Week 62 Japan Tokyo Mission

Yeah, time for new shoes! I have 3 other pairs with the same size hole, haha.
I will buy new ones.

Some of my favorite people ever! 

These are some of the young woman in the Tokyo 2nd ward. They are

going back to America for the summer, :) the Barton's.

Dear Family,


I had a really neat opportunity to clean inside the Tokyo Temple this
morning for 3 hours. The temple is closed for cleaning the next two
weeks and we were lucky enough to get to help with the process.
President Nagano emailed and asked us if we would be willing to help
out. Of course we were overjoyed to help! It was an excellent way for
sister Moffat and I to spend our p-day. :)
The peace inside the temple is always so amazing to me. I think it is
especially wonderful with the way things are here in Tokyo. Outside of
the temple, everything is so loud, flashy, and worldly, but inside the
temple it is the exact opposite. It is easy to feel close to God when
we are going to the temple. Such a blessing to live close by here in
Senzokuike.

This past Wednesday, we had a really neat experience. We had planned
the night before to travel to a certain part of our area and visit
members and find in their areas, but we both felt uneasy about it. We
prayed and thought about what we should do instead all during our
study, but we didn't come up with anything. Finally, during lunch
time, as I was thinking about everything, my mind was taken back to
the past Sunday. I remembered there was a mother who had mentioned
that she as moving. I had also recognized her as a busy mother with
kids who seemed stressed with life in general.
After talking about it all with sister Moffat, we realized we had
received our answer and proceeded to travel to this family's home. We
could hear before we entered the home that busy things were going on
inside. My thoughts and prayers were already going out to this mother
who had been working so hard to get everyone packed up, and also take
care of her little kids. We offered to help pack up the house, but
ended up just leaving a message as the there said it would be taken
care of later.
We shared a few thoughts and scriptures with her and before leaving
left a special blessing on their family to be able to feel peace about
everything although things were hectic. The feeling in their home
changed completely as we left them with a short message. We could tell
the mother of the house was so grateful for the message we had shared.
This experience helped me realize once again how moorland it is to
follow the Spirit and obey the promptings we are given.

Our Investigator E.... surprised us this past week with a message over
Facebook saying that she needed an English Book of Mormon! Our last
lesson with her, we really dove into the Book of Mormon when talking
about the plan of salvation with her and now she is reading the
scriptures everyday! She wanted an English one so that she could read
and study in both English, Japanese, and Chinese! Crazy right? She is
way awesome! E.... also came to church this past week and had a really
great experience.
In the second ward, we were getting a new bishop. During the
announcing process of the new bishop and during the testimonies of the
previous Bishopric, E.... turning to me and asked, "How did the Stake
president choose a new bishop?" We told her that he prayed to God and
received an answer. She seemed a little confused by what we had said,
and then we told her that she could ask the stake president if she
would like to. E...., deep in thought, said, "I want to receive an
answer like that!"
As she continued to watch the meeting, her facial expression changed
from and "in thought" expression to a very concerned face. As the old
bishop's wife gave a testimony, she began to cry. The Old bishop then
spoke, and he also began to cry. The next 3 speakers all cried as they
bore powerful testimonies. Ellie, concerned, asked us "What happened
in here? Why is everyone so sad now?" We had a good conversation about
"happy tears" and "sad tears" with her and that seemed to help her
understand.
She is such an amazing person! She comes from the hardest background
ever and just had an amazing sincere desire to know if God is there.
She prays everyday and loves the Book of Mormon, and although she is
still having a bit of a hard time recognizing the Spirit, we know she
will be able to feel it soon enough. She recognizes the goodness and
the gospel. She loves Jesus Christ,even though we only taught her last
week about Him. She has learned it all before and she is slowly
remembering it all through the Spirit. The gospel really does have a
familiar ring to people. She is so great. :)

Speaking of familiar rings, we were able to strike a chord with our
investigator Mi...! She has been investigating the church for a while
now, but is still having a hard time wanting to progress and keep
commitments because of how busy she is with school.
We decided to take a different approach to the way we had been
teaching her and so we sang for her!
We sang the famous song I learned in Sado called, "I'll find you there
my friend."
We taught her the plan of Salvation with words and singing, and also
explained why we came to Japan here on missions. It was really
powerful and we could tell she felt the Spirit. She agreed to meet
with us consistently and to come to church again. So awesome! She then
exclaimed that she wanted us to teach her about baptism again. We were
of course, more than willing, to teach more about that. :)

We had dinner with a recent convert family this past week who is
preparing to be sealed in the temple together. The other will be going
through the temple really soon and we have been teaching her and
helping her to prepare. They are a beautiful family and every time I
am with them, I feel like I am able to see the true blessings of this
gospel. The family really is a beautiful thing.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary. I love
this gospel and am so grateful to be able to see how it blesses others
in such a magnificent way. I know Christ lives and that this is His
restored gospel. I know God sees us as we can become and with that
knows exactly what we need to experience in order to reach exaltation.
He loves us so much. He walks with us through our trials and sends
angels to help us and bear us up. I know that these things are true.
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Love always,

Sister Hubbard

Week 61 Japan Tokyo Mission

Food from the aoyagis

It was a long hot day, not the best picture, but these are the Aoyagis! :)

Close to where we live.

Senzokuike lake 

We love Sheryl because she called us back!!! :D 

Miki and Megumi! :) they are twins. Miki was just baptized in May.

After the temple. :)











Dear family,

We had transfer calls this morning and it looks like this next
transfer will be one to remember! Sister Moffat and I will both be
staying in Senzokuike, and I couldn't be be happier. We have some
amazing goals for this next transfer and we are excited to see what
the Lord has up His sleeve for Senzokuike in the next 6 weeks. Super
exciting!

It was neat for me to read about all of those experiences people had
at the temple from our ward back home. Family History is amazing and
powerful. The work is hastening on this side of the veil as well as on
the other side of the veil. Super neat.

I forgot to mention last week that we had our temple p-day! I wasn't
able to write about everything that happened because there wasn't a
whole lot of time last week for emails, but I think I will share a
little bit with you in this letter.
Last Tuesday, we caught the morning session in the temple and it was
of course amazing and wonderful. It was Sister Moffat's first time in
the Tokyo temple, and I could really tell she felt the Spirit and was
able to have a good experience. We are so blessed to be able to go
once every transfer, but guess what?! This past transfer we got to go
twice!
Last Tuesday evening, we had the opportunity to go and do baptisms
with three of the recent converts from Koiwa! It was an amazing
experience for me to be there and to see three of my best friends,
enter the temple, and be baptized for the dead.
My mind was naturally carried back to when they were first baptized in
Koiwa last year, but seeing their spiritual growth and strong
testimonies was so special for me. There really is no greater joy than
in seeing those you love, live and enjoy the blessings of the gospel.
It was a glorious reunion for us. It was also a wonderful reunion for
me and sister Moffat as we were able to meet the temple president and
his amazing wife- both our father's mission president and his wife! It
was a really neat experience.
It made me think about how wonderful it will be to be reunited with
everyone after this life in heaven, and to rejoice together in the
gospel. What an amazing day that will be!

Also, after Eikaiwa a couple of weeks ago, Elder and Sister Aoyagi
came to see us. Aoyagi Choro was also sister Moffat's dad's mission
president, and so it was neat for us to make that connection. They
gave us a ride home in their car and left us with a whole bunch of
food. They are so kind.

We have seen so many miracles this past week! We've met tons of
prepared people and have had many opportunities to teach the gospel.
Yesterday, as we were coming home from church, we were stopped by a
young man who told us he would like to come to church. We were able to
direct him to the church building and hook him up with the Elders. It
was a neat miracle!
We were on the train a few days ago, on the way home from an
appointment. Before entering the train, I started a conversation with
a woman who was waiting next to me. We had to get off at the next
stop, otherwise we would have been late for our curfew. I was
initially worried that we may not be able to get this woman's number,
but as we pulled up to the Nagahara train station, she got off with us
in order to get our number so that she could come to church and meet
with us. Way cool miracle! We are excited to meet Shiho San again. :)

We taught the Shields family again this past week. Two of their kids
are going to be going to the FSY (like EFY but in Japan) and so we
went to their house to help them prep for it all! We love teaching
them and they are so prepared! We are excited to keep meeting with
them and helping them come closer to Christ.

Sometimes as missionaries, we meet the coolest people ever! We get
their number, set an appointment with them, meet them, and then have
the hardest time getting a hold of them again! Any returned missionary
will understand how frustrating that can be sometimes, but this story
is a possible one. :) During weekly planning this past week, Sister
Moffat and I were going through our area book. We had already dropped
a few of these people who weren't answering our phone calls, and came
to woman named Sheryl. We met her about four weeks ago and were so
sure she was kin! Anyway, we had reached the conclusion to drop her,
but that we we try one more time to call her. We did so, and after
receiving her answering machine, sister Moffat proceeded to drop her.
Just as she had her finger over the "drop" button (using area book on
iPads) guess who called us for the first time in 4 weeks?!! Yes!
Sheryl had been really busy with work and wasn't taking phone calls
from anyone, but she told us that she wanted to continue meeting and
apologized for not getting back to us.  Miracle? I WOULD SAY SO!

We were able to continue teaching our Chinese friend, Ellie, this past
week! She is so wonderful! In one of our lessons with her, the Spirit
was so strong and she really felt it. We were able to set a baptismal
date with her this past week and so we are super excited for that! :)
We love Ellie.

This letter is kind of all over the place (my apologies), but I am
going to jump back to yesterday at church! We had a really special
conference broadcasted to all of Japan from Salt Lake yesterday. It
was a meeting specifically prepared for the saints here. Elder Bednar,
Sister Burton, Elder Whiting, and Elder Maynes all spoke to us and it
was a really neat experience. There are really big things happening in
Japan and it makes me so excited to go out and talk to people
everyday. God is really hastening his work.
We had a walk in at church yesterday. A woman from the Philippines
named, Monique, came to watch he conference. We didn't notice her at
first, but with a little bit of help from the elders, we eventually
ended up sitting with her and translating for her because she didn't
speak Japanese. She is way awesome! She said she has tried to meet with
us and learn more about the church. She is the sweetest person ever
and we are so excited to teach her too. We are so blessed to be
serving here.

I love this gospel. I love to share it. Being a missionary is such a
small sacrifice and I am so lucky to be here. Everyday is the best day
ever and despite things being difficult sometimes, I know the God
lives and that makes all the difference. He is always watching out for
us and fighting our biggest battles for us. I know this gospel is
true. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Love always,

Sister Hubbard

Week 60 Japan Tokyo Mission

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