こにちわ！ 你們好！
Taking deep breaths every few minutes. Going home to the apartment exhausted. Positive thoughts that I am a successful missionary everyday. I just love Sister Ichikawa, she really helps me a lot to see things positively. We see miracles every single day, not the ones that I wanted but the ones that I needed to see. This past week was quite hard and challenging, but they were moments that it made me stress and push forward no matter what. We've been diligent, finding as many people to teach as we can: taking chats, making phone calls, talking to people, teach and invite, and we have also been taking a lot of Japanese tours. So now, I know how to introduce myself in Japanese. :)
This week started out with a hard time to get up in the morning because of daylight savings. Both of us weren't used to it so we were looking ways to relax. The day ended up good though as we called people and found out that one of my Filipino investigators and her recent convert husband went to Church. Brother Bondoc will be performing proxy baptisms scheduled on the 30th of March. And Sister Bondoc has made the decision to be baptized on July after going home to Cebu for a couple of months to visit family. I told them that when they go to Zulueta, I will be happy to attend Sikatuna ward with them and have the meet Bishop Osumo there. I also offered to take their son to church who's also a nurse.
We had Mission Leadership Council last Monday and it was really good. One of the topics was entitled "The Culture of Purpose-focused Discussions." Being Temple Square missionaries, we sometimes fall into a trap of talking about our cultures and our countries and sometimes waste time doing so. So we discussed on ways of how we can have purpose-focused discussions not just with guests on the square but also with the other sisters. The mission is becoming pretty young so as leaders in the mission, we are asked to train these young missionaries to become effective and efficient leaders and missionaries in the future. It was quite a challenge but it helped me think about what can I do myself to become better so that I can lead by example. So this week, aside from studying my talk on charity, I studied on my purpose as a missionary and thought a lot about purification, sanctification, consecration, sacrifice and obedience. I prayed to Heavenly Father that in these last few weeks, I need to put all in (not that I haven't but I felt I was backsliding a little bit) and sacrifice everything on the altar. Then at the beginning of our preparation day hours, Sister Ichikawa and I had a talk about what can I do better as a missionary, how can I help my investigators even more, and what have I changed these past 16 months in my mission. I just told her "everything". I had changed my views, my perspective, what I viewed to be most important in my life and all.
On the side note, we had a success yesterday when Sister Ichikawa called her investigator during exchanges with younger missionaries. One of our investigators, Dave, wanted to be baptized in April and has been going to church for the past few weeks. He has met with local missionaries. We are praying that he would be the ONE for our companionship this transfer since we couldn't get a hold of Lazaro who was scheduled to commit on the 28th of March. I also am wondering how Linda is doing but sadly, we haven't gotten a hold of her for around 3 months now. Bummer. We are still finding and we got a lot of chats earlier today and it was quite funny because the common theme was law of chastity. We also had some good ones but they aren't very solid and the chat would disconnect the moment we would ask them to keep in touch. But it was a productive day nonetheless.
Well, I'm happy. I'm happy to be able to do the work of the Lord and by inviting everyone to make and keep commitments. Sister Ichikawa and I discussed yesterday that somehow, all I could get a hold of are my recent converts and less-actives. Sister Ichikawa positively said that there might be a reason for it. I told her that Heavenly Father is helping me strengthen these people so I would be prepared to strengthen the RCLAs back at home. We're still diligently exercising the faith to find though. We know that there is someone out there who is seeking for the truth and knows not where to find it.
I guess that is all for this week. "Because He Lives" Easter Initiative is coming up. Be excited!
愛してるよ。 我愛你們！
Sister Kristel Marie Cruz Ngo (吳姐妹)
Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission/