really fun.

Monday: We three discovered all of our little sisters are studying at the same university, so naturally we had to set them up on a blind date with each other.  Today I just got a picture of all the pure joy and now they're BEST FRANDS!  (Refer to pictures for this to make any sense).  

Big Sisters Serving as Missionaries

Little Sisters Studying at Brigham Young University

Well here's my churchy bit.  

At the conference Elder Evans talked in depth about the Doctrine in Christ, specifically as written in 2 Nephi 31.  We talked in depth about verse 13, which says ..."follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent ..."  I think we often think about it as being genuine in our desire to follow Christ, like praying with sincerity (see Moroni 10:4),which is absolutely true.  But if we have real intent, it also means having enough faith to do whatever He will ask.  Whoaaaaa.  Not, I will follow if it is convenient, but I have enough faith to do whatever the Lord will ask me to do, even if I really don't want to do it or have no idea how to do it.  I know that probably sounds like blind obedience to some people, but that's completely missing the point of faith.  I know I'm not doing Elder Evans's talk justice, but it just really made me reassess how much faith I really have, and what I have faith in, and what I'm willing to do for it. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my sermon,  And now it's time for this novel to end.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all in the US, and enjoy some jello salad for me.

Love, Sister Willden

(Monday, November 25)

Pic 1: Sister Dunn and I, prior to her first experience with raw fish.  Mmmmhmmmm.

Pic 2: Chiba Zone.  We're finally getting used to being able to kneel on the ground for long periods of time.

Week 24: Christmas is coming!

Hellooooo minasan.

It's Christmas in Chiba!  Since Thanksgiving is not really a priority here, Japan jumped straight from Halloween to Christmas.  We spent last night doing a mitsuketaikai (handing out eikaiwa chirashis, literally translates to "finding meeting") at the huge eki in Chiba.  The elevator-music Christmas jingles kept us happy as we chased after people trying to invite them to eikaiwa / church / get baptized.  (I love you, Mariah Carey!)

Christmas means we will be able to more easily tie our conversations into the gospel!  Yay!  Not ... "Hey, your skirt / dog / weird stuffed animal is so cute!  Do you want to come to church?"  I didn't intend for that to sound sarcastic ... but sometimes that's what it comes to.

With Christmas approaching, it also means we unfortunately experiencing the joys of riding a bike with a skirt in the winter.  #wishiwasanelder #butnotactually  Since we don't sleep with the heater on, I've resorted to wearing pajamas under my skirt and curling up in my purple hoodie with a cup of Celestial Seasonings that I splurged on a couple of weeks ago during our morning study.  

Miracle number 1:  the elders gave us a referral this week, a lady who has lived next to the church for the past 30 years.  It turns out Sister Christensen and I had housed her very door a transfer ago but no one had been home.  Fortunately the elders had the same idea to house apartments near the church and voila!  She likes to meditate, has purple hair, and loves cats.

Miracle number 2: as of this week, the Chiba Ward has 8 baptismal dates set.  #bestchristmaspresentever

Tomorrow we're headed to Kichijoji in the south mission for a two-mission conference with Elder Evans of the Seventy.  Typical females ... we tried everything on in our limited wardrobes to find something general-authority-worthy.  I know it doesn't matter.  But it matters.

Since I probably won't be sitting around downing bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing myself with jello salad for Thanksgiving this year, here is my little bit on what I'm grateful for as a missionary.  There are so many days I find myself sitting on a street corner waiting for the light to turn green and I think to myself, Look at all these people!  They probably have noooo idea how much God loves them!  And then I want to just want to shake every person I see and say, Do you know? Do you know?  But then they would all think I'm some weird religious fanatic so I refrain.  #asiftheydontalready Yes, I know I'm on my little missionary soapbox now but it's so true.  Every day I wake up and think about how lucky I feel to have a purpose and know what / why / how I am, and what a blessing it is.  Don't take it for granted!  And if you don't know what I'm talking about, check outMormon.org.  

Until next week, love you love you all!

Margaret

(Monday, November 18)


Pic 1: Post-mitsuketaikai ... 

Pic 2: It's Christmas in Chiba! The cute lanterns right by the church.

Pic 3 : Our church building.  We were committed in zone meeting to carry around pictures of the church to show people so here it is ... Every Sunday when we greet people at the door it feels like a pep rally 

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)