konnichiwa! 

 I bet it was awesome seeing Brother Clark!

Ahhhhhhh this week has been so crazy and full of miracles but I have like 15 minutes so I'm going to be super fast. Also, I just hit a button and I'm not sure how to get out of italics so I'm sorry if this bothers anyone. hahahahh and before I begin: Mom, you were right. I should've practiced the piano. I should've learned all the songs (or any of them) from the hymn book before I got my license. Your yogen became true; I was called on a mission to a really small branch and all the young women who can play the piano were at their graduation rehearsal so I had to play the piano during sacrament meeting and it was pretty bumpy and I regretted not practicing when I had piano lessons. Kids: practice the piano.

So! yay!!! normal text! so on saturday we had a lesson with Mao chan (15) and her best friend dosekied (Misa chan) and it was SO LEGIT. misa chan is a convert of 2ish years and I love her with all my heart and she's amazing and Mao chan is the best and plays the tenor sax?? and loves jazz?? - that's not a thing in Japan. hahah so I whipped out my pictures and we bonded and she's so cute and last week when she came to church she prayed in sunday school so to start the lesson I asked her if she'd pray for us. and she was way cute and Misa chan helped her at the end but it was just precious. Baaaaah so we started off telling her that God is her loving Heavenly Father and she thought that was the coolest thing and she told us that last week before one of her tests she prayed to God and asked Him to help her and she felt a peace. and right after that I testified that He loves her. and I paused. and said "Mao chan, you are a daughter of God". The spirit was so tangible and it was INCREDIBLE because I SAW it enter her heart. I don't know how to explain it, but you could see her feel the Spirit and her whole complexion changed. She even utter a "whoa." The power of the Spirit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Pipers shimai and I talked about why we came to Japan and she was eating it all up and it was sooo amazing and I could feel the Spirit guiding me and directing me what to say. and somehow we got on the topic of being members of the church and I showed her my baptism pictures Pipers shimai invited her to be baptized in April and she was like "I want to join!!!" and she's GOLD. she doesn't even know about eternal life yet!!! hahah but seriously. I'm honestly not doing any of this work it is 1000000% the spirit. She said she already talked to her mom about becoming Christian and her mom told her she couldn't because they're buddhist so we'll have to try and solve some hantai problems but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE MAO CHAN AND I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!

also, satake san is feeling a lot of pressure to be baptized from the members and she's feeling really incapable becasue she's 88 so we visited her with the zone leaders because we only understand really like 20% maybe of what she says and hoshino choro is nihonjin so he was going to help us figure out if she has any doctrinal confusion. also we were nervous cause we needed to teach her the word of wisdom and we knew she drank tea. slash everyone in toyooka smokes, drinks osake (alcohol) and drinks tea like they breathe air so we were way nervous. hahaha but when we went we found out she thinks that baptism is like buddhist monk training?? like apparently they sit under a waterfall or something and it's a huge process so that is good to know. we're going to show her some videos... . also miracle-- the tea she drinks is okay!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahahah i still don't understand that exactly, but there's a list of teas that you can technically drink (i think the ones that don't have grass? zen zen wakaranai) and obviously the ones that the word of wisdom outlines we need to avoid. and she doesn't violate anything else and it's just not even funny how well prepared she is.

the work is moving forward at an accelerated pace as we rely on the Lord. Everything works out. But it honestly requires all of your heart, might, mind and strength. I've never been so exhausted in my whole life and I'm way surprised we haven't slept through our alarm or haven't gotten sick. okay, not really because we're on the Lord's time haha. And our ringtone is Elder Holland IT'S THE BEST.  He's watching over us and He's with us. I feel His presence around us, and I feel His guidance as we do our best to help His sheep. It's amazing what He can do. We don't understand satake san, she doesn't understand us. yet somehow we're preparing her to be baptized and teaching her. It'S amazing how He guides us to meet her needs through the books we've made for her. Most of all she feels God's love. that's really all you need, desho?

I love you all!!!

also i got the birthday cards in the mail!!!!!!!! (: haha thank you so much. I definitely opened them already hahahha. i love them!!!! thank you lizzy for the AWESOME HELLO KITTY RUBBER BAND DOLL AND FOR THE BRACELETS!!! i think it really made pipers shimai happy that you made her a panda and bracelets. and we're way impressed with you. but seriously, how did you make them?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?

love,

sister megan daniels