Last week we had a Zone Training Meeting. It was fantastic.
During part of the meeting we discussed ways to aid one of our investigators
that has asked us to help her stop smoking.
She is from the Philippines and it is difficult to teach her because we
can only speak to her in a mix of simple Japanese and English...because she is
much better at Tagalog. She’s been very interested in coming to church and
learning the gospel but it’s been really hard for her to understand everything
(because of the language barrier).
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| Thanks to Dean Shimai's family for great Decorations! |
The Sisters met her a week or so before I came into the area.
Sister Dean and her companion saw her on the side of the road and felt like
they should turn around and talk to her.
As they began teaching her they slowly helped her to smoke a little bit
less (she had been smoking at least one cigarette an hour) and when I met her
in November she was smoking one cigarette every three hours. During the Zone meeting we discussed ways
that we could help her stop smoking and ways that we could help her learn the
gospel given the language barriers. There had been a lot of helpful suggestions
- packs of gum with scriptures on them (that she could chew when she felt like
smoking) or a notebook to help her remember what was taught...etc. but I
definitely was feeling discouraged, and wasn’t sure how effective these things
would be for her.
Despite the difficulties she faced, she has been able to
overcome these challenges. She really
faced a huge challenge to stop smoking in a short time after years of this
addiction. I don’t believe she could
have stopped on her own and there was nothing that I could have done to help
her stop by my own power. But someone
else could. Christ died for her. Christ died for me! Christ died for YOU. There
are so many things in this life that we cannot overcome by ourselves.
Addictions, sicknesses, heartbreak, . . and any other sort of trial that life
throws at us. But over 2000 years ago in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ
atoned for each and every single person on this earth.
The truth is that a day does not go by out here where
everything goes the way we planned. There is not a day that I don't get some weird
look because I am a little girl riding a bike in a skirt talking about Jesus
Christ in a country where that is often a strange concept. Every day someone turns down this message that
could change their life. Every day I wake up at 6:30 feeling completely
exhausted, and realize that I still have 16 more hours before I can go back to
sleep on my futon. Every day I ride by signs that I can't read, or have people
speak to me and I have absolutely no idea what they are saying.
But all of that and more is worth it! Everything is worth it
when I see people like this wonderful Filipino woman whose life is forever
changed. She went from a lady who rarely smiled, and had no one that cared
about her - who smoked a pack of cigarettes on her futon every single day, and
suffered for decisions that she had made early in her life...to a woman who
smiles regularly, who laughs at my silly dance down the hall in the church, who
sings Christmas carols and wears pink sweat suits.
Her transformation is only possible through the power of
God. Maybe that is hard to believe unless you see what I had the privilege to see
- to watch. But I believe in the atoning
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Not only have I seen this power work in my own life,
but now I have watched it work for someone else.
This week we made a jar for this woman. We filled it with
pieces of chocolate wrapped with a Book of Mormon scripture, and labeled it
"Get ADDICTED to the Book of Mormon!" She thought that it was so
funny. One of the happiest moments of my entire life was when we got a phone
call from her the next evening right as we were going to bed. She said: "I’m
eating chocolate! And reading the Mormon Book!" On Friday she had her
baptismal interview and she is so excited to be baptized on the 21st of December.
I also ate more curry this week than I think I have ever
eaten in my life. For Dean Shimai's Birthday we went to this delicious curry
place called Bindu - and then a lady in our ward invited us to go to Bindu
again, and we had more curry from CoCo's curry after District Meeting on
Friday...we are not planning on eating curry for a while (even though it is SO
delicious) because we got a little sick of it. I had no idea that the Japanese
people love curry so much. And I also didn't realize how delicious it
is...especially in the cold weather.
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| At Bindu |
It is Christmas time! It doesn't feel a ton like Christmas because Christmas is not a very big deal in Japan. But Dean Shimai's parents sent her some Christmas decorations, so our apartment is much more Christmas-y now and it is wonderful! I have been asked to speak in Church on Sunday for our Christmas program. I started writing my talk this morning...and started translating it during language study. These are the moments when I realize how very limited my Japanese is. But, the language will come. As I was reminded this week - "doubt your doubts before you doubt your fears." The enabling power of Jesus Christ's atonement has absolutely no boundaries - from overcoming addiction to helping me learn Japanese.
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I saw this guy pulling this cart as we were biking an hour
to one of our investigators houses, so I jumped off my bike...and yanked my
helmet off and got a picture with him. I have never felt more like a part of
Kung Fu Panda in my life
Note from Ariana's Mom: Ariana has asked that friends and family send hand written letters through the postal mail. She would really love it! She checks email only once a week, and would really enjoy mail in her postal mailbox during the week. Send to this address: (Same as address on "Write me" Tab)
Ariana Grundvig
Japan Kobe Mission
4-6-28 Shinohara Honmachi
Nadu-Ku, Kobe-Shi, Hyogo-Ken
657-0067 Japan
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