Junkai and a chocolate fast

Transfer calls. They will come in a few hours. I don't know if I want to stay or go. I mean this area has been rough but I have been able to learn so much from it. Elder Jensen is so incredibly hard working. He is always working. I haven't ever seen him stop. He is always doing something. The only time I don't see him doing something is when I can hear him fall asleep during morning prayers. That just makes me giggle. We are working so hard and this transfer seriously disappeared.

This week, nothing really happened until the past few days. On Friday we had another junkai. I went with Elder Nara and we had a blast. I asked this lady what she wanted to become when she was young, (she has depression issues) and she said she wanted to die. I just slapped my head and said no that's not what I wanted to hear. She started to say how she was bullied and other stuff when I started to explain how I was bullied as a kid and that through the gospel she can find hope. She really liked that.

This weekend we met a quite a few people. One of which was an old dropped investigator. Her church and our church kinda has the same tree of life story. She said she really liked that part. We asked her to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true.

We had a 2 hour lesson of Q and A with this guy whose name is H. He Can speak pretty fly English so 99 percent of the lesson we can understand. It was great! At the end we got him to pray. He said how grateful he is for our kindness and that we are so patient. My favorite part is that he said "God don't be mad at me if I don't believe"

We went on a long bike ride to the north. We didn't know if an investigator would be home but we just tried. She was home! We taught lesson 3 and invited her to baptism. She said she can't because she can't come to church but maybe in the next two moths she will.

So recently Elder Jensen and I were on a chocolate fast. (They were fasting from chocolate to help a member break her addiction from coffee.) We broke it last night. We called S, the mother of the less active and she told us she dropped it. We asked her if it was hard and she said it wasn't at all. We celebrated and went home and ate tons of chocolate. I got sick but it was a joyous occasion! (Most of his Christmas package was chocolate!)

If I stay for another transfer, we have a ton of people that are just on the line. They just need that witness. JUST COME TO CHURCH as the girl from the district says. They just need that extra witness. I've been thinking of picture models I can draw on the spot to help explain things. I've done one for prophets and prayers. I think that will help. I'm currently thinking of one to use for church. Hopefully things will go well!

SO our zone has been trying to read the Book Of Mormon in this past transfer. I have 3 pages left. I've read the 528 pages in 31 days. I completely blasted through it but I've found so many great scriptures. I have my Preach My Gospel open next to me and I'm just putting in all these references to use. I want to start using scriptures more in lessons to try to show the importance of the scriptures. It has been great!

Jameson 長老

Mamorukun!

Merry Christmas from Miyako!

This, of course, was a long week. But there were some amazing things that happened. Probably Friday was the best day out of the entire week.

SO my 12 days of Christmas people are doing great! We kept stopping by with a scripture about Christ. If we had enough time, we would share part of lesson 2 with him. But we kept giving the children candy of all sorts. Sometimes we would give them presents.

The kids drew some pictures for us and gave us balloon animals. But in one lesson we taught the plan of salvation with Him.... he said that he wanted to be saved! At the end of the meet, he said the prayer.

We met this man named H. He can speak English pretty well. He also teaches volleyball at a local middle school. So this week we went to the school to play volleyball with the kids. We were so bad and all the kids laughed at us. But then we were able to start playing well and then they started to cheer. The kids asked H who we were and he said that we were his brothers. I liked that a lot. He called us yesterday and asked us to help with an English contest. He wants us to read off a story so his students can try to sound like us.

It was a rough week because our amazing investigator S. seemed to just lose contact because she can't be baptized. We went to visit her but the man she is living with said she doesn't have interest anymore. That made me pretty upset.

But yeah, this week was better. I just have to push through it. I don't understand but I just keep talking. Things are hard but We have hope things will be better this next transfer.

On top of what happened this week, we had a lesson with our investigator S. (Same name as our beloved S.) She is the mom of a less active. We taught the word of wisdom. She had a problem with coffee. Well she said she just likes to drink it. So in order to help her stop, we wanted to stop eating chocolate. It was great to help her but we soon realized that a lot of stuff we eat is chocolate... so that was a little awkward. especially because half of my Christmas package was chocolate.

Thanks for the call! Please send everyone my love!

A Christmas morning tradition. 

Who knew! Hours of video games paid off!!

So to be completely honest, nothing happened all this week up until Friday. So I've been having it hard lately but we had a companionship exchange with the district leader. We got absolutely nothing done the entire day. But I learned something very important from him. I expressed my concern with the language. And he said "well when we go to church or when we hear conference in our own language... how does that feel?" I of course say it feels great. He responds "that's what we are doing for these people. We are trying our hardest to tell these people in their own language how amazing this gospel is. We in a way are suffering the pains of having to do this. But if you think about it, Its kind of like the atonement. We are suffering the confusion of the language just so others can enjoy it"

Since Friday I have had a better time with the work. Yesterday Elder Jensen said it was one of his funnest times he has had dendoing in a while.

We had a couple of investigators drop this week. Mostly because we accidentally ran into a slightly mental apartment that all wanted to hear the gospel but they couldn't function apparently. So when we went back we were yelled at.

Another case is that a mother was really hantai and she controlled her 30 year old son into calling us to say he wasn't interested. But we asked him if it was because of the mom and he said yes.

But we found this man from New Zealand yesterday. We stood and talked to him for about an hour yesterday. And get this, all those hours of watching those video games paid off. I looked into his house and saw his tv. I saw a pause screen and asked him if it was a certain game. He said yes it was and then we talked about video games for about 20 minutes after that. But we had a great talk. He is brilliant at economics as well so we hit off on that. And he said that we can come over sometime to have some real food because the Japanese skimp out on the "good stuff" as he says. But I'm really excited to be able to start to teach. I think he will like the gospel.

WE visited a less active randomly and he let us in. I was super surprised because I myself haven't visited this guy. Apparently he has forgotten pretty much everything about the gospel. Even how to pray. All he says is that he believes in Christ. But we gave him a Book of Mormon and set a return date. I think he can come back to church. It was a great opportunity.

Lastly last night we met one of our investigators when it was pouring and super windy. When he opened the door he commanded us to come in. It was awesome because we got to meet his wife and enjoy the comfort of indoors.

We have started to do a 12 day of program with 2 investigators. One with our S that for some reason has dropped all communication with us. But we come by and drop off a talk about Christ in her mail slot in her door. I think she reads them because the one from the day before is gone. Another investigator is a man that has had the Book of Mormon for 10 years. We give his kids candy everyday. At the end of the visit we give him a scripture within the Book of Mormon about Christ. I think it is going well because the kids are excited when we come. The man seems happy when we come. Hopefully they are filling Christ's love a little more.

Jameson 長老

Super Genki and Dendo Fire

This week Elder Jensen and I were hoping someone would come to church so that we could have a December baptism. well... that didn't happen. On top of that, only 8 people were at church today. 4 missionaries and 4 members. The lowest that I have ever seen here in Miyako. S didn't answer any of our phone calls. When we went to visit her she sent someone else to the door.

Things have just been a daily continuation of trying to just find someone to listen. And it seems to not work. We just try so hard everyday. We talk to everyone on the streets, we try to help people with anything we can.

We did that last week and it actually turned out well. We talked to a lady for 40 minutes. But as soon as an opportunity to talk about religion came up, she shut us down. But she is happy when she sees us.

We have this investigator that is amazingly old and has every problem that you can imagine. I forgot to mention this last week but Elder Jensen and I gave her a blessing. We came back the next week... and she wasn't healed, but she was like 20 times happier and super genki.

Something cool from this past week is our meet with Y, this guy Elder Gandy and I found like 3 months ago. He received the Book of Mormon 10 years ago. But every time we met we couldn't get off a message. So I wanted to review lesson one with him. And during the lesson I asked him if he read the BOM at all. And he said a little... but. And of course I asked him how it went. He said that he received a feeling like when one of his children was born and he knows that feeling came from God. So that was the happy story for this week!

We don't have a lot of time today because Elder Jensen and I went to visit a less active this morning. It went pretty well. It turns out the less active speaks pretty fantastic English. So we talked to her for a long time. Interestingly enough, she actually asked us how the branch was doing. For example, how many members are in the church. We were able to explain to her about the situation of Miyako just a bit and we were actually able to talk to her about her conversion experience. She said she can remember the feeling of when they placed their hands (she remembered the names too, and it was over 40 years ago) on her head and she said she actually felt like she was part of the house of Israel. Not only that, when we blessed the investigator, she said she felt comfortable and something familiar came over her.

The thing is we have a lot of people saying that they felt good when they tried to pray and they had a great experience with it. We testify of what it is but for some reason they don't connect the dots. They say it was great but they still lose interest. I don't know if it is me or my teaching but we do exactly what we need to do with regards to the lessons and it still doesn't work out. That is what is so frustrating right now. Elder Jensen and I only got 3 lessons this past week. 2 amazingly of them were member present and all 3 of them are progressing investigators.

Recently we have also been trying to get the members more involved with missionary work. The members here in Miyako look up to the missionaries so much. They talk to us in the most polite form time to time. So I was thinking if we get more of them involved in what we do, to see that we need their help, maybe the branch will grow. I've been asking members about less actives and investigators, asking them to call or visit them to ask them to come to church. And to get the members excited for missionary work, I give them Helaman 5:23-50 to read. Its when the one "less active" member helps the missionary effort and 300 people are baptized. The members love the story and hopefully I can get some dendo fire in them.

Jameson 長老

Elder Jensen. Maybe?

Nothing but beach

hello!!!

Sorry about the pictures. There really isn't anything except the beach here. So if you want dirty rusty apartments and the same looking beach for pictures, I can take more. Other than that there really isn't anything on Miyako.

So. This week. We had a pretty good week. At least we taught a lot of people. We gave out some copies of the Book of Mormon. We did everything we could. We had a baptismal date but that dropped due to her not coming to church this Sunday. But we did get another date for the 4th of January.  

My new companion, we have had lessons with pis and investigators, we really mend well together. we have taught some good lessons. We have a lot of people who are starting to, I think, recognize the importance of this gospel. But they are all stinking scared to come to church! "Oh I can't I got this, I can't, I'm going here, I have my job" Just come to church! We had our lowest church attendance this past week. 10 people. (At the beginning of sacrament) The week before the couple and Gandy and Nakabe left, it almost broke 20. 

SO I have sad news about S. I asked the church member that always joined with us to teach her to call her. Apparently she said that S said she can't come to church because she isn't baptized. Is so amazingly frustrating. Not only that, the member told her that is not true but Elder Gandy and I have told her countless times.

Jameson 長老

These are my hope scriptures from this week.

John 14:15

Joshua 1:5

1 Nephi 20:10-11

1 Nephi 21:14-16

There isn't anything but the beach here..... poor boy! ;)

Do you feel sorry for him yet?

He is eating steak!

 

New dictionary

Branch President's bike, borrowed since his was shipped with Gandy's

English class