Transfers, Senior Companion, and a very heavy heart

Sooooooooo Gandy transfered.

And here is the sad thing about it. My heart is heavy. And all I can keep thinking is "I'm sorry I wasn't the best companion and didn't learn everything I could from you."

He transferred to Yamaguchi to be a zone leader. He was an amazing trainer and missionary. He has taught me so much and done so much for Japan. But he said he thinks he was called to prepare Japan. And he thinks that I was called to reap that of which he has sowed.

And here is why I need a dictionary. (An electronic dictionary. They cost around $250.00. Sigh.)

Gandy is gone. And I have a new companion. His name is Elder Joshua Jensen. Joshua Jensen and Jarom Jameson. :) The great thing about this is that we sat next to each other on the plane ride to Uapan. So yeah, he was in my traveling group. We are both senior companions and both transfer 3. 

Who in the right mind would put two extremely young missionaries together like this? 

Even though we are young, we have already seen so many miracles in the past 3 days. One of which is a lady we wanted to see if she read the Book of Mormon. We asked her how it went and she said she knows it is true. I was completely shocked because that was the first person we went to visit as a companionship. She didn't have much time but we gave her a pamphlet to read.

Another case is with regards to Gandy and reaping what he sowed. He went finding at a house and a lady answered the door saying that she was sorry she didn't read the book we gave her. We had no idea what she was talking about. She said about 5 months ago 2 white missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon. That was Elder Gandy and a zone leader during a companion exchange. 

And for some reason or another, I haven't had much success with the family worship religion (The religion the Japanese favor.) But we stopped this old man on the side of the street and he didn't really want anything to do with our religion. But some way or another he found some interest in the Book of Mormon and he then said he wanted to read it. 

I could go on about the little things that has happened but this really has been a crazy past few days. Even though my heart hurts because Gandy is gone, for some reason or another things are going great with finding people.

Funny story. so we are walking right now because... my bike was taken by the mail service. When they took Gandy`s bike, they took mine as well. And so my bike is on its way to Yamaguchi ken and we are left walking. We have walked so much these past few days but we are able to contact so many more people that way.

So cool fishing story. I was reeling in my bait after 10 minutes of nothing. And as it was about to come out I saw this huge 3 foot fish flying towards my bait. I stopped and that thing took hold of my bait. It pulled my rod and I pulled back. That fish went flying out of the water. It was like those pictures you see of amazing fishermen! But unfortunately because of that, mid air it came undone. 

That's all for now. And I promise I'll shop wisely. (For the $250 dictionary) I have an Asian with me :)

PS. Nakabe transfered to Saga. we have 3 Americans here. So I think we will go to KFC for Thanksgiving.

Sore legs and amazing blessings

There is a lot of stuff that happened this week. First off Gandy and elder Nakabe probably will transfer.

Since Gandy has been here for a while we had to go to some further parts of the island this week. But for some strange reason, even though we used a lot of time traveling by bike, some amazing things happened this week. My legs are extremely sore because of it all but it's just a sign of hard work. We actually had the highest numbers this week compared to the rest of the transfer. We had a small amount of contacts but we still handed out a couple more copies of the Book of Mormon than usual.

So on Wednesday we called S and she said she took last Sunday off because she was thinking whether or not she should continue. She said she wanted to. But the fact she thought about that scares the living daylights out of me. We had a couple of great lessons this week and we also visited a lot of less active members. We had a companion exchange and I went with Elder Nakabe. We went and tried to visit one of my PI that we have not been able to meet since last transfer. And since Elder Nakabe didn't know him, he asked me to lead the conversation. The man, K, said he didn't really have an interest in God but after hearing a foreigner speak Japanese, he said he has some interest now. I don't know how that connects but I don't care, it is an amazing blessing.

We had to drop one of our investigators this week. We have been teaching her for around 4 months or so. We didn't know what to say to her anymore so we basically asked her if she believed in God. She said no. We asked her if she wanted to know if He exists. She said no. That no just killed me. It blew my mind away.

Anyways I forgot to tell you about how we ran into two people contacting who can speak English. One guy was white and from Canada. he opened the door and Elder Gandy and I just said nonni....... hello? It was awkward for a few seconds but we got to teach him. Sadly he doesn't have interest. But like 2 doors down we contacted this Asian that was from Australia. He lived there for 18 years or so and had a sick accent. Not only that he met missionaries a couple weeks earlier in a different city.

Funny story, we received a call yesterday for his referral and we told them we already contacted him before but we wanted to double check. Crazy thing is we found him on the street later that day. He came up to us and started talking to us. He is hilarious and he referenced a couple of American movies while we talked with him.

Anywho S didn't come to church this week again. It is really scaring Gandy and me.

That"s all I can say for now.

Jameson 長老

Companion Exchanges with Rogers Choro

Elder Gandy and I went to Ishigaki the other day for companion exchanges. That's the island where Rogers 長老 is so I got to be companions with him one more time. That was a blessing.

Elder Rogers & Elder Jameson

The first night we were there, we were heading back to the apartment around 8:55. So all 5 of us were outside the apartment. this random old guy starts to ask Gandy if God exists and said yes I do believe He lives and all that stuff. Then this man starts to yell at us telling us Chirst is down here (motions to the ground) and says that his religion is up here (motions to above his head) and commanded us to study his religion. But what was frustrating is that he kept saying that he didn't deny what we were saying, just that his religion was the best and commanded us to study it. It was sad because we had a Japanese companion with us and he starts to yell at him.

junkai Ishigaki

During the junkai Ishigaki saw so many miracles!
It wasn't fair! Mostly because we came home and nothing really seems to be changing. The couple missionaries said the branch is in a terrible spot and they said they felt bad for us because we are working extremely hard. Random note, it is still flipping hot. I'm sweating my eyes out still. when will it become cooler? (He is on a tropical island. The answer to that question is, when he gets transferred!)

I found out a lot about the less actives this week and for some reason all of them won't come back unless another one comes to church. We narrowed it down to one less active member. The thing is, no one knows what happened to him. It seriously seems like he disappeared. No one can find where he is or even if he is alive.

So some other news. The other day I talked about how we met the less actives mom when we went to visit him? Well she has received 2 lessons and she is thinking about baptism. But the thing is that the less active comes to the lessons as well and sometimes he isn't the most helpful person ever. Like us - "have you felt the spirit?" Him - "not yet", or us - "how did you feel after you were baptized" him - "nothing". It is really stressful. But it is good he is helping a bit.

Jameson 長老

Your faith is thin

I have always wondered what happened to the Miyako branch. 6 years ago there were a lot of members, around 40 or 50, but something happened and now there is only 15 or so are active. I keep asking what happened.

I actually started to read in the bible this week and I think it was in Matt 13 or 14 where the scribes say that Jesus casts out spirits by the power of the devil. And Jesus says to them something along the lines of "how can a house fight against itself? If it does that it will be destroyed." This is the same case as with Miyako. They need to be united before they can then grow.

One story I found interesting was the story of Jesus walking on the water. It is so simple but for some reason it hit me hard this week. It just says "lord, save me" and says and immediately he reaches out and catches him. and says you have little faith.

I read it in the Japanese bible and It kinda gave me a different viewpoint. It literally says your faith is thin, why did you doubt?

In some cases people think of it as Jesus kinda reprehending Peter. But this time I saw it as a sad story. Peter was doing something amazing and he faltered and fell. And Jesus said "why did your faith fail? Why did you doubt? You were going so far, you were accomplishing so much, you saw the things you were doing and yet why did you doubt?" It really pressed my heart as I read it. And made me think, why do we doubt? When we doubt, Heavenly Father and Jesus are always going to be there and will save us but they are sad that they had to. They are sad when we don't have the faith to continue on our own.


Some random pictures.

I caught a fish that has two eyes on one side.

Halloween.

Me in my rain gear.













Jameson 長老