11/21 Tuesday
Today we participated in DTM here which was really fun. We talked about our investigators, and had a new format for DTM, which was super refreshing, I am so happy that President has agreed with changing up DTM, and helping district leaders to see how they can more effectively help their districts through DTM.
We were able to have a good video lesson with Miki and yui, and so that was really awesome. We met with President McClure and started planning a little bit for zone conferences, and also for the mission Christmas devotional that we are going to have as a mission!
11/22 Wednesday
The major part of today was meeting with President McClure and planning what zone conference should be about and how it should go. I learn so much from the discussions that we have. We really dissected the numbers of the mission and what it would take to really cause change. We need to talk to more people. We will get to talk about passion and finding God's command and carrying it out with passion, and finding; how to not waste our time, and be effective. It should be a really fun zone conference, at least for me anyway. ;) President is going to talk about the other thing that has really had a big impact on my mission. Consecration. Elder Callister's talk called, "becoming a concentrated missionary", along with "the fourth missionary" were both sent to me by my brother Eric, while he was on his mission, and they have really changed my whole mission, from before I even started my mission adventure. I am so grateful to have had the goal of consecration, and really tried to let my nature be changed in this great work. President asked all the missionaries to read this talk in preparation. I hope that as a mission we can really develop greater consecration and be able to overcome the natural Man.
11/23 Thursday
Today is thanksgiving! I love thanksgiving! It is sad not to be with my family during this time, but I know that I will be with them soon enough. We were fortunate enough to get invited over for thanksgiving lunch by the office missionary couple; Elder and Sister Van Forell. It is really fun to be here with them. We an amazing thanksgiving meal, with amazing cheese cake with raspberries and everything at the end.
After that we met with President McClure to plan for zone conference again.
11/24 Friday
We met with President McClure. I love meeting with President McClure. He is so fun to be around because he is always teaching something and I am always learning. I can’t remember what else happened today.
11/25 Saturday
Today was an incredible day. We did video calls on “line”, the main app that we are using here right now, with the zone leaders. It was really good to talk with Elder Bateman about being a Zone Leader, and about what tools he has and can use to help his zone to progress.
We went to lunch with the yoneta family. The mom, the 8 year old girl, and the older sister that I have known from Toyohira as well. It was really fun, and we were able to have a great talk. From there we went back to the church and met two members there and had a lesson with the Yoneta mom, and the daughter played with the other kids of the members and kind of got her own lesson from a member as well. It was awesome. We taught the Mom, Miki about the plan of salvation. It was really great to also have the support of the members experiences and testimonies as well. We were able to challenge here to be baptized and she wasn’t completely sure about it, but she agreed to really work hard towards November 17. It was really awesome. She is o prepared, and has such wonderful faith, it is incredible. I really am excited for her to receive a very strong testimony, and for their whole family to be united and choose to follow Jesus Christ.
There was a basketball event tonight in another place, and we ended up being able to bring Ta-kun. Talk-kun is an 18 year old young man of a strong member family in the ward. He is less Active. We were able to play with him, and he opened up to us, and said that he is close to coming back, and he is really liking studying and praying again, because he realizes what it is like without that in his life.
11/26 Sunday
Today the yoneta mom and daughter came to church! For the last 2 hours. Yui chan has swimming lessons until 10:30, and so they could only come after that, but we have been encouraging them to potentially change when her swimming lessons are, and guess what! When they came to church, they said that they had talked about it and that morning they had changed the day of her swimming lessons to Saturday instead of Sunday! Such a miracle! The next thing that was amazing was that that after we made the baptismal date yesterday, Miki san had gone home and told her husband that she was intending to join the church. He didn’t know how to respond to this, and so he just didn’t say anything yet. Pretty intense. After church was over we taught a class for members about using social media in missionary work. I feel like that went pretty well. Social media is a really cool tool, especially for members, and having good contact with investigators. We have created a group chat with 6 or 7 members of the ward, called “Miki’s friends”. It has been incredible the support of the ward with this family.
Tonight we had dinner with the Hayashi family. SUCH an amazing family. They are seriously out of this world. We were able to bring the Yoneta family, and really build a good relationship between the two families. The Hayashi’s thought about us and they are so nice, they made THANKSGIVING DINNER! They even bought an actual big turkey, and had everything. It was amazing, and made us so happy. I love them so much.
11/27 Monday
Today we went to the zone activity in Toyohira. We played a fun escape the room game, which was really intricate and involved. Great job by the zone leaders. Then we stopped by the clothing store where I bought two of my suits in February. We went in there, and sure enough, once again they had very cheap suits. I was able to help Elder Sakae, who is one of the office elders, to get a new suit, which he really needed. The guy who I had talked with from last time was also there, and it was really fun to bargain and work with him again. I may have bought some things as well. Very good deals though. ;) Tonight we had President McClure’s FHE, and it was really fun and crazy as usual. All of the yoneta’s came once again, and that was super great. They are progressing so quickly. Even the husband is starting to consider this more seriously. I love being a missionary, and I really do love all of the activities and things that we are involved in in this area. After we finished the FHE we came back to the apartment and had to finish our preparation for our first Zone Conference the next day. It was hard because Elder Satou really needed to know exactly what he would do, otherwise he wouldn’t know what he needed to do and so that was pretty hard for us to figure it all out really specifically, so unfortunately we were up pretty late; but it was good that we were able to get it done. President McClure also was finishing his parts of what we had planned and we happened to stay up until the same time. Haha. I’ll write about how Zone conference went in the next email!
This has been an amazing week and I am so happy. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ, and His Atonement. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve Him in this work. I love this gospel. I am so so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission. I love you and really am so grateful for all of you and the example that you are to me.
Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover
Elder Conover
No comments:
Post a Comment