Howdy Everyone! Before i reply to anything i want to tell you about how great my life is :D
This
week was fantastic! When you become a missionary its almost like your
brain falls out and all social skills you ever knew have gone away. You
just kind of go up to people and start spouting off stuff you know about
the gospel and hope they feel the Spirit, but in reality you're just
freaking them out :P Today my companion and I really realized the
importance of being yourself and being a real person living a real life
with a realllllly good message. We've been being a lot more real with
people and letting them know that we just want to shokai our message and
stuff. We make friends and talk about their lives and when the right
time comes we say what we're doing and what the gospel can offer and the
success has been phenomenal so far! These are the 3 big miracles for
this week.
1-We met some Jehovahs Witness missionaries proselyting
the other day and just got into a conversation about missionary work
and how we do it and how they do it and told them about our promises
(well actually God's promises ;)) and just talked to them like we were
really good friends. It was way fun! but then we gave them a Book of
Mormon and got their number (at first the girl didn't want to take the
book but the guy was like "take it" and they gave us some of their
stuff). So We called the man later (Kitagawa san) and set up an
appointment to meet at the Asabu eki (pretty far) but then while we were
on our way he changed it to Maku's (McDonalds). So we met him there and
he bought us both chocolate shakes and we just sat down and talked like
old friends would (but before that he payed with his phone! They have
these cool little white pad things that glow when you lay down the right
kind of phone on it and it just takes money out of your account through
your phone! it was sooooooo coooooooooooooolllllllllll!!!!!!! :P haha).
So we just talked for a little and then he started asking questions
about our message and stuff, and it led right into the plan of Salvation
because his grandpa died. so we taught him about that and just told him
what we believed and he was so interested! he wanted to learn more and
more and more so we taught him for an hour and a half at Maku and it was
great! He is so intelligent. He signed up to be a missionary and go
where ever to start a new life and job and to be a missionary for like 6
years because his religion is so important to him. He knows the Bible
like nobody's business and we just had discussions about things written
in the Bible and our teachings and it all seemed to make sense to him.
So that lesson was just wonderful and was such a blessing and the Spirit
guided both us and him in questions and answers.
2-yesterday we had Steak taikai (conference) and Elder
Uctdorf, Oaks, and Sister Wixom and another man spoke (via broadcast)
and it was great! But the best part is what happened after. I need to
give a little intro first. So once upon a time...tonikaku haha.
So Davis Choro met a cool guy named Daisuke with his old companion
and he was really freaked out with the fact that Missionaries wear suits
haha. he was like "my friends don't wear suits." He actually speaks
german and english and japanese (nihonjin dakara) but he's been to
america and germany. Anyways, he said he wanted to learn through the
example of the missionaries how to live a better life, but they kind of
lost contact and never really met with him because he was never very
interested. But when I first got here, Davis Choro and I just met him on
the street tekito ni (randomly) and invited him to come play basketball
sometime. So we did and he had fun, and we lost touch again for a
while. but the other week I felt like we should invite him to basketball
because we had another friend going so I did and he came! On the way
home we just talked like friends (he has great enlish) and he mentioned
he was trying to get a job in english so i told him I'd pray for him. He
thanked me and told me sometime he wants to come to church with us on
sunday (basketball is at the church but he wanted to come for a meeting
on sunday) so I told him that'd be great! So we planned to go the next
day (sunday) but we couldn't get ahold of him and we didn't go (zan nen
nagara--unfortunately). so we called him that night and he was really
sorry but he was busy and said he wanted to go next week, so we made
plans to call him back and go. When we called him back saturday night I
asked him about his job thing and he was bummed because he didn't get it
but he was really happy that I asked. Then he said, "would it be rude
to pray to your God to ask for a job?" I was blown away!!!!!! I said
heck no! (not really) but I told him he should try it! and that was it.
So the next day we planned to meet him at the church 30 minutes before.
We called him and he said he was on his way by bike (we thought he was
coming by chikatetsu--subway) but we waited as long as we could and then
went in to watch conference. We kept calling him throughout but never
could get ahold of him. Anyways, during conference we were a little
confused and frustrated at that but then we look up and he's just
standing in the back, so we go say hi and talk to him. He had wandered
around on his bike for two hours and felt awful because he was so late
but we were just friendly and told him it was fine. Then because all
the rooms were being used for meetings we went outside, sat down, and
asked him about his prayer. He didn't pray and so we were going to
explain and we just ended up answering his questions. We taught him Most
of lesson 2 and 3 and all about god and The gosple of Christ (faith,
repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the
End) and it just made sense to him!!!!!! He was like "I see why baptism
is important." So in his own timing as he learns about this he wants to
get baptized but he wants to be sure he believes it. It was such a
miracle! he also understands why the sacrament is important! He asked if
we got baptized everytime we wanted to get rid of sin so we talked
about the sacrament and the importance of church. It was
soooooooooooooooo
amaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzziiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love that man. I really do. So he doesn't want to meet formally or
read much right now but he really wants to learn more so i'm way excited
for him. Also he's going to start praying every morning and every night
(and he said an amazing first prayer with us). It all made sense to him
and I could tell that he came closer to Christ. I felt it. It was such
an amazing experience! We're praying that he finds a job soon too (that
will allow him to keep listening and going to church and possibly with a
member :P). That would be ideal :) so that was a miracle.
3- This morning Davis Choro and I realized that we just
need to love the people and live life like it's normal, not like it's
the end of the world. Live life and enjoy it. If you just have charity
and love your investigators and the people then you don't have to plan
and worry for things as much because you'll just naturally do good
things. It's a wonderful thing :) So then we planned on doing that with a
lesson we had this morning with a nice man i found on splits the week
before (Katsuo Mae). I taught him a little about God's plan for us and
he had questions so we made an appoinment for this morning and just
talked to him. He asked us about his question and we led it right into
the plan of salvation, and from there his questions allowed us to
explain everything. Then he asked to come to church and we are all
becoming great friends! He loves english so we speak it a lot together
to help him practice. Way fun :)
Good gracious...I love this work Mom and Dad :) I
really do. It's so wonderful :) it's still hard to understand and say
what I want to a lot but It's getting easier and is just a beautiful
thing. I'm coming to love these people and I love this gospel
soooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so yes, those are just a few of the miracles I've seen this week :) Now for the replying.
Notebooks
help so much! Sore wa watashi no susume desu yo! (That's my
recommendation!) Get a notebook and journal and record all your
feelings! Then God gives you more becasue it shows you're treasuring
them.
Oh Lucky haha. I miss that mut :) How is he doing? Getting older?
What!!!!!!! You saw the bear!!!!!! Were you scared? I'm glad you're ok!
Oh
I miss Jessica so much! I haven't gotten any letters from her yet. I've
gotten one or two from other friends, but less and less as the months
go by (as expected haha). I'm going to try harder to do my part to write
people back, but I've been writing our extended family a little. I've
been talking with Brian Dougal. he's awesome! I sent him one of my MTC
Japanese books to help him with it. If you see him ask him if he got it!
And tell him hello!
Another weirdo like me! At camp! Everything should be fine this
year then :) I'm doing my best to smile even when I'm asleep on my bike
:P I think kore kara (from now on) I'll be way more happy jsut living
life and loving people!
Oh I have to go! We're going to eat Indo Curry and Nan! but tell
Kellie I loved her letter about !
Bye Bye!!!!!
