August 22, 2016
Hello everyone!
This week has been the best week of my mission. I feel like each week
has just kept on getting better and better. I can finally say that
missionary work has become my passion. I absolutely love every moment
that I have to be able to share the gospel with anyone that I can.
When I started playing tennis in HS I had such a strong burning desire
and passion to want to play tennis all the time. Every waking moment
of everyday, I felt like I just wanted to have my Racquet in hand and
my feet on a court: now I feel this way about dendo and I feel so
grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me this gift of passion. The
way that my personality works, for those of you that may not know me
that well, if something is my passion, then I will do whatever it
takes to succeed. I love passion. I know spend every waking moment
thinking about how I can approach people differently, facilitate the
spirit touching people's hearts, and teach, more effectively. My
companion is an amazing missionary, and such a fantastic teacher. I
love him so much, and really hope that we get to have another transfer
together. In our apartment are two other elders. One of them is a
brand new missionary from Hawaii. (It's crazy how recently it was I
was in his place, not being able to speak Japanese, and brand new to
mission life) I still struggle with the language, but I can handle a
lot now, and I can really communicate what I want to communicate to
people. I feel that the language only limits me a little from being
effective to my fullest capacity, whereas before I felt like I
couldn't do anything to help, at least well. God has helped me and
does help me with the language so much. The other Elder in our
apartment is Elder skinner. He is half Japanese half American and is
from Tokyo. He was fluent at both languages before his mission, but is
better at Japanese, and yet still went to BYU before the mission. He
is known to be a really good missionary, and was AP for four transfers
before he came here for one transfer and is now training elder beede.
He is our district leader, and so I went on splits with him on Friday,
and I really did learn a lot. We worked hard, and did not let fear
stop us once. FEAR FROM SATAN. AS A MISSIONARY IF YOU GIVE IN TO FEAR,
NO MATTER WHAT THE REASON, YOU ARE SUBMITTING YOUR WILL TO SATANS
WILL, AND GOD IS DISPLEASED WITH YOU. I know that I have not been
perfect in this either, but we should repent of our fear everyday, and
pray for courage and strength to do the Lord's work. This day though
we were able to see the hand of the Lord so powerfully. We contacted
71 people, and from those people 10 people became new investigators,
(We got a phone number, and a time to call them, or an appointment for
when and where to meet.) We taught 13 lessons, and truly gave it our
all on that day. It was Elder Skinner's and obviously mine too, all
time high for both lessons taught, and new investigators found in one
day. It was awesome. God blessed us so much, and truly put the people
that he wanted us to talk to in our path.
As missionaries and members I want to ask some questions:
1. Are we enduring life, or are we actively pursuing it?
2. Why are you doing what you are doing right now?
3. Do you think that you could be doing more in the sight of God?
Please ponder those questions, and if you want shoot me an email with
your thoughts.
This area is an amazing place, and I feel so blessed to be here at
this time. Our amazing investigator Takahashi San will be able to get
baptized on the second Saturday of next month, which is when we have
his baptismal date. Because he can only come to church twice before
that date, he wasn't going to be able to be baptized, because
investigators have to come 3 times, but he got work off and planned to
come to church yesterday but we didn't have it because of the temple
dedication. Because of this specific situation, and because of
numerous reasons, we asked president Nakatsuka if he could only come
to church 2 times, and if it would be okay, (He has already come once,
and then has one more day planned before the date,) and somewhat to
our surprise after thinking about it for a while, and after asking us
to think about some things, he said yes!! It was awesome! So now we
will definitely be able to see him be baptized this transfer! What a
blessing, and Miracle. He is so prepared. He has read the whole Book
of Mormon and a half in the last month. He new all of the church
teachings, and commandments, before we taught them, and he has truly
been searching for God, and now he has finally found Him.
The biggest miracle of this week was on Saturday night, after we
watched the culture night for the temple here with a couple of our
investigators. By the time we talked with the people we should talk
to, and were about to leave, it was about 8:40. I had been wanting to
leave a little earlier, and be able to find one more investigator,
making 5 for that day, really bad. I really felt that there was
someone for us to find that night. It was raining, and was late, and
the conditions for finding were poor, but to me that was "Miracle
time". We walked out into the road and knew we only had about 15
minutes, before we would have to return to not be late. We walked
around and tried to find someone to talk to, but the way that the
light at the intersection worked, we kept on missing people, or only
seeing girls. We kept on looking around, and then finally with about 5
minutes left I spotted a business guy (Usually the least willing to
talk) walking up from down the street. We walked up, and then crossed
the street to intersect him, and I stopped him, and asked him when he
is the happiest. He told me that he is the happiest with his family. I
talked about my family, and then the message of Jesus Christ that has
strengthened my family so much. We talked for a few minutes, and he
showed some real interest. He has a wife and a baby, and is probably
max 28 years old. Then came the moment of truth when I asked if we
could trade numbers. My prayer was answered when he agreed and gave us
our number, and we made a plan for when we would call him to set up a
definite meeting time. It was truly a miracle. We had about 2 minutes
to book it back to the apartment, but we were also able to make it
back on time. It was such a moment where I just really felt that God
is good. I love this work, and I know that God's hand is involved in
my life everyday. I love you all, and invite you to take your level of
devotion to God up a notch, and see the blessings that will come.
Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover
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