Happy New Year! 1/1/12

あけましておめでとう　Ａｋｅｍａｓｈｉｔｅ　Ｏｍｅｄｅｔｏｕ　Happy New Year!  How was the first day in the year of the Dragon!

 So, New Years is the big holiday here in Japan, all of the Businesses are out, everyone goes to the parents, and there's no telling who lives in your area and who is just visiting!  Especially in a city like Hiroshima that's a tourist attraction as well as a pretty well established city!  But really, for it supposedly being such a big event in Japan, we didn't really see anything, we just had a whole lot more dinner appointments than usual (by a whole lot I mean, we actually had some!) and didn't even stay up until midnight....  Yeah, it was kinda of like a regular day for us, we just got to meet with people at a different time than usual because they suddenly became free during the afternoon.  It was way cool to see all the families that came in to visit!  Hiroshima became a bustling city again (and at all hours of the night too).  Okada 長老 and I had sparkling Grape and Peach cider (something tells me that a glass of wine isn't the most missionary appropriate thing to do on New Years so we got the next best.... or really, I just wanted grape and peach juice and It was a good excuse..:)...)

This week has been pretty interesting; lately it hasn't felt like we've really been finding anyone to teach but come our Weekly planning session we set out to write out all we were working with and it filled up our entire white board!  Thinking back on it, it doesn't seem like we have a whole lot of people that we are working with but seeing that list, we have a lot that we have to do!  Granted, a lot of the people on that list we haven't been able to get a real lesson in with yet, but soon, and then we'll finally be able to see the change in them that they've been waiting for. 

Tuesday we got a call from one of our members asking if we wanted to go play some basketball with some of her students!  Shoot, she didn't have to ask me twice!  We show up to the place just a little bit after we wanted to (which was fine, they didn't get there until 10 minutes later....) and went to go get changed.  When we came out one of the boys looked over at us and was like, "whoa, I think I've seen him before."  As it turns out, he was playing basketball in the local sports center when we came in for our first basketball activity with the ward!   I didn't really get to talk to him a lot at that time, but gave him an Eikaiwa flier and kind of never expected to see him again.  But on that day we got to talk to him and his little brother, and even have another activity planned with them this Friday!  I know that the world in the Church is pretty small, but I didn't really realize that the weird connections we find every day in the Church extend outside of it as well!  Our little branch really needs some Priesthood holders and a crazy little thing we found this past planning session is that just about half of the people we are working with or want to be working with fit exactly into that category!  Now we just have to work to make sure that it translates into some progress, and not just a dream. 

This past District meeting we all met together as a Zone afterwards to hear our zone theme for this transfer.  Our theme is "Drop the Anchor"  which is pretty great because in Japanese the word for Anchor is Ikari, and we have an Elder Ikari serving in this zone now.  And this next District meeting Okada 長老 and I have been planning a special present for our District! 

So our district is the Lion King district (or so Okada and I decided....) so we got permission to use the Lion King in our next District meeting.  The goal is to teach everybody how to have a "Simba" experience.  Ok, so Simba, starts out as a member of the pride, the son of the King, right? But after a series of events he falls, he forgets who he is, or that he's even the son of a King.  He becomes apathetic, without any sort of rule or order.  Then one day he meets someone who knows who they are, that knows they are a lion,  that knows they have a purpose. He learns from that person who he is, what his purpose is, and his inheritance.  He receives a message from his father in a vision, he is told:

Mufasa's ghost: [appears among the stars] Simba, you have forgotten me.
Adult Simba: No. How could I?
Mufasa's ghost: You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.
Adult Simba: How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be.
Mufasa's ghost: Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true king. Remember...

Simba does remember, he sees past what he is now, and what he can become in the future.  He comes back and not only rejoins the pride, but takes his place as a king, fully integrated into his role as a son of royalty. 

You are all a son or a daughter of God.  Sometimes we forget that simple fact.  We forget where we come from, we forget who we are, we forget why we are here.  The hustle and bustle of life are really good at drowning out the still small voice that whispers this to you.  You are a child of God, you have a divine royalty that is integrated into your very soul, all you have to do is remember, Remember who you are, remember that you are a child of God.  It doesn't matter how long you've been separated from the pride, how long you have been separated from the life you once knew, you can come back, and he is waiting for you to return.  The worth of souls is great in the sight of God, how great, we cannot even begin to imagine, but just remember, you are more than what you are now, Remember who you are!

To all of you, Happy New Year!  Take a bit of your time to create some new year’s resolutions, and when you do, I challenge you to do so while remembering who you are.  Here are a couple of mine.

·         * Become the Missionary the Primary kids think I am, the kind of missionary my Mom expects me to be.

·         * Dedicate all of 2012 to the Lord, to serve his children in a spirit of love and service.

·        * Leave every area, every ward/branch, every companion, every person I meet in a better situation than when I found them.

·        *  Respond to all of the letters I receive, because I am truly grateful for every single one I have received (I have a little folder where they are slowly but surely piling up).

Happy New year!  Yoi o toshi o

エベレット長老

Elder Benjamin Everett

Japan Fukuoka Mission

9-16 Hirao-josuimachi

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka

810-0029

JAPAN