Families, Friends and Fun!

"Putting on the armor of God" :)

Hikari and I…She is so cute!  Sister Capener and I taught her family a Home Evening Lesson and she followed me everywhere!  She reminds me of Hannah when Hannah was little!

This week has been an adventure.  Let me just start out by saying dogs may be man's best friend, but they're a missionary's worst nightmare!  Everywhere we went this week there seemed to be a dog chasing after us.  Luckily we can out run them on our bikes.  I am grateful we're a "bike riding" mission.  It's safer!  We're going to start buying dog treats.  Seriously though.  The pet store is on our "to do" list today.  

A couple days ago we were biking past the new church building which is still under construction.  We stopped and talked to two friendly men who were standing outside the gate of the church.  We introduced ourselves and asked if they had ever met missionaries before.  Their response was, "I was a missionary."  We weren't expecting that!  Turns out they were the head contractors from Tokyo who had flown down to inspect the building.  We had a great conversation with them and they said that the building should be finished this week!  I hope so!  

This week we had a blast making biscuits with our best friend Sister Wedekind and her Japanese neighbor.  It was a huge treat using an oven.  Afterwards we taught a lesson.  Sister Wedekind's neighbor just had a baby boy and so she was really interested in how the church could help strengthen her family and how she could learn about what she should teach her son.  It was a phenomenal lesson.   We were able to translate for Sister Wedekind and we had a fun lesson in a mix of English and Japanese.  

Sister Wedekind and her neighbor a new baby and I making biscuits!

We also met with a woman I got to know at our Thanksgiving dinner party.  She is a wonderful lady and has two children who are in middle school.  Life has dealt her some pretty hard cards, but she is a wonderful mother and always perseveres.  She wants her daughter to start coming to Young Women's (the church's youth program for girl's 12 yrs to 18 yrs)!  She can go as soon as the new building is ready (Young Women's will change from Wednesday to Tuesday starting then).  As we spoke with her, she shared with us lots of experiences that she has had over the years with the church.  She met a missionary 20 years ago while she was living in main land Japan.  She still had his business card!  She showed it to us.  It was incredible.  And then for the past 20 years she has always had either a Mormon neighbor or friend.  While she was living in D.C. she loved to drive past the Washington D.C. temple.  She loved it.  Hearing her experiences really strengthened my testimony that every time we meet someone we are planting a seed.  Sometimes it takes 20 years or longer for the seed to bloom, but eventually it happens.  I am so grateful for those people in her life who made a difference even if they didn't realize it at the time. 

We had stake conference (a regional church meeting) and our mission president and 2 assistants to the president flew down from Fukuoka.  This picture is of some of the missionaries and church members.

The hardest thing about serving a military branch ( a small congregation) is that so many people are coming and going.  Lute is leaving with her family to go back to the states.  We are so sad!

I love Okinawa!  I love the people, I love the language and I love serving them.  I am just so darn happy!  I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon!  Merry Christmas :) 

Love,
Sister Hawkins