Hello from the basement of the Fukuoka Japan Temple!
Ok, so now it's officially the end of September, which is crazy. I still remember just the other day when I thought it was weird that it was already July, but, well, that was very nearly 3 months ago!
Well, this has been a super busy week for the mission home. This past Tuesday we had Elder Yamashita from the area presidency come down for a mission tour, and they've been having a fireside every day since then (including today!).
Ok, well, that's about how much I was able to write last Saturday before some other pressing matters came up.... well, here I am again, Accidentily 1 week behind... My bad.
So it has been super busy here. Last week we had the Elder Yamashita Mission tour which was really awesome. He visited all of the zones and gave a conference talking about the importance of opening our mouths, working with the members, and building relationships of trust and work with our Bishops and Mission leaders.
We have a good group of investigators that we work with on a pretty regular basis right now. We have one young man who is writing his college graduation thesis on the effects of a 2 year proselyting mission on Mormon Missionaries and their growth. He's definitely been an interesting investigator. The first time I met him he asked me what transfer I was on.....I'm not sure if you realize how weird that sounds coming from an investigator, but it just made it feel like he was one of the missionaries. He might just be one of the easiest investigators to get along with that I've met in my whole mission! He's way genki (energetic, happy, enthusiastic... we just don't have that word in English...) and fun to be around. After meeting him we explained a little more about what the Book or Mormon is, explained a bit of the background and the contents and gave an overview of the story. He has been meeting with missionaries for 2 years, but he finally got really excited to read the Book of Mormon! He's been reading pretty steadily for the past couple of weeks and he's really retaining the information well. He loves when there's an easy story to understand, and is still a little put off by the Isaiah chapters, but decided that he's going to push on through it because I promised him that the story picks up after that. He's also been slowly understanding some of what we believe in as he reads and it beginning to develop a faith and testimony of his own, rather that just having interest in the lifestyle and benefits of a mission. We've been busy doing the office work that comes with being the Recorder, but it's been a great blessing to be able to meet with our investigators nearly every day! Anywhere from a family home evening, to a sports night, or Eikaiwa... it's been awesome meeting everybody!
Our other investigators have also been doing really well. The one guy who stands in line to inherit one of the most famous Buddhist temples in Japan is really busy with work every day, but we have time to talk every night and he always makes time to come to church on Sunday! He loves all of the feelings and the changes that have happened within himself since learning about the Church and definitely wants to continue going on. His baptism date ended up falling through, but we are determined that he is going to be able to feel the truth of the message stronger, and make the commitment to be baptized again! We may not have a whole ton of time to go out and dendo while we're here in the mission home, but we have great investigators and the Lord is sanctifying our time so that we can get everything done that we need to get done！
It's been a little weird being here at the Mission home whenever it comes to office meetings, because I'm in charge of leading and conducting the meetings. So basically I just stand up there and tell the Mission President, the APs and the other office people what we're going to be doing this coming month..... yeah, that's not intimidating at all. Or the other thing that's a little strange is when it comes to District meetings, because I became the District Leader for the people in the Mission Home and the other 4 missionaries who work in this ward... so I have the Zone Leaders, the APs and the Mission President all in my district meeting. It's a bit of an interesting district make up. But it's way fun! Speaking of District meetings, at this last meeting we had our investigator (the one doing a report on us) come and participate in the meeting! He had a great time and seemed to have a good experience as well!
This transfer the District theme has been the IROHA district (which is like the ABC's in English) and we've been focusing on the fundamentals of what it takes to be a missionary. One of my favorrite scriptures that I end up sharing with just about everyone is Alma 37:6-7: "By small and simple things do great things come to pass.... The Lord God doth work by means to bring to pass his great and eternal purposes...and by very small means the Lord... bringeth about the salvation of many souls." As we do the small and simple things everyday (read scriptures, pray, go to church) we can create a foundation of faith in Christ that cannot be destroyed. And it is when we ignore the small things that the Lord has asked us to do that we fall into the temptation of the adversary and the gospel seems to become more of a burden, and less of a relief. "The Lord can right any wrong...if we let him." Let us all let the Lord into our lives by the small and simple things that we can do every day to sanctify ourselves and be the men, women, disciples that Christ would have us be.
I'm not going to lie... The mission can be hard. People have their agency and sometimes choose to do dumb things, but I don't think I would trade the experience for anything in the world. I know that this church is true, and if times get rough because the loop hole we thought we found around the driving test in Japan falls through and the driving instructor lives up to the notoriety of strict instructors and you get lost on your way to do all the things that you know you must do... it doesn't matter in the long run because I'm here for a purpose, and the Lord has great things that He is expecting from me, and He will help me accomplish them. And it will be a pleasure to be His hand in the lives of many.
I hope you all have a good week (and again, sorry about last week, things came up and I was distracted by Oita ward visiting the temple.... I might have spent a little too much time talking to them :D)
Let's do cool things!
Elder Everett
エベレット長老
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