Japan Tokyo South Mission: Sad Day

Lost one of my best friends this week, John Galt, to a sudden overtake of cancer. One of the best men I have ever met. Always supported me at basketball games and Eagle High athletics as a whole. I always knew I had a second home and family down the street from mine. Their door was always open and so was their fridge :) I'll never forget the times shared with John.

Things like that make me so thankful for our opportunity to live with God again and see our friends and family. I'm so thankful to know that John will not suffer with cancer because of the sacrifice God gave us with his son Jesus Christ. These kinds of things remind of what's important. Why:

-God and Jesus Christ are important

-why it's important as members to share this gift

-why it's important, if you're not a member, to seek after an answer from God as to if he exists, if this really is the church he has put on earth today, if we really can live with God and our families forever (and allow others to do the same) through this church and it's teachings

The first thing I would like to do (if it hasn't already been done) is to go through the temple for John so he can have the opportunity to do these things. Mom and Dad if you could get working on that, that'd be great :)

Now as to my week... Shimizu is doing great! Things are just hard with him having work on Sunday's... His date keeps getting pushed back, now it's first week of August. Though we are trying to do this right. Last lesson he was able to recall the restoration, which before he couldn't even remember Joseph Smith (he forgets a lot of things). He also bore his testimony to us. As long as he keeps that up he is ready! We taught Kobayashi the Word of Wisdom this week. He understands now he needs to stop drinking alcohol to be baptized. We were trying to help him see the importance of finding an answer from God about Joseph Smith and the BofM. I shared about my prayer of whether or not I should serve a mission and the deafening answering I got. Talked about how I'm not perfect but was able to stop the things I had been doing once I found an answer. He surprised us by saying that he will slowly start to try and quit! Love my investigators.

This week we also had bible study on Saturday with two friends from English class. It's really nice because we teach it in English and this last week we started doing half Book of Mormon studies too! So I am excited about that cause they are kind of investigators now and because the BoM is a lot more exciting haha. Also got a chance to clean the Watanabe's shower this week. Service opportunities are gold here, they are so hard to find. Though we had dinner with them a while back and she was excited because "I can reach all the things she can't!" So we came by this week and I bleached it. She was so thankful. Love that stuff.

On our way home from visiting a friend last Saturday I happened to look in a restaurant and see the sister missionaries eating with a member. Anyone who has a sense of the amount of people and restaurants there are everywhere here knows the odds of me seeing them are very low. I stopped and since they were right next to the window it was a prime opportunity. I did a creepy smile in the window. The member saw me and was scared but when Sister Murakami saw me her hands came up to her face and she didn't stop screaming. One of the best freak outs I've seen. Lol Should have videoed it.

I feel like I am writing future reminders for myself most of the time in these emails, but I encourage all of you to continually remember our purpose here on life, to prepare and be worthy to meet our Father in heaven again. How glorious will it be to collapse with joy and hug Him after we pass? If you haven't figured out the purpose of life yet, talk to the missionaries, read the Book of Mormon, pray about it. Seek and I promise you will find.

Love you all don't forget it.

Pictures

1. The new district