TRANSFER 4 IS A COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...........

HELLO!!! KONNICHIWA!!!!

my goodness this was quite the week! I have now been on my mission for 6 months! wow!!! its flying by! there really hasnt been a slow time yet! im scared its still going to come.. hahah! possibly next transfer... just kidding. But we did get transfer calls this morning... I AM STAYING IN TSUKUBA!!!! wooohooo!!!! i am so happy!! i love tsukuba so much!!! this area is full of prepared people! So last week i asked you all to pray that i wouldnt be training a new missionary. your prayers only half worked. I am not training a new companion but i am now the senior companion.. Sister Kelly is my new companion! She is just a transfer under me. Im scared to be the one in charge but i guess someone thinks i can handle it! Im scared. but excited!! Tsukuba will have four sisters and four elders!!!! So Reusser shimai is staying with me too!!! i am so happy!!! and Tsukuba is seriously bursting with prepared people! we need 8 missionaries just in our area to get them all! We became our own district! haha! its going to be a great transfer!!!

So this last week has been so good! of course! they always are! After the temple, Ami shimai and i stayed by the temple and did streeting for 5 hours while Reusser shimai was at a meeting. Well this was the worst day of my entire mission so far. hahah! But the best too! Learned a lot from this day. No one would talk to us. We felt so awkward! so unloved! and so unwelcome. the people in that area were so rude and wouldnt give us the time of day. One man harrassed us and touched and literally scared the you know what out of us so we just ran away! hahah! Then one later came up to us as we were talking to another lady and told us that we were so annoying and that we needed to leave the poor lady alone. uhhhhh. we were so frustrated! i have never felt so hated and so unwelcome. Ami shimai and I knew that we were being tested. Heavenly Father was seeing how much we could take. After a little break we said a prayer and got back to streeting. We knew that we would find someone. We didnt let ourselves get too down. Heavenly Father blessed us incredibly! The first lady we talked to stopped and talked to us for half an hour. We taught her about eternal families, the book of mormon, and prayer. She was excited to read the book of mormon! She said she would flip to a radom page and start reading. We promised her if she prayed before she would find the answers to her soul! She is not in our area but we are excited to see how it went! It was literally the hardest day on my mission but the best! I just remembered my favorite talk from Elder Holland. When we are persecuted, we stand side by side with our savior. The greatest life this world has ever known. Of course it will be hard. Of course we will suffer a little. But i felt my saviors love. I felt his love for me and my companion and the love for all of his lost sheep. We wont give up on any of us! I am grateful that i got to have the worst/best day!!!

Friday we had a lesson with Nozue San in english. She asks sooooooo many questions! we talk about everything!! and it is exhausting! hahah! we had such great conversations! She loves everything we believe in and believes in a lot of the same things but refuses to come to church. She likes not having to do anything. hahah. She just wants to believe and that be it. But if lessons keep going this well with her, im not too worried. She is so prepared and desires to have the happiness that we have! After we went to a recent convert's house  and she made us dinner. ugh. i always get so nervous when people make us food! hahah! I ate chicken for the first and hopefully last time! It was awful! yuckkkkk!!! it was so hard to keep a straight face and tell her that i liked it.. Luckily all my companions felt the same way so we just laughed and laughed! It was either that or cry.. hahah! she invited us over for christmas... i will need some more of those prayers please!

Sunday was the best!!! 5 investigators came to church! one japanese, one chinese, and three phillipinos!!! We taught one all of the commandments in one day! before, during, and after church! she is unfortuntently not our investigator anymore because she doesnt live in our area but she is ready for baptism next week! so proud! I lead the plan of salvation for all our english speaking investigators! we had such a great lesson and got everyone to commit to baptism!!!! it is going to be a white christmas thats for sure!!!!!

it has been such an amazing transfer! i am soooo sad it has to end! ami shimai is my bestest friend and i am so sad she has to leave! but im excited for this transfer and all of the miracles we will see! ohhhhhhhhhhh best thing i almost forgot!!!! Yoshida san from chiba got baptized yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she finally did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am so happy for her! thank you for praying for my investigators! its helping!!! i didnt get to go, but i heard it was an amazing service! She is so happy! i am so happy!!!

hope everyone else is happy too! if not, go serve somebody! nothing brings more joy then serving those you love!

i love you all and pray for you always!!! miss you!!!

Christensen shimai

the konnnichiest of wa'sssss!!!!

This week went by crazy fast! like im still confused how its already monday! fast weeks make me nervous! looking back there is just enough time do get everything done and teach everyone that we want to! this transfer is almost over... i am so sad!!! i love my companions soooooooo dang much! with so many new missionaries coming in there is no way we will stay in a three some. and i am terrified that i might be training a new missionary next transfer..... please join me in prayer for this to NOT happen! hahahah! i am so scared! im pretty sure i would be a terrible trainer.. i still have no idea whats going here! hahah! but it might not happen so i might be safe! whatever happens will be right obviously. Everyone keeps trying to prepare me saying that i will grow so much from being pushed and stretched and pulled and although it mostly sounds painful im up for anything!

so we had an amazing week as always! Sister Reusser went on exchanges so sister smith came to the land of Tsukuba with Ami shimai and I! We taught a lesson to one of our new investigators Kiyoko! She is the cutest little thing! Me being the oldest missionary there had to lead the lessons in japanese so that was interesting.. i basically had her read a whole bunch of stuff cause since shes japanese she can read and understand all the crazy symbols and what not! haha! it went really well though! We asked her if she came to know that our message was true would she be baptized and she said yes!! woooo! so proud of her and her faith!

Wednesday we exchanged back to our normal comapnions but stayed together to hand out flyers for the christmas concert we had on sunday! The other sisters handed out flyers while my companions and I sang christmas hymns! We did this a few times this week and it was a huge success! We had so much fun and passed out 700 flyers! People came and stood in front of us cheering, clapping, buying us food, and leaving money for our little shows hahah! i love japanese people!

HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING! hope it was a good one! ours was amazing!!! so we had recieved a referral from a member and went to try to find her. We didnt have much info, just that she would be near the tsuchiura train station around 5.. hah! so we walked around looking for a lady with a little boy. didnt know her name or what she looked like. it was getting late but we didnt stop looking. We crossed a street we hadnt gone down before and saw a lady. trying to act normal i start tying my shoes until she reached us hahah! When she saw us she started screaming!.... she starts saying that she lived in provo and that her husband went to byu!!! we found her!!! and she is so prepared! she lived in provo for crying out loud! her name is mami! you pronounce it like mommy so i like saying her name! hahah! love you mommy! we are so excited to start teaching her!!!

the other greatest miracle was we set a baptisimal date with Hitomi san!!!! and before christmas too!!! its going to be a white christmas here in tsukuba! what a great gift to give to the savior! one of his lost sheep! she is so excited to be baptized! her husband previously was against the idea but now he is allowing it!!! we are so stoked! so grateful for him and his sweetness and love for his wife! he wants her to be happy and this is definitely the way!

Went to a wedding reception this week! my ward mission leader got married! he was the happiest guy ive ever seen! they were so cute and so awkward! hahah! japanese people are so non touchy and non affectionate so it was funny!

sunday we had ahuge christmas concert! kent derricott is from america but famous here in japan for being on one of their tv shows. he is a member of our church so we invited him to come to the concert and spoke! it brought so many people to the concert! the church was packed! which made me nervous because i was forced to sing a duet, and another song with a few other sisters all in japanese... it went really well though! it was such a sweet night! Kent Derricott really got everybody in the right mind set for this upcoming christmas season! Its all about giving. make christmas a special time and think about others. Think about how you can make others day a little brighter! Our savior did the same thing. Thats what he asks us this christmas season. I am so excited for christmas and that i get to teach people the real meaning of christmas! Our savior is the center of everything! how grateful i am for his birth, his life and his teachings! and his promises! we are promised eternal happiness with eternal families! I have so much to be grateful for this christmas season!

love you all!

Christensen Shimai

Konnichiwaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Konnichiwa!!!! goodness gracious it seems like last pday was millions of years ago! Quite the long week but it was great nonetheless! It is always a good week when your living in good old Tsukuba Japan and with the best companions ever! I really dont want this transfer to ever end! We are meeting so many great and prepared people and we are really just having too much fun!!

So last pday night i went to a different area in Tokyo called Koyua. We stayed the night with other sisters there because we had to be in tokyo early the next morning for a conference. This wasnt just any conference either.. It was a two mission conference so my whole mission actually got to go to the south missions area for a conference with Elder Evans from the Quorum of the Seventy! He is over the missionaries in all of Asia and came to Tokyo to talk with us! He is an amazing man! His talk was so inspiring! Seriously every day i am here i am just so much happier to be here! hahah! Im going to explode with just happiness being a missionary! Its the greatest! So, he opened up his talk, talking about the age change by President Monson over a year ago! Really the age change for missionary service changed my life (obviously) but it has and will continue to affect the rest of my entire life! kinda crazy. Then it got super interesting.. he talked about marriage. hahah! All the missionaries got tense and kind of awkward looking! hahah! everyone forgot that marriage still even happenes so it was a little bit of a surprise. He talked about why the girls age was changed for missionary service. Someone asked why not 18 for girls too like boys. Maybe everyone else already knew this but i didnt. He said the prophet wasnt really concerned when the sisters would leave but more when they would return and what age that would be. The prophet wants the sister and elders to come home from their missions at the same time. Obviously the greatest blessings come from temple marriage and the prophet was thinking about us sisters and wanting to help us out! So sweet! Elder Evans talked about how a lot of us will marry people from our missions.... thats when it got super awkward hahaha! I was sitting next to elders who looked at me like i had cooties hahaha! So great! I love missionaries! Dont worry the conference was a super spiritual meeting too! I am so ready to work my butt off and be more obedient than ever, and just go crazy with missionary work! hahah!

After the conference, my whole mission took over the trains and made our way to the mission home for our christmas party!!! We had a white elephant exchange, yummy food, and got to watch the cartoon version of how the grinch stole christmas! that was a christmas miracle! hahaha! the Budge's also made a christmas movie years ago and let us watch it! they made their own version of home alone! it was so cute! made me miss my family!!!

So Reusser Shimai left us that night to go on exchanges in matsudo so Amituanai Shimai and I stayed at the mission home for the night. Sister Budge got beds ready for us and made us the best breakfast ever! We felt so spoiled! It was fantastic!

We did missionary work this week too i promise! This week we met a lady named Michiko San. She is so weird. hahah! I love her! We met her on the train and met her again the next day to have a lesson. We met at a park and talked about the book of Mormon. She has the worst attention span hahah! She randomly goes off about rockets and aliens and what not.. but she came to church on sunday and loved it! We have an amazing ward here in Tsukuba! They are all so lovely and took such good care of her!

We celebrated thanksgiving this week too! A member in my ward got some members together at the church for a big turkey and potatoes! Shes american so she made it the right way! :)

So unfortuently we all kind of worked ourselves to death. Not to death but sickness. I caught a cold but working through it! Were all a little bit under the weather but i got a package today from home and i am all better now!!!! thanks mom!

We have met so many new investigators this week however our current investigators keep canceling on us. Its so sad! They are all so close to baptism but no one ever has time! Japanese people are so busy! I hate it! but i love them! keep praying for them with me!

But love you all! thanks for all the love and support!!! miss you everyday! think about everyone back at home daily! love you love you love you love you!!!!!

Sister Christensen