Once upon a time...✨

In a land far, far away I was walking down the street and I thought to myself "can you even imagine how crazy it would be to live in Asia!?" And then a few seconds later I thought "wait a minute.." and then I had that "you're an idiot" moment. This is my life.

I have given up on the whole "time" thing as a missionary. It just makes no sense. None.

Speaking of time, I hit 10 months on Saturday and that's just gross.

I got to go to Kofu again! It was much fun. Very much fun. I'm not even joking right now. I was with Cranston Shimai, she's a bean chan from California with a fire testimony. We had a white day, meaning no plans at all, so we were kind of just like "uhh.. what do we do?" So we had planned to do streeting, housing, and passing out fliers for eikaiwa but for some reason we ended up streeting for like 4 hours. Yup. And I strongly dislike streeting because I am so bad. So bad. Buuuut bean chan power pulled through and Cranston Shimai stopped a ton of people and we were able to get a good rhythm of her starting the conversation or stopping people and me keeping it going and somehow connecting it to the gospel and then she always stepped up to the plate and testified like a mad woman. We got to see so many miracles and talk to a lot of slightly strange people but it was good! We also did housing for like 20 minutes after we talked to this nice old lady who kindly invited us over for tea but we sadly weren't able to go. But she said we could come back and visit her and even walked us to her house so we could know where she lived! She was so cute. Her name was Yoshii San. I like Yoshii San. Yes, good time in Kofu.

I found turtles in Kofu🎉😊🤗

And we didn't leave the mission this time so that's always a plus. But we did manage to not have a phone because both senior companions were in Hachioji and we never got the Kofu phone from them before they got on the train to go to Kofu.. but that's okay because we didn't need it. We don't need to talk to people on the phone. Who does that? Not us! Okay, I'm done rambling about Kofu now.

I don't even know what to say about this week.

It was crazy busy.

We committed an investigator to a baptismal month! Yes, a month. Not a day yet but we are working on it and we're hoping for a day in June😊 We also got to meet with a referral from the sisters in Nakano in the Tokyo mission. She lives in Takao now and used to go all the way to Nakano (like 45 minutes by train) to meet with the sisters there but she decided she can't do that anymore so they reassigned her to us. She's super cute and basically just testified the entire time we talked with her so we have lots of hope for her😊

I don't exactly know how but we managed to have nine lessons this week and visit a reassignment from the elders. That may not seem like a lot for other missions and other parts of the world but it's a lot here and we were definitely blessed. But starting this Saturday is a week full of holidays that they call "Golden Week" so people may not be able to meet with us for that time so that could be a bummer but that just gives us more time to find new people to meet with!  Gotta look on the bright side and find new opportunities, yo🤘🏻

So many things happened this week. I don't even know what else to say.

Oh. We had a bomb meal with the Tsukada couple. They're the bishops wife's parents so the bishop, his wife, and their 5 daughters all come and then all the Hachioji missionaries come and anyone is welcomed so a few other members come and we try and bring investigators. It's always delicious and so fun. We always play the same game at the end and I won't describe it but please just know that I do my best but I am still awful at it. I get all flustered.. #sasuga

Well, before I leave I'd like to try and give ya some good scriptures to read. Right now I'm focusing on the topic of "charity and love" in the Book of Mormon so some of these scriptures may seem random but I promise if ya try hard enough you can connect them to love💕 1Nephi 18:16, 1 Nephi 19:9, 1 Nephi 22:8, 2 Nephi 1:15, 2 Nephi 2:6

Okay. Now I must go. I love you all sooooo much and I can't wait to skype you in 20 days!!!!
AHHHHH!!!!

Love you!!

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛しています💕
--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

The beautiful Cranston Shimai and I walking the
streets of the thriving metropolis of Kofu

Here's a picture of a dying Sakura tree to represent my mothers
dying dream of ever getting a pretty picture of sakuras from me😬

Windy selfie with the Sakura

Moral of the story: pay attention to stops on the train🤦🏻‍♀️

Yup. I went to the Nagoya mission. 'Twas slightly sketch and I much prefer the Tokyo South mission but was a grand time.

Why did I go to the Nagoya mission? Oh, I'll tell you because I'm sure you're all just dying to know. So. On Thursday we had Zone conference and then I went to Kofu with Castañeda Shimai on splits. Kofu is the last area in our mission before the Nagoya mission. It takes approximately two hours by train to get to Kofu from Hachiōji and Castañeda Shimai and I were like half awake and talking and half dead. So we ride and ride and then we hear "Anayama" as the next station and she was like "I've never heard of this station before. Shoooot. Did we pass Kofu!?" So we ask the cute girl next to us which way Kofu was and sure enough, it was back the way we came. So we got off in Anayama and go look at a train map. We were 5 stations away from Kofu 🤦🏻‍♀️ but the good news is we were only two stations outside of the Kofu area so not too bad, right?😕 but we just laughed and said a prayer of repentance that night haha yup. That happened.



In other news, we have a working washer and stove now!!! Yay!!! All thanks to the help of the elders and wonderful members here in Hachioji! Yay! We made our first real meal last night in our apartment and we both were close to tears. It was a beautiful experience.

We had another lesson with an investigator and it was so good! We had dinner and baked cookies while we talked about what our "promise land" would be and how if we follow Christ and keep the commandments we will have our "promise land" and God will bless us more than we could ever imagine! She really liked that😊 she also has started reading the Book of Mormon and I think she can see the difference it's making in her life. She told us "I'm sorry I'm so happy and in such a good mood!" And we were like "uh.. why are you apologizing for that..?" Then she said *drumroll please* "I don't know. But I think I'm so happy because of God". YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS🎉😭😊 so good. SO GOOD.

Splits in Kofu was way fun. We biked A TON and I was slightly really worried about that but all was well and I'm in one peace. #blessed. Kofu is insanely beautiful and if you didn't have to bike an hour and a half to visit people every day I would love to transfer there buuuut yeah.. probably wouldn't be good. But splits for a day is still good😊

Fun fact: I have been a missionary for 300 days. What? Yup. THREE HUNDRED DAYS. Weird.

Since the Takao area doesn't have Sister missionaries the Hachioji sisters are in charge of the Takao area and on Saturday we got to go on member splits in Takao and work there for a few hours. No one really had any interest but it was good to go out and do what we could with the members to try and help the area. It was a good day!

I hope every one has had/is having a great Easter Sunday! If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend taking two minutes to watch the new Easter video the church made "Prince of Peace". SO GOOD. We show it to everyone and watch it like five times a day on our own haha. I love how the church comes out with new videos for Christmas and Easter to help us remember our Savior and what He has done for us. Whenever I think about the Atonement I get completely overwhelmed. Just the amount of love that He has for us is incomprehensible. And then you think about everything else and it is simply amazing. He is amazing. I don't know if y'all know this but I love Jesus. And I'm so grateful for the knowledge that I have that because of His sacrifice and His resurrection we can all live again. Isn't that just the coolest!? I think it is. #missionarylife

Yes. This week instead of sharing scriptures I'm just going to ask you to watch the "Prince of Peace" video. That is my most humble suggestion for this week. Please consider it and I thank you in advance for your participation.

Weeeeell that's probably it for the week. Sorry, I got to distracted by how pretty the cherry blossoms were and never took a picture and now they're dying so please forgive me for my mistakes.. if I see any that are still semi okay, I'll snap a few pictures for ya! But there aren't a lot in Hachioji.. so sad, right!?

Anywho, I've rambled for long enough. I hope you all have a wonderful week and always remember how loved you are!!

Love you!


Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛しています💕
--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

Temple pday

I was studying and all the sudden I hear a camera noise and
Castañeda Shimai says "you looked so cute so I took a picture"

Swim Party in Apartment 401🏊🏻‍♀️

I know what you're all thinking, "um.. Sister Fishburn, you're a missionary and missionaries aren't supposed to go swimming". Well, there seems to be an exception to that rule when your new apartment floods.

Yup. That happened. Sunday night. Hernández Shimai was washing some clothes because she didn't have any clean ones and our pday wasn't Monday this week so she needed clean clothes! And then I got out of the shower and was like "oh, no! The shower leaks!" Nope. The washer's drain wasn't connected right (and by right I mean wasn't at all connected and still isn't..) so water went from the washer into two of the three rooms of our apartment. But we cleaned it up in a solid 15 minutes and then called it quits and went to bed because the office elders never answered our calls so we couldn't really do anything else about it. We also haven't actually cooked anything in our new apartment because our stove isn't connected to the gas. Lame, I know. This new apartment has been quite the adventure and it hasn't even been a full week!

We were able to have members come to two of our lessons this week which we were super happy about because the members and the investigators became friends and that's always a 👍🏻

Moving day was craaaaazy. We started at about 1:30 and we didn't finish getting everything in a way we could semi live in until about 9:40. It also probably didn't help that we had to leave to teach kids English class and normal English class so for some time it was just the Morgan's, a couple serving at one of the bases here, trying to get everything done for us. But we did it! I mean, other than the fact that we can't cook anything or wash our clothes right now..

Last Monday we had a zone blitz in Hachioji and Castañeda Shimai and I were on splits and found the cutest girl ever. She was adorable. She was walking on the street and we both felt like we should stop her because she looked kind of sad.. so we did. And she just kept telling us how happy she was we stopped her and how she wanted to be our friend! Yaaaas! So we gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet and set up an appointment for Thursday night. But sadly she didn't show up😭 I think she probably told her mom and her mom didn't let her come. No matter what the reason I'm really sad we weren't able to meet with her again and I hope one day she gets another opportunity to meet with us or other missionaries! Because she was so excited about what we were telling her and I just want her to have this same happiness.

Conference was so good, y'all. So good. I feel like there were quite a few talks emphasizing recognizing the spirit and acting upon promptings from it. As a missionary I think this is very important. Pay attention to the spirit, y'all!!! One that really stuck out to me was "Our Good Shepherd" by Elder Dale G. Renlund. That was real good. Please read it if you haven't or didn't have the chance to watch conference.

I hope you all have a great week and know how much you are loved by a missionary in Japan!

Love you!

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

愛しています💕
--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

Zone pday last week. We played soccer, football, and ultimate frisbee in the rain and I was in heaven. Kept flashing back to those days of rainy softball games. SO FUN.

Our super cute investigator. We teach her
English and then do gospel lessons. She's the best.

I think I'm literally killing Hernández Shimai😬

I'm seriously breaking her. Poor girl keeps telling me how something new hurts every day because of all the walking we do.. oops.. my bad..but then I tell her "that just means we're working hard!" So I feel bad that she's in pain but like gotta dendō so.. but don't worry, I'm
taking care of her!

This week we have been running around like mad women. Seriously. We got a call on Tuesday saying we were going to move on Friday so we had to get everything all figured out and as we were doing that we got another call saying that we couldn't actually move yet so not to worry about it for a week or two. Cool. Then on Friday morning we got another call saying we're moving on Wednesday. Goodness! So we've been trying to pack up the apartment and still find time to go spread this wonderful gospel and oh my golly. I'm exhausted. But it's okay! The good news is our new apartment is right around the corner from the church instead of a fifteen minute walk from the church so that will be waaaay nice.

We had some good lessons this week! It just kinda makes me sad because they're all half English, half gospel lessons and a lot of people only listen to the gospel part so that they can practice their English with Americans and they don't really have any real interest in anything other than that. BUT we are trying and we are softening their hearts through service! One day they'll realize they really need this gospel in their lives😊

One of the half English lessons we had was with an investigator that is seriously so cute. And if I can look like her when I'm 32, I'll be happy. But, anywho. We had mentioned the gospel of Jesus Christ and the 5 steps that are apart of it in our last lesson but didn't really
talk about them too much so we decided to teach her it on Saturday. We went through and explained each step (faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). When we talked about baptism I was supposed to ask her if when she feels that what we're teaching her is true and when she receives an answer to her prayers will she get baptized but I just didn't feel good about it then. So I didn't ask. I probably felt that way because she used the word "fushigi" to describe baptism.. look it up. So yeah, didn't feel like it was the right moment. We continued on with the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end and promised lots of blessings and good things from following Christ and His gospel and then at the end I felt like I needed to ask her. So I did. And at first she was like "now?" So we laughed and told her not now but when she knows it's true. And what did she say? "Shinjiteiru yo" meaning "I believe it!". Wait. What? My heart literally jumped in my chest (wow, I'm such a missionary). Not even joking. She was just so "well duh I believe it. It's true" and it made me so happy. So happy. We're hoping to set an actual date for her to be baptized during our next lesson on Friday. She always tells us how happy members and missionaries always seem happy and I want her to have that happiness so bad! She deserves to be happy! So yes. She is great.

Can I just say how sad it makes me when we try to talk to people about Christ and they tell me "キリストダメ" meaning "Christ is bad". A lady said it to me yesterday while we were housing and I think in that moment I've never felt so heart broken. And not for me but for her because she has no idea what He has done for her. This is why we send out missionaries. She may not have listened to me but one day she will know how wonderful He is.

Scriptures with a little spiritual thought for your soul☺️ Ether 12:20, Moroni 6:8, "I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casters out all fear." -Moroni 8:16. Fear destroys faith. It is the exact opposite of faith. But because of the love of our Savior and Father in Heaven, we can overcome all fear and continue on in "a perfect brightness of hope". Isn't that just so cool!? I mean, I think it is..

Well. I love you all dearly and I hope you have a great week!!

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay sassy.

LOVE YOU!!
愛しています💕

--フィッシュバーン姉妹🐟🔥

The first Hachiōji district pic✌🏻 (plus our zone leaders from Takao)

The difference between a Mexican and an American.
She eats sweet salsa with apples and I eat peanut butter.