Teaching and trying to find answers

So the past few weeks have been slow. We haven't able to teach that many people lately. Just when Elder Jensen and I feel like our Japanese has progressed the most and our teaching is the best, we hit this. Don't get me wrong, our Japanese is still terrible. I am having a hard time getting out of a rut that I'm in but we can teach all the lessons just fine. Our lessons lately have been really good. It's just that the lessons have become rare. We only had 3 this past week.

One of which is with Y San! we taught him the gospel of Christ yesterday. We did a lot of examples with him and different ways to explain the message. It was a great lesson. He prayed for us at the end but he said that he won't get baptized until he knows it is true. We said that he needed to pray to find that answer. He said he will just study it out. That is extremely frustrating.

Next was K. She didn't have any religious background before we met but she said she would like to listen. Now, 3 months later, we have barely gotten 4 lessons with her. She is really hard to meet. Because of that Jensen choro wanted to drop her. But I kept defending her saying that her previous lessons were amazing and she really does have heart. So we went to visit her and she wasn't home but she pulled up in her car.... then drove away. We were devastated. We went to another persons house and talked about it. Jensen wanted to drop her again but I said maybe she forgot something. So we went back and she said she just got home but she has time to talk. We taught an amazing lesson of prayer, scripture study, and the importance of the prophet. She said that she believes that Joseph smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. I gave her a prayer rock like kids have in primary. She said she will try her best to read and pray every night but right now coming to church is a little difficult.

Last lesson this week was with Y. She is a old investigator that we picked up through the area book. She believes that Joseph smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true. She has a deep faith in Christ but her view of the atonement is a little different. She was speaking really fast but I got the basic message of it. (Because we taught the plan of salvation to her) and she started to go on a rant. She would get baptized but her only problem with the message is really deep doctrine that Elder Jensen and I cant explain. It has to deal with why all the people can be saved, but they can't dwell with God. Well we could explain it but not in Japanese. That is extremely deep and how the atonement saves them but not gives them celestial glory. Other than that we gave her a promise at the end. We said we aren't perfect teachers and that we can't answer her questions but Christ's doctrine can and that doctrine can be found in the Book of Mormon. Remember when I doubt, go to the prophets and the Book of Mormon. Then the answer is in God's hands.

We got a recent missionary fuufu and they helped us during that lesson. we need member lessons with that lady. Honestly we would like member presents for every lesson. They help out so much, especially as we are young missionaries.

Being a young missionary I've been trying to figure myself out. What do I need to do to progress. Why did this or that happen to me. Why have been sent to Japan. Why can't I progress as well as others or why am I having this trial.  I'm searching so stinking hard to progress. I can't find it. I'm pressing so hard. I'm trying so hard in prayers. I'm trying to use up every drop of my energy to find that answer. Of course the answer won't be a one answer thing. It will be little things that come over time. But how do I use that? What is my purpose as a missionary? To invite others to Christ. How do I do that? Well... Im still trying to fully figure that out. And I don't know how long it will take to fully comprehend that either.

Until next week.

Love Jameson 長老

Bento boxes and spiritual bombs

Tuesday was transfer calls. We didn't get our calls until 8:45 pm. I'm staying with Elder Jensen but Elder Nara was transferred and we have another bean here in Miyako. His name is Elder Allen. Now all the missionaries are American.

I was a baby for some reason when Elder Nara left. We couldn't really communicate all that well until this past transfer but we have been companions 6 times because of splits and companion exchanges. He left and wrote me a broken English and Japanese note in my bye bye book. He said that I was his best friend. I was surprised to read that. I mean I just hugged him and was kind to him. But yeah I miss that guy. Not only that but I had a lot of respect for him. He could cook so fast! Us Americans were having a hard time cooking for all of us. Our dinner/lunch time increased by 30 minutes because of our inexperience. I typically make the idea of what we are eating and the others make it. I help too but I think about what we will eat during the day.

So this week was long but something changed with Elder Jensen and I when this transfer came around. For some reason as soon as Nara left, something switched in both of us. Unfortunately since it was new years, everyone was busy so we weren't able to get much done. But we had a great time nonetheless.

For example we ran into this lady on Thursday that we started to teach the second lesson. It was at the door step and we said we didn't want to take her time but we wanted to talk to her more. She said "come on in, I have some time!" So we went in and taught her 2 son's, daughter, and her the plan of salvation. It was a great lesson. We probably had the most unity ever teaching that lesson. It flowed so well! Not only that but we got around to hobbies and I told them I wanted to become a famous singer. They asked me to sing for them so I sang Nearer My God To Thee in English to them. That scared me so bad but it was fun. We asked them to be baptized and they said they would think about it.

Y was the guy we found a long time ago and the guy we wanted to do the 12 days of Christmas with. He was on vacation this past week so we went to visit them and we asked him how the Book of Mormon reading was. He said it was great. We asked him what was his favorite scripture. He said all of them. I worked really hard to find him good scriptures so I'm glad that paid off.

So elder Jensen and I realized we have a lot of finding we can do so we decided to start to find more so we can teach more. When we were finding.... we actually ran into a less active that hasn't seen missionaries for a long time. She opened the door and said "it's been a while." I freaked out and said "you said it's been a while?" she said "yeah its been a while!" I then guessed she was a less active. But then she shook our hands. Man she had a vice grip so I thought "there is no doubt she used to be a great member." She is a great member! She made us bento boxes for our break the fast! She also said that she thinks she needs to come back to church she just can't because she works on Sundays but she is always home on Saturday. So maybe we can get her to switch her days around. She is completely amazing. She is reading the Liahona online. She knew about the age drop for missionaries. She even brought up fast Sunday to us. I completely forgot that it was fast Sunday. I have hioe she will come back.

So yesterday we got the bento boxes from this less active. Her name is like the Smith of Miyako. We went to a member's house to teach her son who received lessons a while ago but he moved. Well he came back so we are trying to get him baptized :)  We went to their house.... and in Japanese culture at the beginning of the year they have this party for 20 year olds. It celebrates them becoming "adults" and is kinda like a graduation party for Americans. People come, leave gifts or money, eat food and leave. So we go to their house and the oldest daughter turned 20 so they had a party. They invited us in. We ate food, talked to lots of people, talked to the son, had a great time. Then as we were about to leave, one of our investigators that I haven't seen since October walks in. I freak out, she freaks out, and we started to talk. She said that she has been extremely busy and she is sorry but she wants to talk and meet soon. As I'm talking to her, the member`s husband (who at this time is more hammered than nails) grabs Elder Jensen by the hand and drags him to the adult male table. I was too into the conversation that I didnt see this. Some other person called out to me (this person could speak English pretty well) and said "Jameson Jameson! Your friend is over here! " I look over to see Elder Jensen sitting at the drunk table and the husband waving me over. So we go and sit there and they keep offering us stuff to drink. We just keep saying water. Then they start randomly talking about WW2 and getting really sad. But they kept saying how cute we were. Elder Jensen turned to me and said we need to get out of here. I agreed. So what he did is he slipped the phone behind him, and behind his back I set an alarm to go off in a minute. I turned the sound all the way up as well. So the alarm went off and we said we needed to go. It was super hilarious but man that was crazy. Drunk people are hilarious.

So recently I've been having dreams that I won't receive a baptism on my mission. I've been pretty upset because of those dreams. But last night I had another one of those dreams. So during my personal prayer this morning I asked why I'm having these dreams and to have them please pass because I really want a baptism. 30 seconds into personal study I was reading 1st Corinthians. verse 17 it says "for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." I was like dang! The spiritual bomb was just dropped. And I had random fears of teaching recently and in the next chapter Paul says how he was in awful fear and trembling while he was teaching. I thought, if an amazing person is scared, then this is somewhat normal. But he pressed through it.

Yep this is all I can really remember right now so i hope its good!

Jameson 長老

NOTE: On the day we emailed Jarom, we were in the middle of winter storm Ion. We were expecting HIGH temperatures on Monday to be -13 with wind chills at -30 to -50 degrees! This was Jarom's response: Its' still pretty warm here, sometimes it gets a little cold and we complain about it.... but then we realize it is still in the 60's. Haha

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