in reality you're just freaking them out

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!!!!!