Another Week of Miracles🇯🇵⛩🌋 (Week 23)

Another Week of Miracles🇯🇵⛩

皆さんこんにちは! Another great week in Japan! I'll catch you up on what we've been up to real quick. Lots of housing, even more streeting, and that's about it. Kunitachi is tough area for dendo so we have to spend a lot of time finding people to teach, but our finding efforts have not been in vain. This past week we have been able to find several new potential investigators and one golden investigator. Our golden investigator's name is Yuuki san. He called us up on Tuesday and said he wanted to come to our Eikaiwa (English class) in Kunitachi and set up his own first meeting with us for Thursday, all in perfect English. So Thursday rolls around and we meet up with him for about an hour before Eikaiwa. We had never met this guy before so we planned to just do some "get to know you", find out his expectations for our meetings, and set our expectations for our meetings. It turns out, he is totally gold. He has done a little bit of research on the church already. He loves the fact that we go to church every Sunday and is currently working to find a new job so he can have Sundays off. He also loves the fact that we have the Word of Wisdom which includes no smoking, drinking, etc. He said he has had a recent death of a loved one and several other events leading up to a desire to change and find purpose in life. He thinks that he can find those things through religion. Well, of course, what did two young Latter Day Saint missionaries do when presented with that situation? We promised him so many blessings and explained to him how the Church of Jesus Christ was perfect for
him. We will meet him again later this week. We are way excited to work with him.

Yesterday was definitely a Sunday to remember. We had a multi-stake conference throughout central Japan with none other than the one and only Elder Holland. It was so great! Sunday morning we watched a broadcast in all the Church buildings. He spoke about the 3rd Nephi story when Jesus comes to the Americas to visit the Nephites. What an incredible talk. He spoke about how much Jesus ministered and taught to the Nephites during that day that he came. At the end of the day, Jesus looks out to the people in the crowd and can see that they are exhausted and a little overwhelmed by everything he has taught them. He tells them to return to their homes and rest and that he has others
he must visit and he must report to the Father, but he will return the next day. When he says those things, the people look up at him with tears in their as eyes "as if" to say abide with us a little longer.
Notice that the people could not express in words their emotions, but the Savior could feel their love. The Savior then proceeds to say that he is moved with compassion upon them and he asks them to bring forth their "sick and afflicted" so that he could heal them, but of course every single person comes forward to receive a blessing from the Savior of the world. The talk continues on from there, but of course I could never express in an email the power behind that talk from Elder Holland. But the story gets better from there...

Sunday night, Elder Holland came to Kichijoji for a devotional. Kichijoji just so happens to be the Tokyo South Mission HQ and Kunitachi's stake center so Elder Duke and I got to go see him. We
showed up at about 5, reserved our seats, did some socializing, and waited for Elder Holland to arrive. Now let me talk to all those who have never been in a room with an apostle of God before. When Elder Holland walked into the room, the entire environment changed. The spirit about those men is almost palpable. I could literally feel his presence before I ever saw him. It is truly quite the experience. Anyway, during his talk at the devotional, the spirit continued to persist. He spoke about the challenges we all face in life and how in those moments, we learn to rely on the atonement and allow our faith to develop. He said something to the effect of, "Even a child could steer a ship on a calm sea. It is on the stormy seas that we are put to the test". Everything has cycles in life. It takes a broken cloud to water the ground. It takes a broken ground to plant the seed. It takes a broken seed to grow the grain. It takes a broken grain to make the bread. It takes broken bread to feed a man. The point is that bad things must happen in order for good things to be brought to pass. Don't stress when things don't go right, that's how life goes. He also talked about how, it is through the atonement that we are able to overcome those difficulties in life. When we trust the Lord, everything gets a lot easier. Another incredible talk from my personal favorite speaker, Elder Holland. Needless to say, I felt much like the Nephites did after a long day of learning and feeling the spirit. Very exhausted and with tears in my eyes, wishing for him to abide just a little longer. There is definitely a spirit about a man like that, that once you have felt it, you would never want to lose it.

Needless to say, this past week has definitely been one of learning, miracles, and personal growth. The Lord never ceases to amaze me. Despite all my imperfections and shortcomings, he continues to be patient with me, bless me, and allow me to grow through spiritual experiences. I am also so thankful for all my friends and family back home. Your love and support means everything to me. Thank you for helping me be able to have this mission experience, it has helped me grow beyond what I could have ever imagined.

I was also asked to share some advice for all my homies preparing to serve missions back home in this email. If I could give one piece of advice I would say, to make sure you are praying, and studying, and that a mission is really what you want to do. Don't get me wrong, serving a mission will be one of the greatest things you will ever experience in this life. It will bless you beyond what you can imagine and you will grow like never before, but it will also be the most difficult thing you have ever done. Be ready for the growth you will experience, because it will not always be easy, but it will always be worth it. For all of my homies who are preparing to serve a mission, Cade, Stockton, Ben, I'm proud of you! Your missions will be more than you can ever imagine. Keep working hard, keep praying, and get ready for the ride of a lifetime.

皆さん愛しています!!!

サドラー長老