What language do an American, Japanese, and Chinese choose to use when they talk?

This weeks kids eikaiwa picture

The answer to that question is Japanese, if you were wondering.

I think I'm losing my ability to think of funny things because I've just stared at my iPad for much too long trying to decide how to start this email.. PLEASE SEND HELP🆘

But don't fret, my love of emojis is still burning bright and true and has recently been strengthened by the new emojis apple added. What can I say, I love emojis🤷🏻‍♀️

This weeks honesty hour: I felt real useless this week. I've been trying really hard to not get so down about my Nihongo skills, or lack thereof, but this week it got to me. I made it almost two whole transfers, that's almost three months, without crying because of Nihongo. But that all went down the drain earlier this week. It's just a little hard to feel useful when you can't speak the language of the people you're supposed to be serving. But enough of my sad talk. Time to move on!

This week we got to watch the worldwide missionary broadcast from Salt Lake City and it was great! Seriously. It's always great when you get to receive some counsel from Apostles and other leaders in the church! They announced a new schedule for missionaries and some other changes that are definitely inspired but are definitely going to take some time to get used to. But all is well!

We met with my home girl Liさん again this week and I cannot express in words how much I love her! She is the best. She brought us Mister Donut and that wasn't even the best part! So as usual we helped her with her English and then taught her about Jesus Christ since last time she said she hadn't ever heard about Him. We taught super simply and the whole time she just kept saying "erai, ne?" Basically meaning
"wow, he's so righteous!" For never hearing about Christ before I think she took it all super well! And then we told her that the Book of Mormon was another testament of Christ and that through reading it she can come to know that Christ truly is our Savior. And she accepted it!! Yay!! I'm also super glad we randomly had a Chinese Book of Mormon in our apartment! She promised to read the introduction! Seriously so excited to see how things keep going with her!

Saturday night we celebrated Chinese New Year (shout out to my Chinese BFF, Liza Lin and the rest of the Lin family!) and it was way fun! We had a big dragon and everything! I'll see if I can get some pictures from the elders later to send next week! People from all over the mission came and we were expecting like 30 people but actually like 120 people came so yaaappieee! So fun!

Yuppppp. That was this week. Hope I didn't bore y'all too much.

I kind of failed at writing in my journal this week so I only have two scriptures from this past week to share with you all.. Alma 14:26 and Alma 17:13.

I hope you all have a lovely week and always remember you are loved by a missionary in Japan🎌

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.
愛しています！！！
--フィッシュバーン姉妹

Kawamitsu Shimai seems to like to take random pictures of me and
all I hear is "Fiishuban Shimai!" And then the camera noise.

すみません！！！

This weeks kids eikaiwa Fishburn Shimai

I wish I had some quick-witted way to start today's email but I'm honestly still debating whether or not I spelled "quick-witted" right so..

こんにちは！

Okay.

Here we go.

So last pday was zone pday and I had told you all that I would be participating in "Crystal Maze". Turns out "Crystal Maze" is like the British version of "Minute to Win It". 'Twas very enjoyable indeed. I also did like a trillion backward summersaults and the next morning my left hip hurt so bad and I was like "oh no. Oh no. This is not good. I'm losing everything I have ever worked for!". My heart was slightly broken because of this pain but whatever.

After our adventure that was "Crystal Maze" Kawamitsu Shimai and I rushed back to Kichijoji to have a lesson with Kanokoちゃん. She has been meeting with the missionaries since like July, I think, and she wants to be baptized sooo bad but every time it gets close to her being baptized she ends up having a test in school or gets really busy some other way so she hasn't been able to be baptized yet. But Kawamitsu Shimai and I felt like we needed to invite her to be baptized on February 5th so that's what we did! And she said yes! And then she said "I can meet tomorrow and Thursday, too!" What!? People never want to meet with us more than once a week! We were so excited! But Kawamitsu Shimai was in Hibarigaoka for splits on Tuesday so I taught the lesson that day with Hartshorn Shimai about Joseph Smith and his role in the restoration of this wonderful gospel! Don't fret, Kanokoちゃん is fluent in English so it wasn't a complete disaster. But then she got sick and couldn't meet with us on Thursday or come to church yesterday😔 but we are not giving up hope! She wants to be baptized so bad and we want to help her get there! She's great.
Honestly.

Last week during eikaiwa a student asked Kawamitsu Shimai to make him a "how to pray in English" book and we were like "yaaaaaay!!!! Of course we'll teach you how to pray in english!" So she gave it to him this week and then two more students were like "oh, that's cool! I want one!" And they took pictures of it and were so excited. OUR eikaiwa students are the best. Really. Don't believe me? Well. Another one of our students came up to us and asked us if we could do the Free Family English Program with her. The FFEP is where we do eikaiwa for 30 minutes and then teach a gospel principle for 30 minutes. YAAAAAS. She is so cute. So cute. Her name is Liさん and she's from China and just got married! She is so great! We met with her on Thursday and it was SO COOL, Y'ALL. We helped her with pronunciation for another class she's taking right now and then we taught her about prayer and the Spirit and ohhh myyyy goodness. The Spirit was so strong and she told us she felt "a warm feeling" in her heart and we were like "that's the Spirit!!" SUCH A GOOD LESSON. This was also the first time she had heard about Jesus Christ which blows my mind but I love being able to be apart of learning about their Savior for the first time. It's the best!! I love Liさん😊

This week was a full one and I won't bore you with all of the details but I will say that I love being a missionary even though it is one of the hardest things I have ever done. It pushes me every day and has taught me that I really don't know myself as much as I thought I did. It's humbled me big time, too. That's one thing I've noticed about serving here in Japan. Whether it be from talking to people who served in Japan before my mission or hearing stories about them or talking to missionaries here, the common theme I've noticed is humility. The Lord sends those who need a big dose of humility to Japan. So here I am, trying to take it all in stride and grow closer to my Savior and Heavenly Father as They cut me down a bit so that I can grow higher
than I was before.

Scripturesssss🎉
Mosiah 25:10, Alma 1:25, Alma 2:28, Alma 5:60, Alma 7:16

Also, yesterday (Sunday) was my 7 month mark. SEVEN MONTHS, Y'ALL. What the even..? So weird!!

As always, I love you all so very much and I hope you have a lovely week!
愛しています！！！

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

Saito Yuri 姉妹 and her boyfriend. I love her!

Always giving people heart attacks

Waiting for the kinjin to walk through the doors of
the church and into the waters of baptism.

Humble Pie is good for the.. Missionary?

This weeks "Sister Fishburn" picture for ya

It's that time of the week again! You're favorite day, I know. P-Day! But I think we both wish that stood for "Pay day" instead of "preparation day" but I'll take it for now.

I'm currently writing this on a bus from Kichijoji to Hōya eki (station) to go to the Hibarigaoka church for zone p-day where we will be participating in something the locals call "crystal maze". And by locals I mean our zone leader who is from England and won't tell us anything about it other than we get to wear pants so I'm slightly frustrated (because we all know how much I love surprises) but mostly pumped to wear my jeans again. I'll have to let y'all know next week what "crystal maze" is.

This week was kind of boring.. we didn't have a ton of planned lessons so we just did a lot of trying to visit less actives and streeting with some kubari thrown in there. I think Kawamitsu Shimai and I are cursed because every time we go to visit a less active they either aren't home or we cannot find the address. Ever. But at least we're
trying, right?

We had a lesson this week with an investigator and I was handed a piece of humble pie. She is just real confusing, let me start with that. She doesn't like gaikokujin because she likes literally every word she says to be understood so I always get the feeling she doesn't like me much because, well, I'm a gaikokujin.. so I don't really talk in her lessons. Then at the end of our lesson with her on Wednesday she was talking to Kawamitsu Shimai (she thinks I can't understand anything so she just acts like I'm not there most of the time) and she said "you know, she doesn't talk much but her smile lets me know she cares". Well. I guess I needed to take a step back and try harder to see her through the eyes of our Heavenly Father because that hit me like a ton of bricks. Basically I need to love people more unconditionally and try harder at most things. So yes, I've been praying to be more humble and I will be the first to say that the Lord answers our prayers, folks.

I recently (like within the last 40 minutes) purchased a drink that reminds me of Naked and it makes me real happy. Because I'm sure you all wanted to know that. It's called "Shine & Shine" and is made in Hong Kong. I didn't realize how much I missed drinking Naked until I took my first sip of this drink hahaha but all is well because it's delicious.

I want to say thank you to everyone for everything. The amount of love that I feel from home and many other places is crazy! Thank you for your prayers and your emails and your thoughts and everything. Everyone is amazing! I'm clearly real good with words but yes, much appreciating coming from over here.

Now it's time for some spiritually uplifting scriptures!🎉
Mosiah 11:19, Mosiah 16:8-9, Luke 17:32, Luke 18:27, 42

I love you all and think you're the bees knees!

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.
愛しています！！！

--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

This is what happens when we decide to
play with the photo booth app.

I cried after taking this picture😂

She is a "real ninja"

Hello.. it's me.

According to a few of the elders here in Kichijoji, I look just like Adele so there's that.

Also, I have passed my 200th day as "フィッシュバーン姉妹" and my mind is blown and terrified at the same time. Wait what..?

This week has seemed soooo long and I don't know why. It's just most definitely been one of the longest weeks of my mission. SO LONG. But it's over now and we have begun a new week and all is well in Zion (or I guess in the Land of the Raising Sun🎌).

This week also feels like it was pretty uneventful..

Fun fact: I've said the prayer at our English class the last three weeks in a row and I'm just waiting for the heavenly blessing to come pouring down now. I also kind of want to make it an even four weeks. I mean, there are 9 missionaries in Kichijoji, what are the odds that I say the prayer three weeks in a row!? It's all good, though, I have
slowly conquered my fear of praying in front of people🎉

Funny story of the week: so. Thursday night I went on splits to Hibarigaoka with the always lovely Dowell Shimai (she's my new sister training leader because Casteñeda Shimai transferred to Hachioji). Dowell Shimai is just great and I love her and she's one tough cookie, let me tell ya that. Anywho, it takes a good 50 minutes to get to Hibarigaoka from Kichijoji by bus and then train and we were literally feet away from the apartment when she turns to me and says "did Hartshorn Shimai give you the keys?" To which I responded "the keys to YOUR apartment? No.." At this point all we could think to do was go eat overpriced sushi (by over priced I mean a plate wasn't ¥100 so yeah, we were real fancy for paying ¥185 for a plate of sushi). While we ate our overpriced sushi we hopped that a Hibarigaoka investigator that always goes to Kichijoji for sports night on Thursday would be willing to bring us back the keys because if we went and got them we would not have made it back in time for curfew. Good news: the investigator was willing to do it. Bad news: she said she wouldn't be
back till late. So we did what any 19 and 20 year old girls would do when living in Japan and don't have keys to their apartment; we walked back to the apartment to see if we could break in. We had much faith in ourselves however, the fact that the apartment is on the third floor and has absolutely no way of getting to the balcony kind of crushed that idea (we later found out the balcony door was locked anyway). Sooo we did the call of shame. We called Sister Warnick. She just laughed and said "this happens all the time! Wait, wasn't it Hartshorn Shimai last time, too!?" Girl has a reputation.  But I still love her. Sister Warnick, being the beautiful human she is, had the office elders drive the keys over because it's like a 10 minute drive. So we didn't end up having a slumber party in the church (I'm actually really sad about that) but we got to sleep in beds so I mean there are pros and cons to every situation.

On Friday I got to teach a lesson with Dowell Shimai to their investigator and that woman is ready for this gospel. She is just amazing and I will forever be jealous she isn't my investigator. She's adorable, too. It's also amazing to me how when I focus on those who I'm teaching and not on how wrong my Nihongo is, I'm more inclined to speak up and although it's still awful, my Nihongo isn't as bad as it usually is. Basically the gift of tongues is real, folks.

Not a super exciting week.. just another normal week in the life of Sister Fishburn..

Scripture time🎉
Mosiah 1:6, Mosiah 4:2, Mosiah 5:12, Isaiah 53.

I hope y'all watched the video I talked about last week! If you didn't, shame on you. Go watch it.

Well, I love you all!

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛しています！！！
--フィッシュバーン姉妹

I made some #DHP paper cranes because once a dart, always a dart
and when you find gold origami paper, you have to make cranes
representing good ole Davis High School.

I had a little bit of a cold when we had kids English class so
Kawamitsu Shimai made me wear a mask and
this is what she drew this week.

New Year, same old (bad) jokes🎉

Kawamitsu Shimai drew me again so you get another picture.

New Years resolution: never use a fork this year. That's only half a joke because I ate rice today with a fork and it was much harder than eating rice with chopsticks. It's also easier to eat salad with chopsticks. Basically, I've been in Japan for too long and chopsticks now hold a special place in my heart (that's kind of a pun and yes, after I typed it I giggled to myself). 

This weeks dendō was kind of lame. New Years is a huge holiday here in Japan and they spend it all inside with their families so talking to people and trying to get them to meet is basically impossible. So yeah, not a lot happened this week.. ごめんなさい。

On Thursday we helped clean the church because they do what they call oosouji, or the biggest clean, to prepare for the new year. So we helped the members clean the church and then since Kichijoji has the best members ever, we had a BBQ after and it was delicious. We were supposed to have sports night after the BBQ but no one showed up so it was basically a ward sports night. Lots of fun! Plus I got to wear jeans most of the day on Thursday so I was REAL happy. I miss jeans.. 

On Saturday we did oosouji for our apartment and spent literally all day cleaning. So much garbage was collected. So much. But our apartment is now very clean and very organized and I am very happy about that. We also went to bed at approximately 11:52 because we tried to pillow talk long enough to tell each other happy new year but as missionaries, when you get tired, you get real tired. So we gave up and fell asleep like 2 minutes later haha. Happy New Year!

On Sunday since dendō would have been basically impossible, President Warnick asked all of us to have a personal study day and gave us different things to study. Basically all we did all day was go to church, read the Book of Mormon and other church affiliated documents, and eat. But hey, I quite enjoyed it and thought it was a lovely day and I high recommend everyone taking time to study just for themselves. 'Twas wonderful, indeed. 

Ohhhkay. Now the good stuff. Saturday morning, while waiting for people to show up to kids English class, which no one did, Kawamitsu Shimai downloaded a video from gospel library. So during lunch we watched it. During the whole thing we just sat there silently watching and trying to take it all in. This video was amazing. At the end we stayed very quiet and then looked at each other with faces of just complete awe. The video is called The Hope of God's Light (6:46) and I really hope this link works because I want everyone to watch it. If the link doesn't work, please find it on lds.org or on the gospel library app. It has the power to change lives. Maybe it's because I'm trying to serve people in a country where the idea of God is as foreign as it gets for them, even more foreign than I am, and this video is about a man finding God but wow, I love this video. We have watched it easily 150 times since Saturday. It's so good and amazing and wonderful and fantastic and ridiculously powerful and oh my goodness I could go on forever about it but I won't. Please watch it.

Well. That was my week, folks. I hope all is well in the land of wherever it is you are reading this from. Always remember I love you almost as much as our big brother, Jesus, does

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛してます！

--フィッシュバーン姉妹

We found a creepy apartment building so I
had to try and make it even creepier.

On the top floor of the creepy apartment building
you could see Fuji San!

FUJI SAN

This is a lovely park we like to go streeting at by our apartment.
This spot kind of reminds me of the creek.