The Adventures of Sister Fishburn: IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE🎄👶🏻

We had zone meeting and we're supposed to take a serious picture. That
clearly worked well.

So. This transfer is only 4 weeks because of Christmas and people wanting to go home for that. Weird, people wanting to see their families at Christmas. Who would want that? But anywho, because of this we had transfer emails come on Saturday. Because of my track record I was real worried. Like almost didn't look at it because I didn't want to know where I was going. But Kawamitsu Shimai looked at hers and read it out loud and said she'd be staying in Kichijoji and in that moment I was like "I'll go start packing". Buuuuut then she read who her companion would be and it was me!! YAAAAY!! I'm staying in Kichijoji! Next transfer is 8 weeks so I'll be here at least until February! That's crazy to think. February. Wow. But that's still awhile away so we'll stop thinking about that right now.

Kawamitsu Shimai and I had family home evening with a less active and her adorable children on Monday. They are so cute! It was way fun and I hope we can continue to serve them! The mom is SO nice. And she makes porcelain dolls! Mom would LOVE her house. It's so cool. She's ridiculously good at it, too. So cool. The message we shared with them was one from President Uchtdorf about prayer and hope. It was a cute little animated video and the kids loved it! When we finished it they just kept saying "matta!" Meaning "again!" So we watched it again and asked them questions throughout it like "what did the mom do when she lost her kids?" And they yelled "INOTTA!" Or "prayed!" SO CUTE.

Michiko Shimai is still as cute as ever and is basically the best member missionary there has ever been. We have this other investigator and we meet her every Wednesday to read the Book of Mormon together and go through the Book of Mormon story book to help her understand it. She's so ready for this gospel! But we can't force her to do anything so right now we're happy to just read with her and listen to her🏻

We have been visiting a lot of less actives recently and let me just say, it is the absolute worst when you talk to people and can tell they have hard feelings about the church now because you know that they once knew it was true and had great experiences with it. But something happened. It breaks my heart. A lot of the less actives won't even just talk to us. I just want them to feel God's love!! And then there are less actives who don't want to be less active but their husband or family is against the church and in an effort to keep their family happy they don't come to church. That's just as heartbreaking. But it just makes me want to try harder to help them!

We went to a baptism in Hibarigaoka, the area next to Kichijoji, with Michiko Shimai and one of our investigators who is 17 years old and wants to be baptized so badly! She's just been super busy with school. School here is insane. Like I will NEVER raise my future children here because of school. Too much pressure. We'll stay in America🇺🇸 but yes, this investigator is the best! She got a CTR ring from some missionaries before us and she wears it every day. She also came to church yesterday and in young women's and Sunday school she had no problem testifying and I was just like "ahh yiiiiis". She's so great! After the baptism on Saturday we went to an Italian restaurant and the menu had Italian and Japanese.. so since I can't actually read Japanese I ordered based off of using my French from high school and comparing it to Italian. I'm a genius. Linguistic genius. (I was going to turn that into a pun about linguini but decided against it.)

The ward here in Kichijoji is the bomb. Last night we had dinner with the Honda kazoku and it was DELICIOUS. Oh my. So good. Dad, you'll be pleased to hear that I have eaten more mushrooms in one week in Japan than I have in my entire life before my mission. And I have yet to puke while eating them. Anywho, it was so good. They both went to BYU Hawaii and are fluent in English. That's always nice🏻 they also have two utterly adorable little kids and I almost took one home with me. His name is Ichigo Kun. SO CUTE.

Christmas time definitely makes ya home sick. But then you go out and you dendō and you forget about all the sadness you felt because you're just so happy serving people! At least that's how it is for me.. but the mornings and nights are kind of hard.. it just means I love y'all too much! 真実です！

次は聖句です。 Job 1:21, Job 5:17, Job 6:24, Job 11:15-18, 1 Nephi 18:16, 1 Nephi 22:25. Also, if you haven't yet, watch the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional! You can watch it on lds.org or read it on the gospel library app and please check out the #LightTheWorld campaign the church is doing!!

All is well with me. 全ては良いし。Everything is especially good because I found the peanut butter m&ms from mom and dad and that just makes everything good. I don't really know what else to tell y'all and I feel like I've already rambled long enough in this email so please have a lovely day and holla at me (email) if you have any other questions, concerns, comments, or complaints.

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛しています！！！

--フィッシュバーン姉妹

魚焼