Seven Thoughts of a Seven Transfer Missionary (October 12, 2015)

... Ha, ha, just kidding, this week was too sweet to do one o' those cute little lists.

First of all, last week, we met this girl, Hayasaka San, and had a lesson that be thought would be primarily introducing her to the concept of God, because that's usually where we start.

Us: Have you ever thought about God?

Her: Yeah?!

Us: Oh, do you believe He exists?

Her: He has to!

Us: Cool, do you know anything about Jesus Christ?

Her: I love Jesus Christ!

This is in Japan. JAPAN, where nearly every household has a Buddhist shrine in their livingroom. I was like, oooooh yeah! And my American bean grabbed ahold of her hat and hour later, we ended the lesson with a kneeling prayer, having taught the entire message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was walking on air, man.

This week, we met with her again, and taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation, including the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and committed Hayasaka San to prepare to be baptized on the 14 of November. WE ARE ECSTATIC.

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday, we had some time to go finding, and we'd been working on a neighborhood close to the church, and didn't feel particularly impressed on any other location so we continued. As we headed off after parking our bicycles, I said, "Today is the day we find Hayasaka San Number Two."

We housed for close to an hour. No luck. No one even accepted a Book of Mormon, darn it all. There was a set of apartments and one had a light on. We rang the bell and, like magic, the door opened, and inside was a woman wearing glasses like mine. It was crazy, almost immediately we started having this conversation like we'd been friends for a while, it just felt so normal.

Us: We're volunteers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Her: That church over there?*points*

Us: Exactly! Have you heard anything about our church?

Her: Nah, I just moved in.

Me: No way! I just moved in six weeks ago!

Her: Really?!?!

And we keep talking, we're like, yeah, we are sharing a message about God and families, and I'm like, hey, this is my favorite book. This has blessed my life. I show her the Book of Mormon in my hand, and she's like, well, cool! And I say, if you don't mind, I'd love to give this to you as a present! She accepts the book (which has my testimony written in the front) and she's like, yeah, I'll read it! And through this all, we have no exchanged our names so I say, oh yeah, my name's Luke! And my companion introduced herself and I say, if it's okay, may I ask your name? And she answers...

Hayasaka.

Drop mic.

The Gospel is true.

Peace out, y'all.

Why Did The Tomato Blush? (October 5, 2015)

BECAUSE HE CAUGHT THE SALAD DRESSING!

Haha, like my joke? Thought it up all by myself. Just kidding, I'm pretty sure it's all been done before.

ANYWAY Luke 姉妹 calling in from Nagamachi once again. This week, we experienced an average amount of turbulance, including two splits, too much planning, and two bottles of salad dressing

Wait, what?

My thoughts exactly.

My intrepid companion Sister A and I arrived at a potential investigator's home, a nice lady we have been referring to as Housing Lady, because unlike Americans, Japanese people will tell you their age, weight, and height in centimeters before they will tell you their name (or perhaps I'm just bad at getting people's names, don't burn me at the stake). We were able to, for the second time, share a scripture and bear testimony with Housing Lady, as well as establish a much better relationship. In which I muster up the courage and non-awkwardness to ask her name, and she agrees that we can come back and share another brief message with her if she's home next week.

In other words, we should probably baptize her in a few weeks;) Or maybe once she recognizes the Spirit and accepts the gospel of Jesus Christ, so hey, in a few weeks:D

Anyway, her name is Ishi, because I or Is would be too confusing.

We're standing on the doorstep laughing with her, she's like yeah, you can come back, and then she says, actually, I have a request of you.

I'm thinking, oh, no, and she steps back into her home and pops out holding two bottles of salad dressing that were literally just inside her door. I got these from a friend, she says, but I don't really like salad dressing, I like mayonaisse.

And that is the story of how my companion and I got an almost investigator and two bottles of salad dressing. Yay!

Also just visited an investigator, A, who is probably getting baptized next transfer, just gonna drop that because I met her baby today and HE IS SO CUTE and I'm really excited right now.

Also, this email's getting long, but here's something I have been pondering on for a while and have decided to try. I have really wanted and tried and put in effort to be a good missionary. While I wouldn't go as far as to say I am failing, I do feel that I am ready to be more, that it is past due for me to go deeper and be a more effective instrument in the Lord's hands. A really spot-on district leader training and an even more spot-on AP training later, I started a process yesterday that I hope will refine me and make me what Nagamachi needs at this point in time. I have pondered and prayed and created a list of things that need to go to allow me to be more in harmony with the Spirit. Along with that, I have decided that I will no longer be responding to emails from anyone other than family, at least for my seventh transfer, which starts next week. Y'all can still write me, and if you send me your street address, I might possibly write back (but no promises 'cause let's be honest, I'm terrible at writing people back anyway). I haven't decided if this is a one-transfer thing or a rest-of-my-mission thing, or if I want to respond once a transfer or once or month or what, I'll keep you all posted but for now, please don't be offended if I don't respond! It's not you, it's me!

Now for the majority of you, it won't be a huge change as I plan to continue my weekly adventure-logs, but to my dear close friends, I love you, and I cannot exprss my appreciation for your support and friendship, but right now I need to give everything to the Lord. This is one of the only things I can put on the alter that might give me added spiritual strength, and I need that spirit with me if I am to do what I must. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but I've got to try.

Until next week!

Love, Lisa Luke 姉妹

Pictures: Salad dressing! My companion is quite a bit better at looking intense than I am, and split with Sister C! Between the two of us, we've got one white kid and one Japanese kid. Mostly I just really like this picture.

no subject (September 28, 2015)

I'm alive and well, but don't feel like sending a mass email today, so I won't unless there's extra time later. I am happy and well, we got a new investigator yesterday!!! I love Nagamachi ward, everyone is so sweet and nice. Here's some pictures:) Also an elder I was at the MTC with is on my email list 'cause he asked me to add him (which is funny, I only talked to the kid like once but I figured whatever), and he loves drawing anime-ish characters, he's serving in Tokyo, but he found out it was my birthday from my email and drew me a picture. I like it so I will send it to you, too:)

I wish I was as adorable as his drawing, but we can't all be anime characters. Our new investigator also drew me an anime picture, but she is actually a legit illustrator, which is way cool. Referred by the elders in my district, bless them.


What is this? The yard of some member or friend, apparently, but I'm not sure why she sent it. Other than, holy bonsai, Batman, that's a really impressive collection.

 

Bonus photos:

長町！(Nagamachi!)

SPLITS!

Split to Aizuwakamatsu:)

It was a most excellent split with Ibata S.

Twenty Things this Twenty-year-old is Grateful For (September 21, 2015)

1. My mother, who literally carried me into this life and then continued to carry me in other ways throughout my childhood and now adulthood in both America and Japan:)

2. My father, because I, like Nephi, was born to a man of faith, obedience, and love

3. My sister, who taught me what it means to be a woman of grace

4. My older brother, whose valiant example and humble courage inspires me to be better (also his puns that pretty much kill me). 

5. My kid brother, who was always my listening ear and sympathizer, who taught me what compassion is despite his undeniable masculinity

6. Other members of my family, brother-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, who have supported me in all my crazy, impulsive hobbies and performances 

7. I'm grateful for good friends who have not only supported my standards but pushed me to become better than I was.

8. My biracial background and bilingual upbringing and the fun and adventure I have of swinging between two cultures practically seamlessly

9. Music and the joy it brings me, the calmness I feel inside brought by simple familiar melodies

10. Going on a split this week with Sister Y, one of the above mentioned wonderful friends of mine:)

11. All the birthday emails and letters and cards and packages to remind me of the fact that we each forget at times, that no matter how small we may be, the ripples extend beyond our vision. (Shoutout to those who sent me love, thank you!!! Literally my best birthday thus far, probably.)

12. My wonderful companion Sister A, who hates pictures but is probably the coolest person I've ever met. She also spoils me rotten while simultaneously having me in stitches with her sarcastic humor that fits with mine:)

13. My beautiful district, who, despite an incredible lack of musical background, has agreed to sing a musical number with my companion and I while I play violin.

14. The Book of Mormon, with its inspired truths because I literally learn from this book each and every day. (And the Bible, and Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price...;)

15. My apartment has two jars of peanut butter in it right now. [heaven!]

16. My maple syrup mix that my father gave me the night before I left on my mission, because 

17. I love pancakes.

18. The Japan Sendai Mission, because that's where I am today and the people here have changed my life forever.

19. The fact that the Lord is watching over me. There were at least two times this week that I should've broken an ankle or at least sprained it, and somehow I walked away both times fully functional (and laughing, though embarrassed).

20. I am grateful to be alive at this time, with all the relationships I have with the people in my life. I know that no matter where I go, the Lord lives and is aware of me, and I also know that he has placed these people in my life for a reason, and my life of hope and light and joy and yes, sometimes rain, is all because of Him. I am so, so, blessed, and I will praise His Holy name all the days of my life and beyond. He has given me the past two decades of joy and I will forever be grateful for this.

It's been a good week.

Pictures: Nagamachi from an apartment we were housing

Thanks to the Moms and Pops! 

My bestie and I, in Japan, eating pancakes and octopus-shaped sausages for dinner.

PS, both Obaachan's package and the one from you and Mom arrived on the 15th, so I waited a day and opened them on my birthday:) We had District Meeting that day, so afterwards my companion and I gave everyone ice cream and ends up the elders bought me chocolate and made me a Luke Skywalker birthday card. And then Annett Shimai and I went out for lunch, it was really fun:) Oh, we also had music practice that day for our district musical number in sacrament meeting next Sunday, so I also got to spend an hour doing music, which was also fun. We also placed two Book of Mormons street contacting, and taught kids' Eikaiwa. That's all:) Thank you for everything! :)



Bonus photos:

Mission Leader Conference, August 5, 2015

Mission Leader Conference, September 9, 2015

New leader training, July 23, 2015

New sisters and companions, July 23, 2015

Light in the Rain (September 14, 2015)

Well, this week was crazy. Guess that's getting prett typical;)

The biggest news is that all is safe now, which is good. Quick filler: there was a typhoon in this area, lots of flooding, and a lot of government-issued evacuation advisory texts in the middle of the night, most of which I chose not to read because it was two o'clock in the morning and I lacked the motivation to decipher the kanji (Chinese characters) in my sleepy stop-waking-me-up state. (Evidence that God is protecting his missionaries: our area ended up being just fine, and I learned a good lesson called, "read all government issued texts, even if it's the seventh one and four o'clock in the morning".)

We were supposed to have Zone Training Meeting on the worst day, but due to landslide warnings and public transportation being down, we stayed in Nagamachi along with the Aizuwakamatsu sisters who were stranded in Nagamachi. It was actually quite fun, we ended up Skyping in to ZTM, along with a bunch of elders stranded in Kamisugi, so it was an adventurous multi-Skype call ZTM:) (I had to give a training over Skype, and we had some tech issues so I gave the first half of my training to my own face. God be willing, I will never do that again, holy awkward.)

One of the Book of Mormons we placed this week was also in the rain--we had some time, but it was raining enough that we couldn't ride our bicycles (we probably could've, but the sister that was working here before me broke her arm biking on a rainy day and had to go home [before returning to finish her mission], so we agreed to play it safe). I had on my cheap hand-me-down plastic raincoat and had a Book of Mormon and some flyers clutched to myself underneath it. There was a lady walking down the street that we were housing, so we stopped and talked to her. I slid my cheap hand-me-down plastic raincoat open like the sketchiest person ever and stood there in the rain discussing the Book of Mormon like some sort of missionary version of a drug deal. The good news is, we made the sale, and scored a name and phone number as well as a "yeah we can talk about it sometime," so we were pretty happy.


We're always pretty happy:) Even when we're nasty as heck, even when we've had a ridiculous number of bike problems, even when it's raining, even when it's still kind of hard sometimes. That's the best part of it all for me is that we are happy, and the reason why is because we are sharing something that is important not only to make us happy now but to make us happy forever. And when we speak from our hearts, when we truly care for the people we're trying so hard to reach, and we see them pick up on a little spark, a little tiny piece of the light we're holding out to them, it makes us happy.

Also ice cream. Ice cream makes us happy;)

They gave us a ten minute break during ZTM and Sister A and I determined that we could make it to the convenience store and back in time, so we took of running in rain boots and flip-flops and treated the Aizu sisters to some ice cream. And yes ma'am, we made it back before the break was over;)

P.S. Lisa also answered a few questions about her area, companion, etc.:

Nagamachi is not Ishinomaki, but I'm growing to love it:) We have a Q who comes to church every week and one who was almost has a baptismal date, which is quite exciting:) 

Nagamachi is hilly as heck, if heck is hilly, and so sometimes I die on the hills a little but I'm getting stronger. My companion is Sister J..... Annett, she's from Tennessee and a hoot and a half. She's gluten intolerant but is a really good cook and says exactly what's on her mind all the time, it's hilarious:) We have a lot of fun together, she's competing with my second transfer Takahashi Shimai for favorite companion thus far, which says a lot. She's very patient with my cluelessness, haha:)

Yes, lots of rain, but our apartment was fine and so were we. A few times showing up to play looking like wet cats, but other than that, the work rolls on:) This week was MLC, which is a long meeting, and ZTM, which is a long meeting, and interviews with Preaident Smith, which is more travelling, so this week was really not a lot of time in our area, unfortunately. 


(Tedhnically the honbu's in our area so MlC and interviews were, but I don't really count that.)

Yep:)

STL (September 7, 2015)

Note: We didn't get a "regular" e-mail from Lisa this week -- I don't know why. But she did write a really long answer to a question about what it means to be a "Sister Training Leader," so I'll post that.

Mom, I got your letter asking about being an STL, so I'll describe my responsibilities real quick.

You're basically right, STL is kind of like being the girl version of a Zone Leader. The most frequent responsibility is that I check every night to make sure that all the sisters in my zone are safe. I usually text them right after daily planning, at about 9:35, and if they haven't texted back safe by about 10:00, I call them. This new zone I'm in has sisters who respond really early, which is nice. Last transfer I had a few companionships who always forgot, so there was one time I had to call the Zone Leaders who then got in touch with their District Leader, and if they hadn't responded after that, the District Leader would have had to go over to their apartment to make sure that they were safe. Usually District Leaders check on sisters in their District, but this mission is really strict on elder/sister relations, so that's my job.

The next most frequent responsibility is that I conduct companion exchanges. We call them splits here. I call before each split to ask each sister what she wants to work on or learning during the split. An exchange lasts 24 hours, is planned in advance, and basically, we either Dendo (do missionary work) in my area or their area while our companions work in the other area. It's regular dendo, but at the end of the split we do something called a split review. It takes about an hour. My tradition (because it's me, I need my own traditions;) is to buy the sister ice cream before we start the review, and then we eat it while we talk. We go over what we did that day, and I spend a fair amount of time doing a 良かった〜探し ("looking for things that were good"), where we find every little thing that was good about the day and list them up. We also talk about what we learned from each other, and then we set goals and plans for things we want to get better at. Also my own tradition, but the following week, I call that sister and follow up on her goals, and I ask her to follow up on mine. It's really fun, I get to know the sisters really well and learn tons. Usually two STLs are companions, so one split per companionship is sufficiently but because there aren't that many old sisters in this mission, we only have one STL companionships right now, so I conduct twice as many splits as most STLs (as do the other STLs in this mission). Hopefully in the future we'll go back, but right now, we're needed to serve as trainers and whatnot at the same time.

Oh, I also check up and make sure that everyone's doing okay stress-wise and emotionally, and I give them any advice I have and if anything is too crazy, I report problems to the President. I write a report on each split in my weekly email to the President as well, and basically I'm the go-to if any sisters have problems or questions. If I don't know, I find out and then get back to them. My last responsibility is to attend MLC, or Missionary Leadership Council. It's once a month and takes approximately forever. Preaident Smith gives a few trainings about things that are relevant to the mission right now, and we take notes. Then, we each give a five minute training about an assigned topic. This month, I'll be teaching about the Role of the Holy Ghost in receiving Revelation. Last month I taught about Harmony and Unity. Then, after MLC, we all break into groups by zone, so I meet with my Zone Leaders, and then we plan for Zone Training meeting, which always happens about three days after MLC. Usually we pick topics that were discussed in MLC as a base for ZTM, and we choose missionaries to give trainings at ZTM. I usually give a training, the ZLs usually give a training, and some District Leaders and sometimes other random missionaries give trainings. My last ZTM training was on trusting in the Lord. Basically, we pick the flow of the meeting together, and then the blessed ZLs make assignments and take care of the rest for me. At Zone 大会 (conference), I give manner or etiquette or whatever training the President feels should come from the STL, it's a little stressful but also a really good learning opportunity, I suppose. :)

I think that's about it. The good news is, I got called to be STL pretty early, so I might get released before the end of my mission. I'd never seen that before, but a STL with one transfer left got released, so she's serving as a normal trainer right now. That seems pretty nice, haha:) We've got something like twelve beans and twelve trainers right now out of maybe twenty five or seven missionaries, so we're pretty bottom heavy right now.

Yep. That was a lot, but that's what I do right now:) Love you!

Bonus photos (September 5, 2015)

Some bonus photos from Lisa:


P-DAY CULTURE.

We matched last week:)

Guardian angels...? lol

Yay!

Lost during a split, turned a corner and BAM! 田舎! (countryside)

Cake Day Tatiana

Rain pants for the win 

The hospital miracle LA. Went to lunch my last day in 石巻 (Ishinomaki) :)

 There were purple roses.