Miracles

April 25, 2016

Dear family and friends,
This week has been a very faith strengthening week. It has been a week
of miracles. A week of faith. A week of love. I have learned more
about who God is and how He works. By small things great things are
brought to pass. I have realized what faith really is. I thought that
faith was something that I had, and I have tried really hard to have
faith, and I do have faith, but this week God showed me that He can do
anything. Nothing is impossible for God. I have learned to expect
God's help, and to expect his tender mercies, and miracles. This is
his work, I am his servant, He is not helping me, I am doing
everything I can to be worthy to help him. This is his work, and I am
so grateful to be able to be a small part of it. I know that this
church is true. I know that Christ lives, knows us and loves us. God
is so much more aware of and involved in everyone's life then I ever
realized before. He is always there, just waiting for us to recognize
Him, accept him, and follow him. People here have never heard about
Jesus Christ, but they have Christ's influence woven into their their
lives, and if you look close, you can see and feel how much Christ
loves each of his children.
 
Some very awesome things happened this last week. We have been meeting
every week since I got here with an Investigator named Tawaria san.
(San is like Mr, or Mrs. Here, and is what we call all of our
investigators) So the first week that I went to his house and taught
him, I walked in and thought it must be a joke that he was one of our
better investigators. His house was a tirade of cat hair, random stuff
scattered everywhere. He sat perched in a den with a computer monitor,
and a small TV on his left, and his laptop propped up by some hand
made mechanism to make it at an angle that he could be leaned back
into his pillows and still use it easily. We sat in there playing with
his cat, as he played various video games at once. His face was
gauntly white, his hair was long and messy, and his eyes were beady
and small. He was barely giving us the time of day for the first half
of the time that we were there, but then when we talked about sharing
a lesson, he turned everything off and looked at us. So that made me
happy! Lessons continued like that twice more, and then we invited him
to come to the church and letting us teach him a lesson there, and he
said oh okay. We invited an awesome member, who is a great man, who
already served his mission about 20 years ago, in THIS mission! But we
invited him to team up with us on the lesson.

  This lesson was this last Tuesday. We met them at the church, and
gave Tawaria san a tour of the church, which was very spiritual, and I
think really made him recognize the blessing of the Sacrament, and of
coming to church. We then taught him, and talked to him about coming
to church, and he was kind of frustrated, saying, "I want to come to
church, but I can't because of my work!" He works at this game center
and Sunday's are the busiest days of the week by far, and so he has
Monday's and Tuesday's off of work, and he says that there's no way
his boss would let him take off Sunday's. We kept talking to him, and
then I shared 1 Nephi 3:7 with him, and we bore testimony of God being
able to provide a way, and then I asked him if he would follow the
example of the savior receive baptism, and he said yes! It was
awesome! But that wasn't the miracle. We already knew that he wanted
to be baptized.

 We prayed really hard the whole rest of the week that Tawaria san
would basically quit his job, or that somehow he would be able to come
to church, but honestly I didn't really think that it would be this
Sunday. I believed that it could happen, but didn't really think so
soon. We had given him 6 sunday's before his baptismal date where he
could come to church, (Investigators have to come 3 times before they
can be baptized), and so he had to make it 3/6 to church to be able to
be baptized. The first week seemed to be one of the more unlikely
ones, thinking we'd have to make a plan with him to talk to his boss,
and try and work something out. BUT. We are NOT alone! This isn't even
our work! This is the Lord's work, and we get to help a little bit
with it. We got a call on Saturday evening while we were riding our
bikes from Tawaria san. He told us that for some reason that he
doesn't know his boss had called him and told him that he didn't need
to come in the next day, and so he could come to church!!! We were so
pumped! He asked when it was and such, and we told him about the 1
hour of sacrament meeting be the most important (It is the last hour
here) he said that okay he would come to that, but then we said oh but
it's all super good, and very valuable, and he's like, "Okay what do
you want me to do" and we said, "We wan't you to come to all three
hours", and he said okay! He came and had a wonderful time at church,
and met many people, and was welcomed by the ward in a very warm and
happy way. It was truly a miracle. Please pray for him, and his Job
that he will be able to continue to come to church.

 This week we also found 3 investigators!! We talked one of the
investigators that we haven't seen since we found her on my first
whole day here in this area in the field! We taught her the plan of
salvation, and she was so receptive and believing on our words! It was
so awesome! I was getting really pumped, because she also said that
she believes Jesus Christ Created the world! No one believes that
here! No one even usually knows Who Christ is! We testified to her,
and I though, I'm going to commit her to baptism. (Soft commitment) So
I said, "Through prayer, if you receive an answer from god about
whether or not our message is true, will you receive baptism?" At
first she was like, "oh..baptism," and was kind of worried, but then I
told her ONLY if she received an answer, and she thought for a second,
and then said YES! That got me pumped. This last week our
investigators progressed so much, and I really felt a change in the
area. I felt so much more love for everyone we saw, the church
members, our investigator's and everyone! It is so awesome! After we
taught her, (This was all on Saturday after Tawaria san called us
telling us he would come to church) we went to our favorite restaurant
for dinner, and then when we were leaving, the Manager Sumon, in that
picture behind me, (This is a nepalese restaurant that has been
started in Hokkaido and has all of these neponalese hilarious G's
working at them!) But as we were leaving all the patrons had basically
left, and he started asking us questions about our church, and about
how we pray and stuff! He told us that he prays everyday, and that he
really believes in Jesus Christ. He doesn't believe in "bothering God,
but just wants to give him thanks!" he's such a G! We taught him for
about 10 minutes, and then told him we'd talk more when we came back
next time! He's awesome! I want to talk to all those workers about the
church!

I talked to Sasaki Shimai a lot yesterday. She is such an awesome ward member! She is the sweetest lady, and makes me feel so happy. I felt so bad when we had to leave her house early the other day, she seemed so sad, and lonely! (we were still there for an hour!) But she seemed so happy with us there, I literally just wanted to stay there forever! But the first thing she said to me at church today, was that I needed to come visit again. It made my heart melt! She is so sincere, sweet, and Christlike. I can feel God's immense love for her. She is a great example. Sasaki Shimai: (She rides her bike to church and all around town!!