Fight fear with faith

November 28, 2016

Dear family and friends,

This week has been an adventure! I have learned a lot, and have had
some good stress that has helped me be able to grow and stretch, to
become better, and a more capable tool in the hands of the Lord. I
gave a talk in church on Sunday about faith. It was great to really
study faith. Faith is a principle of power, incurred by action. We
often talk about faith being a principle of action, but just as often
I think we forget that faith is a principle, of power! Power to act
and command in Christ's name. The stronger our faith is, the greater
capacity we have to use this God given power. Fear is the opposite of
Faith. We must learn to to let our faith replace, and overpower our
fear. President Boyd K. Packer said, "In the church of Jesus Christ we
have no fear. The quorum of the twelve has no fear. Where faith is
present fear cannot exist. Fear and faith cannot coexist. Faith will
dispel all fear. Always move forward with faith."


Fear includes anxiety, worry, and stress. The stronger our faith is,
the more we will be able to trust in God, and have faith in him, and
in his plan for us. We must not let our fear, especially our fear of
failure, keep us from pressing forward and accomplishing the will of
the Lord. As I have experienced many scary, fearful situations on my
mission, I have really felt the trueness of this principle. When I
trusted in the Lord, and not in myself, and have truly had faith, I
was able to overcome any fear that I had. In contrast though, when I
have focused on myself, and questioned whether or not I could
accomplish the fearful thing, I have failed, and not been able to
overcome my fear. I know that faith is critical to all factions of the
gospel. We have to learn to use faith as our most powerful weapon
against the adversary.


Our 16 year old investigator Himawari (sunflower) got permission from
both of her parents to be baptized!!! She is so awesome! She texted me
saying that she is so excited to be a member of this church! So
exciting!! :) have a fantastic week!! I love and appreciate you all so
much!!

コノバー長老
Elder Conover

Become Celestial Beings

November 21, 2016

Dear Family and Friends,
This last week and a half has been and adventure! We have worked hard,
experienced a lot of failure,  and done a lot of second questioning,
and recollecting, and in the end I have decided that I LOVE FAILING!!
Through failing, we show Christ that we are willing to endure, and to
continue to carry his flag until the end, no matter what happens, and
we prove that we are on Christ's side, not just when it is easy, but
also when it seems impossible, and there is very little hope.


As members of the church, we often fall into the trap of feeling sorry
for ourselves, and ask God why we didn't get everything that we felt
that we were supposed to get, despite having kept the commandments,
and lived the gospel. We do not remember what Christ did, and that we
too have to suffer, and bear our own crosses, in order to become like
God. The subject of much thinking and study of mine recently is the
Celestial Kingdom. In our church we believe that through obeying and
honoring the necessary ordinances and principles of the gospel, we can
return to God, and be exalted, and "Go to the Celestial Kingdom."
While this is true, there is one distinct, and very important
discretion that needs to be accounted for: We do not sacrifice, work
hard, and do everything we can, in order to be able to receive the
reward, of "Going to the Celestial Kingdom", we work hard, change,
become joyous, and slowly, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ,
become LIKE God! While we do indeed end up getting to enter the
celestial kingdom, it is not our actions that grant us passing, it is
the person whom we have become, that grants us Exaltation and eternal
life. We BECOME celestial beings, and thereby get to live with God,
because we have BECOME like him. If our actions appear close to God,
but our hearts, and the true person that we are on the inside is far
from God, then when the day of reckoning comes, we will see that our
actions will grant us nothing. Christ will say "Ye never knew me". Let
us all strive in our discipleship, to not earn the celestial kingdom,
but to become Celestial beings. I know that this is God's kingdom. I
know that we are his Children. I know that Christ lives, and that he
accomplished the Atonement. I know that we have latter day prophets,
and that they guide and direct us in this work, in this purpose; to
become like God. I leave my blessing, and love with you,
In the name of Jesus Chirst, Amen.
Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover
My best friend, Elder Graham!! Been through it all with him from Day
one in the MTC, same zone for the first 3 transfers, same district for
the last 2 and now district and apartment for this one!!! I have
learned so much from him, and love and respect him as truly one of my
greatest friends, and examples. I love ya Elder Graham.

Passion

November 7, 2016

My dear family and friends,


This week I do not want to say a lot, but I do hope that I can write
something that will inspire you to become more happy, live life more
fully, and truly accomplish the work that you are preordained to
accomplish. Today I want to talk about: Passion.



There are two questions that I want you to think about this next week.
1. What is the relationship between passion, success, and happiness?
2. Can you create passion, even if it is not natural for you in that
thing? If so, how?

I LOVE these questions!!! I have found that when I feel passion,
(Especially in regards to accomplishing the Lord's will), I am filled
with energy, and nothing can stop me. However, when I do not have this
passion, I have very little desire, and motivation, and cannot
accomplish the Lord's will. I have found that the things in life that
I have had passion for, I have succeeded at(Felt successful), and been
very happy. I know that God wants us to be happy. God's plan is not
for us to live life like dull creatures, being acted upon, and
enduring this life, enslaved by our circumstances, only to wait to
become celestial almighty beings in the next life. God's plan is for
us to become happy, to become full of energy and prepared to become
like God in the next life. We do not go to the celestial kingdom; we
become Celestial beings. Are you living your life so that you can go
to the celestial kingdom, or are you living your life so that you're
becoming a celestial being? There is a critical difference between the
two. Although the actions may be the same, the heart, the attitude,
and the true feelings about the actions, and the reasons behind the
actions, are very different.

Please recognize that this life is not a test to see if we can suffer
and endure, and then receive the reward for having not given up. This
life is a test to see what we will do when we do suffer, and when we
do have to endure; Do we give up? Do we succeed and embrace the
gospel, and find joy despite our suffering? Or do we simply endure,
and stay on the path because of the promised blessings, while actually
moving farther and farther away from Christ in our hearts. We must
choose to embrace the gospel from our hearts! We must let the gospel
heal us, and bring us joy, we must rejoice, because he is risen. We
must be passionate about our dedication to the gospel. We must be
passionate about the commandments. We must be passionate about
building the Kingdom of God; both among members, and non members. If
you are not happy, I would dare say that you do not have passion in
your life. So please, go and find passion, and the passion that is the
most rewarding, will be the gospel of Jesus Christ. Passion brings
success, and happiness. So let us please, not forget passion.




Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover
Ps: We had our first real huge snow fall!! It snowed over a foot!!

A new beginning

October 31, 2016

Dear family and friends,
To start of I will tell you what happened with transfers!!


My wonderful companion and friend Elder Akamatsu, transferred. We were
not able to hold out one more transfer. (Not that we really had much
hope.) but my new companion is another Japanese Elder! Elder Satou!!
He is actually my same transfer, we came to Japan together!!! He is a
really good guy, and it is great working with him. I also became
senior companion, so that has been a fun new stressor. The best part
of it all though, is guess who else came into my apartment!! ELDER
GRAHAM!!! Elder Graham is now companions with Elder Bede!! Elder Bede
stayed, which I was really hoping for, but then Graham choro came,
which was way out of my dreams. Elder Graham and I started our
missions in the same room, spent 24/7 together in the MTC, and then I
was so pumped to find out two transfers ago, that we were in the same
district!! (The last two transfers we were in the same district.) But
then he came to my apartment, with elder Bede who has also became one
of my great buddies, (he's a straight comedian, (the quiet kind)). But
anyway life is good and we have such a young apartment with straight
hommies from the same douki (douki means the group that it came to
Japan with.)


This week we have been able to teach 3 different families, one family
in particular, a mom with two little kids, has some really good
potential, and has a real need for the gospel in her life. Oyamada
family.

The gospel, and the work of Jesus Christ goes forth, with or without
you. But think about what it means if you are with it, and also if you
aren't. If you choose to let the gospel pass you, and do not really
embrace the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life,
even as a member, then you will not be able to received the promised
blessings, and reap the rewards that come from a gospel centered life.
In looking at the members here, as a missionary, it is easy to see the
members who are full of life, and have such a passion for the gospel,
always seeking to be better, and be able to more fully embrace the
gospel, and then also the members who simply come to church, and don't
seem to really be very happy. In general, the members that are the
happiest, are always the ones who are giving the most of themselves,
to the Savior, and to his work. I know that as we give of ourselves,
and really submit our will to his that we will be able to experience
the promised blessings, and happiness of the gospel in our lives,
personally and individually. The love of the Father, and of the Savior
is real. It is personal, and it is intimate, but it is up to us
whether or not we open our hearts to feel it. I challenge you to give
more of yourself. Do things that are hard for you to do, take risks,
push your comfort zone; for Christ, and see what he will do for you.


Today we were able to go see Sapporo dome; This is the famous dome
that has the soccer field that levitates and is always outside, but
for games it levitates in and replaces the baseball feild! After that
we went to see the statue "Boys be ambitious" that Elder Yamashita
referenced in his talk in general conference!

Transfer Week!

October 24, 2016


Dear Family, and friends,
This week has been a normal week, but as a missionary a normal week is
nothing to be associated with the standard usage of the word.

This week on Thursday are transfers! It is very sad, because
unfortunately my companion and I will almost for sure not have another
transfer together.;/ He has been such a good companion, and I am so
grateful to have been able to have two transfers with him.


This week we were able to have a super awesome lesson with our
investigators koki and yusuke. They are both 16, and I have talked
about them before. We introduced the BOM, and they were really
excited. We committed them to read from the Book of Mormon for ten
minutes everyday, and to pray about the BOM. They are so solid. They
said that they would do it, and they said that they would come to
church next week, and I arranged with koki to be able to call him
everyday, and share what we learned from the BOM that day. I am super
excited about that, and about them! Please pray for them.

This week I learned something that will change the way I live the rest
of my life. I learned of the joy of just in general, being sharing and
giving. This may sound pretty standard, but I guess that I always felt
like if I gave something away, like I was losing, and so I never
really liked it (For example, just giving a bag of chocolates away,
for no reason, except just simply to give.) My personality before My
mission, would definitely not be in a rush to give something that I
bought, away, but this week from my awesome companions example, and
then through interrogating him with questions, I learned that there is
joy in just simply being a giving person, even when there is no reason
to give (Birthday, Christmas, Special occasion, etc.) He told me that
he actually likes giving things to people, because it makes him feel
happy. I know that I have always felt happy when I give things at
Christmas, but I guess I'd never really thought of it as such a happy
thing to just give away things that you worked for. But the beautiful
thing is that it doesn't have to be big, and it doesn't have to be
super expensive, or take an absurd amount of time. This is simply the
idea of kindness, and putting others joy above your own, which
actually increases your own joy.


 Obviously I am not a very good person, and need to change a lot,
because I am so selfish, and am always trying to be kinder, but
learning this has really helped me. I have since just given small
things away to people if it seems like it will make them happy, and it
has been great! It has really been a great thing, and I realized that
giving someone a chocolate: the happiness that they feel, outweighs
the sadness of having one less candy bar tenfold.

It has become my testimony that by becoming a little bit more giving,
a little bit more kind, I know that we will become a lot more happy,
and will find it a lot easier to become like, and follow Christ. I
invite you all to find small things that you can do, to put the joy of
others, just a little bit above your own, because I know that you will
feel God's strength, as he always puts us as his number one, and makes
us his personal and individual work. I know that Christ lives, and
wants us to be able to make it back to our Father in Heaven. I know
that the Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead, and that he
guides us. I know that Thomas S Monson is a Prophet of God. I know
that the gospel is not just a guide to becoming happy, it is in itself
what brings joy, and satisfaction, and what better gift to give, than
the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Love, Elder Conover
コノバー長老
Elder Conover