Sunday, December 18, 2016

Toilet Paper Comic Books and Sister Jordan Wunderli's 20th Birthday - IN JAPAN!!

My beautiful daughter turned 20 this week.  Who would have ever guessed that she would be celebrating it on the island of Sado in Japan?  I'd like to see what odds Vegas would have had on that one.  She loves her new companion and they had some good things happen this week which is making me excited for her because I know she's been working hard.  This is one of my favorate emails and it has lots of great pictures.  Enjoy.

こんにちは,
Thank you everyone who wished me a happy birthday!! It means a lot. I'm 20 now which means I'm officially an adult according to Japan laws. I loved having my birthday on my little island of Sado and I'm so happy to be here!!

Miracle/kiseki:
So we were in Aikawa this week and we did some housing and tried to find some old potential investigators, but we weren't having any luck with either. When we were at the bus stop we saw what we thought was an earlier bus so we got on and ended up getting on the wrong bus. Instead of it taking the normal 25 minutes to get home, it took us an hour. But it was meant to be because we sat next to this girl and we started talking to her and she wants us to help her with English. We actually helped her a little right there because she had her English textbook with her. We set up an appointment with her for next Saturday at the church!! This is the first Eikaiwa student on Sado that's actually young and in school so it was a huge miracle for us and Sado.

I'm no longer a teenager woohoo!!
I had a great birthday on Sado! An eternal investigator called us and wanted to take us out to lunch for my birthday so we went to my favorite restaurant. We tried to talk to her about baptism and she said that she believes in the church but she would never get baptized because of how restricting it is...it didn't really end up the way we had hoped, but it's okay, everyone has their agency. For my birthday dinner, Sister Boden made me American brownies which it had been awhile and I loveeeee brownies so it was amazing. We went to Eikaiwa and they all sang to me and the two ward members that came brought me some homemade bread!

Yamaji San:
She became an official investigator this week!! On Monday, we went to volleyball club with her and after it was finished, I gave her a Book of Mormon and talked to her about how this book came from God through prophets. I told her it was true and that I marked some of my favorite scriptures in it for her to read. She came to FHE (Family Home Evening) on Friday and said that she read a little bit of the Book of Mormon, but it was hard, so we told her we would read it with her and help her to understand it. Then she came to church on Sunday (this was her second time) and we taught her a lesson on the word of wisdom in gospel principles class. We asked her if she would keep it and she said it was really hard to change, but that she would try!! We are meeting with her again on Tuesday, and I'm so excited with how well she's progressing.

Funny things:
•When we were in Aikawa these old men came up to us and gave us toilet paper (I never appreciated free toilet paper until my mission haha) and when we got home we looked at it and it has comics on the entire thing Haha
•We went caroling a ton this week when we were going housing and the reactions were priceless, one old man opened the door and then slowly shut it, and an old lady opened the door and then gave us some fruit, and another old lady opened the door and wasn't wearing any pants!!
•I had strawberries for the first time since being in japan because they are so expensive here and a member bought us some (they are $8 for a little thing of strawberries).
•Yamaji san gave me two birthdays presents. One was a cat mug because I swear everyone on Sado is obsessed with cats!! Then the second one was wine which I obviously couldn't accept. It looked like a pretty nice bottle of wine so it was a little awkward when I told her we don't drink any alcohol.. but she understood. Kind of why we taught the word of wisdom on Sunday haha.

Word of the week:
Word: kibou
Pronunciation: key-bow
Meaning: hope
愛しています,
Wunderli Shimai

Pics:
1. Our Christmas tree
2. Toilet paper comics
3. The brownies she made me and the banner she put up
4. This cool thing we found on p day, I'm not sure what it is
5. Cool thing part 2
6. Another p day find
7. Our new Eikaiwa student!!
8. Yumeka chan (a kind of investigator)
9. My favorite Eikaiwa class ever
10. Cool thing part 3
11. Always representing the U!!












As always, thanks for your emails, letters, thoughts, prayers and anything else you do for our Jordan.  It means the world to her and to us.  If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them.  Have a very Merry Christmas - her next blog post will be on Christmas evening.


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