What a week!

Next week, a wittier subject line. 

Every day this week, I have written five things I'm grateful for in my journal. They're always different and usually include a little sentence or paragraph after them. It's a good way to notice blessings and feel more happy, and it's also a good way to keep a journal when you have no time to do anything. Some things I was grateful for this week:

1. I really wanted Black Thunder (prime Japanese candy - kind of like a chocolate covered Oreo without the frosting. Heaven for the small price of 31 yen!) but couldn't get it. Then, randomly, someone gave me one with a sticky note written on top! What a gem!

2. I got to play a beautiful grand piano for 45 minutes as prelude to a special multi-zone meeting in which we heard from a member of the first quorum of the Seventy (important church leader). I took eight pages of notes/impressions from that day. 

3. Service opens people's hearts! On Monday after our 22 mile extravaganza, we saw two girls pulling heavy suitcases down the road, so we stopped and helped them until we had to go (run) to our lesson that night. They are Vietnamese students here at Asia Pacific University, which is in our area, but at the top of a mountain so we never go. Anyway, they agreed to meet with us in Thursday! The meeting was super long, but we just had dinner and got to know each other. After we taught them about God and Jesus Christ, we gave them both copies of the Book of Mormon in Vietnamese. One of them especially was so excited to have it, she kept flipping through, reading random passages, asking what things meant...when we gave her one in English, too, she was so excited I thought she was going to pass out! I'm not even exaggerating. I know I've never been quite that excited to read scriptures before. Maybe I should be! They're an enormous blessing. Through the Bible and the Book of Mormon, all of life's questions are answered and we feel God's love. So what started as carting heavy bags down the street, probably looking ridiculous as is the norm, became helping two awesome girls become closer to Christ! Miracles!

Oh, and the really excited of the two girls also accepted the invitation to baptism. "Of course, that seems like the natural next step." Wow, yeah...that! She is amazing. And God is amazing for letting us have these miracles. 

4. Banana soy milk

5. A family in our group, the Uchidas, had us over for dinner on Saturday night. They are so cool! As soon as I walked into their home, I felt how much love they have for each other and God. The food was delicious, and we all had a great time. Their sixteen-year-old girl is fellowshipping our sixteen-year-old investigator. We love them!

6. We taught two of our thirteen-year-old investigators yesterday after church. We'd just taught them the Plan of Salvation and wanted to do something fun, so we created a board game starting from pre-earth life and ending in the celestial kingdom! It was so fun! (And I got to heaven first, but who's keeping track? (Mark 10:31) next week, we are doing origami with them! I can't even make a paper airplane so we'll see how that goes. 

It's a great day to be a missionary! Since I'm ahead of most of you in time, I'll go ahead and tell you that Monday is going to be great! I love you all! Thank you for the prayers!

Love from Japan,

Sis J