They welcomed her in

SOOOOOO birthday week!!!!


Crazy awesome week.

Monday started off slow. There were lots of old people we contacted because we wanted to house... houses instead of apartments. It turns out old people live in houses. That or really rich young people. We did meet one lady whose dad died a few days earlier. She was freaking out at the door and told us to come at a different time, so we will.

Tuesday. We had 2 member present lessons planned out. Both fell through. I though, "stink, what are we going to do?" So I called around trying to make appointments. One of which was that less active we found by accident 2 transfers ago. She started to say,"Well I have something to say. Its about you guys, me, and my daughter." I immediately thought, "what did we do? I didn't do anything bad? Are we not going to be able to meet with her anymore?" But just the opposite happened. She said, "I want my daughter to take the lessons and maybe even get baptized. She is 11 now and she can make her own choices. Not only that, I may change my mind as well."

I sat there. I had to repeat what she said to me to make sure. It was true. She told me to talk to our Branch President so we can set something up. They will come to church next week.

Wednesday. We met A-san just for a bit. She meets with us but she doesn't have motive. I think it is the factor of two American boys coming and talking to her. We may have to drop her because she doesn't retain anything. I've explained everything as simply as I can. I've taught prayer 4 or 5 times and yet she doesn't know what it is. I love her but things are not progressing at all.

We met two people on Wednesday. H san and Y san. they both agreed to return appointments. H said that because she can't see God she doesn't believe. I stepped behind her door and asked her if I existed. she said "I can't see you." I asked," can you hear me?" and she said "oohhhh I see" so we explained prayer to her. Y, we explained Christ's role. She said that she might want to hear one more lesson.

Thursday was hard. We tried sooooooooo hard to plan for a member present lesson we had planned with T san. No matter how much we tried to think of what we should teach, we couldn't think of anything. We got to the lesson still not knowing what to share. We told the member that we will try our best but we are not sure. We first followed up on the reading she had (she is a Christian and she has the Book of Mormon.) It was over Moroni 10:3-5. She said she didn't understand the Holy Ghost and prayer. We asked her if she prayed before. She said yes but never has received an answer or has never felt the Holy Ghost. This was perfect because the member we had there has an amazing testimony of prayer and the Spirit and honestly the rest of the lesson was the member explaining her life and the power of prayer. It was exceptional and something we could not plan. We had a feeling to invite her to church. (She is the girl who won't split from her sister... who was there during the lesson so we taught both of them) So we invited her. She turned to her sister and said "lets go and see" the sister was busy on Sunday but T san committed to come to church.

Friday. We met H san and Y again. H knows how to pray now and we will go to visit her on Wednesday with a member. Y for some reason rejected us. She said its impossible to meet. I asked her why. She said she didn't know. Then I asked then what is stopping you from listening. She said she didn't know. I said, well then we will be around here sometime and we will try to say hello. But until then, please think about this again.

We met that less active with the weird alien religion. It has baptism and many other Christian beliefs but it can't be further from the truth. We want to investigate it more.

We met E san. She became an investigator. It was just a short meet but we can visit her Friday with a member.

Saturday started off really rough. On Wednesday when I had my birthday, I felt on cloud nine. For some reason I felt really good while dendo.Words were just coming out of my mouth. At eikaiwa, 2 college students came. They were super awesome but they rushed out of the building really quick so I felt they didn't like it. But on Saturday we were doing terrible. Everything felt wrong. I was really sad. Then eikaiwa came around. Not only did the 2 college students came, our group of long lost friends came (a mom and a daughter who wants to go to school in America.) They came to eikaiwa a while ago but then left for America. Well they came back and they found a school! They will be going to San Jose. how far is that from San Diego? Maybe Colby can help them? (Uncle Colby lives in Sand Diego, a short 460 miles from San Jose.) But yeah, it was a great time.

I felt super happy and ready to go. We went to some college houses and met some great people. We have appointments with them next week.

Sunday! Fast Sunday! T came to church. She loved it! She wants to come next week. At the end of church all the old woman swarmed her, but she loved it. They welcomed her in and she wants to come back. We met W. he was a referral from the church but he has a lot of thoughts and ideas that if he had a knowledge of the gospel he would find peace. I told him that we could find those answers through God. He said, "I don't want God's answers." (Up until this point I have been getting upset from everyone not wanting anything from us) So I asked him, "why don't you want those answers? Do you have those answers now?" He said no. I said, "then why do you not want them?" He couldn't answer the question. We made a return appointment and we will try to find a way to help him.

Last story. We were housing last night and we went into an apartment complex. I saw one name on a mail box and thought, "we need to visit this person" so we went and knocked. This lady was fluent in English. She believed in God. So I asked her, do you believe God gives you feelings to help others? She said yes! That's why she can't refuse to help others. She has been a volunteer for over 17 years. I told her how we had the feeling to visit her. Also that God wanted to help her. She said sorry I don't need that help. I about cried. It hurt so bad. I know that we were sent to her and she straight up rejected us. But please pray for N so that she can have that change of heart.

Love,

Elder jameson

Nothing can replace the place he has in my heart

This week was pretty great! We had the zone leaders come down on Tuesday and we got some work done. In the past 2 transfers I have not given out a Book of Mormon. This past week we handed out 3. Its going good here. On Tuesday Elder Knighton went with Arai choro who taught O San and U San. I don't really know what happened with O but she is interested in health. U was awesome. She said since Sunday she prayed twice, both times she felt great afterwards, almost like a clean feeling. She said that if she continues to keep feeling this way, she might start to believe.

Elder Zushi and I went to E San. She was pretty awesome. Again she has a lot of interest in religion. Last week she said she read the story of Job and cried. So we talked about how we can overcome trials. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to find ways to overcome trials.

We didn't get to meet Liu this week but he is doing good. We are sending him texts to build relationship and get to know him. On Wednesday we met this lady who opened the door and gasped. She said that we looked like angels from God. It was rally strange because she quickly asked for our number and closed the door. We don't know what happened but hopefully she will call.

Elder Zushi told me to start calling older contacts in our phones to see if they have interest. We set up an appointment with T. She is a Christian. We went and asked her how her meetings with missionaries went in the past. She said the Book of Mormon was too difficult. We asked her is she knew the purpose of the Book of Mormon. She said she didn't so it lead right into the first lesson. But she said she won't leave the side of her sister. Her and her sister go to a church that is over an our away. Where her sister goes, she follows. So its a hard situation.

We once again met with U San on Friday with a member. We taught about the 3 main ways of building a testimony: prayer, scripture study, and coming to church. It went a little long and we feel bad about that but she again expressed her liking of prayer. She prays for her children and family. When she prays before bed, she wakes up feeling better (she said its hard to wake up but when she prays, its easy.) We have another lesson with her on Tuesday.

Recently we have been trying to set up appointments so that we can bring members along. It is so amazing what happens when a member is involved. The investigator progresses so much.

This week we started to sit down with some members to help build personal mission plans. So we drew out sections out of preach my gospel to help them. One member said, "the level of this plan is too high for normal people. Maybe for missionaries, but its too hard for us." So I want to help them find their own ways to dendo. What are some ways that you can give service to people, or share your talents? That's what I want to help them do.

This past week I have been slightly been put off with some of the things people say to us at the doorstep. They say "it is no relation" I ask them why they think it has no relation. They say something along the lines of "I'm not part of your church or religion." "Go somewhere else" or "Why are you here? I'm not your religion." The other day a lady said "I'm not part of your religion sorry. I'm Buddhist"  It makes me so sad sometimes. I love these Japanese people but other than these excuses, they have some of the worst excuses I have ever heard in my life. They just reject what seems unnatural to them. One man last night was leaving his apartment and we caught him in time to give him an English flyer. Before I stopped my first sentence, he said "I'm rejecting you."  I thought in my head, "man you didn't even let me finish. You don't even know what I'm trying to offer you. Why are you rejecting something you didn't even take the time to listen about?" With that I said,"Why? It's just free English? We are trying to help people." He looks over to Knighton choro (who gave him 2 thumbs up which was really funny actually) then the guy started to say how he actually has interest in English and how he wants to work for an American company. Its ridiculous sometimes people just dont take the time.

With that, I want to tell you about how I took the time to read a less active (who got baptized and quickly reverted back to his weird alien religion) man's pamphlet about his church. Its called the raelian movement. Down to the basics of it, its pretty close to what a lot of main Christian churches believe.... except that instead of God and the priesthood, its aliens and technology. It takes bible words and tries to warp it to seem like it makes sense with the church. What was the thing that hurt me the most is when he handed me the flyer and said "This is the true messiah" in English. I went home and held my Book of Mormon and said in my head "What has this man done for me? Has he died and paid his blood for my sins and my soul? Does he know my every need and desire? Has he felt what I have felt?" It made me realize that no man can ever replace my savior. Nothing can replace the place he has in my heart.

Elder Jameson

I felt this fuwah feeling

So hello my friends!

This week had some interesting tweaks and turns.

At first it started off great! We went off to go visit an investigator with the intent to meet his mom. his mom is a Filipinojin who loves Christ. We were able to meet her and she was just so open. she immediately let us in and sat us down. We talked and built a great relationship and have an appointment for today. I'm super excited!

So on Tuesday we went a little further outside the city, maybe a 25 minute bike ride. We found this massive apartment complex and many houses around it. We think not many missionaries have been out this direction so we put that down as a side note to return back to it. We had a lesson with U san. Man I just love her and her family so much. Her daughters and son are so stinking cute. We taught a little bit of the plan of salvation and taught about God's love. She seems to recognize it really well. We set another appointment for Friday (later that week).

Wednesday we went to visit some less actives but as I was biking, a huge explosion came from behind me. My tire literally exploded. The tread and tube. There was a huge hole in both of them so the day was spent getting that fixed and then a lesson with L Z the Chinese man. We texted him the day before asking if we could meet. He said yes but I have something to tell you. I want to get baptized in a different church. We just sat there in awe. In my head I kept saying "what did we do wrong? What could have we done differently?" Then the idea came, what is his understanding of the Book of Mormon? So we taught him and asked him what he thought. He said he didn't understand it at all. We basically taught him the whole first lesson over again but he said he basically wants to become Christian. That's it. It doesn't matter by what means. But he does like the Protestant church because it was reformed. I asked him "what about the church that has been restored?" He said well I don't like the Book of Mormon. I like the bible. I thought in my head, wait... before you came to Japan, you didn't know anything about the bible and saying that you don't like new things is slightly ironic. He said a lot of things that were against each other and frankly it was hard to not be frustrated. At the end I challenged him to read it and see. We want to re-review the first lesson but put the focus on priesthood.

Thursday was spent buying a new tire, fixing my bike, and planning. We didn't have time to dendo. But we did get to eat lunch with a member and her friend and her friends daughter. It was awkward to say the least. She tried her best to bring her friends to us to teach but we think she thinks that she only needs to bring her friends to us and that's all the members need to do. They need to fellowship and prepare the friends. But I am grateful to receive the first referral ever from a member on my mission. Its kinda sad that it took 11 months to get that.

Friday we met with a less active and U. The less active has I think cancer so he can't come to church but he knows all the missionaries since 1979. When they first opened Iizuka. The two less active missionaries in our ward are on that list. Then we talked to U. We asked her what she thought of the message. Then the arrow of pain came. She said she originally didn't have interest and still doesn't but she said she would continue to listen. It hurt a lot since we had hope in her.

Saturday we had training in Fukuoka so we didn't have much time to do anything.

Sunday I was struggling during church because the first counselor basically tells us to always work harder and honestly tells us things that we already knew. He sometimes criticizes the missionaries because we are so young but he is also very kind at times. We are trying our best to do the things president asks us but sometimes... its just difficult when members won't help us. I asked him (since he lives far) to visit some of the less active near him. He said it was completely impossible. and walked off. I love him but he is so difficult to work with. Not only that I was feeling really down because the past half week. It was good but then turned sour. During the sacrament I just sat there and pondered. I had this feeling of everything was going to be okay.

We went home and I listened to some talks that Elder Jensen gave me. They were 2009 April general conference talks. Both stressing things of we are not alone, we can do it kind of talks. I felt better so we headed out the door and for some reason I was just filled with hope. We had a feeling to visit a former investigator. She wasn't there but outside her apartment there is a business that sells apartments. We saw a couple pull in the parking lot with an American truck. I stopped them and started to talk about their car, which led into why they were there. They said they were either recently married or soon to get married, I forget the details but it allowed for a natural intro to eternal marriages. The girl, as expected, love the idea. The man wasn't turned off, but they listened and they might contact us.

We ran into some kids later. I remembered Jesus saying "suffer the little children to come to me" so we talked to them for a bit. It would be weird to see American men talking to kids so we walked away but they followed us up 5 flights of stairs as we housed an apartment. We sang abc's for them and had fun.

We ran into a Jehovah's Witness. She shoved chirashis into our hands but wouldn't exchange anything. I think it's funny that religions don't take time to listen to others. I try to do that for others because I know I would want that if they did it to me, but that is kinda frustrating as well. She said she was in the middle of dinner so she was good but she didn't say she wasn't good for us returning again :)

Lastly, our first member present lesson in over 3 months. Probably one of the best lessons I've had on my mission. It was short and sweet but super powerful and left the investigator feeling better. We met with U again and we brought our branch president along with us. We talked about the Holy Ghost and prayer but the focus of it all was that it is a real thing that we can receive answers to. All in all she opened up and asked some amazing questions as we shared Enos' story from the Book of Mormon. Lastly, after we told her the feelings and promptings she can receive from prayer, we challenged her to pray before she went to bed. She said she was scared for the feeling she would get but we told her again that it would be okay. We had our branch president pray at the end. It was a wonderful prayer. After we said amen (U said amen too :)) she said "woah, I felt this fuwah feeling" (motioning to her heart swelling). The branch president said "That's great. That was the Spirit." And I turned to her and said "See it is real. That shows us that God loves us all"

Things are great!

Love
Elder jameson

If we put work into our prayers, God will answer

Hello friends!

It was great being able to Skype my family!!! They are the best. After I hung up I just sat there and said "man that went by fast." It was sad to say goodbye but I'll be able to talk to you soon again!

Again relating it to the Savior, when he died I think he felt the sorrow for the people he was leaving. He knew where he was going but they didn't know where he was going. I feel that every transfer. It hurts leaving people you love.

Anyways this week was short because we did a lot of stuff for Lee Choro and getting him ready to transfer. (Elder Lee was transferred and left Jarom and Elder Knighton all alone in Iizuka.)

We tried to meet a lot of our investigators. We had some pretty bad timing the whole week. One's house started to break so he had to fix it. Another investigator's child got in trouble at school so a teacher was talking to the mom.

We did get to meet some Potential Investigators this past week. One named E. She has interest in religion and apparently her husband knows all about Christianity. So we hope we can teach them and bring them closer to their Heavenly Father. When we visited her she said that she read the story of Job in the bible and she cried. We taught her that God tests us sometimes and if we can pass the test, we not only become better people but God will bless us more. She seemed to really recognize the lesson.

We met with a less active named Y. He has been less active for about 14 years or so but he comes to church when the missionaries pick him up. We had a lesson with him about prayer. We asked him what prayer meant to him. He said that because God didn't help him find a job he didn't believe prayer works. That frustrated me because he sits at home playing video games all day. How does he expect God to help him when he sits around all day? Then he said because of all the wars and famines in this world, God doesn't answer prayers. I became more increasingly frustrated, mostly because every time I went to address his question he would interrupt me with saying the same thing. But then Elder Knighton, in his broken Japanese, bore a wonderful testimony that if we put work into our prayer, God will answer. Then Y started to open up more saying that he was bullied as a kid and thought about suicide many times. I shared experiences of friends and my own. I just hope we can show him his importance as a child of God.

We met this lady a while back with Mabuchi. Her name is Y. She expressed concern about her children and how she wanted to see them grow and succeed. So we related that to how God wants us to grow and succeed so he gave us prophets. We can go back next week :)

We found this amazing cute family named U. The kids are so amazingly adorable. The mom had interest in religion when she was young so she was pretty open about religion. She asks awesome questions. We have an appointment on Tuesday. Things look good.

We met this younger woman in the same area. She is a soka gakkai member. (Soka Gakkai is a Buddhist movement. You can find more HERE) That is so incredibly difficult to deal with. They never listen to our message. She was so young and it hurt me to see that because of her religion she wouldn't even listen to ours. A lot of people say that religion brain washes people a lot of the time. but I don't think that is true. People have their choice. On the other hand, that religion teaches people strictly not to listen to other religions. I felt bad for her and I didn't want to let it go. I don't know how but she agreed to a return appointment. Hopefully things will turn out well.

We over all have been finding lots of younger families. It is really what this area needs. I know that Heavenly Father loves all His children and provides a way for everyone to return. We all just need to look for those opportunities.

Elder Jameson

Building member missionary plans

This week has been weird since we had a junkai with Chikushino Elders.

We taught A again. When we got there she said "Oh some of your church members came by the other day. They gave me this!" we looked at it and it was a Jehovah Witness book. Apparently we didn't explain the different churches all that well. We taught that and showed her a video on mormon.org (on her cell phone we looked it up.)

On Wednesday we taught our Chinese investigator L J. He is so hard to teach because his Japanese and English are not great. SO we write in kanji on a board as we teach him. He is earnestly seeking for truth and hopefully he will recognize it soon.

On Friday we went to Chikushino to junkai with the elders there. Elder Lee went with the experienced elder... I had two junior companions. This was scary to me because I have to take charge of all the contacts and guide the junior companions. It turned out to be a great day. We didn't have bikes so we went near a train station. Not exactly by it, but up the street. We met lots of amazing people. The sad thing is, within an hour of streeting there, we handed out a Book of Mormon. It's sad because that is the first Book of Mormon I've handed out in 2 transfers. It hurt to hear Knighton say "yeah my first Book of Mormon!" I don't know what I'm doing wrong here. Ill talk about that in a second.

But we contacted many people. One drunk guy tried to quiz me about Christ. Japanese people don't know much about him so he actually wanted to come to church because I answered him. We passed a family and we kept walking. But then I was really pained in my chest. I thought "man its awkward sometimes contacting the family on the streets but that family is so dang cute and they don't have the gospel." So I turned and ran back telling them to wait. It turns out they are a really cool family and they might come to eikaiwa. The lord always prepares people for you to meet.

We returned and on Saturday, we went to an apartment complex that had a lot of potential investigators there. For some strange reason we just didn't feel right. When we got home I turned to Elder Lee and said, "We aren't doing something right. I felt so good in Chikushino but I feel frustrated here. I feel like nothing feels right. I've felt this way since A came to church." He turned to me and said he has felt the same. So for 3 weeks or so we have felt weird. We realized that these past 3 weeks, we haven't involved the members at all. When I was with Mabuchi, he preferred not doing things with members so we never did. I just continued through this transfer. Elder Lee did a lot his first transfer here and it slowly died off. So we decided to really use every member as much as possible. We realized we didn't know much about half the members. I feel like a terrible trainer because we didn't realize this sooner. I know the less actives and people in the area book pretty well but I have no idea what some of the members ideas or experiences are like.

So from here we are going to spend time with members to build their trust. When the trust is built, we will build member missionary plans. Our branch president is an all go for this. He taught in church how the members duty is to help the missionaries. He taught right out of Preach My Gospel. Things are going to be great soon.

Yesterday we didn't get a whole lot done because we went to do service for one member. It was supposed to take 2 hours. It was weeding a garden and making it pretty. Well... we found 8 tree stumps there and up rooted 4 trees. It took a while to say the least. But now the bond is there.

Talk to you on Sunday! :)

Jameson

I can see the want in their eyes

My body is starting to decay. I'm so tired all the time. No matter how hard I work out in the morning, it doesn't compare to what i can do in the gym. When I come home I'll probably be a little scrawny. I hope that won't happen.

I did get the package. Elder Lee scoffed at the socks and said they were too girly. I saw him rocking them out during personal study the other day. I giggled in the inside.

The bike for Knighton helps so much. We are able to visit so many more places. The only bad thing is sometimes Elder Lee rides so fast, he can't stop to contact people. My  bike is actually really small because that was the best I could buy on Miyako. I can't go all that fast. I get to contact the people he passes by and I get to meet some awesome people. I contacted this old man who actually has been to our church and liked our teaching. The only thing is that he feels he hasn't received direct help form God. I told him that most of the time God helps us through other things and people. I told him to think of cases like that. Then he went on his way.

This week we went to more of the college students apartments. We don't want to make a sudden attack of all the houses. We gradually want to work our way in. We contacted a man on the street where we set an appointment for Wednesday at 6. His name is Y. He is Christian and he wants to talk more about Christ. He is a college student as well.

College students are either really friendly or just straight up weird. The friendly ones I have great conversations with. But the weird ones either try to outsmart you (on beliefs of God... which is funny because they actually know little about the subject) or just sit there like a brick wall. But they all have great hearts and I can see the want in their eyes. It just sounds weird to them.

The other day this 60 year old woman let us inside her entry way. She gave us milk. (which was the bom-dot-com) We talked about God a little bit but what she was really interested in was trying to set us up with her 30 year old daughter who is a nurse and apparently pretty good at English. When we told her our age she giggled with embarrassment.

We had a lesson with the mom who loves video games. It was awesome because Elder Knighton had some great idea how to involve it. Because of him we have a lunch appointment with her later today.

A did not come to church. We did eat lunch with her and got to know her pretty well on Saturday. The thing is, I don't know if we are just becoming friends and we can't share the gospel. We want to share it but we don't want to be overly persistent. We are just looking for the right time to open it up to her. I want to do it in the next two weeks.

Over all we were able to visit some potential investigators that we haven't been able to visit in a while. One of which is a family named K. it turns out that the family is just an older sister with her two younger brothers. They in turn like to hear us and things are going well with that. The girl, I think, is providing for the family so its near impossible to meet. She is the main focus with regards to that family.

Yesterday we met with that less active who we found by accident a few weeks ago. She was super genki. She said that she is Protestant because the churches where she lived (she went to college in America) were all Protestant. There wasn't really any church members. She also said that she thinks since all Christians believe in the bible, it doesn't really matter what church she is in. So we just want to teach her more about the Book of Mormon again. She said we can teach her less active son who apparently rejoiced that the fact he saw the branch president, and also her 11 year old daughter who has not been baptized. Things look good for that.

I want to stress the importance of updating records. I went to talk about some less actives with my Branch President and he said that they either moved away or this or that happened. A lot of the records don't have information about them since 2002. That's kinda hard to work with. I'm going to review all the records with Tanaka Kaichou soon.

Love,

Jameson Choro

There WAS Christianity in Japan!

Sorry I didn't email yesterday. We had interviews with President and we moved our pday to today.

When I look back on this week, we didn't have a lot of time or rather a lot of things did not occur.

I do want to say something that happened from last week that I forgot to say. We had a man call us randomly and said he wanted to meet at the church. Apparently awhile ago he took lessons from the missionaries and looked at the font. He has been searching in Kumamoto some old ruins. These ruins dated back to around the time of Christ. In these ruins, there were font replicas. He showed us some pictures and they looked almost like out font except that it was made out of stone.

It goes to show that there was Christianity in Japan years ago. Christ did visit these people and they did teach his doctrine. Not only that but the Japanese people have relatives that have a burning testimony of Christ. It's just finding that connection through all the lost generations.

We did a lot of finding this week and we were able to meet some awesome people, one of which gave us 30 dollars to offer to God. We denied it at least 8 times but she started to get really offended so we gave it to the branch president on Sunday.

Since the college has started up again, we have been starting to house at the college apartments more. We have some young potential investigators and they are super fun. I feel bad now because I almost only want to talk to young people because honestly they aren't nearly as rude as the older people. Actually they aren't rude at all. We say we are from a Christ church and they say "oh really?" instead of "go away". It opens a lot more opportunities to share the gospel.

There was a drunk man that ripped poor Elder Knighton apart. I kept defending him but Elder Knighton had a hand in his pocket and was in a slacked position. Because of this, the man became really offended and got in his face. I tried many times to turn the conversation away from it but he kept going back and started to shove an umbrella at Knighton. As i recount it, i honestly am really frustrated thinking about it.

We are finding some very kind people. Very kind people. We went with the branch president on Sunday and visited that less active we found weeks ago finding. She was sick but we met the member son J. He came to the door and was super genki. He almost freaked out because he remembers Tanaka Kaichou from when he was a boy. He has Sundays free and he might come to church. He would also be a perfect base to start up the young people in the ward and would be a great friend for A. san.

Speaking of which, she didn't come to church on Sunday. I think she found her Catholic church. She can still be baptized on the 10th but that means she has to come to church the next two weeks and take all the lessons in that time. I don't want to rush that and I want her to have a lasting conversion. But we have a lunch appointment with her on Saturday. Hopefully we can get some message in and through that she can start to develop that faith.

Things are starting to move I think. Its hard to look at the numbers at the end of the week and see no progress. But from president's wife, she said to us, "sometimes you are called because of your love and patience." Maybe I have been called to love every area. Then when it needs to be, the ward will grow.

Speaking of which, I don't know if I said this already but I heard from Elder Jensen that the mom of the less active in Miyako came to church the other week. Soon I hope she will be baptized!

Please pray for the work in Japan!

Elder Jameson