McKenna in Japan!: Election time in Japan!

Birthday packages!!!

Celebrating McKenna's 20th birthday with a package from home!

One of the benefits from knocking on doors…..we reached the top to find a beautiful view with the ocean on both sides of us! We did climb a lot of stairs :)

Guess what! The Jehovah Witnesses came knocking on our door. I think we accidentally became their investigators! :) I am not sure yet!

This week was extremely exciting. I'll just quickly bullet point everything so I can get it all down...

This week was super fun and really frustrating at the same time. All week, every time we tried to contact people on the street or by knocking on doors NO ONE would listen. We almost didn't have time to say the word "God" before they 1. ran (seriously we had several runners this week) or 2. immediately said, "I'm not interested"! That was a little frustrating. However, despite the fact that no one wanted to talk to us, our investigators really blossomed. It was a huge blessing! We were also able to find new investigators through members who really are our best assets. We have a new investigator whose husband is less active, but really wants to learn more about the church. So many people are confused about religion. There are so many churches and many are good, but they all teach different truths. She came to church this Sunday and she and her children really enjoyed it.

Right now in Japan it is election season. Between that and our rooster who wakes us up at 4:10 every morning I am getting little to no sleep. For election season each candidate has a ton of cars, vans and trucks patrol the city. Each vehicle has a million speakers strapped to the top and they play their candidates name over and over and over again at all times of the day and night. If I hear "Kuwae, Kuwae, Kuwae" one more time I'm just going to walk around with ear plugs in permanently. But it is funny to see the cars filled with tons of people waving at us on the street. Japan. You've got to love it.

Our investigator whose mom is Mormon and whose dad is Muslim is doing super! We met with her this week and she is just so cute and happy! She excitedly told us that she is reading the Book of Mormon and is half way through the Book of Nephi. She told us with a huge smile "I'm interested, I'm really interested!" I have NEVER had an investigator tell me that. We were happily surprised.

We have a baptism this Saturday! Rhea is super excited to be baptised! We taught her some of the commandments and after we finished she asked us if she could learn more and if we could come back the next day. She is just so prepared! We are sending the missionary's to her home in the Philippines so that her family can learn more too. Rhea said that she had sometimes seen the missionaries, but they had never knocked on her door and she was too shy to ask them to come over. She has repeatedly thanked us for teaching her what she needs to do to become closer to Heavenly Father and become a better example for her daughter. She is a wonderful example to me. I love her!

And lastly, Easter was really great. All three of our sacrament services were well done and they had beautiful messages, songs and thoughts about our Savior and His Resurrection. We watched a really great video in our Japanese ward "Because of Him". I really liked it and so did all of our investigators. I can't wait to look it up in English too and start showing it to our other investigators. The miracle of the whole day though happened after church however. We went over to a members home and shared a message with their neighbors. They really are prepared. It's a WHOLE family. We felt the spirit as we shared the message of the restoration. They were so excited to learn more!