I'm off to serve an LDS mission in Kobe, Japan from June 2015 to December 2016. My mom will be keeping this blog updated with my latest letters, photos, adventures, etc.! Also I would LOVE to hear from everyone - katya.wagstaff@myldsmail.net

Monday, November 30, 2015

Nov. 30, 2015

K can't remember what I wrote last week, but we went to the towel museum! Sounded really funny and actually turns out to be mostly a towel ART museum. Towel art, who knew?!


Also today we went to Nihon Shokken, it's a sauce/various packaged foods factory that for some reason is in a reconstructed Austrian palace, so it also had European history...random and fun!





This week big highlights were Friday and Saturday- Friday after District Meeting, we finished up SKK (weekly planning) with testimonies and it was POWERFUL! We realized that we need to do that more often because we felt the Spirit really strong and then had the BEST NIGHT EVER. Basically we saw miracle after miracle- a lot of
unplanned visits, but we went because we felt like we should. So we were riding to a member family and on the way we always pass a former investigators house. She was dropped because she could never meet. She walked out right when we rode past, so we stopped and got to talk+teach for a little bit! Basically the same kind of thing
happened, 4 lessons in a row. (Also the curry we had for dinner at this place on the side of town we were at was really great too.)

Saturday was Imabari Branch Thanksgiving (Kansha Sai)! Started Mormon standard time...we were freaking out a little right at 6 because there weren't very many people. People showed up! Sadly none of our investigators, BUT some less-actives we've worked with and a few people from Eikaiwa came! Ended up being about 60 people. We had a short program about Thanksgiving, gratitude and prayer, and then I sang and we watched a Mormon Message about gratitude. Overall it went really well and there was tons of food- all the Thanksgiving
traditional stuff, plus a bunch of Japanese food, some Mexican (from Watabe Shimai, don't know why), Korean and Phillipino. Most interesting Thanksgiving I've ever had!


I'll send more pictures later. I have the greatest companion, it's freezing cold now- but we can't see our breath so I guess it's not that cold, we work with the most wonderful members and have so much fun, even though we're SUPER tired by the end of the week! Love you all, go watch the Christmas video because it's officially CHRISTMAS SEASON! 

Love, 

Wagstaff Shimai

We have e nicest members! 
Yamamoto Shimai (mom of the cute baby) is currently my favorite because we've spent a lot of time with her. Funny thing- Fujiki Shimai's older brother was one of he missionaries who taught her when she was a teen near Tokyo! Anyways, she's really crafty and likes to sew- she said she wanted to make us skirts, so today she took us to this discount fabric store to choose fabric!!

Also I wanted to share something Fujiki Shimai shared with me during companion study, actually a couple weeks ago, but I kept forgetting to tell you: Helaman 3:7. Honestly doesn't look like a profound a verse- usually one of the ones I would kind of skim, BUT she said that they are changing and learning. Before things had been done one way, but they had to adapt and are successful using a different method. Anyways, I thought that was cool.

Always so tired on Sunday's, end of our week, but we've been visiting an LA in the evening that always goes really well!
Lots of focus on getting investigators to church, but so far that hasn't been successful for us, we've been working hard to just stay positive and be happy with the little successes we do have.

Package came this week, but because we weren't home, they didn't deliver it (no leaving packages on doorsteps here), so I scheduled the redelivery for tomorrow!

Next transfer is the week before Christmas on Thursday...

Thanksgiving weekend sounds like a lot of fun! Thankfully, it wasn't a hard homesick holiday for me, especially being busy with our party. I get to Skype for Christmas, I'll send you the info I have  on it. 

Mostly for T but this was really funny- SGG on Tuesday- sometimes they read and discuss English articles. So one was on the Oxford dictionary word of the year, which is an emoji

I learned that emoji is a Japanese word!! So they're all older and didn't really understand, so Fujiki Shimai and I tried to explain emoji's for AN HOUR. I was trying not to laugh because it was just funny. Eventually at the end, one exclaimed oh I get it! And then said exactly what I had said before... Haha

Still on with a little time!

I'm so blessed to get to sing all the time- I honestly thought it was something I would be sacrificing, and in the MTC when I had come to peace with that was when I found out I was singing for the apostles. I receive lots of compliments and I think maybe part of the reason I'm singing so much here is to learn to give praise to God. Trying to recognize Him more and not being selfish. Sometimes hard...turns out I'm pretty selfish- thinking it's because of my practice and my training. Yes that's true too, but it's definitely not all that.

Not every moment is stellar, but a lot of them are!
Love you so much!
Katya

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