The Last July Update!

Ben would love to get letters from friends and family that he can read during the week!

Elder Benjamin C Everett

Japan Fukuoka Mission

9-16 Hirao-josuimachi

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka

810-0029

JAPAN

Happy July 30th!

I'm not entirely sure what there is to celebrate on the 30th of July, but I'm sure it's good to celebrate it anyway (oh wait, today is Naoya's birthday!).

I think this week was a pretty good week, and it was definitely a week on the road!  I think I was on my bike for at least half of this week...  Ok, so we pretty much have our area split up into different sections of the city to help us organize where we go and who we visit, and I think we hit every section of the city this past week (which is crazy because it covers our entire map, and that's well over an hour bike ride to some of those places). 

One of the places we go (we deem it East Oita) we visit this one man who is like a pastor for the church he goes to.  He really enjoys reading the Book of Mormon, and wants to find out what it has written within it so that he can develop his own faith better.  He has a really good fire for learning all that he can about God and it will be wonderful if he can learn for himself the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and accept it in his own life!  He's a really strong personality with a great focus on service and community awareness!  After visiting him we wanted to go and see if we can find some of the less active members in our ward that we haven't been able to meet yet.  I don't know if any of you know how Japan's roads are set up, but I'm pretty sure somebody got one of those swirly paint things and put the city layout on top of it.  Anyway, finding places in Japan is really difficult, especially when you don't have a map with you, and when your phone's GPS doesn't work!  It does work as a pretty good way to dendo though, because we can just ask people, "Hey, do you know where this place is?" and start a conversation that way.... the problem most times is then finding it again, and, you know, the whole time thing also gets in the way too, but we did get to visit one of the people we looked for, and even began teaching their son (sort of).  It also helped me learn, that even though I have been in Oita for nearly 6 months now, I can still find places that I've never been to before and have new adventures always!

This past Tuesday we had an interesting District Meeting where we were told to make a companionship theme for this transfer.  So we split up into different rooms, and had 15 minutes to meditate and think about where you are, what you want to accomplish, and to pray for inspiration.  (I like that, it can apply to anything you do actually, take 15 minutes, collect your thoughts, and pray for inspiration, what a lovely idea).  Elder Gandy and I came up with a theme based off of Alma 32:41 which reads

41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.

So our theme is "Feed the tree of..."  but personally, I call it "Feed the Trees!" So we've been talking about how we can grow trees in any part of our life: the tree of faith, the tree of knowledge, diligence, hope, hard work, companionship unity, good investigators, a strong ward, physical fitness, cleanliness... anything you want!  Many of our planning session have begun now with "So what tree are we feeding tomorrow?" and "What tree did you feed today?"  What a way to put your mind into focus and get down to what you really want to work on. 

This past Friday we had another apartment check (that makes my 5th one, which I think is the most in the mission right now...definitely the most by the Christensen Couple though) and we got another Celestial rating!  (The tree for that day wascleanliness)   It always feels much better in the apartment right after a cleaning check, there's just open space and a general good feeling in the apartment....who would of thought you would have ever heard that from me?  I think it's because of the free ice-cream afterward that really propels me to clean though ;)

Well, this was an awesome week, and I hope you all had a great week too (let me know how it was, I haven't heard anything for a while now, except thanks Family and thanks Shelby for the letter!)  Have a good week everybody! Go do cool thing!


Elder Everett
エベレット長老