He told me a little more about his companion. "Elder A. loves drama, and singing, and his old choir teacher is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, if I heard correctly. He is an artist, and wants to be an animator for Disney."
To Everyone:
I wish I had time to write all the miracles that happen in my life, but I just don't have the time to do so. I hope that you all know that I do see miracles every day--whether great or small. It's a great blessing in and of itself, and wouldn't be possible if I didn't give of myself in service to others.
My scripture for the week is Alma 30:34: "And now, if we do not receive anything for our labors in the church, what doth it profit us to labor in the church save it were to declare the truth, that we may have rejoicings in the joy of our brethren?" I figured this would be an appropriate scripture to learn this Christmas season.
The Kanji of the week is: 食事 pronounced "show-coo-jee" and means meal.
Nothing too particular happened on Monday, besides trying to figure out how to get my companion, Elder A., to email home. The iPad won't let him set up his email on it, so we ended up going to an internet cafe for him (we're at the same one right now). In the evening we tried to visit a less active member, but she said it was too late, so we couldn't share a message.
Tuesday we took a train out to a different city in our area to visit a less active member there. We saw some really cute elementary school kids, and they loved us. We talked with them for a bit while we tried to find the house, and when we eventually got to the house, the less active told us that it was bad for us to visit him. We then went to try and find people to talk to, and ended up talking to a sophomore outside his house. He was really nice, and hopefully he talks to his parents about the free family English program (half english teaching, half Japanese practice/gospel). We missed our train talking to him, so we ended up talking to some kids at the station for a while before the next train home. After we got back and had dinner, we went to visit a less active member, and we got there about the same time as Brother and Sister Yamauchi, a lovely couple in our ward. We had a good chat there.
Wednesday was spent trying to visit less actives, and we saw a few, but only got a lesson in with one. We talked about Christmas, and I think it went well. We also visited a potential investigators house, but he wasn't home. His grandmother loves the missionaries though. The evening was spent in English class, and we only had three come this week. It was a bit sad, but we still had lots of fun.
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| Elder A. and a cute, friendly dog |
Thursday, we had a lesson with our recent convert, Sister Ishiyama. She is a great member, and loves the gospel. She said that she really learned how her questions can be answered through the scriptures.Other than that, we just did a bunch of finding. We walked around talking to people for a bit, and towards the end of the time, we talked with this one woman who might come to English class, and she said she might even come check out church. The rest of the day was weekly planning.
Friday we went to Kamisugi for zone training meeting. It was really good, and I learned some things that helped us out this week. We also had interviews with President Smith, and that was awesome as well. We didn't have time for anything else besides studies that day.
Saturday was fun with lunch with one of our investigators, Sister Ishiyama (no relation to the above Sister Ishiyama). She and her husband are nice, and they say the have thought about getting baptized in the past. We'll continue working with them, and helping them get a stronger conviction and testimony. We went and tried to visit a house that had a lot of Christmas lights on it--a rare sight here in Japan--but no one was home, except a small boy. We then tried to talk to people some more, and were able to talk to two really nice ladies, one older, and the other younger with a cute kid. We asked both of them to visit the website christmas.mormon.org to watch the new video "A Savior is Born." It suddenly started raining in the evening, so we walked to some peoples houses, but didn't get to talk with anyone.
Sunday brought another great opportunity to renew my covenants with God, and to remember the Savior. It was also fast Sunday, and that made it even better. We went to try and visit some people after lunch, and were able to get a conversation going with someone we handed a Book of Mormon to last transfer. We then saw that it was looking kind of stormy, so we decided to move some plans ahead and visit a less active first before it rained and we got caught in it (we have been asked not to ride our bikes in the rain). On the way we met a really nice dad who went out to the park with his cute three year old kid, and also stopped to talk to a man and give him a Book of Mormon, and share a Christmas video with him. Because of those people we stopped to talk to, we ended up arriving at the less actives house at the exact same time as other members (the Sato family). The less active wasn't home, so we asked if we could share a quick message with them right there. The instead invited us over to their house (we were going to visit on Tusday), and we ate dinner with them. The food was delicious, and we were able to have a really spiritual time with them. Brother Sato said that because of how everything worked out he was able to get an answer to a question he was asked by a different member, and could help him out. We then went and visited another man, but he wasn't too interested. He had taken a Book of Mormon earlier, and so we'll probably go check up on him again sometime and ask if he ever got a chance to read it yet. We also tried to visit a less active, but since she wasn't available we visited the branch president and his wife who lived in the same apartment complex as her. It was a good chance to talk and share a quick message with them, and we helped them out too. So many miracles that day!
I hope that you got something out of this email, and apologize for the length. I love you all, and wish you a great week!
Love,
Elder
Last week Alex sent a video of his new companion opening his first gift in Japan. I didn't post it since he mentioned his last name (for privacy). So I told him it was so fun to watch and asked if he could send a video of both of them and this is what he sent. Very short, but still fun to see them talk.
He looks like he is doing so great. Such wonderful changes come over these young men.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he will spend New Years Eve climbing some nearby mountain. I recall my son telling me that this was a tradition, to get up very early on New Years Morning to climb a mountain so that they can see the first sunrise of the New Year. I recall my son saying it was a big deal.