Sorry no time!

April 17, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week has been a very happy week. I was sad to leave
Toyohira. I have been there for so long and will forever remember and
think about that area. I have transferred to eniwa shitose, which is
basically a suburb city of Sapporo. It is a very pretty place, and the
ward is super awesome! There are a lot of young families, with lots of
kids and so that is very fun! I am very happy to be in Eniwa chitose
area. This area truly has a special spirit, and I am so pleased with
my new companion, Elder Kim! He is American Korean, and is a really
good missionary. Also being with the zone leaders is such a fun time
and a great blessing! The spirit is so easy to feel, and I am so very
happy. I am excited to be a tool in the hand of the Lord this
transfer. I am sorry that this email is so short, we did not have an
hour to email today. I love and miss you all! Thank you for your love
and support.

Love, Elder Conover
コノバー長老
Elder Conover

Rely on Christ

April 9, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been a great week! It was so great to be able to see a
much needed 10 hours of General Conference! As a missionary it is
amazing how you literally treasure up every word and have such a
desire to learn and hear the things that you need to hear. I learned
too many things to share, but I would just invite you all to continue
to study the things that were said. We have 6 months to study the
messages that we heard, and then we get to receive more!


Tomorrow we will receive our transfer calls! I am excited to see what happens.

This week we were able to have some really good lessons with
investigators and were also able to meet and play ping pong, and a
little bit of catch with the group of High school kids that I have
grown really close to here in this area. They are only 16, but have
truly felt the spirit, and are getting close to being ready to be
baptized. Couki talked to his parents about the idea of getting
baptized, and they just kind of acted indifferent to the idea, which
for us is supper great!


I know God has a plan for us. He respects our agency, but he gives us
the situations and circumstances that we are in so that we can learn
and grow through relying on Jesus Christ, and His Atonement. Jesus
Christ is the key to finding joy despite our struggles. We need to be
diligent in our prayers and in our studies. We need to always work
hard to be diligent in the small things, and in the small commitments
and commandments. God uses the small things to test our faith, and
then to know whether or not he can trust us with the big things, also
when we build a foundation upon the small things, then we will not
fall when the big trials come.



I love you all and hope that you can find the joy of the gospel in your life!!!

Love,

コノバー長老
Elder Conover

Miracles come after the trial of our Faith

April 3, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

The weather has been getting a lot better here in Toyohira!! It is a
thrill to be able to go out without wearing a coat and not freeze! I
have officially been in Japan for a Year! It has been a year that is
very full of experiences. We have transfers next week, and I am
excited to see what the next step of my mission will be!


Torikiri kyoudai unfortunately did not get baptized this week. He kind
of distanced himself from us, because he smoked again, and we're
pretty sure that he is really sad that he wasn't able to keep our
commitment, and so he is avoiding meeting us. I have faith that he
will be able to meet with us again, continue to progress, and then be
baptized. He is a really really prepared person, and I am so grateful
for the things that I have been able to to learn from him.


This last Saturday we were able to meet with Baba bishop, the bishop
of our ward here, and I just asked him a lot about his mission, and
the spirit was really really strong from all of the experiences that
he shared. It made me really excited to go and find. We went out and
found 5 really awesome willing to meet and listen to our messsage,
investigators. We prayed and were led by the spirit, and it was truly
a miraculous hour and a half. I am so grateful for moments like these
as missionaries. Sometimes the work is discouraging, and it is hard to
see the good that is happening, but when we humble ourselves, and rely
on the spirit, we can truly see that we are not alone in this work. I
love this time! I love Jesus Christ, and I love the opportunities that
I have to draw nearer to Him. I invite you all to repent. I was so
grateful to take the sacrament yesterday, and be able to repent. In
president Benson's book, the teachings of the prophets, he has a
chapter about true repentance. It is very insightful, and really
helped me to be able to more fully understand repentance. I love you
all so much!! Thank you for your love and support!

Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover
This Investigator made us ramen! He is the funniest man ever! He said
that he was a member of the Japanese mafia, but that it was a really
long time ago! He has been able to come to church a couple times, and
literally he makes me laugh more than anyone here in japan. Haha his
name is masayuuki. So funny.

Trust in the Lord

March 27, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,
I am sorry that I did not write a group email last week! Thank you all
so much for the birthday wishes!! I had a fantastic birthday.


This last week has been somewhat stressful, because Brother Torikiri
is very close to being baptized, and teaching the final commandments,
and trying to work everything out schedule and contacting wise, it has
been absolute chaos in my head. But if things go smoothly, he should
be able to be baptized on this Sunday. He stopped smoking on last
Sunday after we committed him to completely stop. We gave him a
priesthood blessing, and were able to really testify to him of the
power of the Atonement to help him overcome his addiction! It was such
a special experience! And then when we met him on Friday night it was
another amazing experience in my mission:


Friday night we went to Brother Torikiri's house, because we hadn't
been able to get in clear contact with him, and I was really stressed
and worried about him. He wasn't at his house, we found for a little
while around there, and then it was time to come back, and so we were
walking back pretty fast, and all of a sudden when we are only about 5
minutes away from our apartment (It is about a 15 minute walk), Elder
Blackley spotted him walking the opposite direction on the other side
of the street! We got his attention and were able to walk back with
him and go back to his house with him. He had been really busy with
work, and it had been pretty tough lately because he had been so busy!
But he had cut his hair, and hadn't smoked since our lesson the Sunday
before, which was the best thing to hear!!! We taught him tithing
while we were walking, and he had already read the pamphlet, so it was
more of like a question of whether or not he was okay with the law of
tithing or not. We promised some blessings, and then asked him if he
would be willing to obey it, and he said that he would!!! And he was
still all on track to get baptized either yesterday or this next
Sunday, but since time was so tight, we were more thinking this Sunday
vs yesterday. He said that we could meet on Saturday morning, but then
that also got changed with work, and then we were going to meet at
another place and time, but then it all got crazy, and now we haven't
been able to get in contact with him for the past day. He was for sure
planning on coming to church, but no contact, so we went to his house,
banged on his door, called him, but if he was there, no answer, and so
we weren't able to take him to church, and so yesterday I was very
worried and stressed sad, about this whole situation. We went to his
house last night, but still weren't able to meet him. So...basically
not sure what the story is right now, hopefully we will be able to get
things on track soon, and he can be baptized!! He seriously has such
incredible faith, and I love watching him learn and accept the
principles of the gospel.


I have learned particularly through this experience with Torikiri
kyoudai, that I have to learn to trust in God, and in his timing. We
do everything that we can and then we leave it up to God. He has a
plan for each of his Children, and we have to trust that for both
ourselves, and the people that we love.

I know that missionary work is the happiest work in the world. It can
be challenging, and discouraging, but there is a price to all things
that are worth anything. I know that the joy of seeing others come
unto Christ is a deep and profound joy, and it is a motivator to work
hard and try to help God in bringing others unto Him. I am grateful to
be a missionary. I know that Christ lives, and that he Suffered for
our sins. Through Christ we have the ability to change and to improve;
to repent. I love you all and am so grateful for your support and
love!!! Have a fantastic week!!!
Love,
コノバー長老
Elder Conover

Have a great week!!

March 12, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,
This week has been an adventure!
The major highlights of this week were meeting with Torikiri, and
going on splits with Tomioka choro!

Torikiri has been progressing so fast! We changed his baptismal date
to March 26, because then he will be able to be completely ready, and
keeping all of the commandments by then. We have been calling him
every night, and meeting with him a few times a week. He went to Tokyo
this last Saturday for the day to work on a Panasonic super computer!
He is an electricianal engineer! He learned some information from the
computer though. Apparently there is a 98% chance that an earthquake
10 times the size of the one that hit japan Sendai, a few years ago
will hit tokyo in the next 3 years. And it will erupt Mt. Fuji, and
literally break up the entire mainland of japan. It will send massive
tsunamis to many places across the world. The earthquake will
completely destroy the city of tokyo and everyone in in it in 20
seconds. So that is crazy, and scary, but it is a sign of the times!!

Torikiri has a problem with the word of wisdom, but he has been
stopping, and trying to stop from before us meeting him, and since
meeting us, and hearing a little about the word of wisdom, he went
from 50, (originally) 25(cut in half from trying to stop himself.) To
4 (when I explained the WOD a little bit on the phone), to yesterday
1, and the day before 0. But then yesterday we actually taught him the
Word of Wisdom, had him write down all of the reasons why he wants to
not give in to his addiction, and testified and promised many
blessings, and he readily agreed to obey the Word of Wisdom. His faith
is seriously such a miracle in my life. He said a beautiful prayer
asking God to help him be able to stop smoking, and saying "please
bless me so that I can pray everyday." And then he asked God to bless
Elder Blackley and I a lot too, which was very touching. I feel so
blessed to know him.

This week on splits with Tomioka choro I had a lot of fun working in a
different area! I have only worked in another area one time before
this last one, and I have been here for 7 1/2 months, so It was
refreshing to have some different scenery. The area that I went to is
called Shinoro. It is kind of in the residential part of Sapporo, and
so there is a lot less opportunity for streeting, and all that the
missionaries have ever done there is house. I really am not the
biggest fan of housing, just because in japan we don't even get to
talk to all of the people that are home. Over half of them that are
home, just answer through this little speaker box, and reject you
without even you seeing them or them seeing you. Whereas on the
street, we can stop people, and at least have a real conversation with
them. (As long as they don't just completely ignore us, which
sometimes happens.) haha it is nice because finding in Japan is super
chill. People are really nice when they don't have interest, and the
worst that you get is someone saying (Iranai!!!) Which means "don't
need". Other than that they just hold up their hand and keep walking,
or just pretend that you don't exist, and the likes. Haha last week I
stopped this 18 year old high school guy, with his girlfriend, and
when I said "Excuse me" she literally jumped and screamed, scared out
of her mind behind her 5'8 140 lb. boyfriend, who tried to play the
tough guy role so hard! Haha we talked with them, and she just stared
at me from behind his shoulder like I was some sort of very
interesting monster. Haha funniest experience ever. The best thing was
that she was the same height as her BF, and so her hiding behind him
was just so funny.

But in shinoro, we were able to talk about the area, and discover this
really great big shopping center place, where the center area is
outside, and you can stop all of the people coming and going from the
shopping center! It was really great! We found a few really good
people that day. It was really fun to be on splits with a zone leader,
because he could stop anyone too, and didn't have any lack of
confidence at all. Also it was really fun to be with a Japanese elder
for the day. I love speaking Japanese 24/7.

I want you all to know that I know that this church is true. I know
that the Gospel is the key to happiness. God knows his children, and
he really does love us. I am so grateful to be a missionary, and to be
on the front lines of Christ's army, doing his work.
I love you all and am so very appreciative of your love and support!!

コノバー長老
Elder Conover