I wore rain pants today.

Last Pday I went to my first Japanese festival!  It was at a Buddhist temple, and everyone's just walking around eating food. I wore a Japanese yukata, I'll send pictures later. 

Found a few potential investigators and one new investigator, Chihiro...who now has a baptismal date, but since we set that date we haven't been able to contact her.  We taught Diana, who's Chinese, after Eikaiwa and commited her to be baptized as well.  She's unsure at this point.  But we're working on her. :)

Eva is so ready to be baptized!  Eva is Ramos shimai's mom, she didn't want to take missionary lessons at all when we met her, but we decided we would just TEACH and invite the spirit, and that will change her heart....and it did!  She's getting baptized August 25th, maybe earlier :) We also have a baptism set for August 18th with Sekihara san's son, who's joined in on that last two of her lessons.  He was being taught by other missionaries, they called us yesterday and said he told them he has decided he will be baptized in Chiba ward on August 18th. We didn't set the date with him, but if he wants it then he can definitely have it. 

We've also recently started teaching the Yoshida family!  They're so great!  I'm excited for their growth as a family. :) (mom, dad, two little girls)

Today was "zone pday"  this morning.  We had a skills challenge and a water balloon fight. I thought it would start my day of great and my day would just stay great...and it was great til about 5 oclock when I didn't have a specific plan for the day.  I guess plans are important.  We had a lesson with a new investigator Shimizu san, 58-super nice.  She's protestant and was so excited and interested in the fact that this is Christ's "restored" church.  She has always thought about restoration and I feel like she's excited to keep studying with us. :)

Buhbyeeee,

Love,

Sister Bagley

Atsui desu ne? (It's hot, isn't it?)

This week was TOTEMO ATSUI!  Japanese summer is soooo hot!  It's probably really similar to home actually, I just never had to be outside in it for long periods of time without a swimming pool.  So we're using it as a good excuse to start a conversation with someone.  "Atsui desu ne?" Get's em everytime.  ;)

This past week felt really long looking back on it.  We had training at the mission home on Tuesday where I saw mostly everyone from my MTC district. Of course, it's always fun to see my mission buddies. :) Then once we got back to Inage we had a lesson with Sekihara, our self referral.  She's able to meet twice a week and has a baptismal date set up for August 11th!  We just need to make sure she keeps her commitments and reads and prays about the Book of Mormon so she'll be ready by that date. It's so exciting setting baptismal dates! 

Thursday I went on splits AGAIN....but this time I was the OLD missionary. Me and Sister Brumley (1st transfer missionary) set out to teach all of Chiba the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was such an amazing day for both of us! I think we learned so much because we were on our own and didn't have our trainers to help us out and be our crutch.  Sister Brumley and I taught an introduction lesson for a member referral, Yoshida san.  Our lesson was at a member's home, which made it a little easier, but we were able to set up another time to meet with her and she said she would come to church! Which she did come to church with her whole family! But it was seriously a miracle day.  We were all over the place on trains, had the wrong address, met a new gothic friend, invited a Muslim to church etc etc and now Sister Brumley and I just can't wait til we're companions in real life!

Chiba Stake has so much dendou fire right now!  Their goal is to have a temple in Chiba in 10 years! I love this soooo much! I know it's possible!  I'm excited to help start it off!  Saturday, Chiba Stake had a Stake Missionary Meeting where President Budge came and spoke about the vision of Chiba! I couldn't understand a lot of it, but I can feel how much the member's are wanting to do missionary work, and it's exciting! 

Also on Saturay we went out into the country to visit Ramos Shimai and her mom, Eva.  We taught Lesson one: the Restoration.  And commited Eva to be baptized...she said yes!  We haven't set a date with her yet, but she said that she thinks that Joseph Smith's experience was real and was so excited to get a Tagalog Book of Mormon :) 

Sunday we had dinner at the Stake President's home with Ramos Shimai, Eva Shimai, and Sekihara san.  Eva was telling the Stake President that she really wants to go to church in Narita ward (the area we were in Sunday) and he said that she could come if she got baptized. She responded so quick, it was surprising!  But she said she'd get baptized, and was being completely real about it.  She's an amazing woman, we haven't set a date with her yet, but are trying to see if it's possible for her to attend that ward.  I'm sure either way she'll be dressed in white sometime in August. 

Our goal is to have a baptism every week, and I'm thinking it's possible! I have faith! 

Glad everything at home is great, I pray for you every day!  I love you all sooooo much!!!!!

Love, Sister Bagley 

Watashi wa shukufuku sarete imasu!!!

:)　Chiba's amazing. Amen.  Hontonni, The area is just jam packed full of people waiting to hear to the gospel. I can feel the miracles!  Chiba ward has such dendou fire, I'm so stoked to start working more with them.

This week was so goooood and it ended the best way possible! With a baptism! :) During the week Ramos 姉妹 had her last lesson as an investigator of the gospel and we made takoyaki!  Tako: octopus yaki: flour, eggs, pickled ginger, and cabbage in little balls!  I have pictures, it was so good!  But anyway Ramos 姉妹　is soooo cute!  She already has big plans to convert her mom and her sister and help us teach lessons. She's so pumped to dendou with us.

Also this week I was area senpai two times!  One time Sister Jack came to Chiba while Sister Nagamine was at leadership training and we taught a lesson to Mei chan, our progressing investigator.  Our member joint was Sister Kinoshita, the Chiba ward Relief Society President.  She's a miracle worker, that woman has such a strong testimony.  The lesson went so well!  We committed Mei chan to be baptized and she said if she feels it, yes!  Now we just need to set a date and :) :) BINGO! The next day I went on splits with Taneda Shimai, who barely speaks any English. Which I guess should be normal since I'm in Japan and everything.  But it was a hard day.  It was a white day, so we didn't have any lessons to teach or plan for. So the whole day was finding time.  We found a couple potential investigators and some people who said they'd come to Eikaiwa. One 18 or so Japanese girl with her mom started waving at me because she thought I was so cute and said she'd come to Eikaiwa!  Yay gaijin powah! We worked diligently all day and felt like our hard work didn't result in much, then the chorotachi called and said they have THREE referrals for us, three Africa-jin!  We're teaching them today, they speak English...so I'm leading the lesson.  BUT SERIOUSLY, what a blessing!  I'm so excited!  African-jin are such kin-jin (golden investigators)!

We have three new investigators this week, and will have three more by the end of today!  It feels so gooooood.  Two were potential investigators last week, but we've contacted them again and they're interested enough to have us come back :) One of them is Kikue san, who comes from a long line of home-ec teachers, she's 85 and she makes kimonos and is going to let me try one sometime!  :) YESSS! She's adorable, she's like 4'9" ish...tiny. One other referral was a self referral...her son took discussions a few years ago and she remembered recently and decided to show up at church, she also was able to come to the baptism, which went soooooo well! 

I had my first baptism!  Being in Japan DOES NOT mean that I'm not going to see any baptisms. Japan is golden and ready to be harvested!  Sister Ramos has an amazing testimony and I'm so glad I could be a part of her conversion.  The spirit was so strong at her baptism, and so many members came!  Which was so great, we need to get them pumped for doing missionary work :) Chiba hasn't had any baptisms in a year, so this is a really great start!  Takusan Baputesumakai ga aru koto ga dekimasu!  Iki masho! :)

Hope you're all Genki!  I love you all sooo much! :)

 

Ai shiteru yo!!

Love, Sister Bagley

ChChChiba!

So right now we have two investigators, and one is getting baptized on Sunday!  Ja...we need to find people to teach!  We were planning on going to the zoo today with some other sisters in the mission, but it was pouring rain half the day (good rain!) so Sister Nagamine and I decided to do our original relax P-day (once again).  I haven't been keeping up with my "one photo a day" goal.  Oops! 

We met an obachan (grandma) after our mitsuketaikai (hand out flyers to find new investigators meeting) who invited us over to her house for breakfast! It was a real treat, Japanese breakfast isn't your normal breakfast. We had marinated vegetables and cookies. Right now she's just a potential investigator. 

Chiba ward is SO GREAT, about half the members seem to speak English, and everyone's so patient and kind! And I'm beginning to learn exactly HOW small the world is.  There are two families in Chiba ward that lived in Michigan for a couple years!  One of those families was in the Ann Arbor 1st ward about 8 months ago.  Say whaaa???  Anyway, the ward is so excited to have sister missionaries again (there's one companionship of elders already in the ward) and we're gonna start it off right with their first convert baptism in 8 months. :)

 

I love you all soooo much!!!!!

Transfers!

I got transferred to Chiba Ward, my companion is Sister Nagamine from Okinawa (I keep getting Okinawajin and it's great! My Japanese is going to be so Nihonjin-poi!) and we're white washing the area!!! So I got here on Monday, and we didn't have a phone or computer so we were roughin' it big time!  We already have an investigator, and she's getting baptized on the 7th!  Her name's Catherine and she's a referral from the Filipines. We taught her yesterday about living prophets and the ten commandments, she's so excited to be baptized!  I'm excited to have a baptism :)  We also met a girl on the train who we're going to try to have dinner with, hoping to have another investigator soon.  Since we're white-washing the area we need to do a lot of finding.  Luckily this is my companion's fourth white area.  So I'm in good hands. 

My last week in Abiko was really great, we found 7 new investigators!  From Eikaiwa and referrals.  The Abiko sisters are going to have a lot of teaching and I've learned a lot about finding investigators this past week, which is great.  I needed to see some finding miracles to know that I can open up a new area and be a successful missionary!  

I still need to move in my things, we've been cleaning all day...our apartment's full of old sister missionary junk.  It's super fun going through it all.  (I actually do kind of enjoy it.) I want to make my apartment so cute! It has so much potential! 

Last Post Of Transfer ONE!

Well I'm growing up, I'm almost a transfer two missionary!!!

Wednesday mornings we do a district Kubari, so we all get together at the Kashiwa train station/shopping center and hand out Eikaiwa flyers.  I met a girl named Mari, a Jehovah's Witness, and she was soooo sweet.  She even gave me candy AND her email address!!!  So we're going to keep in touch, and maybe teach a Jdub! :) 

At Eikaiwa there's a student who has a really big crush on me, and he says he loves me and runs away almost every week.  I usually just smile and ignore the fact he's saying anything. But this past week he just came up and tried to hug me out of nowhere!  I panicked! I didn't realize that in such a short time a hug from a male would be so scary! (he's like 20...by the way) Here's to hoping I won't be completely socially awkward when I come home.

Also I had cold-stone ice cream and a turkey sandwich on wheat bread.  I felt SO at home, it was great.  They don't sell turkey here at all...so I haven't been able to get my daily sandwich fix in for a while.

So here's something interesting about Japan:  We had zone meeting in Matsudo on thursday (about half an hour by train) and as we're stopped and people are getting on the train this punk guy gets on and accidentally gets his foot caught in some nerdy guy's bag and he starts kicking it around like a punk.  (you know the type).  Anyway the punk sits down next to the other man and the other man says something to him under his breath (probably like, what a jerk thanks for kicking my bag around the train...atually we're in Japan, so he probably apologized) I was nervous that the punk was gonna start chewing the nerdy guy out or something because the punk bumps his shoulder like "excuse me, what did you just say"! But then they're all the sudden friends and the punk is slapping the nerd's knee and sharing his mints.  Even when the punk's getting off, he pretty much trips out of the train because he's waving goodbye to his new pal. I was so confused. I wish I could have recorded it, it was so interesting.  Japan has no garbage, and no violence, and everyone's so friendly!  At least that's what it seems like! 

I did however get my helmet STOLEN yesterday, so Japan's not perfect I guess. 

Today I spent the morning in Tokyo and got to do a temple session. :) It was great, but sad because that was our LAST temple day as a mission before the split so we got a picture of the whole Tokyo Mission! 

The Power of A Principle: Just Gotta Be Toughness and More Cool

Welll hellooooo!   This week was a roller-caoster week at its finest.  Junko san and her daughter Ann chan said they would be baptised on Monday!  We had the date set for the 23rd of June and we were so excited!  Since then they've completely dropped us.  Junko has decided that our relationship is over and she doesn't need the church to be happy.  It was ironic timing.  We had a 3 zone conference and just as Budge Kaicho was asking how our investigators are doing and we're about to announce we have a baptismal date set, she sends us a text saying she doesn't want to meet anymore. :( I cried.  It's still so sad to think about it. So we've been working really hard to find new investigators. 

Sunday we had lunch at a member's home and they invited three friends over (and to church) they all have BOMs and we're seeing them again!  They're so cute, I can't remember their names but they're trendy girls in their 20s and were really interested in our message!  They're not in Abiko area, so we'll have to give them up eventually. But it's still good to have some investigators if even for a day.

In Japan some clothes have English writing on them, however the majority of them make NO SENSE AT ALL.  You'll see...also the title of this email is a good example.

 

Also today, we spent the majority of our afternoon at the doctor because Jack Shimai couldn't hear out of her left ear.  The doctor said it was clogged up with earwax. They pulled some random American man out of somewhere to be a translator and the doctor spoke pretty good English anyway.  She really did have a ton of earwax in there!  They pulled it out and she could hear again! TWas a Christmas miracle! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH!!!!! Ganbatte imasu! Invite Invite Invite!!!