Ellie's Mission in Japan: Week 19

皆さんこんにちは！

Wow what a week, as always. This week was a little different than other typical weeks. Isom Shimai was really sick for a couple days and we were told we couldn't leave the house. Lol So basically I just attempted to write letters in Kanji for members and read the book of Mormon for two and half days straight haha. Which btw is a fabulous book, I highly recommend.

Thursday was THANKSGIVING, Japan, as you can imagine, isn't exactly a huge Thanksgiving celebrating country. BUT our district leader is a really good chef and made us a big lunch with homemade rolls, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie, wassail, and a huge chicken (we will just pretend it's turkey), but it was great. We all went around and we said what we were grateful for.

Never did I think that one day I would be in Japan having a spontaneous Thanksgiving, sharing my Thanksgiving traditions with missionaries from all over the world. But it was great. :) After that, we kicked off the Christmas spirit and went caroling as a district in one of the busier areas of Osaka.

It is so fun doing Christmas related things in Japan because people love Christmas things but doing really understand the point of it, so we are able to introduce the real meaning behind it! And what better way to grab peoples attention than a bunch of Americans singing Christmas songs in Japanese haha. So we were able to find a lot of people through that!

On Friday I had a companion exchange with Macaspac 姉妹, she is from the Philippines and is the cutest person ever. It was really interesting because we came to Japan at the same time, so we were just two little bean chans running around! We had a lesson with the cutest family, we were both kind of scared because usually we have our senior companions who can help us and take the lead more, but it was really good. Working together we were able to teach them how to pray and explain how they can receive help from God. Even though our Japanese wasn't near perfect, the spirit was present. :) Thank goodness for Heavenly Father's constant help and the spirit, or else this work would be nearly impossible.

I'm unfortunately out of time, this email wasn't the best. But because of Thanksgiving, I have to say how grateful I am for everything! Every night my companion and I say things that we are grateful for that day. It's so cool how things that seemed hard at the moment, or something that I wasn't too excited for, end up being something I was grateful for! When we look for the blessings and miracles that Heavenly Father has given us, we will recognize how much he loves us! I've come to realize that his will really is the best way, we just have to trust in him.

Love all of you, hope you have the best week.
Love クリステンセン姉妹