Letters Home from Hokkaido: Serving in the Japan Sapporo Mission: Who are you? Or, who were you?

May 8, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

This week we have been able to find tons of new investigators, and have really been working this area!! We had an investigator come to church on Sunday! His name is Kihara and he is about 60 years old. He is retired from the Army and he rode a motorcycle to church that is some sort of special old model that he has been riding for the last 30 plus years. Haha he had such an awesome time at church, and really seemed like he was willing to give our church a chance, and take our message seriously. Such a nice, very humble guy. Please pray for him.

There was a free day at the gym here and so we went to go play basketball and see if we could pick up any investigators through playing basketball! We were able to meet 5 different college students and play ball with them! They were really good and it was super fun! It is so fun to play some really high level bball! I exchanged numbers with all of them, and we were able to teach them a little bit, and they seem so receptive! One of them has been to st. George in Utah, and did homestay! He has even been to our church before, with the family he stayed with!! So awesome!

We had about 30 minutes left in the night last night, and we went to a big mall where we talk to people in the food court. (Super good way to find people) but on our way in we stopped someone, and he was willing to exchange numbers and give us a time where he could meet, and then inside we were able to find another guy who was 22 years old, and he also exchanged numbers and made an appointment with us! Super big miracle! 30 minutes and 2 investigators! The power of prayer is real!!

It is so crazy how fast the mission continues to fly onward. It is so sad to think about how long ago it seems that I was in my first area and with my first companions. It is so important that in life we always treasure each moment that we have, the hard and the fun, the beautiful and the destructive. We are Spiritual beings, experiencing a mortal experience.

I have thought recently about who I really am, who we really are. Of course the first answer to that question is the beautiful amazing truth that we are children of God. I love this truth, and I love being able to testify of this truth to so many people that we meet everyday. Most people really like this idea, and they've never even heard of this kind of idea before, it is very interesting. No one here thinks of God in the way that we as Christians do traditionally. They believe that if their is a God, first of all He would be an "It" and God is in many things, and doesn't care about or love us, but is just kind of an illusive mysterious being. Very interesting. I love knowing the simple truth that I am a child of God. I know that I and you and he and she and all of us are children of God. He lives and he has a body that is not so different than ours. We look like him, and our potential is to become like him. He created a plan for us so that we might be able to progress, and Jesus Christ was central to that Plan. We must follow Jesus Christ and his teachings, and rely on His Atonement, and then we will be able to return to our Heavenly Father and become like Him. These are eternal truths. I love eternal truths. No sort of worldly wisdom or philosophy can ever rebuff an eternal truth.

Beyond us being children of God; we also ourselves, are eternal. We have no beginning and no end. We have an eternity of existence that right now in mortality we don't know about. Think about who you really are. You are so much more than you can ever imagine. You were a soldier in God's army in Heaven. You and I were Generals in the army against satan, we as members of the church were born into the church not just because of chance. We came at this time, and into the church because of what we did in the premortal life.

These are two different quotes from talks that were given by Elder Hyrum W Smith in a devotional at ricks college:

Brothers and sisters, I would like to suggest to you today that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in 1820 because that’s the only time it could have survived. There is a more pointed question that needs to be asked. Why were you born when you were born? Why weren’t you born in 911, or 1215? Is it because some computer in the cosmos blipped and you came out now? I don’t buy that. I believe you were born in this dispensation, with the gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today, because you were somebody before you got here. If you had any idea of who you were before you got here, the hair would stand up on the back of your neck. Joseph Smith said on one occasion, “If I were to tell you who I am, you’d slay me for blasphemy.” Wisely never told anybody who he was, but he knew.

I have a testimony of that, brothers and sisters. If you were to know who you were before you got here, it would scare you. You know what that means? It means we don’t have the right to do all the dumb stuff a lot of the other young people in the world are doing, fooling around with drugs and alcohol and premarital sex and all that dumb stuff. We don’t have the right. Why? Because we know too much. Why? Because we’re here because we were somebody before we came here and the Lord has sent us here to accomplish some great task. And that task is to take now and export the reality of the fact that the gospel has been restored. No one between 96 and 1820 could authoritatively say “Thus saith the Lord.” Now we can. Why? Because there is a man on the planet today that can say “‘Thus saith the Lord’ because I speak with him.”

I know that we have eternal value, and that we are not nobody. Think about the part of yourself, the majority of yourself, that you don't even know! I don't want to disappoint my full self. I want to be pleased with my actions and with who I've become during this journey when I reconnect with my full eternal self and the vail is lifted. Thinking about my true self, my full self gives me greater motivation and desire to overcome the petty things of the world and become who I am meant to become. I encourage you all to do the same. God loves you, trust in him, and trust in yourself, you are not an accident, and you are not just another person. You are priceless and your potential is limitless. You are a Son or a Daughter of God. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Pics:

1. The guys that we were able to play basketball with.

2. District lunch last week! Such an awesome district!

3. Despite my better judgment, and fighting sickness hard, we made Oreo milkshakes.

4. Our investigator leaving Church. #straightG