"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.....

"I know my savior loves me"

Dear family,

This week has been so amazing. For sure on of the best weeks since coming to the Hodogaya Area. We saw so many miracles and people changing and progressing. We had interviews with President Wada, Zone
meeting, lessons, less active lessons, made cookies and banana bread,  went to primary, had dinners with members, set some great goals, gave  a church tour, talked to people, rode our bikes up and down hills to visit  referrals, and just had a great week!

We worked hard this week and we saw a lot of miracles. I feel like my desire to share the gospel just keeps to continues to grow and grow every week I am here. :)

We have been working with a lot of less actives in this Ward and it has been great to see some progress with some of them. On Sunday one came to church and it was a great experience. She also has been sharing the gospel with her friend. It is a great experience to see her change as she is invited to do so.

Another less active member we have been teaching has finally made some progress. It has been a long process to help her understand the gospel more, but she is finally starting to grasp it. We have been teaching her the Restoration (lesson 1) for the past month. Teaching her piece by piece and helping her understand all of the doctrine. It has been a really great experiment though, to really teach to her needs. She had never prayed before about Joseph Smiths experience, but this past week she told us that she prayed about it and she feels it is true. It is great to see her faith growing. Also, her work schedule is changing so she will be able to come to church soon. She is really excited. Her desire has increased so much and it has really been a testimony builder to me, that as we really teach to people's needs and their understanding, they will change and progress. We all change at our own pace and the spirit speaks to us all in different ways, but the gospel is for everyone. :)

We have been working with two sisters who are 8 and 10 years old. They come to church almost every week and love it. The other day we were able to teach them the "prayer sandwich" and oh did they love it!!! They love praying! Their enthusiasm for prayer has really strengthen my desire to pray from the heart. They are so cute and we love going
to primary with them. Yesterday the primary sang, "I know my savior loves me" and it was so cute to watch them sing. I love that song!! And I love it in Japanese!! So great.

Well I love my mission so much! I got a blessing from President Wada this week while at interviews and in it he told me so much that I needed to hear. But one thing what stuck out a lot was he said that as I work hard for these last 4 months of my mission and give my all to the Lord, I will receive more blessings then I have yet received serving my whole mission. I know that what is said is true, but I don't know how I can receive more. I have already been blessed so much, but I know that as I trust Gods promise and do my very best I will be amazed at the blessings in my life.

God is Good. :)

I love you all!!

Love,
Sister Ashby

Goodness is so Good

Dear family,

This week has been so much fun! I don't really feel like I have much to say. (Which is weird because I have a lot to say....) Haha :) But I will keep this one short. 3 things I learned this week.

1. The Spirit resides in clean tabernacles. :) This week we did deep cleaning in the apartment. It was a Mission wide cleaning week. We had to literally clean the whole apartment. But it was the best thing ever! I love cleaning. :) But it really feels good to be clean. And to reside in a clean place. I think that is the same not only for our houses but for our spirits as well. When we are clean and pure in mind and deed our spirits feel better residing in our bodies. They feel at
home and comfortable. It is so important to always strive to be clean and pure in all that we do. It creates a peace in our hearts that can only be felt because of that. I want to always strive to not only keep my apartment/house clean so the spirit can be there, but to also keep myself clean so that spirit can always reside in me. Always. :) That is the key. :) so grateful for the Atonement and the Sacrament. :)

2. When you work really really hard it feels so good. Okay so I have known this for a long time and it happens a lot, but this week we had a day where we set higher goals and worked even harder to reach those goals and it felt so good! We had to go to the hospital (by hospital I mean doctor, but in Japan it is all the same. Japanese people go to the "hospital" when they have a cold.....haha) this week because my companion needed her ear checked. We had a lot of travel we had to do there and back and we set high goals to talk to people and give out
Book of Mormons. We didn't reach our goals perfectly but we for sure went way beyond what we would've done had we set those goals. I love that principle. Shoot high and so if you do fall short you won't be disappointed. It was a faith builder that God helps good things come to
those who are looking for it. :) and we were looking for it. We found a new really great potential investigator and saw some other really cool miracles. :) happy day! Oh and Japanese hospitals are really funny and they are so kind of foreigners. They try so hard to speak English, but they just end up saying all the words you know in Japanese in English. It is the best! :)

3. Prayer is really a key to happiness. When you really communicate with God from the heart your soul can feel a peace that comes in no other way. :) I know God hears all of our prayers. He loves us and wants to Communicate with us. So talk to him. :)

This week was full of a lot of goodness and miracles. And laughter. I mean life has to be funny as well right? But the most important thing that happened this week was the spirit was felt and love was shown. The spirit and love always coexist. You can't have one without the
other. :) Because God is Love.

Have a great week my dears! I love you so much!

Love,
アシュビー姉妹
愛しています。

"Do as I am doing. Follow, follow me!"

Dearest Family,

The Primary song "Do as I am doing!" Is an inspired song. :) It is what Christ teaches us to do.  This song pretty much sums up what I was reminded of this week. A lesson I have learned in so many ways on my mission, but this week everything just made sense and came together. So much has happened. So many miracles have occurred and I am just left amazed at how the Lord never cease to bless his children as they, "do as he is doing", and "follow Him". I love the out pour of blessings we receive when we follow the Savior.

All this weeks miracles seemed to take place outside of the current area I am working in, but I know they all actually had a lot of influence on the people we are working with. :)

Where to start.... Last week we got a call really really really late at night. Like 10:28pm late......Haha :) it was from the Elders in my Old area (Fujisawa) and this is what they said, "Sister Ashby! E-san is getting Baptised!! He just emailed us and said he wants to get Baptised!" And they was the length of our conversation. I just hung up the phone and practically screamed I was so happy. Long long long (like 20+ years long) story. I don't know if you remember, but a a month or so ago I shared a story with you about e-san. He was the investgators I talked to at stake conference and talked to him about
baptism. So much has happened to him over a period of 20+ years, but after a long time of faith building and miracles he decided to put his trust in the Lord, follow His example, and do what he knew he needed to do. He was Baptised on Saturday January 10th. And it was the
biggest miracles I have ever seen in my life. When I very I first met E-san he was a very different man, but because of Jesus Christ's example he was able to change and now he is a Member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and so full of peace. There is so
much I want to tell you about this amazing miracle!! He asked me to speak at his baptism and it was the most humbling experience. The Spirit was so strong. I was back in the Fujisawa Ward building, surrounded by so many people that I love and who have changed my life
in So many ways. The feeling in that room was one I would never be able to describe. It was beauty and the spirit in its finest. It was the feeling that makes you say, "this is why we are here  on the earth. This is what LIFE is all about." It was love, peace, joy, hope, faith and everything thing that makes your heart burst and feel as though it can't handle anything else. It was just a foretaste of what I know heaven will be like. It was so Happy! And I felt so blessed to
be a part of it.

Sorry this is all out of chronological order but..... ;) Haha

Thursday we had MLC in Kichijoji. It was amazing. They talked a lot about repentance and working with Ward members. We also talked about "digital mission" which is how we are going to help members to missionary work online. Speaking of..... Here is your commitment for
the week. If you haven't not already, 1. Make a mormon.org profile account and link it to your Facebook. 2. Go like and/rate all of the church apps on your App Store. Give it 5 stars and a review! :) please do this! You would be amazed at how much of an impact it could have on
the world and social media if every member of the church did this. :) お願いします。Anyway, MLC was amazing. After learning all of these amazing things and got to go to Kamakura to go on splits with Sister Matsusaka. We saw so many miracles. If you pray for miracles to happen, they happen. I prayed so hard these past few days for miracles and they have just been happening left and right. :) It is amazing. I think I have just been rambling now..... Haha :) We talked to some amazing people, and gave out some copies of The Book of Mormon. What a
great day!

On a fun note.... This week we had the Mochitsuki! Pounding rice into

mochi. Which I don't know how to describe. But it is SO good! I love Japan and their traditional food. :)

What more could you ask for in life then to love where you are and the people you are with. And I do! :) have a great week! You are wonderful people.

Transfer calls came and guess what?!? I am staying in Hodogaya and Sister Brox is my companion AGAIN! Yeah!!  :) so excited!

Love,
Sister Hannah Ashby