Week 66

Hello dear friends and family.

It was a wild week with lots of great moments.

Like on Tuesday, when we went housing and no one was home in the
entire apartment building except for the very corner door. Sister
Sticht was telling me about her father's doctorly profession when the
door swings open and we find ourselves standing in front of a large,
shirtless Chinese man covered in tattoos with some crazy facial hair.
#noshame We didn't really know what to say, but I guess it didn't
matter because he just glared at us and shut the door.

Good times.

I also learned the meaning of "consecrated time." When Sister Sticht
and I reflected on the past week, we realized we had two days of
"normal missionary work," and the rest was spent running to meetings,
planning meetings, and exchanges. (I'm not asking for pity--I know
there are busier people and I actually enjoy meetings in a strange
sort of way, but it was all such a miracle to us).  But somehow, we
found more people interested in learning about the church this week
than we did the entire transfer. People who've wondered about the
purpose of life, who God is where do you find true peace, etc. just
being prominently place inour path. It was like magic. Only way
better.

We were headed home from a meeting at the mission home in Tokyo and
were trying to cram in our weekly planning session on the train
(future note: packed like sardines between thousands of Japanese
businessmen, so inefficient for planning). We were so engrossed in our
weekly planning that we missed our stop and had to backtrack which was
kind of ... really annoying. But we hopped on another train and just
sort of collapsed out of tiredness on two empty seats. This girl
sitting in front of us looks at us kind of weird, so we naturally
start talking to her, and she gives us her phone number and says she
would like to meet again and learn about the gospel. We felt like it
was Heavenly Father saying, "Hey you two silly grumbly sister
missionaries, stop your grumbling and get to work." We felt very
humbled.

Anyways. Hitomi got confirmed in sacrament meeting yesterday. Also,
one of our very dear friends came home from China this week and told
us she taught her parents back home how to pray. Miracles of miracles,
they gave her permission to join the church if she felt like it was
what she needed in her life. Being a missionary is one big, crazy,
beautiful adventure, and every day I marvel at how incredible it is to
be part of a work that is a little bit bigger than all of us.

It was a week of miracles.
But I guess that is every week.
Stay tuned for more next week.
I know you can't wait.

Thanks also for all the emails. I felt so loved when I saw the email
count in my inbox. I suppose this has nothing to do with the fact that
school is back in session, haha. LOVE YOU ALL. And don't forget to
pray.

Love, Sister Margaret Willden

"Though we live in a failing world, have not been sent here to fail."
-Elder Neal A. Maxwell

(Monday, September 8)


Pic 1: Sister Teruya and Murdock spreading the love via bike helmets.
Pic 2: Missionary work at its finest.

Week 65

Hi dear friends and family.

Happy September First. We welcomed in fall with a nice round of muddy
dodgeball this morning with the zone. We panicked when we arrived and
found 50 old people at the park next door playing croquet together,
but we figured they would get tired soon so we just waited it out and
they left pretty quick. I guess 20 foreigners standing around is kind
of scary. And then I ate some tofu and avocado. It was delicious.

Anyway. That was this morning.

In other news ...

Let's start with yesterday. Oh yeah, there was a baptism! Hitomi is
our longtime friend who overcame all sorts of hurdles to make it, BUT
SHE MADE IT. It was a great baptismal service, and the ward was
already handing her her new visiting teaching and home teaching
assignments before sacrament meeting even started. I was proud of our
barbershop quartet-esque musical number.

Post-baptism, Sister Sticht and I were sitting there feeling TERRIBLE,
like we had been hit by a train we were so tired. One of our lessons
fell through and we didn't know where we should go, so we said a
little prayer to know where to go (and a little energy boost) and got
out the door. We started pedaling to a referral's house, when all of a
sudden we spot one of our Filipina friends on the street talking to
her friend. "HEYYYYY SISTERRRRRS! Come over here and meet my friend!"
Turns out her friend is the sweetest lady in the world (and happens to
think the same about us, haha) and volunteered to come to church
without us hardly even asking. We felt like it was Heavenly Father's
little answer to two grumbling sister missionaries who needed a little
help.

We were also about to give up on another investigator (it had been two
months since anyone had heard from her ... ) when we showed up on her
doorstep one last time. She's home, opens the door, and asks us to
come in and feeds us some vegetable juice and talks to us about
prayer. It was one of those "I feel like a real missionary out of a
movie or something" moments because it just felt too miraculous to be
true. But it is.

Missionary work is great. But it's only great because the gospel is
true. This old man stopped us the other day and says, "Why do you do
this? You talking to people is not going to change anyone's mind."
With all the sweetness we could muster (which I am sometimes lacking),
we invited him to church and asked him to try it out for himself.
Haters gonna hate, as we sometimes say, but it's not any less true.

You Mormon Message junkies (that's me) may be familiar with this, but
if not, click below for a little boost of inspiration. And then watch
it again. It's strangely artistic for being a Mormon Message.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-07-006-the-hope-of-gods-light?lang=eng

Sometimes the answers are right in front of us. We just don't want /
try / accept it.
I will get off my soapbox and let you think about it now.

Loves, Sister Margaret Willden

(Monday, September 1)

Week 64

Hello family and friends.

I hope you had a great week. I did. 

We ran around frantically to send Sister Yasui off to Utsunomiya (famous for gyoza), tried furiously to take apart her bicycle (we resorted to duct-taping the bike bag with half the bicycle hanging out), and gulping down sushi rolls that the members brought us because they knew of the transfer chaos. 

I have a new companion. My 12th companion in 10 transfers (that's a lot). Maybe people just get tired of me really fast or something. Anyhow. Sister Sticht is her name. She may be a Ute but neither of us has an overwhelming sense of school pride so we can still be friends. We enjoy all the same restaurants in Salt Lake (The Pie, Bruges, etc. etc.). Her hobbies are sarcasm and baking. And also being a missionary. Best friends for life.

Sometimes I have days where I think, "Missionary work is the strangest thing in the world." And then some days I think, "This is the most beautiful thing in the world and I should do this the rest of my life." Thankfully, this week was mostly full of the latter. 

Just a series of mini and macro miracles. 

We were biking down the street the other day and ran into a lady on the street. Something told us we should talk to her, and it turns out she is the friend of a member and has attended our eikaiwa before. 

We visited a member who wasn't actually home, but he walks up to us at church the next day and says his daughter is bringing ten friends to the matsuri (festival) at the church this week so "Please befriend them." Done and done.

Yesterday we had a miraculous meeting with one of our friends who we have been trying to meet for months. We hear she's been having a really rough time at it so we sat in a park, talked about the Atonement and read the Book of Mormon. "Can you send me scriptures you like from the Book of Mormon?" she says. We made plans to eat cake together (sometimes people lose weight when they are stressed) sometime. Sitting in that random park, even though we were amidst the old men awkwardly staring and little boys squirting water guns, we sang "Where can I turn for peace?" and I couldn't just help feel that God knew us, and that God cared, and it was glorious.

It's one of my favorites. So here's the lyrics if you so desire. 

1.	Where can I turn for peace?
	Where is my solace
	When other sources cease to make me whole?
	When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
	I draw myself apart,
	Searching my soul?
2.	Where, when my aching grows,
	Where, when I languish,
	Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
	Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
	Who, who can understand?
	He, only One.
3.	He answers privately,
	Reaches my reaching
	In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
	Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
	Constant he is and kind,
	Love without end.

It makes me cry every time. Something about missionary work makes you really emotional all the time. A nice quote I read this morning. There's always a lot of good ahead. 

• "You do not need to see the Savior, as the Apostles did, to experience the same transformation. Your testimony of Christ, born of the Holy Ghost, can help you look past the disappointing endings in mortality and see the bright future that the Redeemer of the world has prepared." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf 

Well, I'm out. Thanks for all your letters and emails. A shoutout to the lovely person who sent me a postcard with a Chinese man with a crazy moustache. It made my week. 

Love, Sister Margaret 

(Monday, August 25)

Pic 1:  Here are two of our friends and their nice fluffy dog.
Pic 2: Here's a really great hamburger I 

ate last week. I never thought I'd miss Kraft singles till now. 

Pic 3: Post-church with all the crazy kids running around the parking lot. Happy Sabbath.
Pic 4: It was P-day, so I baked a cake in the microwave. Bananas, chocolate chunks, and a whole lot of brown sugar. It was glorious. 

Pic 5: I think this nicely sums up our companionship. Crazy ballet buns, cluttered desks, and a Dunder Mifflin shirt. 

Week 63 No Transfer

Dearest family and friends,

Happy Monday.
This email is going to be short.

I picked up the phone this morning thinking it was one of our
investigators who always calls from a pay phone, only to be surprised
by President Budge's voice on the other end to tell me that I am
staying in Togane. Hallelujah!

I attended a funeral for the elderly mother of a member in the ward.
Sister Tan (who I live with) and I were recruited for an emergency
musical number and we rummaged through all our vacuum-bagged winter
clothes for a solid black outfit. It was sad. But it would be a whole
lot sadder if we didn't have the plan of salvation. (For reference, I
like Alma 34 and 40).

There were so many tender little mercies this week. A mission
president that lets me use all of his Kleenex during interviews. Haha.
Scriptures that I've read over and over that suddenly strike me with
new meaning. A hamburger made on an American-style grill.
Investigators that just contact us out of nowhere when we were just
about to give up. Many of our friends coming to church for Sister
Yasui's last week in Togane. There's a lot more.

What tender mercies did you see this week? I'll bet there's a lot.

Love, Sister Margaret

(Monday, August 18)

Pic 1: This reminded me of something that Van Gogh would paint, or something.

Sister Willden's Travel Itinerary!

On 2014/08/13, at 9:59, MainOffice Tokyomission <japantokyomission@ldsmail.net> wrote:

Revised travel.  Please let me know if this is approved. 

Thanks, 

Sister Evans

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Japan Tokyo Mission <2017806@ldschurch.org>
Date: Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 9:58 AM
Subject: FW: REVISED PROPOSED RETURN Travel Itinerary For WILLDEN/MARGARET MIZUKI - 19 Dec
To: "japantokyomission@ldsmail.net" <japantokyomission@ldsmail.net>

 

 

_____________________________________________
From: Don Love
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 9:07 AM
To: Japan Tokyo Mission; TAKAKO.WILLDEN@GMAIL.COM; Hiroaki Mizuno
Subject: REVISED PROPOSED RETURN Travel Itinerary For WILLDEN/MARGARET MIZUKI - 19 Dec

 

 

 

CHURCH TRAVEL CWT                          DATE 12AUGUST14

50 EAST NORTH TEMPLE ST                    AGENT VH/D9 BOOKING REF X4QLUT

SALT LAKE CITY UT 84150

TELEPHONE: 801 240-5111                    WILLDEN/MARGARET MIZUKI 354601-R

FAX      : 801-240-5115

 

  MISSIONARY TRAVEL

  JAPAN TOKYO MISSION

 

SERVICE               DATE  FROM           TO             DEPART  ARRIVE

_____________________ _____ ______________ ______________ _______ ______

DELTA AIR LINES       19DEC TOKYO          MINNEAPOLIS MN 450P    1254P

DL 585               FRIDAY NARITA INTL    ST PAUL INTL

U ECONOMY                   TERMINAL 1     TERMINAL 1

           NON SMOKING      DINNER                        NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         11:04 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 777-200/300

 

                            SEAT 41D NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

 

DELTA AIR LINES       19DEC MINNEAPOLIS MN MILWAUKEE WI   320P    436P

DL 2232              FRIDAY ST PAUL INTL   GEN MITCHELL    

U ECONOMY                   TERMINAL 1

           NON SMOKING                                    NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         1:16 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 737-800 (WINGLETS)

 

                            SEAT 20D NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

 

RESERVATION NUMBER(S)  DL/GVSHWP

 

**IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, FLIGHT CHANGES ENROUTE OR SIGNIFICANT DELAYS, IMMEDIATELY TELEPHONE

CHURCH TRAVEL (801-240-5111 OR 1-800-537-3537)

.

CHURCH TRAVEL IS AVAILABLE 24/7

.

DON LOVE - EXT 25167

JAPAN TOKYO MISSION

MISSION PRESIDENT TODD BUDGE

PH 011 81 3/ 3952-6802 OFFICE 3952-5701 HOME

LOCAL CALLS DO NOT DIAL 011 81

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

       **NOTICE** ARRIVE AT THE AIRPORT 1 HOUR PRIOR TO DOMESTIC

       FLIGHTS AND 2 HOURS PRIOR TO INT*L FLIGHTS WITH REQUIRED    

          STATE OR FEDERAL PHOTO ID AND TRAVEL DOCUMENTATION

     IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, FLIGHT CHANGES ENROUTE, OR SIGNIFICANT

                     DELAYS, IMMEDIATELY TELEPHONE

 

           MISSIONARY TRAVEL (800)537-3537 OR (801)240-5111

 

 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Week 62

Hi friends and family.

This past week I received my travel itinerary home. A strange thought.
As in, this really beautifully strange adventure will actually end at
some point. And my oh-so-efficient, wonderful mother already
scheduling appointments for when I come home--eye doctor, dentist,
haircut, chiropractor, whatever else is out of sorts--is a wake-up
call. It does not ever feel like I will ever leave Japan.

And so I will just keep on going until it is time.

It was a good week. Every week is a good week, even when you want to
think it's not. I went on exchanges to Chosei with my MTC friend
Sister MacArthur, where I almost had to ride a bicycle that was two
times bigger than me. Except I fell off trying to leave the station so
we just walked and borrowed another bicycle. Then we got lost for two
hours in the countryside and a policeman pulled us over and asked us
what we were doing. (The first time I've ever been pulled over on a
bicycle ... )

On Sunday, one of our friends came to church for the first time in
months, and as she listened to the hymns, she asks, "What is that
feeling? It makes me want to cry." That, my friend, is the Spirit. And
it's great.

And now, since Jesus was fond of parables, and I of literary
symbolism, I will tell you the parable of the Goya. Do you know Goya?
It hails from the island of Okinawa. Anyway, it is green, lumpy, and
just a little (a lot) weird-looking. My first experience with Goya
occurred in my first-transfer ignorance when I found it in the fridge
and decided to stir fry it. Unbeknownst to me, it has a bitterness to
rival Brussels sprouts. Unfortunately, it was chopped too finely and
couldn't be extracted from the meal. It was just EVERYWHERE. However,
as I now near my tenth transfer, my repeated encounters with Goya have
made it more tolerable, maybe even enjoyable.

The symbolism behind this--Goya--green, lumpy, kind of weird, is like
the challenges in life. We're not really sure why we have it until we
experience. At first, it REALLY just doesn't taste good, but with time
it becomes more bearable, and we become grateful for it (like how I
was sort of grateful in my first transfer to have such a delightful
vegetable for sustenance).

Disclaimer: I would be lying if I said I like eating it, but you get the point.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf says it so well:

"We sometimes think that being grateful is what we do after our
problems are solved, but how terribly shortsighted that is. How much
of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God
that there is rain? Being grateful in times of distress does not mean
that we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through
the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges."

Mmm. This was a good reminder for me.
Have a great week. Thanks for reading! Love you all!

Love, Sister Margaret Willden

(Monday, August 11)



Pic 1: I looked through my camera and this is all I had from my week.
A family of dried squid that my grandma sent me. I guess this sums up
my week. Interpret as you will.

Pic 2:  This is Goya.

Week 61

Hi family and friends.

Here is the week. The ups, the downs, the happy, the sad, the weird.

Weird moment. We had twenty minutes to house, and the first door
happens to be an old-man fashion designer who says no one wants to buy
his clothes because the population of
Togane is old and the young people just go to Uniqlo for their fashion
needs. So he gave some of his handmade clothes. We gave him a plan of
salvation pamphlet in return.

Sad moment(s). Our most solid investigator tells us she can no longer
go to church because her husband doesn't approve (disapproving
husbands ... a recent common issue for us).  We also said goodbye to
all of our Chinese friends, who left for summer break back to China.
Looks like we will be doing some nice housing the next little while.
Good thing my time in Sado taught me to appreciate some good 'ole
door-to-door. Note: unlike in Sado, everyone told me in Togane it is
NOT okay to just open up people's front door and start talking to
them.

Happy moment. One of our friends, whom we've been meeting with for
months, recently moved to a new apartment and no longer has a TV (that
is not the happy part, I think). Consequently, she has a lot of time
on her hands and has been reading the Book of Mormon DILIGENTLY and
had a sudden change of heart and wants to be baptized! Like, this
month, not next November! It's true. The Book of Mormon "...[is] the
most correct if any book on earth! and the keystone of our religion,
and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by it's precepts, than by
any other book." I love it.

Nostalgic moment. Today I woke up at 4:11am and remembered that
exactly one year ago today, I loaded my bulging suitcases on the Provo
FrontRunner, left the MTC, and came to Tokyo. In the past 1+ year,
what have I learned? I suppose more than anything, God is real. Really
real. Even when I thought about trying to doubt it (pardon the
wordiness), I couldn't do it. There's just been too many instances in
my life that tell me otherwise (I would go into detail but I have a
journal chock-full of such instances). We had the chance to go to the
Tokyo temple this morning and I just couldn't help but think, "Wow.
Heaven's a whole lot closer than we realize. We just forget it, and
forget what we're supposed to be doing." (Click here for a reminder:
http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/plan-of-salvation).

Time is short (in more ways than one, ha, not to be preachy), so I'll
cut this here. Don't sweat to death this week. But if you do, hey.
I'll be right there with you.

Love, Sister Margaret Willden

(Monday, August 4)

Pic 1: Tokyo Temple.

Pic 2: Today, I ate a sort-of expensive hamburger in Tokyo topped with
cherries and Gorgonzola cheese. I love the city.

Pic 3: Look at this nice sunflower I saw the other day.

Pic 4: In honor of P-day, made some oh-so-nostalgic Annie's organic
macaroni and cheese. I realized today that so many of my mission
pictures are of food, or of me eating food. Go figure.