Sunday, August 7, 2016

Finally: My Homecoming Talk

Everyone, thanks for making the trek with me. The mission is the best thing that's ever happened to me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It made me question my identity, my worth, my capabilities, my beliefs, and everything that's important to me. I never hurt so much, popped so many joints, cried so many tears, or ate so much weird food in my life. I've never made so many friends, discovered so many talents, or felt so much love. I never knew how much God loved me until my mission. I never knew how much He cared about my life. I never knew how well He knew me. I never knew how happy I could be.

My mission is the best thing that's ever happened to me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was the happiest I've ever been, and because He was with me on my mission, I know that He'll be with me forever.

I love you all--here's my homecoming talk:

*****

Minasan, ohayou gozaimasu. Watakushi wa Sanzu Shidonii to moshimasu. Ichinenhan de shukufuku sareta Nihon no Kobe mission de dendo kikai o saseru itadakimashita. Kyou, watakushi wa ichiban taisetsu na mananda koto nitsuite hanasasete itadakitai to omoimasu. Tsumari, Iesu Kirisuto no kyougi nitsuite hanashitai to omoimasu.

Good morning, everyone, my name is Sydney Sands. I had the wonderful opportunity to work in the Japan, Kobe mission for a year and a half. Today, I would like to speak about the most important thing I learned on my mission. That is, the Doctrine of Jesus Christ.

I have to say that the Japanese people are truly the most Christlike people I’ve ever met. They have a deep love for their family and a deep respect for those who have come before them. They are endlessly kind to guests and rush to help any lost tourist they see. The only thing in the world that they are missing is the Gospel. Today, I would like to tell you what I told them for one and a half years:

God is your Loving Heavenly Father. He lives in heaven. He has a body like ours, but his is perfect. He has two eyes. Through those two eyes, he watches over you. God has two ears. With those ears, God listens to your prayers. God has two arms. You can hug God. He loves you. He knew you before you were born. You lived with him in heaven as a spirit. Because God is our Father, he wants to give us everything that he has. In order to give us blessings and prepare us for the blessings of eternity, he gave us a body and sent us to earth. He gave us rules to follow to become happy, then he gave us our agency so we could obtain that happiness.

However, we are not perfect—I am not perfect. We all do bad things. We do things that make our hearts sad. That is called sin. Sin isn’t just things like killing people or stealing; sin is anything that makes the heart sad. We become sad when we sin and we become sad when others sin. The hurt and the guilt of our sins are like dirt; they make our spirit dirty. God is perfect. God is clean. We can’t live with God when we have dirty spirits. We cannot make our spirits clean on our own. Sin separates us from God. Death also separates us from God. We cannot have everything God has if we don’t have a body. We cannot overcome death by ourselves. We will all sin, and we will all die, thus we will all be separated from God.

How then, do we get back to Heavenly Father? Are we doomed forever to take and fail the test of eternity?

No. Absolutely not. “For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son; that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) An angel described the coming of Christ: “I am come to tell you words of great joy…For, behold…the Lord Omnipotent…shall come down from heaven to reign among the children of men…and he shall be called Jesus the Christ…And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men; even through faith on his name…” (Mosiah 3:3, 5, 8, 9)

Christ was the perfect example. He followed His Father exactly and showed the path to following Him, too. This path is called the Doctrine of Christ, and has five easy steps. I would like to invite everyone here to remember them. They are faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Because of Jesus Christ, we will live again; and as we live the Doctrine of Christ, we will be able to live with our families and God in eternal happiness.

As you have noticed, the first step is faith. “Faith is not a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Why is faith the first step? Moroni answers this question easily: “If there be no faith among the children of men, God can do no miracle among them…” (Ether 12:12) Do you believe perfect forgiveness and perfect mercy to be miracles? I do. Now, faith isn’t always easy—there are two huge obstacles to faith that everyone experiences in their life: the first is doubts, the second, lack of obedience. Both are our choice, and both can be overcome.

To illustrate my point, I would like to tell one of my favorite stories. It’s about a Syrian named Naaman. Naaman is a mighty man, but he was brought to his knees by a disease called leprosy. He heard that the prophet Elisha was God’s chosen representative and so he went and asked Elisha for help. When he reached the house, Elisha sent out a messenger saying, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times…and thou shalt be clean” (2Kings 5:10). The River Jordan was the filthiest river in the country. Naaman left, very angry, saying “Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not…rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean?” (v. 11-12)

Before he could leave, one of his servants stopped him and said, “My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?” (v. 13)

Sometimes, we expect gigantic solutions to our problems. We lose faith because when we have a question or a spiritual disease, we are told to pray, go to church, keep the commandments, and read our scriptures. Brothers and sisters, will we not wash and be clean? God almost always chooses small and simple ways to bring great things to pass. We don’t have to do something extraordinary, and we may not see the extraordinary. The real test of faith is obedience and patience, especially in the little things. If Naman had not washed in the river, he would never be clean. However, the story ends happily—he follows the prophet’s counsel, as we all should, and he is restored. God keeps His promises, but he uses His way. If we are not obedient, we build a wall between ourselves and him.
Alma talks extensively about faith. When you have a question, he agrees that “Ye cannot know of [its] surety first…but behold, if ye will awake and…experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” We need two things: Action, and desire.

There was a time on my mission when I was talking to a man who had taken all the lessons, but had a problem with believing the Word of Wisdom was truly a commandment from God. I asked if he had prayed to know if it’s true. “Yes!” he said. “Did you receive an answer?” I asked. “No!” he exclaimed. I paused and thought for a moment. Finally, I said, “If God came down from heaven and told you that this was His commandment, would you stop drinking?” A look of deep thought came over his face. “Hmm… that’s hard…”

God will not answer your questions if you do not ask with real intent—that’s the difference between doubts and questions. Questions are patient, they are trusting, they build faith. Doubts are critical, cynical and skeptical. They allow no room for answer, because in the end, the doubter never truly wants an answer. Please, brothers and sisters, evaluate yourself today and decide whether you have doubts or questions. And if they are questions, act. God will answer in his own time and in his own way. And if they are doubts, “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” (Pres. Uchdorf)
Help God answer you. Don’t block yourself from the answers and the blessings he wants to give you, even if they’re not necessarily what you’ve been looking for.

Becoming better, kinder, and more obedient is called repentance, the second step. Don’t do it once a week—do it many many times a day. Repentance is not condemnation, it is an invitation. An invitation to become more today than you were yesterday. To see the world with fresh eyes.

Just as important as repentance is forgiveness. They are really two sides of the same coin. You cannot truly repent if you do not practice forgiveness. As a member, one of the most important things you can do is thoroughly learn and apply the principles of forgiveness and repentance to your own life. Don’t bother applying them to others. Make repentance a daily activity. You will grow closer to God and Christ. You will find yourself more active and capable of learning. You will discover talents within yourself and see more easily the divine godhood in others. Pride will be quieted, hearts will be opened. There is nothing bad that comes from repentance. It’s only impossible when we think it is.
Satan knows that repentance is one of the most beautiful, enriching, powerful steps of the Doctrine of Christ, so he distorts our image of it. He says that there is no sin, so there is no need to repent. There is no God, there is no devil. He tells us that it’s hard to change—that other people can change, but we can’t. He tells us that evil is good, and that good is evil. He tells us that God loves us as we are and will save us as we are. We are safe. We will be happiest as spiritual vegetables. We don’t need to grow, learn, or progress. That true happiness lies in doing as little work as possible.

Brothers and sisters, Satan is a liar. He hates you. Satan is so jealous of you because you have a body. Because of this body and the Atonement, we can change. He can’t. He wants to convince you that you are less than a child of God. Don’t be satisfied with a piece of moldy bread when God has laid the feast before you.

“The first fruits of repentance is baptism…” (Moroni 8:25) Now, why would that be?
When I received my first trainee, she and I would talk about our pre-mission life. One day, I was telling her about myself, it occurred to me that I remembered this person (myself), but I didn’t recognize her anymore. That night, I realized something very important: I had been limiting myself.
I never thought I labeled myself. I believed it was only the insecure and those concerned with others’ opinions who labeled themselves. But I had determined things about myself that I knew was “Sydney Sands.” Sydney was smart—she always was and she always would be. Sydney hated exercise. Sydney didn’t like people much, either. One of Sydney’s most charming factors was how easily she could be sarcastic.

Then I clipped on my missionary badge. Suddenly none of those things mattered anymore. Sister Sands is smart? Go talk Japanese to that man over there. Sister Sands hates exercise? The white handbook says you need to exercise for thirty minutes every morning. Sister Sands doesn’t like people? If you don’t love them, you can’t teach them.

All of the labels I had put on myself came peeling off. It wasn’t easy— I actually truly believed that I would lose my identity if I couldn’t be sarcastic, but I’ve ended up finding a person inside who I like quite a bit more. I was sore every day, but I became strong. I didn’t have all the answers, but I was humble, and because I was humble, I was filled with love. I’ve grown. When I clipped on the name of Christ, the only thing that mattered was following Him. And by following Him, I discovered who I really am. I’m not done yet, and the nametag’s off, but I have good news: when you are baptized, you take upon yourself the name of Christ. You don’t get a nametag like I did, but His name is written upon your hearts. And every week, when you take the sacrament, if you’ve done your daily repentance homework the week before, all the other labels come off. The world tries every day to tell us who we really are. It bogs us down. As we take the sacrament each week, it’s like being baptized all over again. But it’s not just a renewal of covenants—we don’t just go back to ground zero. Every piece of bread and every cup of water is a stairstep into heaven. The name of Christ is the only label that will allow us to progress infinitely.

After we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, whether in baptism, or in after-baptismal taking of the sacrament, we receive the Holy Ghost. I love the Holy Ghost. He is the third member of the Godhead, and the best missionary in the world. He doesn’t have a body, so he can enter our hearts and help us through our thoughts and our feelings. He has infinite love and works every second of the day to bring you and every soul in the world closer to God. The Holy Ghost comforts, guides, protects, warns, helps, purifies and teaches us, but only when we let him. Through the Holy Ghost, our questions are answered. Before we are baptized, we can feel him occasionally—when we come to church, when we hold a baby, when we pray, and when we keep the commandments. When we are baptized, he becomes our friend by the laying on of hands by proper authority. He stays in our heart so long as we have faith or at least a desire to believe, repent, and renew our covenants.

According to the Bible dictionary, the Holy Ghost is God’s earnest. An earnest is a down payment. It’s a promise. When you make a really big purchase, for instance, a house, you give an earnest to tell the person selling that “I don’t have all the money now, but here is a little. Here is the proof of my promise that I will pay it all.”

The Holy Ghost is God’s earnest. It’s Him saying to us, “I know the world is hard. I know that you’re sad and that it hurts sometimes, but it gets better. I love you, but you can’t live with me right now. I can’t give all the blessings to you right now, but here is the proof of my promise that I will pay it all.” As we keep the Holy Ghost with us, he makes our hearts clean. When we repent, we return to square one. Our sins are forgiven. But as we keep the Holy Ghost with us, we change. That is what makes baptism and the sacrament so powerful. Because of Jesus Christ, we are justified. Because of the Holy Ghost, we are sanctified. We cannot live with God if we do not have both.

Finally, enduring to the end. Enduring to the end is the lacing together of the other four steps in the Doctrine of Christ. We endure to the end by obedience to the commandments, faith, daily repentance, and the weekly renewing of covenants.

To talk about enduring to the end, I’d like to tell a story that happened the last month of the mission.
I was talking to a woman about the path to happiness. I told her that God had revealed the path to happiness, and that struck her interest. She was like, "Eh, what is that?" I told her that the path to living happily is called commandments, and as her face fell, I told her that God Himself never breaks His commandments.

We described that because people, when they keep the commandments, experience these blessings, they convert. They understand that when they keep the commandments, they're happier because they've lived without keeping the commandments and they understand the difference.
The following conversation ensued:

Her: So what you're saying is that because they know the difference, they understand that the commandments make them happy.
Me: *seeing where she's going with this* Yes, that's exactly it.
Her: What that sounds like to me is that you need to experience both ends of the spectrum.
Me: Haha... If I told you that pounding your head on the street would make you unhappy, would you believe me?
Her: Yes.
Me: Even though you've never done it before?
Her: No, but I've had other experiences when I've hit my head, and that was painful.
Me: Good. We are all imperfect. We all sin, and that makes us sad. We don't have to break every commandment to know that sinning makes us sad. At some point, you just have to trust God.

Brothers and sisters, we don't have to go looking for sin. All of us happen to be human, and, despite our best efforts, end up sinning anyways. We make mistakes. And, mind--we don't have to learn from our own experiences. We have been blessed with the scriptures, worldwide media, and a conscience to tell what will and will not make us happy. We don't have to kill someone to know that everyone's happier without killing people. We don't have to tell rumors about people to know that it's good to not tell rumors. We don't have to smoke to know that it's bad to smoke. We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we make a decision. A dear friend of mine shared a favorite quote with me:
Wise men learn from experience. Fools, from their own.

Now, there comes a point when we're asked to make a jump, even though we don’t know the answer immediately. At one point, we're all backed up against the wall of faith. Sometimes we don't understand why God asked us to not drink green tea when it's one of the most popular health supplements in America. Sometimes we think it's a bad idea. We don't have enough money to pay tithing, we've tried a million times before to quit smoking, and a billion other very real, very serious problems. We don't know why God asks us to do what He asks us to do, and sometimes we don't like it.

When that point comes, do you shut down? Does it rule out every other commandment in the book? Is the Bible no longer true? Is God no longer real?

Look back to the commandments you did understand, look back on who you understand God to be. Understand who God wants you to be, and what he knows you can be. The commandments are not to restrict or bind us, to repress or oppress us, to halt our happiness or to shame us.

God knows you. He knew you before you were born. You learned to trust and to love him, and he trusted you. He saved your spirit for billions of years, teaching you how to come back to Him. He knew this world would be hard and dark and dirty at times, but He trusted you. He trusts you now.

Before the earth was created, you promised God that you would keep all His commandments because you knew that it would make Him happy and because you knew that it would make you happy. You knew that the commandments would point you to Christ and that Christ would bring you home.

Everyone, I would like to offer you an invitation: Repent and be changed. Be saved. God loves you. He has always loved you. He watches over you day and night. He knows who you are and who you can be. He wants to live with you forever. You are His child. At judgement day, can you imagine him folding you in his arms, saying, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”. “Come unto me ye blessed, for your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth”? Picture it in your head. Now press forward. Have faith, repent, be baptized or renew your covenants, and receive the Holy Ghost. And when ye have gotten into this path, “you must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all man. Wherefore if ye shall press forward and endure to the end, behold, thus saith [our] Father: Ye shall have eternal life.”

Christ lives. I know He does. I’ve testified of Him for my whole life, and I plan to continue testifying of Him beyond the end of my days. And because He lives again, I’ll see all the wonderful friends I made in Japan. I’ll see them all again and I’ll understand every word. I’ll see you, and I’ll see Him. I’m excited, but I’ll wait for just a little longer, for, like Moroni, I have a purpose to perform in this tabernacle of clay, “to conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest [my] soul in the kingdom of God.”


In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Last mission email / My goal was to "see miracles"



Not much to say this week, just that we've seen a lot of miracles,
gotten a lot of presents, I've received perhaps five coin purses of
various size and design and cake three or four times this week, and
have seen God's hand in our lives. I have about ten minutes to write
you before I send one to my mission president.

In answer to the question I'm sure you're all wondering: Other than a
little screaming and running around the apartment, I don't actually
feel any different at all. It doesn't feel like I'm going home--just
another day in the field. Which is good--it's how I like it to be.
I've worked hard. I've worked hard just about every day of my mission
life. There are a lot of Shimai (Sisters) who work twice as hard in the last
stretch, but I think I appreciate more the sisters who work twice as
hard for their entire mission, and so working really hard for the last
stretch is working as hard as they did every other day. I hope that's
me. My body feels like it's me.

Also, nothing can hurt Kitarokko (where I’m at). So no earthquakes here.
This week's most notable event happened this Wednesday.
We went on a koukan (swapping missions companions) with O. Shimai
and A. Shimai. This is the same A. Shimai that Z. Shimai went on a koukan
with when A. Shimai was still a trainee. Well, she's my STL, now, just like I
knew she would be. And we went on a koukan. Just as I knew we would.

Every koukan, we set koukan goals before we go out, and since I will
soon be dead (slang for “off my mission”), my goal was "see miracles".
AS: What kind of miracles?
Me: ...*sigh* *think* You asked for it. "I want to teach someone who, in the
1st lesson, desires to be baptized."
AS: Okay, tanoshimi ni shite imasu!

So we go out. We had a really solid day. At the last moment, T.
Shimai and I sent a mail to an investigator who's been to church
twice, but never met with us. Her schedule opened up, and since she
actually lives in Nishiwaki area, met us there. T. Shimai and I
deliberated over what to teach her, but we decided to invite her to be
baptized.

Long story short, she accepted. Really long story short, but time's
short, so...

Also, A. Shimai and I got cake. Then T. Shimai brought me a
drink that I hadn't tried before and strawberry daifuku :D She loves
me. She doesn't say it much, because she's Japanese, but this week,



I've really felt loved by her. :)

4/18 月

Today I cut my hair again, family. Hahahaha~

Love you all, see you soon.

Sanzu Shimai
サンズ姉妹

もすぐ、サンズ姉妹は宣教師の三途の川を渡します。

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

I don't know if I'll ever be able to read a book in public again

4/7 木

We had interviews today, which was so fun. I forget how few people are
on the streets on Kitarokko until I step on a train for Kobe. One
thing that's entirely changed about me is that I feel like a worthless
missionary if I don't talk to people wherever I go--especially on
trains. (Thank you, Z. Shimai :D) I don't know what I'll do when I
go home. I don't know if I'll ever be able to read a book in public
again without feeling some serious guilt.

Interviews were really good. The mission president started out the
conversation by giving me a good handshake and saying "You're not
allowed to go home!" Every missionary needs to hear that. He gave me
some great tips on how to not become less-active. I know a lot of
missionaries have a really hard time when they go home and are like,
"What do I do?" But we had a really good talk.

We also ate really good Chinese food at a restaurant right off the
station, and I bought peanut butter and granola. :D

On the way back, we dropped by a member's house and taught her cute
grandkid the "Hokey Pokey." Hahahaha, being goofy is not something one
does when one is Japanese, so it was so awkward. And
she gave us yakimo :DDD

4/8 金

We went to seminary, then back on a train to Kobe!! We met a really
solid kid on the way back, after we ate soba :DDD His name was Y, and
he was just solid. We were like, "Do you believe in God?"

Him: I know there's a God.

Woah, back off, everyone. This kid means business. He's solid.

4/10 日

I LOVE SOUTAIKAI!

Also got an obi for my yukata :D

(This is Sydney's mom. After getting this email, the following pictures came to mind, and I wanted to share them to help you appreciate the full impact of what Sydney is saying in this post. This is a picture that I took the summer before Sydney's mission. We were in New York, near Times Square. This is what Sydney did - every time - when we stopped at a restroom or anywhere else for a 5 minute break.)


Wise men learn from experience. Fools, from their own.

4/6 水


Today, we spent a lot of time in a very few places, and spent a long
time at each of them, but this time, I didn't feel too bad about it.

We started off the day by going to M shimai's, and T Shimai and I had
a moment of shared keiji. We were teaching F Shimai and to open, I
felt like we needed a hymn to share the spirit. I was like, "Let's
sing a hymn." My companion chose the hymn, and it really touched her
heart. It worked really well.

Before we went to M shimai's, we dropped off at a place that sells
hamburgers. They looked really legit--and were expensive enough to
have been, but the buns were a little rubbery, and the patty was more
like a large beef strip. I... was disappointed. It was a good
sandwich, but it was certainly no hamburger.

Afterwards, we kept a cute little old lady company, then we went to
F shimai's. Before we went, my companion, warned me that F shimai
was someone who likes to ask questions but doesn't receive the answer
with her heart and refuses to listen for Holy Ghost. And when we met
her, I received largely the same impression.

I told her that God lives and has revealed the path to happiness. That
struck her interest. She was like, "Eh, what is that?"

Me: The path to living happily is called commandments.
Her: *Face falls*
Me: God never breaks the commandments.

We described that because people, when they keep the commandments,
experience these blessings, they convert. They understand that when
they keep the commandments, they're happier because they've lived
without keeping the commandments and they understand the difference.

Her: So what you're saying is that because they know the difference,
they understand that the commandments make them happy.
Me: *seeing where she's going with this* Yes, that's exactly it.
Her: What that sounds like to me is that you need to experience both
ends of the spectrum.
Me: Haha... If I told you that pounding your head on the street would
make you unhappy, would you believe me?
Her: Yes.
Me: Even though you've never done it before?
Her: No, but I've had other experiences when I've hit my head, and
that was painful.
Me: Good. We are all imperfect. We all sin, and that makes us sad. We
don't have to break every commandment to know that sinning makes us
sad. At some point, you just have to trust God.

We don't have to go looking for sin. All of us happen to be human,
and, despite our best efforts, end up sinning anyways. We make
mistakes. And, mind--we don't have to learn from our own experiences.
We have been blessed with the scriptures, worldwide media, and a
conscience to tell what will and will not make us happy. We don't have
to kill someone to know that everyone's happier without killing
people. We don't have to tell rumors about people to know that it's
good to not tell rumors. We don't have to smoke to know that it's bad
to smoke. We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we make a
decision. A dear friend of mine shared a favorite quote with me:

Wise men learn from experience. Fools, from their own.

Now, there comes a point when we're asked to make a jump, even though
we don't see the other side. Our dear F Shimai brought it up.

Her: Well, I don't know why God would ask someone to sacrifice their own child.
Us: Are you talking about Abraham's sacrifice?
Her: Yes. Why would God do something like that?
Us: That's a good question. That's a very good, very important
question. We can answer that next week, but in order to prepare, will
you pray every day this week? We could tell you the answer, but you
will never understand if you do not build a relationship with God.
Without faith, no one can ever truly understand the commandments.
Her: Back to faith...
Us: Yep. You don't have to believe everything right away, but if you
believe that it would be nice to believe, if you think that there is a
possibility that God could be out there, that's the first step. So
will you pray every day this week to start building a relationship
with God?


At one point, we're all backed up against the wall of faith. We don't
know why God asks us to do what He asks us to do, and sometimes we
don't like it. Sometimes we think it's a bad idea. We don't have
enough money to pay tithing, we've tried a million times before to
quit smoking, and a billion other very real, very serious problems.
Sometimes we don't understand why God asked us to not drink green tea
when it's one of the most popular health supplements in America.

When that point comes, do you shut down? Does it rule out every other
commandment in the book? Is the Bible no longer real? Is God no longer
real?

Look back to the commandments you did understand, look back on who you
understand God to be. Understand who God wants you to be, and what he
knows you can be. The commandments are not to restrict or bind us, to
repress or oppress us, to halt our happiness or to shame us.

God knows you. He knew you before you were born. He gathered your
intelligence from the darkness and gave you a spirit body to call your
own. You learned to trust and to love him, and he trusted you. He
saved your spirit for billions of years, teaching you how to come back
to Him. He knew this world would be hard and dark and dirty at times,
but He trusted you. He trusts you now.

Before the earth was created, you promised God that you would keep all
His commandments because you knew that it would make Him happy and
because you knew that it would make you happy. You knew that the
commandments would point you to Christ and that Christ would bring you
home.

The first night I came to Okayama, my first area, my trainer and I
hopped on our bikes and biked through the dark to an investigator's
house. She made a wide turn around a corner and I followed her because
I trusted her more than myself. It wasn't until I was comfortable
enough to look down to notice that there were 3-foot-deep gutters on
either side of the road. I was convinced, and still am today, that if
I hadn't followed my companion, I would have fallen in.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways
saith the Lord."

So when that happens, when you're scared or in doubt, when you don't
like what you've been told to do, choose the higher way. I don't have
all the answers, but "I know that God loveth his children." And I know
that He wants you back in his arms. I know that he's not the only one
waiting for you in heaven. And I know that you won't regret it.

Let there be vegetables!

4/5 火

O Shimai the elder took us to see an LA today. She lived a long ways
away, and it turned out she wasn't home. That was too bad, but on the
way back, O was like, "Let me feed you two" and took us to an
Adventist restraurant.

Now let me have a moment to tell you about this morning. I had a bowl
of rice with otsukemono, milk with protein powder, and an egg because
protein is hard to get in Japan and I was stocking up. As I sat down
and looked at my breakfast, I was like, "I will never eat anything
green for the rest of my life." Not for lack of desire, but rather,
availability.

It was meaningful enough for me that I asked in personal study "Dear
God. I know you can do anything. I want to eat vegetables today. I
don't know how you're going to do it--we don't have time, and we don't
have vegetables, but I know you love us, and I want to eat something
healthy. Please bless us."

So we get to this Adventist cafeteria dealeo, and apparently,
Adventists are very healthy eaters, because everything there included
a kind of vegetable. And their pumpkin soup was delicious. I ate
myself full on vegetables. And there was cake (pumpkin cake),
so that was happy. I told O Shimai that she was an answer to my
prayer, and she was really happy. I was, too. That was really cool.

Then we went to H shimai's and helped her pick up trash. Her husband
came at the end and brought us back to the house. And H shimai's
husband was happy to see us :D

Apparently, I'm safe because I like cute things

4/4 月

Today, we got special permission to spend time with the O's, K's, and
M's down at the Himeji-jou. BEAUTIFUL!!! My companion was super
excited to go up into the castle. She's really cute--very Japanese. A
lot of her emotions are guesswork, but every so often, she gets
excited about something enough that I can actually tell without the
calculus and problem-solving that it normally takes.

Himeji-jou was beautiful--I'm so glad I got to go. I didn't think I
would be able to. Too bad I missed Kyoto, but I'll be back here soon
enough. Not an issue. Also, I splurged a bit and bought a
Shiromaruhime (Japanese castle mascot?) for my beloved Barii-san
(Japanese city mascot?). He needed a friend. I needed to be the one to
give it to him. (And I'm glad I did--Shiromaruhime seems to be a
seasonal item, and I got the cutest version.) When he saw what I had
bought, O kyoudai was like, "Ah, you like those kind of things?
That's good. It's safe."

Me: ...Safe?
Him: Because you're smart. (I guess liking cute
things makes me less intimidating?)

Come to think of it, T. Shimai called me a nakami, too. ...Hey, I'm
allowed to like cute things...

But anyways, we saw the "Evening Sakura." They lit up the Sakura
and the oshiro. It was beautiful. I'm really glad we went. That was a
great experience.

And now I have Shiromaruhime! :D

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

It's a great steed to end the mission on.

Today we went shopping. That is to say, I'm tired
now.

I've built up a lot of things, as far as resistance goes (for
example, I'm eating a piece of bread with fried fish on top of a layer
of boiled eggs and mayonnaise. Japan.)

Also, my companion and my unicycle. Because I know you wanted to hear
about those.

First the unicycle. I transferred and... actually did not receive a
unicycle. But my new bike provides the same, one-gear experience.
The handlebars are about the width of my shoulders, so I don't have
to worry about throwing myself off on the frogger walks, and there's a
cute little basket in the front. The pedal crank thing is also smaller than
I'm used to, so even on seventh gear, I have to pedal at twice the speed
of my companion to catch up with her. We're probably a great sight.

It's a great steed to end the mission on.

My companion is Japanese, who is adorable and secretly funny. Recently
she's started kidding around with me.

That's it for now - I am low on time, but I'll be home soon, so I can
fill you in on the day's events then.

Love you!