happy

fam and friends--

GOOD WEEK EH?? did you have a good week? cuz we had a sweet week here in good ol Toyama. Mom I hope you are stoked to read this email cuz RURI IS THE BEST!

Okay so Ruri. ...We went to her restaurant on Friday but she had already left. We called her and she said we could visit her at her house the next day! FINALLY we got to visit at her home. Going out to eat was fun with her but the setting is hard to really talk about ..you know..the gospel haha. She lives in a mansion...like a really nice apartment...(did you call them mansions?) and she gave us yummy dessert that her daughter had made. We just laughed and laughed and talked together for a long time. I showed her more pics- she kept saying that mom looked like a model! She said you could be famous cuz youre so beautiful! She showed me pics of her family and her mom. I was looking at a picture of her mom in america..and she was in Grandma and Grandpa wilcoxs HOUSE!! It was crazy!! We freaked out hahah we were screaming it was hilarious. SMALL WORLD. Anyway, SHE started asking us questions about the gospel, i love that about her. she is so open and will ask us anything. We talked for a long time about plan of salvation. After we prayed with her before we left, she put her hands on her shoulders and said she felt warm and has the chills! She said `hisashiburi` (it has been a long time since I felt this way). AHHHHH we left and Mineta Shimai and i were hugging each other and jumping up and down. I was so so happy. MOM is this not the coolest thing??! Then she came out of her house saying `Wilcox! Wilcox!`...handed me my scarf. that was awk as me and mineta were freaking out haha. THEN she came to Mochi kai this morning! She brought her friends` two daughters that we went out to dinner with before. It was so fun. We pounded that rice together...good memories. Sooooooo she is officially one of our investigators now and i couldnt be happier. I KNOW Heavenly Father has a special plan for her. I am so glad Mom and I get to be apart of it. Mom--she said that it was a miracle from God that we met. Write her a letter-you won:t regret it.

This week we also had Sisters conference! It was so fun. A Japanese lady that served a mission came and spoke to us. Her goal was 1000 baptisms on her mission, and she baptized almost 50 people every month! She was a stellar missionary. I learned so much from her. We had an incredible testimony meeting. It was girls camp x10. SO GOOD. I was wishing our investigators could have been there. the spirit was undeniable and beautiful. The plan of happiness is real. This earth is not our home. We have been sent here at this time for a special purpose. find your purpose. You each have qualities of our Heavenly parents. Every good thing comes from them. Magnify those talents and qualities, make the most of this precious time that we have to prove ourselves and grow closer to Him. I have been working on developing gratitude for the Saviors atonement. Only through Him can we make our goal and return to our Heavenly Home. I love you guys. Have a great week, have a prayer in your heart and walk the straight and narrow path. Its the only way to go!

LOVE YOU!
Love, Sister Wilcox

Sister Yamashita

SOAKED and STOKED

WOW what a crazy week you all had! I am praying for grandpa. My heart aches for Grandma and Mom-- me and shay both agree it would be the hardest thing to go through that. Sending my love and prayers to you grandma and grandpa. I love you I love you I love you!

So happy for Melina and Steven! My aunties are all getting old and married off! Crazy. Time is FLYING. Parks and Jar your new years sounded sweet! Fun fam memories.

So 2015 IS GOING TO BE THE BEST....I will be a missionary for the entire year! So exciting! I have been studying and deciding what my new years resolutions will be. ...honestly..im still studying and trying to decide. haha its like this HUGE deal among the japan nagoya missionaries so...ill get back to you on that. :)

This week was a little different than most weeks here on the mish. Christmas dendo was sooo fun. New Years dendo was...not dendo. ha We had member appointments for lunch AND dinner almost everyday this week! Very nice and very fun...but WOW stomach ache for days. After eating more than what is comfortable for lunch, we go eat MORE 3 hours later. It was awful to be honest haha. But we had some special experiences with members- i learn so much from their diligent examples.
One night we went to the Fujii`s. They are an old couple in the ward, i call her Okaasan- she and i had a special bond from the first time we met. I love her! She gives me the sweetest hugs and makes sure we are happy and warm. She knows that nashi is my fav and gave us some for New Years. Anyway, during our lesson with them, we started talking about life after death. In the middle of our lesson he piped in and said I am so excited to die! And then went off about how he is excited to be a missionary in heaven, and to see Heavenly Father and Christ again and to live with his family forever. That really made me think. How sweet is that? To know that you are worthy and ready to live in Gods presence, to be so excited for the next life. ..great motivation to live up to our full potential here on earth.

Mineta Shimai fell on her bike earlier this week. She messed up her knee pretty bad and we havent been able to ride our bikes. Yesterday, we wanted to visit a PI and visit Yuu chan--we havent seen her forever! So despite her pain, we were able to ride our bikes. I felt bad for her, I think she was hurting but also it was so nice to be outside dendo^ing again! Member lessons are nice but i missed inv. dendo sooooo bad!!! It was pouring rain but I was so happy to be out on the Lords errand again. Singing efy songs while riding my bike and talking to people on the street is my fav! Truly SOAKED but STOKED to be doing dendo. :)

I hope you have a great week. Have fun at school. Study hard. Be GOOD. Keep your standards high. `You survived the war in heaven; you can win the war on earth! Do not live for the moment but rather for the eternity.` Remember who you are and stay true to yourself. Dont let Satan win ANY battle. We can be strong together! The Lord knows our struggles and asks us to trust Him. I know He will. I know He does.

Love love love you!
Sister Wilcox

ps...atarashii dendobukaicho waaaaaaaaaaaa President Ishii desu! He is a member in one of the wards in our mission!
pss...MOM im in love with the stuff you sent! Thank you sooo much! Ive decorated our apt with everything you sent. LOVE IT feels like home. The scripture case you made is so cute!! I was so sad it is too small for my scriptures. :( But i put it on my journal that shaylee gave me. love it. thank you!

love

Fam--

This week was crazy good. Hey remember when we skyped? FUN RIGHT?? Lets do that again. How about in 6ish months?? Okay sounds gooood, looking forward to it.

Im so glad everyone had such a good christmas. I LOVED Christmas this year. It was definitely different, and I definitely missed christmas together, but focusing on others this year was a special experience. As i was strengthening my relationship with Christ and Father in Heaven, I hope i was able to help others feel their love as well. I was sooo glad that we visited Ruri. After her moms funeral, I have been thinking about her a lot. And i think that quick stop really made her spirit a little bit brighter. Mom--Dont worry about the funeral being on pday!! we have plenty of pdays and that experience was worth 100 pdays.

This week was my favorite dendo week. We met so many awesome people. We visited Lanie, one of our investigators from the Philippines. She seemed stressed about working on christmas and by the time we left, she had a smile on her face again and thanked us over and over again for visiting. We gave her a little xmas gift and a BOM and sang Silent Night. I loooove to sing for ppl here. my voice is sooo bad as you all know but it is such an easy way to bring the spirit. After that we met an FI named Saeko chan. She met the missionaries on the street but never had another appointment. She is AWESOME. She is going to get baptized. i know it. She home-stayed in Idaho for one year with a MORMON FAMILY! She went to church for a year and has been to temple square twice. We had so much fun talking with her. We asked her if she would be interested in learning more about gospel, we REALLY want to teach her haha. She said ofcourse! And she said her parents are okay with it too. BOOYAH pray for her! She is so prepared!

Ikemoto Shimai received the gift of the holy ghost yesterday. :) We sang I am a Child of God in sacrament meeting, there was a sweet spirit there. It has been a tender mercy to be a part of her conversion.

Yesterday, Evangeline came to church and we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ. She is very open with us, which is good, but she is having a hard time. When we talked about baptism and invited her to be baptized, she said if she gets to the point of knowing it is true then ofcourse she would be baptized. but she said she cannot get past the point of believing that God is our father. She prays everyday but I dont think she understands sincere prayer. This morning I reread my favorite page in PMG. please read it its soooo good. page 187. I dont know all of Evangelines struggles or thoughts, i dont know what to say all the time, but Heavenly Father knows Evangeline perfectly. And right now, I am His servant. I know He will guide my companion and I to know how to help her. I know He has a plan for her and for each of us.

Also, these stories from the Oct 2014 Liahona are sooo good.
The Jadeite Cabbage
Upon the Top of the Waters.

I love you so much. Your support, love and examples strengthen me everyday. I know you also strengthen others- always be a LIGHT! Have a great week. love forever,
Sister Wilcox

Its a wonderful life (letter from Dec 15, 2014)

Fam! I cant believe how fast this week was! I feel like i was just talking to you yesterday! This week was so great! Bad news first-- Ruri didnt come to the RS activity. She canceled right before :( I was soooo bummed! Havent seen her for more than 2 weeks! I spoke in church yesterday and she didnt come to that either. So sad! I wish people could understand that this is all they need in life! Nothing else matters! Sometimes agency is so stupid!

WOW yes i opened the Xmas package! Mom are you amazing! So darn cute! i was thrilled to open it and feel so much love. i havent opened anything but the COAT and lights. I looooove the coat. thank you so soooo much! One night we were biking and it was freezing and i was starting to lose enthusiasm...then i noticed the Family pin on my coat. Ahh it changed my perspective, that night ended up being one of the best nights weve had--thank you so much for helping me.. even in little ways you help so much.

One of the highlight this week was a special zone conference- Elder Ringwood came and it was sooooo good! The BEST PART was after, i started talking to him and asked where he was from and he lives right next to you Gma and Gpa! He said to his wife, `This is Odettas granddaughter!` She said ohhh i love Odetta! It was so fun! Its been crazy to have so many connections to people here in japan! She hugged me and he said, `Oh I wish i could hug you right now.`...so sincerely! ..i cried when they left haha. Sometimes just talking to americans is so wonderful. He said to be sure to thank my parents for raising children firm in the gospel. He was so grateful toward you!

Last night we met with Evangeline. I love her so much. We were planning on inviting her to be baptized yesterday but i didnt feel like it was right. She doesnt speak Japanese, so it was fun to be able to teach in English and say everything from my heart and not my head. Please pray for her! She prays everyday and reads the scriptures, but she has a hard time understanding that God is our Heavenly Father. she really wants a sign from God. She wants him to appear on a cloud...sooo...ya. please pray for her haha. We watched The Gift with her and explained how Heavenly Father shows his love for us through the spirit. I love her so much and want her to know the happiness!

GUYS i just love serving a mission. boys i CANNOT WAIT for you to serve! i always wanted to experience what shay did and mom and dad and it is so wonderful! Its so easy in life to lose perspective and on a mission-- I feel like it is so easy to live in the world but not of the world.
This week for eikaiwa one of the students is a professional pianist and he played for us. i thought of you parks and how on your mission you will be able to use your talents to bring the spirit. You are amazing!

I love you so much fam. dont lose faith. dont lose hope. life is happy and wonderful!
love, sister wilcox

dendo (missionary work)

FAM
your christmas adventures already look so fun!! wow its so weird that life is still going on back home. haha like you:re all moving on and getting old! parker your haircut looks way good. jaren stop growing. you already look older and you cant be taller than me. shay you saw the kalbs!!! how are they??? did you meet their nanny?? did you babysit or just visit? give kacie a big hug for me. tell her i miss her a ton. mom you and your friends are partying! wow so many parties going on! bridal baby showers, christmas parties. i cannot believe spencer colemans wife! so sad!!! have you seen them lately? thats scary. send me pics of the house all decorated!! i love to see pics. i forget what things look like haha. dad im so sorry you had to see your daughter look like a dweeb on that video hahah im so embarrassed. i think my japanese is a teency bit better haha.

sooooo i got a new comp. as you all know. she is nihonjin. her name is sister Mineta. and i LOVE HER! shes hilarious. very americanized. ha she has been with a lot of gaijin comps so her english is wayyy good. she speaks as much english to me as she can, and i speak back to her as much japanese as i can. its so funny. everynight she says `sweet dreams baby`. ...we are very much alike..haha.

We havent been able to see Ruri for a while. :( she is so busy! Please pray for her. i know you do. So i have done the most physically exhausting things EVER this week. hahah mineta S and i have been through a lot. On tuesday, we travel to Nagoya (4 hrs away by shinkansen) to meet new comps and travel back. Mineta S had her bike in a bag, and i didnt want her to carry it! shes so tiny! so i carried it to and from trains and whatnot. that doesnt sound too bad, but my body was shaking. i am such a weaksauce baby but it was SO HARD! haha and she was carrying like 4 big bags so we were both dying. then this week it snowed...for 3 days straight. we got about 6 inches i think. the snow here is super wet. and riding a bike in the snow is nearly impossible!!! hahaha we were laughing so hard. Like my abs hurt when we got home one night. we were the only ppl out on our bikes, and you couldnt ride for 3 feet without falling in the snow, or drifting around a corner, ohh my i should have filmed it it was hilarious. like ...its so miserable.. that its so funny. after a while we wer e both soaking wet. and finally we just had to walk our bikes home. that was also so physically exhausting. but Mineta shimai is always happy. we are always happy together. we make good food. we have way good companion study. our investigators are struggling right now. please pray for Yuu chan and evangeline.

So Mineta Shimai is obsessed with Nobuaki!! haha she saw my little shrine of pics with him hanging up and screamed. she knows all his songs and is so jealous that ive met him. i told her that he sang at yalls wedding and she was stoked. she also LOVES Brother Daniels. have you met him yet??? MEET HIM ALREADY everyone loves him. she knew him when he was mish prez in sapporo.

Dendo has been a little slow this week with the snow. we tried visiting members for their bday and made them cheesecake. but what would normally take us 45 min took about 3.5 hours in the snow..and we couldnt even make it to their house before we had to turn around or we would be late for curfew! gahh so frustrating!! we were late yesterday for the first time cuz of the snow. we were really sad. we got home at like 9.45 and felt so bad!! mineta S felt so bad. she kept apologizing haha. but really. we were bummed.

Evangeline got home from Hong Kong this week so we are going to visit her and invite her to be baptized!!! so excited and so nervous. i have been really praying to know what to do and say to her. and all i need to do is invite the spirit. if the spirit isnt there, conversion cannot happen.

FAMILY PLEASE READ boyd k packers talk THE WITNESS from april 2014. my favorite. i read it today during personal study and was almost tearing up. so powerful. please please please study it together and personally. i hope it will benefit you and your testimony like it did mine. I know with all my heart this church is true. Its true! I know God lives. I know Jesus Christ is our SAVIOR. He saved us! What a powerful testimony of love. Keep the first and second commandments, together lets try to be more loving.
Mom i was so happy to hear that yu are studing PMG. we are learning together! i love you!

have a great week. i think of you often. love you with all my heart.
love, whitty

ate eel this week...chewy and nasty will never eat again

this is a hospital...looks pretty sketch

Mineta Shimai always says, you are so FAT.  haha so here I am wearing three coats (so FAT) and when we came back 3 hours later, my SKIN was wet.  the snow here is so wet. ew.  But dendo with mineta is so fun!

change may be the greatest blessing of all...

well.. let me just start by saying this was the BEST week i've had on my mission. seriously everyday was AMAZING!! i wish you were all here to experience the happiness with me.

The best thing of course was Ikemoto Shimais baptism. She is a changed person. So different! It was amazing to see her change from not even know who God was, to being able to pray and have the spirit all the time. She is so awesome. I think ive learned more from her than she has learned from me. Walsh Shimai and I went early to clean the font. it was so fun, we were sooo pumped. just so happy for her! so happy that the Lord lead her to be able to find the truth. That night, the baptism was about to start. It was literally 6:57 and there were only 3 people there! Thankfully, pretty much the whole ward showed up haha. This ward is SOOOO great at dendo. I hope i can be a much better member when i get home. I feel like i have already changed so much. and changed to be closer to the spirit and closer to Heavenly Father. So neat! After she was baptized she said that she has been thinking about things she wants to change in life, and thats when she found the missionaries. she said she feels clean and happy.

"The purpose and central blessing of life is change. It is to be changed to become more like Jesus Christ. It is to incorporate into your character, the qualities of His character. It is to move from one degree of intelligence and capacity to the next, and from there to the next, until you see God face to face and know Him as He knows you."

That is my mission motto. As I am striving to bring others closer to Christ, I must be willing to change, to give my whole heart and soul and will to Him. Only He can shape me into what i must become. Im ready to change! I'm ready to dedicate myself to the Lord! I've seen others on my mission make that change, and I want to progress and fulfill my purpose on this earth. If not that, then why are we here??

Last night we went to a members house, she invited some YSA people and Ikemoto San came and we invited our investigator Yuu chan. Mom--she is like my Yuri or Ruri. I LOVE her. She speaks pretty good english but i try to speak as much as i can to her in japanese. She is my favorite nihonjin that i have met here. She is SO prepared. i know she will get baptized. the members love her. she has been to church 4 times and loves it. PLEASE pray for her! We want to meet with her more but she is so busy during the week. I hate how busy ppl make themselves! like cmon make time to hear about the gospel! ;) we only are asking an hour or two everyday. haha. but really she is so awesome. Our mission-wide goal is to get 3 baptisms by Christmas as a gift to the Savior. Please pray for Yuu chan and Evangeline. They are both so ready- they just need to commit! Anyway, last night was so so fun. the funnest time ive had on my mission. The girls were all in one room and no one was really talking to i was like, "okay English party!!" and starting asking them questions in english and they thought it was hilarious...japanese ppl think anything is hilarious haha. then we taught them down by the banks. then they taught us a game called Broccoli. its so fun hahah we were rolling on the floor laughing. Walsh Shimai and i sang the cup song for them! I thought of you mom--when we made up lyrics of me moving away. Then Yasui shimai (the member) had me read The Christmas Train (pres. monsons book) and she translated into japanese. the spirit was so strong. God is so proud of His children here- they really understand the plan of salvation and understand how important missionary work is. it was sooo fun!! Such a good fun way to dendo and feel the spirit.

I met a couple pontential investigators this week. The first family was from AFRICA (parker) they were so cool. They were so friendly and invited us back anytime. They will be baptized. haha

THEN we went to this brazilian ladys house. we sat in her kitchen to wait for her... and she came out in a TOWEL....shes not a tiny person either....she shook my hand, put on deodorant. i was sitting there thinking ....."ohhhh my gosh this is so awkward what do i do i dont want to look at you." hahah i think she saw my face cuz she was like "Oh Gomen.." and went and put clothes on. hahah so AWK. shes a little crazy.

So many other fun things happened but out of time. i'll write you a letter. love you all so much. As President Yamashita says, "I am so ploud of you." :)

love you love you love you. pray for missionary opportunities they are everywhere!

love, Sister Wilcox