Erika's Weekly Letter

For those family and friends that do not get Erika's email forwarded to them, here is her letter from this past week. She is having a great mission Sapporo, Japan.

Alrighty dear family and friends,
I LOVE missionary work. Anyway last week our Key Indicators weren't all that great. We had quite a few lessons when we were teaching Mio and Ueda-san, but since they got baptized, our
'investigators to church' and 'lessons' went down. Well, of course it's common sense, but it was quite sad. We were eager to reach our goals, and find NEW people to teach. We had made a ton of appointments, but a lot of them fell through and got cancelled or were no shows, and I just started to feel so down. But, Monday and Tuesday of this week were great. Some of the appointments we had made last week came through this week and things have been wonderful. It's so great how the Lord ALWAYS provides. We got a new investigator on Monday. Her name is Tazuko. She has 2 children, one is 8 and one is 6 and they both attended the lesson. They come to Eikaiwa (English Conversation class) each week, and when the Elders did interviews, they set up the appointment for us. We taught her about the restoration, and she had many questions. She still hasn't accepted everything 100%, but we are hopeful of the future with her.
Tuesday we taught a girl, named Kotomi. She is 17 years old. She seemed pretty golden when we met her (coincidence, but we met her in the exact SAME place we met MIO). We made an appointment, and on Monday followed up to see if it was still on. She said yes, and we taught her lesson one yesterday. We had done our Baptism intro, and throughout the lesson, continually referred to baptism: when talking about Jesus Christ, or how and when the church was restored
the correct way, etc. Saito Shimai and I had decided on August 29 before leaving the apartment that morning as the day we wanted to challenge her for, but it was hard to bring it up naturally. As we were teaching, and almost finishing up, I felt that I needed to invite her to baptism, even if it seemed a little awkward timing. We asked her, "if you pray and this is true, will you follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized?" She answered a simple, "yes." We then talked with her how we thought that as a goal August 29 would be good, and she agreed. She currently is attending a christian school, and wants to go to a christian college. Seriously just a wonderful girl.
Anyway, because she is a minor, we do need permission before teaching her again, we asked her if her parents would have a problem with it and it seems like they probably won't. We asked her to ask her parents and she said she would. Her mother apparently Loves Christianity, and lives in Nishi-ku (Kotoni area, where I was 2 transfers ago) and she lives here with her dad and Sister. Her sister is 21, and has a bible, because she went to the christian school too. Anyway it's just so great. We will get her whole family baptized! =) haha
Anyway We are looking forward to teaching these two new investigators, and finding more! The Lord is truly blessing us, and this blessed area, Asahikawa. I absolutely love it here. As for today, the Zone Leaders are gone at Zone Leader Council, so we decided to have a Girls' Pday. We are meeting Mio, and Kotomi, and going shopping, it should be a blast.
Thank you so much for all of your love and support. I love you all.

Sister Erika McIntyre