"If you remember the atonement."

Dear family!!!

This week has been so wonderful and full of miracles. So much has happened! Easily one of the best weeks of my mission. We have seen so many miracles. Just goes to show how merciful God is to his children.
He truly loves us and I have felt that love so much this week.

This past week we were able to fast with one of our investigators. It was an amazing experience and everything just worked out so well. She told us she believes in God and it was the best moment ever. She has been really struggling with the divorce she is going

through and she just wanted to feel more peace and happiness. So on wed. we fasted all

together and she had a great experience. Helaman 3:35 :)

Thursday we had the best lesson with Kaneko san. It was one of those lessons that you know the Spirit is guiding everything that is said. All of her questions were so inspired and the members that was sharing just the amount of perfect experiences and testimony. Kaneko san told us that one day she wants to get baptized and that she always feels so much comfort when she comes to the church. It was beautiful. We are inviting her again to be baptized this week with a date. Pray for her. She is so ready and loves the spirit, but she is a little hesitant.

Thursday night we went on splits with the Zama Sisters. We had an amazing experience and had the opportunity to teach a lady in the park the first lesson. It was so cool!!! :) After we went on base with the Senior couple serving there and we were able to help with a Family History class a Ward member is doing. I LOVE family history. I think I want to study about genealogy in school. This Ward member did and she totally inspired me. It was so great!! There were a lot of great people there, but since it is on base we can only talk about
church if they bring it up. Luckily family is so closely related to church! :) We found out that one of the students in the class is a less active member since is was 13. Miracle!!! Way cool. :) After the Slades, the senior couple, took us to dinner on the base at Subway!!!!!! I had a turkey sandwich on Italian herb and cheese bread. I haven't had a turkey sandwich since I came on my mission and there were banana peppers. My mouth was so happy!! :) haha :)

Yesterday we had a double mission conference with Elder Ballard, Elder Rasband, Bishop Stevenson and their wives. It was amazing. I learned so much from just watching them. They talked about the importance of the restoration. It was so powerful. But one thing that stood out to me so much was one of the last things that Elder Ballard said. He was
promising us some amazing blessings, but then said, "if you understand the atonement. If you understand the atonement." It is such a simple phrase but it really impacted me. Blessing are just waiting to be ours, If we understand the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is so important. Alma 7:11-14. Jesus Christ suffered for all man. His love is perfect. His atonement is perfect. And because he atoned for me I can one day be perfect. I know that the atonement of Jesus Christ is real and it can make us whole again.

I love you all!! Have a great week!!

Love,
アシュビー姉妹

Ps. We got transfers and I am transferring to Atsugi and my new
companion will be Sister Ellsworth. I am really excited because it is
still the same stake and a great Ward!! :) よろしくお願いします。

Sisters conference.  All 70 sisters from mission.

Dear family,

Happy Valentine's Day!!!! :) Man this week has been a great week. I am so grateful for God and his perfect love. :) And what a great week to feel that... ;)

On Wed. We were able to have two lessons with two very amazing people. First with Rie San we were had the chance to share the restoration with her. I love the restoration. As we were sharing it with her you could tell she felt something different about what we were saying. She really has a desire to do good things. When we invited her to pray about our message and read from the Book of Mormon Moroni 10:3-5 She was like, "Oh I will read the whole chapter!" It was so great. I felt so much love for her and the goodness that comes from the gospel and from God.

Then that night before Eikaiwa (english class) we were able to teach Tomomi san. I LOVE her so much!!! She is one of those people you just can't but help love and want to be best friends with!! :) She is currently going through a divorce with her husband and it has been hard. As we were talking to her more about why she wants to learn about God she said

she wants to know what life is. She asked SO many good questions and her desire to learn is so great. The member who was with us was able to share her experience with the gospel and it was so powerful. It was so real. I love when God finds us people who have desire. Desire to know and learn and discover more. I love that. I can't help but love people like that, because I love that.

On Friday we had a Special Sisters training in Kichijoji with all 70 sister missionaries on our mission. It was the best day ever!! The theme was "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." We talked about the Heart and the importance of having a healthy,
kind, and giving heart. It was so wonderful. :) I learned so much from the Sisters there. One sister as she was sharing her testimony talked about how she felt such a power in the room. It was different then when you are with the elders, because then you feel it as the priesthood power, but this power was different it was power that come from righteous women of God. And that is so true. There is power that flows from righteousness. :) It was a beautiful day!
At the end of the conference Sister Sasaki (a sister that returned home 6 months ago, who I lived with for a long time in Fujisawa and we are just great friends) came to visit and it was so great to see her. She is such an amazing person. :)

Yesterday was great too! There is a member in our Ward that is a return mission president that loves to give us mission advice and usually it is funny, but yesterday he said something that I loved, he said he used to tell his missionaries, "I want you to be the kind of missionary you would want YOUR kids to be." I liked that. I made me want to be better. :) I want my kids to be like me, so I have to be better. My example to them starts now. :) "Now is the best time to start becoming the person we want to be." President Uchtdorf. :)

I love you all!! God is good. God is love. :)

Have a great week!

Love,
アシュビー姉妹


How much bread we get every week from a ward member.... No we don't
eat it all.... We give a lot of it to other missionaries.... Haha :)

Making Cake Pops for Valentine's Day. :)

Climb every Mountain :)

Dear Family
This week has been great. Every week is great. :) Life is great! I hope that is one out look that I keep for the rest of
my life. Always remembering that life is Good, because it is a gift from God, and everything which is good is from God. :)

This week we had a lot of great experiences. We have been setting higher goals and working harder to reach those goals. We have seen a lot of miracles in the process. This week we found a new investigator and I just love her! She is going through a divorce right now and it is really hard. She has one little boy who is 5 and so funny. We shared with her a little bit about the restoration and hope that comes into our lives through prayer and the gospel and she just said, "本当に聞きたいです。" (I really want to hear.)  That is such a great response. That we really don't get that often! :) I love it! We are teaching her this Wednesday. Pray that it goes well and that her heart will be prepared for our message.

We had Mission Leadership Council this week. Which naturally makes it the best week ever! Every time I go to those meetings, every single question that I go with gets answered. I love it so much! We talked a lot about the importance of accountability and being accountable to the Lord. I really needed that. These past few days I have really tried to apply that by through pray really giving a account of my day to the Lord. It has helped me to strive during the day to do my very best and it has been really helpful. I am so grateful for the principle of accountability and the blessings that being accountable brings into our lives. :)

We had the chance this past week to go on a Ward hike. It was so much fun and really 久しぶり. We had a great time talking about the gospel while hiking and hearing members conversion stories. It was really cool experience. Their is power in sharing how the gospel has helped and blessed your life. Strengthening Ward members and others faith is so important. Challenge for this week: Share you testimony and conversion story with someone. How has the gospel changed your life? Look of the opportunity and share. There are so many opportunities
around us. Pray to see them more. :)

I know I am praying more and more for more opportunities to share the gospel. It is truly the happy sound! 福音

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Climb all the mountains that life throws at you whether they be literally mountains or trails. We all have them in life. Everyone does. But it is always a lot more beautiful on the other side. I promise. Climb it with faith, hope, and charity. :)

I love you all!!

Love,
Sister Ashby

"Oh what a wonderful feeling! Oh what a beautiful day!"

Dearest family,

We had a great week this week! It was so great! We had a lot of success meeting with people and this next week we do too! This area is the best and I love working with Brox Shimai. We get a long really well and she is so easy to work with. We both want to set high goals and reach them and it feels so good to reach your goals! We have been
able to teach a lot about the restoration this week and it has really been a testimony
builder for me.  :) Just a short one this week....I don't know really what to say but here is a story and a testimony.

This week we were able to visit a less active couple in the ward. They are so nice and were so welcoming to us. We talked for a little and then started talking about church and why they were less active. We had a really good conversation about faith and then we really felt
prompted to share with them the "Mountains to climb" Mormon message. That Mormon message always makes me cry! The spirit really filled the room and you could tell it touched them. You could tell the husband was really feeling the spirit, but the wife really seemed to be fighting against it. We were able to testify of the power of faith to help us endure. At that moment I really felt the power that comes from faith. I could see this couple, the husband who desired more faith, the wife who seemed to be fighting against faith and it just hit me

how much God NEEDS us to have faith. It hit me how much power faith really does have. It makes all of us stronger and helps us bear what ever this mortal state has to offer. It gives us the courage we need to do the things we know in our hearts we need to do. Even though this couples faith seemed to be so weak at this time, you could tell that the spirit had touched their hearts and that some part of their faith was strengthened.

Faith is truly the power. It is by faith that miracles are brought to pass. "Faith is like a little seed, if planted it will grow." If you haven't already please plant the seed if faith. God knows us and will help that seed grow into the beauty it was meant to become. I know that through faith all things are possible and the Lord works miracles in our lives.

Have a great week! I am praying for you all as always. Have faith! :)

Love,
アシュビー姉妹

We made brownies in the rice cooker!! :) hahaha.....