Week 16: Motsumoto, Nagano; Companion/Trainer: Sister Takahashi

Hello everyone and helloooo rainy season! 

When it rains... IT POURS. I am not even exaggerating! Luckily it does not get very humid here in Matsumoto, so it definitely could be worse. I was not prepared for this rain though, that is for sure.

Remember that lady (Matsui Shimai) who hasn't been to church in like 40 years, but last time we visited her she said she would come to church? (This was a couple weeks ago) Well, her son wouldn't let her go to church. BUT yesterday we went to her house and brought her the sacrament. The spirit was so strong. I could not understand what she was saying, but she seemed super grateful.

You guys ny right hip is like killing me, super random, but if anyone has hip problems advice send it my way!! Might have to get hips of steel ifykyk haha.

On Saturday a member took us on this beautiful hike that had a great view! It was so pretty. It just made me so grateful for this beautiful earth God created for all of us. Something I think we all should appreciate a lil more!!

There is a choir here in Matsumoto that consists of about 30 people. They have a concert twice every year. Well guess what, I am a valued member of this choir. Not really, but I am part of it. We had a concert on Saturday!!!! I only sang half the songs haha because some were too fast for my Japanese skills, but it was fun. There was an old lady in the crowd who had her eyes closed the whole time and nodded her head with the music. I loved it. The right kind of music really does soothe the soul!

Japan tips!

- Last week I said I want to marry the 7/11s here... I want to marry the Familymarts too!

- Literally everyone eats rice with EVERYTHING. RICE IS EVERYWHERE.

-the gardens/yards here are no joke. Some of the most beautiful scenes of nature I have witnessed have been right in front of someone's house. I want to talk about this more in the future, but I am trying not to make this email 10 years long!

hehe

Me being a very visual person I have thought of what it feels like with my Japanese. You ready? It feels like I get pushed into water, drown a bit, struggle to get up. But right when I get up and find my balance, I take a couple steps of confidence then I get pushed right back into the water. Can anyone relate? Haha sounds brutal and honestly it is. God has not ceased to keep me humble. It's a journey that I am still trying to figure out. 

I got some really good advice from a missionary friend of mine I have made. She said:

"Something that helped me a lot was keeping my mind on Christ. Keeping Him at the center of my thoughts and as my why! Every time it got hard, I would remember Him and try to think of what Christ did when it was hard for him. He loved people, despite them hating Him. He went out and performed the Atonement, despite knowing how hard and painful it would be. He submitted to the Father's will, despite it being the hardest thing He ever had to do. Jesus Christ is so amazing!! Think of Him and I promise you will receive so much strength!"

So powerful. I am not going to add much because I want you to read this and think about it for yourself and how you can apply this into your life. Jesus Christ is our anchor, if we rely on Him, we will not be moved!

God loves you

I love you

Have a great week everyone! 

<3 Sister Peterson

*I am a gyoza (a japanese food) making expert

*okay I look stupid in the choir picture, but whatever

*I LOVE LIL KITTIES

Week 15: Motsumoto, Nagano; Companion/Trainer: Sister Takahashi

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!! I am so very grateful for my Dad, my Grandpa, and all the other amazing people who get to celebrate today. I am also grateful for a loving, forgiving, sensitive Heavenly Father! 😊I will be honest, this week was pretty hard. But I was also able to witness so many miracle and have seen God's hand in this work so much! 🍓It is hard to see progress when learning a language because it feels like I am learning so slowly. But I have been able to pick out a few words I recognize when 3rd wheeling conversations haha. I believe that is God giving me breaths of air when it feels like I am drowning. Let me just say, learning a whole other language is very difficult and can be exhausting. Im trying to find ways to make it more fun, if you have any tips please send them my way!! 🎈On thursday our mission did a Book of Mormon finding day. A day where we find people only using the Book of Mormon. Last transfer they did this I think they handed out about 205ish as a whole mission. That's about 4 books a person. Me and Takahashi 姉妹 handed out 6! It was so fun. I handed out 1 English Book to a tourist family which made me real excited. Our mission as a whole handed out 278 books! So exciting!! 🙈That same day me and Takahashi 姉妹 were taking a break in a shaded area to practice my Japanese (i was feeling very discouraged) when a lady with earbuds in AND black tape over her ears came up to us looking amazed. I only understood what my companion translated for me, but she told me I had a presence of one of my ancestors, a man, around me and was supporting me. He never went on a mission and is very proud of me and helping me. I told my mom this story and we decided this crazy lady was talking about my Great Grandpa Lutes! He was never a member on earth, but my mom said he would enjoy ny personality which is very fun to hear. 😌The crazy lady also said I had saved someone before I came to Earth and I am supposed to save them again on Earth. 😅That was interesting. The last impactful thing that was translated to me was that I have the Spirit of a women AND a man. Ha. Not sure how I feel about that, but I think that's kinda fun... right? While she was talking I had tears streaming down my face bc even though this lady was an absolute crazy woman, she talked about things that I hold close to my heart. Things only Heavenly Father would really understand about me. Very odd experience, but I was reassured that Heavenly Father is always watching over me and supporting me. Even if He has to show it to me through crazy people. We tried to give her a Book of Mormon but she told us she already knows everything. Which I honestly do believe haha. ❤Japan Tips!!❤ -I would marry the 7/11s here if I could. The Melon Pan and Coolish are a MUST try. The snacks are so fun and yummy and mmmmm - 100 yen store is basically the dollar store but 1000000 times better. If the USA's dollar stores were the like 100 yen store, let me just say, the popularity scale would be right up there with Costco. Plus 100 yen is equal to about 60 cents. SCORE - Literally everyone here is short. In the USA I am an average height, but here... I am tall. It's funny when I talk to a women and her 2 kids and her head barely reaches my shoulders. If you ever feel too short... come to Japan ;) ❤️woop woop❤️ 1 Nephi 16:29 "And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things" I read this during my personal study this week and felt so grateful. Heavenly Father knew I needed this. He knows the desires of our hearts and how hard we are trying, sometimes with what feels like no success. I want to emphasize 2 main points. 1) We have heard that he loves effort. He can take our small efforts, small knowledge of a language, small understanding of the scriptures, small amounts of self confidence, and magnify them. Make it great! Trust Him. Ask Him. Rely on Him. 2) He has a plan for you. I believe that when you trust this simple sentence, you can go so far in life. Take risks and be patient. Let His plan fold out and trust He knows what is best for you. As I am slowly learning Japanese I have to keep reminding myself of this. Everything works out in the way He needs it to. Trust in that. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have a love so deep for us we can't even comprehend it! That is crazy! I love you all so much and please know that you are all in my prayers. Have an amazing week!! <3 Sister Peterson 06/17/24 *when I show people the Pic of little me with a potato, they are AMAZED at how big the potato is haha *I'm a professional tennis player now *I just love the kids here

Week 14: Motsumoto, Nagano; Companion/Trainer: Sister Takahashi

Hi everyone!!

These weeks are starting to fly by, which really scares me. Lots of fun things happened this week yayyy!!

On Monday we went to Matsumoto Castle!!! So cool inside. The stairs were SUPER steep and there were 5 stories. I really am not sure how the old people did it. But it was lots of fun seeing a Japanese castle that was built like 400 years agoish.

On Tuesday, Takahashi Shimai and I knocked on houses for what seemed like forever with no luck. We came across a house with a cross on the door!! VERY rare in Japan. We really wanted to talk to them, but they weren't home  very sad. So we kept going house to house. When we were walking back to our bikes we went past the house again and I was like mmm let's just try again, why not. As we were walking up this lady pulled in the drivewayyyyy. I was super excited. Even more excited when we got out of the car and spoke ENGLISH TO US AHHHHH!!!! We found out she is from the Philippines. She is Catholic and was confused on what the differences of our religions were. Testifying to her in English was one of the most satisfying things ever oh my goodness. We gave her a Pamphlet and asked if we could visit again with an English Book of Mormon and she agreed. Oh I just loved her so much. I really hope she will let us teach her.

We visited an inactive member on Wednesday and she was sooooo sweeeet. Gave us a whole bag of food and told us how much she loves the missionaries. She said she also loves the gospel, but she has been so busy and tired. We are going to try to work with her to get her active again because wow she was amazing.

On Friday we had zone conference!! It was so fun! We are the smallest zone and the last Zone Conference ever for President and Sister Chidester. We get a new mission president next month! Absolutely crazy, but I had such a good time. It was unfortunate that we were the only sisters there, the elders were kind enough though which was good.

Saturday we found another English speaking Catholic Filipino!! So exciting. We have free japanese classes at the church taught by a member and he said we would definitely come! The class consists of us 4 missionaries and another Filipino member haha. Hopefully this new guy enjoys it.

Japan Tips!!!

- The Japanese people love hearing you try to speak Japanese. Even if you talk very very slow and pronounce things wrong, they will say "じよず" (jyozu) which means "so good!" 

- Always know what days the garbage gets picked up and don't forget to take it out. Otherwise you will be left with bags of garbage for a while. Which is very unfortunate.

- Know how to throw trash away. Wash out bottles, cans, everything. The trash is organized, so pay attention to the pictures on the garbage cans.

- I know it's a lot about trash, but very important... there are hardly any trash cans in public places, so make sure you have room for your trash. And always be on the lookout for a trashcan!

That's all for this week!

I gave a talk in church yesterday! I first wrote it all in English then translated to Japanese. It was pretty short but I felt good about it. The members were all very kind and smiled real big at me, so even if I did do bad, I would not know.

John 10

14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

 

Took me a hot second, but I read this version at the pulpit..

14 わたしはよい羊飼ひつじかいであって、わたしの羊ひつじを知しり、わたしの羊ひつじはまた、わたしを知しっている。

Anyways, recently I have been loving the name "good shepherd" for Jesus Christ. We are his sheep, his little lambs, and he loves us so much. He knows each of us personally and by name. He bore ALL our burdens. That's how well he knows you. That's crazy. Imagine your best friend who can relate so well to you but times like 100,000! Imagine being able to talk to him. Oh but wait, you can!!! Prayyyy. Haha I liked that. But seriously, he can help you if you reach out to him for help. 

He loves you!

I love you!

Jeez this email was long, but I love you all!!

Do the emojis make the email less scary to read? I hope so. Have a great week!!

<3 Sister Peterson! 06/10/24

(The Japanese Calligraphy is from last week's email, sorry I don't really know what happened with my photos last week)

Also I got my Japanese tags!!!

Week 13: Motsumoto, Nagano; Companion/Trainer: Sister Takahashi

Hi everyone!!

At the beginning of this week we had exchanges!! So basically me and my companion had a 4 hour bus ride  to the sisters in Takabata. I spent a day with one of the sisters and my companion spent the day with the other, then we switched the next day! It was soooo much fun! The first day I was with Ferraz しまい and we went streeting and talked to so many people in the craziest of windy rain. Something crazy was when we were able to talk to the majority of people, the rain STOPPED. Then when we were done, it started again. Amazing. Anyways, I was really proud of myself because I approached a lot of people using the small Japanese I know. We had some goals and one of them was to hand out the Book of Mormon. We never got the chance, so we were walking back to the church at the end of the day. No one was on the street, then we saw this woman. We approached her and after talking for a bit we pulled out the Book of Mormon. Each of us testified of its truth and the entire time her eyes were locked on it. We gave it to her and we hope she reads it. That was just one of the many miracles we saw that day.

When I was with Yamada しまい our miracle was that so many random people gave us gas station snacks. I don't know how to better explain it. But it was amazing. 

We got to do Japanese Calligraphy! The 2 big characters I did say "Motsumoto" which is my area and the small ones say "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" very fun.

When I was on exchanges I was talking to Ferraz しまい about how we were able to see so many miracles. I am a very visual thinker so I came up with this. We have to poke the holes in the dirt so God can put the seeds in. Then we have to bury the seed and nurture it so it grows. Profound am I right? But seriously, God isn't going to be able to help us if we don't put in effort first. If Ferraz しまい and I had chosen to stay inside due to the rain, we wouldn't have experienced all His amazing miracles. If you want God to work in your life, you need to make room for Him. Put in the time to read your scriptures, pray, go to church, etc. I promise as you do those things, you will be able to experience God's miracles!

God loves you and wants to be in your life, so let Him  I love you all and hope you have a miracle filled week!!

<3 Peterson しまい

Ps. I know it's kinda short and I didn't put any Japan Tips, but it's been a busy day sorryyyy, but ive got lots of pictures for ya!