Happy late Christmas! I Hope everyone's day was filled with joy and the savior's love!
On Monday a member took us and the elders to an old people's home and we were able to talk about Christmas, sing them songs, play bingo (naturally), and Santa even came and gave them presents!! It was such a good time. My favorite was when they said konnichiwa and I said it back and they were BLOWN AWAY. Literally started clapping. It was just a konnichiwa, but I still feel pretty good about myself.
On Christmas eve we made a bunch of cookies to pass out for the next day, then went caroling with the elders to random houses. A lot of people told us they did not want to be sung to, but the few people that said okay seemed very happy. I have never really caroled like that and I come from a "hide from the carolers" home, but it was so wholesome to share Christmas spirit through song.
Christmas day was a good one! We didn't have anything really going on, so we walked around trying to hand out cookies to people. They were all very surprised and grateful. Christmas is not celebrated very big in Japan, it makes sense because Japan is not a Christian country. We didn't do anything big and glorious like I am sure other missionaries in other parts of the world did, but it was still fun spreading Christ's love through small acts. We may or may not got distracted by the prettiest sunset. I will put in a picture. Don't think too much about the RANDOM palm tree, I am still in Japan. We ended the night by caroling again with a member to other members' houses. It was very fun!!
Me and my beloved MacDonald shimai went streeting with a sign that said 私たちはどこから来たと思いますか？ "where do you think we are from?" Only one person guessed America. We got Norway, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Russia, and Ukraine. I think thats a good thing? We invited everyone to our free English classes, so hopefully they will come!
It has been super cold, so we are trying to find more creative ways to do missionary work. We are always looking for good service opportunities, but the culture in Japan makes it a little hard. People are very to themselves and I don't think like help from others. This was obvious when we were shoveling an old woman's driveway and she told us to go back home.. ha.
I don't have much time right now, so I will share a really good scripture.
Ether 12:41
41 And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen.
He is the reason of the season!
I love you all
Jesus loves you!
Make it a good week!
Link to the shadow play I mentioned last week! (hopefully it works)
<3 Sister Peterson
12/30/2024
p.s. thank you so much for all the christmas letters and emails! I love you all so much!!!
At the beginning of the week we performed our shadow play like a trillion times at the Kanazawa train station! It was even more special than the first time we performed it! Even though I moved to one of the coldest zones in the mission, I am very grateful I can be here and could be apart of this performance! Before then, we went streeting for hours in the pouring rain to get people to come! We met lots of fun people...haha
We had our ward Christmas party and Christmas church and of course they were both amazing! We were really trying to get lots of people to go to both, so we decided to visit some members we didn't know to invite them. We knocked on their door and introduced ourselves and invited them to both events. Through big smiles and a few chuckles, they said they were going. They then invited us in for yummy milk and cookies! (Shoutout small fry) After visiting with them for a minute, me and MacDonald shimai realized that he had joined our Sunday school lesson last week, and that they were very active members. No wonder they were so willing to come to the party they were already planning on going to... We ended up having a good time with them and listened to their fun stories! Literally the cutest old couple ever!
It has been sooooo cold and rainy here, so doing things outside have been hard. On one of the nicer days here we took a long bike ride to visit a couple that have been taught in the past. They ended up speaking perfect English and the husband was straight out of Philadelphia! It was pretty cool talking to them and ending with a message about prayer. I am not sure if things will go very far with them, but I am really hoping and praying for a miracle! 
Life has been good and I am surprisingly not very homesick with the Christmas season. It is fun getting emails from people back home and I even thank the people who have thought about sending emails, but haven't gotten around to it. I know I have a lot of support and love from back home and through the people I have met. I truly am grateful for every single one of you! The mission is hard, harder than I thought it would be. There is the culture change, language barrier, thrown into things brand new having no clue what's going on, lots of pressure. There is also the mental part of it. Not feeling equipped enough, comparing, feeling guilty for messing up, feeling you should be doing better. 
This week was so super busy. I was only in my area for 1 whole day out of the week. Basically we were in Kanazawa like the whole week. It was so much fun though!!
Our zone is so lucky and we got to do a shadow play of the Nativity and a little of when Christ died on the cross!! I was a lucky duck and was casted as 2 people! It required a quick costume change which made me feel nice and official. I was a shepherd and Mary Magdalene. Even though it was freezing for the performance, the spirit was so strong. We get to perform it again this week at the train station. Yay!!
I went to Costco. I was unsure how I felt in there though because it was too close to home. I still enjoyed a nice hotdog and the stomach ache after too. President was encouraging us to walk around and get samples, but then our pizza was ready too quickly. I really wanted those samples.
We had a zone Christmas party and let me just tell you, don't ever play White Elephant with elders without your expectations being dirt. I ended up with cheap cat socks and a bar of soap. Literally what is that. I am grateful, but what is that. We enjoyed good Christmas music played by the McConkies and lots of dancing. It was a very good time!
We also had zone conference which was so good of course. It was 110% all about Jesus Christ. The spirit was so so so strong I couldn`t believe it. I had a real good moment where I actually understood how important Jesus Christ is for our lives. How much He loves us and how hard the atonement really was for Him. I am so grateful for His sacrifice and example to us. I am grateful that I trusted Him when He volunteered to atone for our sins in the spirit world. We all did, how amazing is that. 
I also had a real good missionary moment. We were visiting a nonmember family and I was showing them a video about Light the World. I was sitting there with about 5 children surrounding me layin gon their stomachs watching the video. I looked down at my missionary tag and then the children and their adorable Japanese faces and I thought, I made it. I am in Japan teaching these beautiful Japanese people about Jesus Christ. It was pretty cool.
I expected this, but I transferred out of Gokiso. It was really sad saying bye to everyone because I was there for about 4 months. But my new area is Toyama, in the countryside like Matsumoto was. So I left the city and am back in 田舎. 
A member in Gokiso did my nails and I am obsessed with them. She is actually a professional, literally lived in New York for 5 years for this. Her family is half Peruvian and half Japanese and they cooked the best meal. I will miss them ugh. 
I had my last eikaiwa in Gokiso and the old people were so sad haha (i think). One of the ladies gave me a Keychain and told me I will always be her granddaughter and she will be my Japanese grandma. It was the sweetest thing ever. 
We got to celebrate a member's birthday with her and her family! (She is the one in the green) it was so fun and her food is so amazing. Her granddaughter goes to BYUI and she was begging me to become her friend when I get home. Obviously I said yes because that would be so fun!! She made us homemade pizza and it was one of the most homeliest meals I have had in a while. 
I got my transfer call to Toyama and my new companion is Sister Macdonald!! Toyama is beautiful but you guys I am FREEZING. And it isn't even the coldest time of the year yet. I'm so nervy. Sister Macdonald is amazing. Just amazing. I am a little worried we get along too good that sometimes we get distracted from missionary work. But also I am so excited to work with her and I know we will see so many miracles. 
My first time streeting with her we talked to a man and it was the best and funniest convo ever. He spoke broken English which made it even better. He told us he was born on Dec 25 and he is Jesus. We later clarified that he is *trying* to be like Jesus. So we randomly broke out in song singing about trying to be like Jesus and he loved it. It was amazing. I was able to snipe a pic of him walking away smiling.
I was reading The Living Christ (everyone should read right now!!! It is pretty short!!) and this sentence really stuck out to me.
For our Eikaiwa class we had a Thanksgiving party!! We explained what the tradition was then made little turkeys, it was so fun. Also we had to explain to them what a turkey is... I was very confused on how they did not know that vital information already. 
Anyone remember Sister Oota? She was my first baptism and is seriously the sweetest. Well, she got to go to the temple this weekend!! I am so happy for her! This is the message she sent us... Google Translate was used, but I think it makes sense...
On Saturday I really did not feel like I was in Japan. In the morning we met with a woman from Cameroon (Central Africa). She is not interested in reading the Book of Mormon, so we do really good bible studies with her. That afternoon we helped teach another woman from Cameroon Japanese. In the evening, we ate dinner at a man from Ghana's house. I literally traveled to Africa. It was so fun though. They were all so nice and spiritual. Oh and earlier in the week we had dinner with Reonita and her grandkids!
