MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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| Elder Healy as Santa Claus |
Our biggest miracle of late has been Blanche. This week we taught
her the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. Before we taught her
about the Word of Wisdom, she knew about the normal things that are bad
for our bodies, such as tobacco, alcohal, and other harmful substanes.
However, she drank tea and coffee. She told us that she didn't know it
was a commandment and that from that time forward she wouldn't drink tea
or coffee. When we taught her about the Law of Chastity, she accepted
it and said she wants to keep the Law of Chastity too. She is such a
Christmas miracle to us!
We also received a referral from church headquarters this last week that wanted a Book of Mormon. She is a Phillipean and she wants to join our church! WAY COOL, deshou! She has three little children and her husband, but her husband is Japanese and doesn't believe in God. Her life is really hard right now. She got super emotional when talking to us and said that she was so glad that we came by. I love her so much. She is really excited to continue to meet with us and we hope and pray that her husband will soften his heart.
I am so grateful for this time of year and for the hope it gives to one and all.
Have a very, very Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have the best holiday season ever.
I LOVE YOU!
-山内姉妹
Our Ward Christmas party turned out so wonderful! Fun games,
beautiful violin music, wonderful food for everyone, children singing,
and one of my favorite parts: a beautifully put together video about
Christ and his life that opened everyone's heart a
little bit more to the true meaning of Christmas. I think, however, that
my favorite thing about the whole event was seeing so many less actives
who we've been working with for what seems like forever. That night, I
came to recognize to an even greater degree
how much the Savior loves each one of us...individually. Every time we
serve someone, our love for that person grows so much deeper. This is a
picture of some of our less active members (Iwakiri Shimai and her two
kids). Since I first came to Kasukabe in August,
we been working with her. Her house is about a 13-20 minute bike ride
from our church and I can't even begin trying to count how much time we
have spent trying to help her. We have shared sooo many messages with
her at her house. Most of the time, she doesn't
answer her phone, and so sometimes we decide to surprise visit her
and to give her support. A lot of times, she isn't home, so we leave her
a note with a message and encouragement. When I saw her at the
Christmas party, my heart was literally sobbing for joy.
These feelings can't be described...I think it could be similar to the
feelings our Savior has when one of His children comes back to Him. Eto
Shimai is another less active member who works on Sunday's, but-if you
remember from one of my earlier letters-she
has really been feeling God's love lately. We have been teaching Eto
Shimai's daughter, Sayaka-chan, the missionary lessons. Sayaka-chan is
on and off with church. Every time she does come, my heart breaks
because she doesn't have any family with her (although
luckily she does have some really good church friends). Eto Shimai didn't
have work on Saturday night (the night of our Christmas party), and so
she was able to come. Sayaka-chan sang Christmas songs with the Primary
children and she looked so happy. I couldn't
help but think about her Mom and how proud of her daughter she must be. I
could list a whole lot more, but for the sake of time, I better just
talk about one more special less-active experience. Yamamoto Kyoudai
went on a mission, but became less active. He
has two twin boys who are serving missions right now and an 18 year old
daugher. The wife also served a mission. Sister Yamamoto and the
daughter come to church ever week, but Brother Yamamoto hasn't-that was
the first time that I had ever seen him. I ended
up talking to him for about 40 minutes. I asked him questions about his
mission and the many miracles that he had seen. He told me about an
experience that he had when he went to the temple in the US one time. He
saw the prophet and got to shake his hand. Then,
outside of the temple, he saw the prophet again. He didn't think that
the prophet would recognize him and decided that he wanted to shake his
hand again. After the hand shake, the prophet said, you tried again. We
laughed about it and then talked about how
prophets sure are amazing. I then told Brother Yamamoto about how
precious I thought this experience was. Sometimes, when we have
experiences, we tend to think about it only that context, but I told him
how it applies now. We can always try again...no matter
what's happened in the past. The Lord welcomes all with outstretched
hands to try again. The Atonement is everything...it truly is!
I am so thankful for the may wonderful experiences that I had that
night. Those experiences changed hearts that night...mine included.
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