President Wada is the best!! :)

Dear family,

This week has been such an adventure, but can I just say I have the best mission president. He is so amazing! So patient, kind, and full of wisdom. And so funny!!! We all just love President Wada. This week I am especially grateful for him.

So so start with a funny miracle.....

Friday night after sports night we realized the other sisters weren't back from walking to the train station with their investigator. A few minutes after getting home we get a call from the elders saying they are at the hospital and they have nothing with them and that Jolley Shimai fell and they needed us to go to the hospital and bring them their bags that they accidentally left at the church. By now it is like 9:10pm. So we biked as fast as we could to the church, ran to the
station, rode to train to the eki, and ran from the eki to the hospital. In the meantime the mission office calls to see if they can do any thing for us. Sister Wada calls the president to tell him
what is going on and that Jolley Shimai fell and is at the hospital. It was a crazy situation....
Anyway, we get to the hospital to find out that Jolley Shimai is just fine!!! It was a relief... But here was some MAJOR funny miscommunication. Hahha. Anyway long long story shorter... Their investigator had passed out and they just so happened to still be with her. These three men helped them call the hospital and they went with her to make sure she was okay and called her dad. In the end it was a miracle because they were able to build such a good relationship with her dad. Wada kaicho came and picked us up at the hospital and drove us home. He was so understanding and so funny. Driving in the presidents car at 10:30 at night was never something I ever thought would happen on my mission. Crazy... But the whole night many small
miracles happened. :) it ended up just being a funny night. :)

One miracle from the week... Yesterday we were housing and not having too much success so we said a prayer and started walking down a different rode. After a little while of still no success, I said another small prayer in my heart asking God to show us where he would want us to go. After that I looked across the street and saw a family walking down the road. They looked like they were from South America and so we crossed the street to go talk to them. At first they kind of walked passed us.... But we started talking to the dad and the
mom came back to talk. Come to find out they are less active members that haven't been to church in a few years!!! And they are the less active members that one of our former investigators knows!!!! We had been trying to find their house for weeks!! We were able to get their
number and they said we could visit anytime. The mom was so nice and her Japanese is so great. It was such a miracle. It really strengthened my testimony that God guides us and will help us find those who need to be found as we open our mouths.

One thing I learned this week... We had a Training this week for the District leaders and super sisters, aka maybe future zone leaders and sister training leaders. It was an amazing conference and I learned so much!!! The focus was on a talk titled "Jesus: the perfect leader." It is an amazing talk. It talks about all the qualities that make Christ the perfect example of a leader. My favorite part is when it talks about
how he sees our potential. He knows who we will become and he treats us like we are already that person. He shows us perfect love even though we don't deserve it. :) That is what we should be doing for all of those around. Treat others how Christ would treat them. The phrase
"What would Jesus do?" Is always a good reminder of that. As we do what Jesus would do we won't have to worry about our actions. They will be good, they will be full of love. :) Jesus is our perfect example. He loves us and as we follow his example we are happy.

This gospel makes me so happy! So grateful to be sharing it in Japan!
Have a great week. I love you all so much!

Love,
アシュビー姉妹
愛してますよ。

We went to the zoo today :)
Fireworks in Japan!!

"A little frog sits on a lily pad." ;)

Dear family,

This week has been so wonderful. I have learned a lot and grown a lot. :)

I love growing and I love change. :) the atonement is the best and it is real.

So I am going to tell you three things this week....
1. A funny story
2. A miracle
3. How my testimony has grown

I am going to try and start doing that every week to make my letters
better. And then I will remember to tell you things I sometimes
forget....haha :)

1. Funny story: So this week one night after weekly planning we were talking about old cartoon funny movies from our childhood and in pretty much sang the whole little critter song for the shimaitachi.
Hahahaha :) "well a little frog sits on a lily pad" "the world goes round day by day, and here we all are together." It was so funny!!!! Whenever you need a smile just sing that song.... I promise it will
make you smile haha :) Man I love you my family a lot. You are all so funny!!

Something else that is funny and crazy....We went out for sushi this week with a member and ate over 50 plates of sushi...... It was insane. I will send a picture. Haha :)

2. We had a couple great miracles this week, but one that really
stands out happened Saturday. We were getting on the train and I
started talking to a girl standing next to us. We ended up taking the
whole train ride and taught her about how she has a loving Heavenly Father. I asked her if she has ever felt that God existed and she said she has. I asked her how, and she talked about how she was in the earthquake a few years ago and for a while after the earthquake she had no idea where her parents were. So she prayed to God. She said she felt peace and knew everything would be alright. We were able to give her the Book of Mormon and talk to her about how there is a God and how through the Book of Mormon we can learn more about Him and His
plan for us. It was such an amazing experience. She took the Book of Mormon and hugged it. She said it was her treasure. We weren't able to get her number because her parents are strict about that, but we
invited her to eikaiwa and church and she said she would try to come. I don't know what will happen with her right now but I do know that God placed her in our path to let her know that he is there and he
loves her. I felt an overwhelming feeling of love for her and it was such an amazing experience. I hope we can talk to her again soon though because she is so ready to hear the gospel!!! Miracle people
are the best. :)

3. This week my testimony of the atonement grew a lot. I realized that through the atonement of Jesus Christ our hearts can not only be changed and become better, but they can also be enlarged. Through the
atonement we can feel MORE love. As I watch the atonement work in the lives of those around me, here in Japan and at home, my love for those people grows. I can't even really discribe how it feels to see people
you love change and become better. I am sure you have felt it. But it is happy. I think that is how Heavenly Father feels when we repent. I  am so grateful that I can continue to grow And change through the
atonement of Jesus Christ.

I knows the this work is true and It is happy work.

Thank you for all of your love and everything!! You are the best!!!

Love,
アシュビー姉妹

Ps..... In can't believe it is already halfway through
August.......... Crazy how fast time flies.... :) have fun with school
starting again soon!!!!

Families are forever :)

Dear my lovely family,

I just love you all so much and I am so grateful for you examples in
my life. :) thank you for everything.

This week has been great!! We have had some really cool experiences with finding and meeting more former investigators at random times. It
was like they just came to us. You never know who The Lord Is going to put in your path. :) so glad to have The Lord guiding this work.

This week while we were visiting a less active member in the ward with another member I realized how truly grateful I am for amazing ward members. I have been so impressed by the members here in Japan. If they are an active member, they are a strong active member. They truly live their faith. So many ward  members are part-member families, or have less active family members. Probably almost all of them. And  they help the missionaries so much!! It is hard but the try to share the gospel and be good examples to there family members and friends. So many women in my ward have inactive, less active, or non-member husbands, but they faithful come every week to church and do what they can to fulfill their callings. I am so grateful for their example. They have such grateful faith. The members here are amazing!!!! Utah is great too.... But maybe I didn't realize truly how much members do until I came to Japan. :) I am so grateful for that.

To add to this member note.... Members are key to missionary work!!! It cannot be done with out the members help. Investigators need friends and those friends need to be members of the ward. So grateful for members that have reached out to our investigators. We have one investigator right now that is slowly changing as she has been invited to sing in the ward choir. Such a cool experience for her. Hopefully it will help her grown and gain a testimony.

Sorry this was more a grateful for the members of Japan letter. I don't have much more time to write...oops. :) but this week was great! It has been a little cooler these past few days thanks to a small storm, but that was a nice change. :)

Well I love you all and hope you have an amazing week. Keep praying and reading the Book of Mormon. It is by small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. :) you never know how much your
faithfulness will bless the loves of others. :)

Love,
アシュビー姉妹

Cute lanterns In Fujisawa made by the kids In school. :)

These bugs are everywhere right now and they are huge!!!!! And so
loud!!!!! Haha :) cicadas

There is a baby on the way?!? :)

Okay my dearest family,

I don't know about all of you but I am way way excited to see what this baby is going to look like?!?!? I would even say I might be the most excited for this baby to be  born.... Well Nicole and Matt can be first excited....but I might take a close second. :) I pretty much tell everyone I meet that my sister is having a baby any day now, but she is in America and I am from America... Actually now I am a church volunteer missionary. Have you ever seen missionaries before?.....haha okay maybe not quite to that extreme, but I am really excited. Haha :)
send lots of pictures please.
So today we had temple Pday:) always my favorite Pday of the transfers. The temple has so much peace and comfort. If you need a little kore happiness or peace in your life I suggest going to the temple. It always works for me. :)
So much has happened this week!!! Fujisawa ward had a baptism!!!!! The first this year and it was such a happy day!!!! The Fujisawa ward is
amazing. The ward members want to help the missionaries so much. The sister that was baptized was a referral from her friend and she has been investigating for over a year I believe. Such a cool story. She wasn't going to get baptized for another couple months and then she just decided to give up tea and coffee and get baptized. She is amazing. It was a great meeting!! I was reminded so much of how important our baptismal covenants are. Those were the first promises we made to follow Heavenly Father. :)

This past Sunday we saw a really cool miracle. After church our plan was to go to a park by a members house and do some contacting. Well the elders all of a sudden ride past us on their bikes going to the
same park...so that was so good, good thing we had a back up plan!! Haha there is another park really close by so we went there instead. There were only a few people there so we decided to do some housing.
We housed and housed and nothing..... It was getting time to head back for dinner so we decided we would just finish these last two houses on the street and then head back. The second to last house we walked up
and saw a lady watering her plants. We started talking and she didn't seem to interested. Then I pulled out the Book of Mormon and she was all of a sudden like, "hey I know that church!" Come to find out she
has a friend who is Mormon and she is a former investigator of the church!!!!!!! When we got home later we found her teaching record from 7 years ago with no contact informations at all. Just her name and
what she was taught!!!! It was so cool!! She said we could come by again and talk to her more. Such a cool miracle there is no way anyone would have know how to find this lady, except god. :) it was cool to see that even when your plans get changed you are still being lead by the spirit. Everything happens for a reason. :) so grateful for that!
Well I had a great week and I hope you all did too. :) have fun with
the baby. :)

You are the best family ever. Love you all.

Love, sister hannah ashby

アシュビー姉妹