Happy New Year‏

Well Let me just say!!! It was so great talking to all of you on Christmas!! I miss you all but I am really happy to be here in Japan! Like No Joke Japan is so awesome. I love it here. even though it is windy and cold and I have no idea what I am eating half of the time and I never know what people are saying to me, I love it here.

I am not really sure what to tell you this week. It has been crazy. On Christmas we went and visited some of our investigators and sang them some songs and had lots of fun with them, then we taught an English class! It was fun. We taught two of our investigators about baptism and did a little interaction thing with them so they could see what baptism and getting the holy ghost is like.  it was really awesome. They loved it. This week I have a lesson with them and I am going to set a baptismal date with them!! I hope so at least.This past week we did lots of exchanges, needless to say I am exhausted from them. Its hard enough waking up at six thirty. having to wake up at five thirty is just asking wayyy too much of me haha just joking... I love it here. So I will wake up whenever I have too.

We had zone conference with president budge this past week. IT was so great!! Gosh, so awesome. So many questions that I have been having lately were answered. it was just what i needed to hear. Some of the things that I learned are:  Be united with the Savior. If you pray in faith you will see the mighty miracles of the Lord. They Savior is here to help us. All we need to do is ask him. In 3 nephi 28 vs 1 he says What is it that you ye desire of me? If we have righteous desires in our hearts then we need to ask them. The Lord doesn't get tired of hearing from us or answering our prayers. But we need to always remember this, when we are sincerely asking for something  and we receive the answer or the revelation we must do our part and act on it. If we don't do anything with the answers that we are receiving we won't continue to get answers from Heavenly Father. Prayer is so powerful!! As long as we use it the correct way.

I love the ward here. They are so amazing. This Christmas they gave us so much stuff!! Like I honestly can't explain how grateful i am for them. The love they show me is awesome even though we can hardly talk because my Japanese is so terrible i can still feel all the love they have for me. its awesome. I really wish you could come meet all these people here in kiryu!!

I don't know I am just really happy right now where I am at in my life. I am so happy to be on a mission I am so happy to be here serving the Lord! I am so happy for all the amazing blessings in my life. I am so lucky and I have such an amazing family. Heavenly Father knows that this is so hard from me, but he is here by my side. He isn't letting me do this on my own. He has given me an awesome companion and such an amazing support system. This is how you fully use the power of the Atonement. It gives me the power to enable my self to be a missionary. I can receive the courage and the strength that I need daily because of the power of the Atonement!!!

I love you so much!! Thank you for you love and support!! 

 XOXO 

Sister Brown

santa swagggg‏

So yeah. New transfer wooooo transfer 2 here we go. Hopefully it will be successful this transfer. I am really excited because kiryu has so much potential.. So the two other sisters that are in my place now are super awesome. sister seamons is great. we were in the mtc together and were great friends so its so fun. and sister snow she is darling she is from heber and she is on her fourth transfer so we are all just little babies here in kiryu haha hopefully we don't do too much damage to this place.

On Friday night we went to the bishops house for dinner that was so fun! We had some really good food. The bishop and his family are so cute they need to make a I am a Mormon message haha On Sunday Bishop called like 7 or 8 ward missionaries so now we can get so much more help. the bishop really wants to reactivate less active members which i think is so important and since kiryu has so many less active members like it will be so helpfull. for example the other day we were housing and like we were at some dumpy apartment and like we knocked on the door and i said hi we are the missionaries from the mormon church and his reply was from the church of Jesus Christ of latte day saints hahahah and i was like yeahhh turns out he is a less active member. It just proves that kiryu has so many less active members they are just everywhere 

So like sister Taketomi she is like famous here in Japan all the lds girls here love her. Look her up on YouTube. Nami Taketomi. She is like super good at singing and just way good and has won like several competitions. its awesome, so with that being said she is always volunteering us to sing and do concerts.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEpGXwNCHtE) . which i kind of hate haha due to the fact that I can't sing at all and just everything I feel uncomfortable like it's just not me. you understand right?? Well on Saturday night we have a huge Christmas concert and like we are singing all these songs and I have to learn how to play the harmonica for it and i am a harmonica solo... like what the heck?? it is going to a disaster. So she thought it would be a great idea to do caroling... yeah...... my favorite thing in the whole world. So we go out at night and sing songs for people wearing our santa hats and passing out fliers and trying to teach lessons. hahahaha.... real cool needless to say. i will be a little happy when i can't go caroling anymore...

Well my language skills are still terrible... cool.. I don't think I am ever going to be able to speak or understand Japanese... hahaha awesome... just joking.. I mean its improving i can read the book of mormon so that's awesome. I have no idea what its saying but i can read it. I just can't ever remember anything. 

So for Christmas..... I am not sure at all what the plan is. We have a zone meeting on Thursday so hopefully that is when we will be told everything. Next week when i email you I will be sure to tell you all the details because I don't want to mess anything up and not be able to talk to you. so yeah I am not sure if we will be skyping or talking on the phone. I guess it all just depends I will  get all the details next week. and I really hope that i get to do a pre-call haha that would be awesome!! i will let you know so  no worries. 

I have my Christmas package!! I got it on Saturday I am super excited to open my presents!! AAHHHh thank you so much for it.. I will miss you all so much this Christmas, I am very glad to be here and i wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

I am so glad that the Utes beat byu oh what  a great day!! I hope that the utes can do pretty good this year in basketball that would be really fun.

The Savior is amazing and the fact that it took me so long to become close to him really kind of breaks my heart. i wish i would have gained this kind of a relationship with him a while ago but at the same time I have never really needed him the way that i need him now. but with that being said I always need him and I will always need him!!!! Something that i love about the Savior is that he is always there for you. Over and over again in the book of mormon it says that he has his arms stretched out towards us and that he wants us to come to him. I think that is something some of us have a hard time with.　no matter where you are in your life. he will always accept you. Just go to him. it doesn't matter what you bring with you. he will clean you and make you the person you want to be. The Lord doesn't ask us to be perfect he doesn't expect us to be perfect he just wants us to try out hardest. The Savior paid for all of our heartaches and sins and sorrows and trials the least we could do is give them to him. I mean if you when to  a car dealership and bought a super nice car like a ranger rover or something and you paid in cash for it but then they wouldn't hand you the keys you would be a little sad. That's how i like to think about the atonement. the Savior wants ALL of our burdens our trials and ours sins. having an understanding of that really helps you focus and realize the true love the Savior has for all of us... I love the Savior!!!!!

I love you all and I cant wait tell i get to talk with you for Christmas!! Have a great week!! remember I love you remember to always thank the lord for everything you have!!!

XOXO 

Sister Brown

Onto transfer 2‏

WELLLL HERE IS THE BIG NEWS!!!

Okay so welcome to Kiryu again!! Ahh I am very excited to be staying here again. I really feel like I can do some serious good work here. So that's just a great feeling. So Sister Taketomi is my companion! AHH :) I am so happy. I love her to death and I have so much I need to learn from her. SO I am so excited to be able to have her as my companion again!! Sister Cheney is being transferred. I think she is happy but sad at the same time just because she has been here for so long. But wait there is more. WE are also getting two other sisters!! Our little place is going to be packed! Kiryu now is going to have 4 sisters. SO I pray that we can really start finding people now!! And one is sister Seamons I am very excited because we were in the same district in the mtc so that is going to be a blast.

 

OKAY FIRST!! TELL ME ABOUT KATE. thank you so much for sending those letter and their emails I really liked those. I don't have anytime hardly to email so getting those and being able to read them was so great so thank you!! GOSH I am worried for her. It makes me sad because I just think about how much i have here and such... :( its also sad that so many people  where she is at  want the gospel and are so ready for it but there are just not the means to have a church and such. When here I am in Japan and the gospel is all around and there are Temples and everything but NO ONE wants anything to do with it. That's really sad to me. I pray for her every night so I am just going to have to start praying for her even more!! I haven't heard from her in a while I will just have to send her an email!! Tell Cindy I will pray for her and Kate.

 

Okay this week has been a good one but a sad on. We had two investigators just break up with us.. haha One of them even had a baptismal date for the 22 :( boooooooo Its sad because he believes and he reads and prays all the time he just can't pay his tithing or go to church on Sunday he says... So yeah that was hard and the other one loves reading the book of Mormon she knows so much and her prayers are soooo good they are like better than mine, no joke!! but she said that whenever she goes to church she has a bad experience from it... so yeah. she said she needs a break. SO basically we have no investigators so cool. Tomorrow we have a lesson with a potential investigator so I really hope that, that works out!! I am praying it does.

 

The other night we knocked on over 60 doors and  we only gave out one book of Mormon and we didn't even talk to them in person they just asked us to put it in their mail box. Here everyone has speaker door bells so hardly any doors ever get opened we just talk to people through their door bells.

 

We are really trying hard to focus on activating less active members and member referral! They are so important so we are working hard with that. This last week was stake conference. It was weird I have never traveled over 1 hour for stake conference before and it was in like a preforming arts center. haha but it was so great. Even though it was hard to understand things. I was able to learn the things that the I needed to hear the spirit taught me what I needed to hear. Being a missionary I have learned that members play such A HUGE role in finding people and just everything! So since my ward is so few... like the stake president told our bishop that our church is going down to 2 hours now and that the other hour should be spent working with the missionaries!! So when i find more information out about that and when that starts going on I will be letting you know for sure!! Its crazy. But I am so excited because honestly the members know the  ones that are ready to hear the gospel and they are so helpful and getting less active members back to church!!

 

I have learned so much here on my mission. I don't even know where to start. The main thing that I have realized that the Gospel is all about Jesus Christ everything is centered on him. I also know that the Atonement gives us the power that we need to be successful. I have always thought the Atonement was just for repentance but no. The Atonement gives you the power and strength that you need. The Atonement empowers us!! But yes..

This week has been full of finding and and trying to find people. I am very excited about giving myself to Christ for Christmas!! Christmas is good here I think.. Its nothing compared to AMERICA.. Hardly any Christmas decorations but yeah.. I just love the true meaning of Christmas!!

 

OKAY WELL I LOVE YOU SO MUCH :) XOXOX

I hope next week I have some better stuff to tell you about!!

be safe and have fun

 

Sister Brown

 

p.s.   What is the recipe for the rice pudding you make for Christmas I am going to try and make it in the rice cooker for Christmas!!

A White Christmas in Kiryu‏

Well!!

Our investigator was baptized on SUNDAY!! Ahh it was awesome. I am so humbled by this amazing experience. The first lesson he ever had with the missionaries was on the first Sunday that I got here. It was a fast Sunday.  And then he was baptized the next fast Sunday. It just proves that yes, the lord is preparing the hearts of the people in Japan. He was so prepared. I remember the first lesson. He like taught us. We hadn't even shared about the restoration and he told us that he decided to live the word of wisdom and he thinks that he can pay his tithing every paycheck!! LIKE WHAT??! haha it was too classic like we pretty much asked him what he wanted to learn each lesson and then we would teach him that. One night he called us and asked us how he could get the liahona!! haha it was so awesome. I am so blessed to be here and to have gotten to Japan the time that i did. President Budge is truly inspired by the lord for giving us this challenge and this promise. We also have another baptismal date! It is set for the beginning of January but I think we might actually try to have it in December so we shall see. The kiryu ward is so small!! The number of leaders in primary is more than the number of kids... haha There are 3 kids in primary. SAD. I think the ward maybe has a total of 23 active members. Soooo... yeah... I can't imagine being the bishop of this ward. We are trying our hardest to activate less active members and part member families our goal is to find a family and have a family baptism. Please pray for the kiryu ward!!

 

AHHHHHH the Temple. OH MY GOSH. I love it. The temple is amazing. It truly is the house of the Lord. I am so blessed to have a Temple in my mission and that i have the opportunity to go to it. So we watched the old movie. It's still not translated. It's funny because since we have such a big group and our mission is like all English speakers the Japanese people have to wear translators to their own Temple. but it was beautiful. Like it looked just like a Temple on the inside but it was still like Japan. Very Japanese. The Celestial room was amazing. The stained glass windows were amazing. I loved it. I have pictures but I am sending them to you for Christmas!! SO yeah we go to the Temple once a transfer and its always the last pday before transfer calls.

 

So thank you for the package!!! I almost died at some of those pictures. haha and the names,oh gosh it was amazing. THANK YOU SO MUCH, TELL THE WARD THAT I LOVE THEM AND I AM SO THANKFUL FOR THEIR LOVE AND SUPPORT!!

 

Japan is weird, I don't like the fact that they don't have thanksgiving. and its just the fact that they have no idea about Christ and have no Christ for Christmas really just breaks my heart. They have no idea what the true meaning of Christmas is. We are doing our best to teach it to them. We are having a Christmas concert on the 21st so that should be good and guess who is singing.. haha sounds like a mistake huh??  hopefully I don't make too many people cry.

My eps is coming in. I am doing pretty good. the only problem is i have no idea what way is north east west south... so that's makes directions really hard. there are no street names here or numbers or house numbers. WHAT A JOKE. I can get us to the area but I never know what house to go to because I can't read kanji haha so i never know what house names say GOOD thing I have sister Taketomi!! I love her.

 

I love you all so much!!

 

XOXO

I can't wait to hear from you next week!!

 

Sister Brown swag sauce