We love nightly planning! :)
I think I am starting to look more and more Asian as time goes on here... Yay!!
Zone conference :)
On our way home from sword fighting class dendou! :)
Dear Family,
A big shout out to all of the wonderful Fathers who I know, especially
my Dad! I hope Father's Day is wonderful!
I don't have a whole lot of time today, but I will share some of the
highlights of this week.
On Friday night, we found out that there would be a baptism in our
ward for one of the little eight year olds the following Saturday
evening. Sister Moffat and I felt like we should try really hard to
get someone to come and watch the baptism. We spent all of Saturday
trying to get one of our investigators to come to this baptism at
5:00pm. We had worked hard all day, contacting all of our
investigators and inviting them, but 4:00 came around and we still
didn't have anyone. We decided to pray once again, and hope for the
best. The next 8 or 9 people who we talked to weren't able to come to
the baptism, but between the trains and the different transformation
means we used to contact these people, we found ourselves in a busy
little place called Jiyugaoka.
Now, to give you all a little image of what Jiyugaoka looks like, just
picture a huge outdoor shopping mall with millions of people inside of
it. There are so many people! We began talking with people there for
the next ten minutes and still hadn't found anyone to come to the
baptism with us. As we were walking along, I suddenly remembered that
we had found a PI a few weeks previous and that we knew where she
lived. It just so happened to be about 5 minute away from where we
were and so we decided to go and ask out friend Ellie to come with us
to the baptism.
We had housed into her probably 4 weeks previously, but she didn't
express a ton of interest and she never answered our messages or
texts, so we hadn't gone back to see her since. As we approached the
apartment building where we had seen her previously, I felt a great
peace. We walked up to the third floor and talked about how we were
going to asked her to come to this baptism with us. She had only met
us once before, but we prayed and felt good about it and so we rang
the doorbell.
She came to the door and asked who it was (this is quite a common
thing. We usually don't see the person we are talking to and just hear
their voice. It's kind of funny) I looked at sister Moffat trying not
to laugh and said "It's the sister missionaries!" :)
Ellie answered the door and looked so confused as to why we had come
back to her house. We asked her how she was and she offered to go get
coffee with us for 10 minutes... We hadn't brought up the baptism
thing yet with her, but she wanted to spend time with us and so we
agreed! As she went back into the house to change, I told sister
Moffat that we had to tell her we wanted her to come to the baptism
before exiting the apartment building, otherwise we would be trapped
in Starbucks coffee!
E---- opened the door, all ready to go, and Sister Moffat burst out
and said, "Would you like to come with us to a baptism!?"
Haha,It was probably the the most awkward thing ever, but guess what?!
She came! She rode the train with for half and hour to get to Ookayama
station, and then walked with us the 15 minute walk to the church to
see the baptism, just before 5:00pm. Crazy cool!
It was an amazing experience. We asked her if she would want to be
baptized after explaining everything, and she said she would love to
after learning everything we had to teach her. It was crazy CRAZY
cool. She had expressed next to no interest when we met her four weeks
ago, but she had completely changed after being touched by the Spirit.
We set up expectations to meet with her twice a week.
We taught her for the first time last night. She expressed the concern
that she had a hard time believing that God really knew her
personally. She went on to say how there are million and millions of
people in the world, so how could God know her personally?
We testified boldly and promised her that she could know through
prayer if God really did know her or not. She replied, "Really?!
Please, teach me how to pray!"
Her prayer was the most beautiful thing. She prayed in Chinese and it
brought tears to me eyes. Although I couldn't understand what she as
saying the whole time, I felt the sincerity in her voice and her
longing to know and to feel if God really was there. As she finished,
we could tell that she had felt something. She smiled and thanked us
for coming over. She loves the Book of Mormon and is so Kin! She is
amazing. I haven't met someone with her desire to learn for a long
time. She is so close to God and know she knows how to break the
barrier and talk with him. She is amazing.
I'm pretty much out of time, but from this experience I've learn once
again that God really does answer our prayers and know the desires of
our hearts. He answered our prayer as missionaries to find someone to
take to the baptism, and we found someone! Not only that, but He
blessed us to be able to meet with E---- twice a week and had been
preparing her all along to hear the message of the restored gospel. He
answered Ellie's prayer and helped her feel that He really was there
watching over her and guiding her. It was so neat. I know God loves us
and that we are His children.
One of my favorite things as a missionary is to watch people pray for
the first time. It warms my heart to know and feel how much the Lord
really does love them and is so happy they have finally found Him.
We have the chance as members and children of God to find Him everyday
of our lives. There is real power in prayer and I know that as we ask
in faith, we will always receive the answers that we are searching
for. I love you all so much!
Have a wonderful week! :)
Love always,
Sister Hubbard xoxo
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