Again, Maryandra failed to send home any photos, so we include a photo of Maryandra from 15 years ago, and also some from the MTC, since her current companion was in her MTC district, 13 months ago!!! This is Sister Hana Smith! And they have a great companionship!
Disregard the date on the photo, for Maryandra never made the time to adjust it. It is actually from December 2013! Maryandra and Sister Smith enjoyed their times in the MTC, and now they are making memories and miracles together in Hibarigaoka!
The good old MTC days!
From Maryandra's e-mail:
Sunday:
Well, a lot of
interesting things happened yesterday, which I would like to explain,
and use up the time so I can not think about how thirsty I am, as I
am fasting right now. Okay...
So, we went and
delivered a daily message to a member family, and it took much
faster than I thought it would, so in between that, and stopping for
a few minutes to pet a cute kittie cat for the first time in who
knows how long (I made a video just for you, Curtis!;)), we wandered
around, looking for a good place to house. And we came all the way to
this random Lawson's convenience store, and crossed started housing
the big apartment that is pretty much next door to it. On the second
floor from the top, I randomly piped up "we are going to see a
miracle here!" And smith Shimai thought I was kind of just
joking, because I said it in an overly enthusiastic way, in which I
don't normally talk, but then I thought "you know? I really want
to actually see one!" And then I prayed in my mind that we
actually would. And would you believe it? We did! Not more than five
minutes later! Wow!
So, after we rang
this one lady's doorbell box, and put a flier in her post because no
one answered at first and motion, she answered and I rushed back to
talk into the doorbell box. And she came out! Whoa! And then she
proceeded to talk to us for about ten minutes, and we gave her a
pamphlet and a BOOK OF MORMON!!!!!! We wanted to give her a plan of
salvation pamphlet because she told us her daughter had just passed
away during shogatsu(New Years) and we felt sad for her, but we had
given away the one we thought we had the day before to another lady
and forgotten to get more, so we asked if we could bring it later,
and she said yes, and to please come again, because she's lonely, and
she's not against church, she just won't join, and she doesn't hate
us, so she likes us, and isn't against taking our free stuff. Well,
it wasn't much, but we'll take it! We will take whatever we can get!
We finished the rest
of the apartment later, after stopping for a short break to warm up
at Lawson's. And would you believe it? The second to last door
provided us with another, albeit a really weird, miracle. So, it was
a young person, or sounded like one through the doorbell box, and
whatever question we asked, she would just say "yes." "Yes"
"yes" in a kind of robotic voice. I can't remember the whole
conversation, but he gust of it was something like this:
"Yes?"
"We're church
volunteer missionaries. Can we talk about our message?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever
been to church?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe
that God and Jesus Christ live?"
"Yes."
At this point I
piped in, because smith Shimai was getting really weirded out by this
emotionless voice.
"In our church,
we believe in eternal families, because families are important to us.
Do you think families are important?"
"Yes."
"Ummm..... Can
you come to the door?"
"Yes."
So, that whole
robotic conversation was said through the doorbell box, and we
weren't sure what to think, or if she would actually come to the
door, but she did. She turned out to be only 11 years old. Kind of
weird. But she continued to say yes to everything, with this
interesting little smile on her face. So, we gave away our second
Book of Mormon, and Asked if we could come again and teach her some
more about our church. She said yes. Again. And.... So we will. It
was interesting, and it would have been like a golden investigator
child type of a thing, save for her strange lack of opposition, or to
smith Shimai, emotion. But hey, we will take whatever we can get in
this country of people who are scared to say yes. We are definitely
coming back! So, yeah, yesterday had a lot of interesting miracles in
it. The moral of his story is to do what you can, and you get what
you ask for. Also, Heavenly Father is really great at answering
prayers, especially ones that aren't self-centered. So, give it a
shot! Yeah!
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