Alright alright alriiiiiight! I'm not sure why but this week was just a way happy and spiritual week. One of the major reasons is because our Chinese friend, Jack, is soo legit! I told his story a bit last week but we had 2 lessons with him this week, he came to church and we went together to a member's house for dinner last night. I love making friends here who are down for whatever whenever. In our second lesson this week we were just talking to him and he stopped and was like, "I want to..." then looks at the Chinese member Choyo and says a Chinese word. Choyo turns to us and says, "repent." He just stopped us in the lesson and says he wants to change and improve. We stopped what we had planned and taught him the steps of repentance right away and challenged him to continue the process by being baptized. He said he will try his hardest to get baptized next month, right now we are shooting for the 10th but his schedule may change, we will see. I don't know what happened but my mission turned up so hard this second half. I've been blessed to meet the most amazing people!
As Jack has been meeting with us he has really changed. A lot of that is because the breakup with his girlfriend humbled him and he has just started to get comfortable with us. He was introducing himself to the members with a short story of his life, how he studied Buddhism but that he's not about it anymore and is excited to be learning about Christ. We had a pretty crazy Sunday school class. Sis. Seki, a member that hadn't been to church in forever came, I'll talk about her more later. The teacher asked for two people to share the blessings they have seen from getting baptized, the first one was fine but then Sis. Seki went off about how bad her life got after her baptism and how bad she thought baptism was.... Not really what we were hoping Jack would hear his first time at church lol. Through her whole rant, I'm like, "oh no..this could ruin it for Jack." He turns and looks at me, kinda surprised she said that and then just cracks a smile and starts laughing lol. He gets that baptism doesn't just suddenly take away hardships in life or change your temporal status. Sis. Seki eventually wrapped up what she was saying and it turned out a lot better than it started with her saying that now she realizes it is good she was baptized. Japanese sentence structure is set up so the will/will not or have/have not comes at the end. So I was on the edge of my seat waiting for her sentences to end, not knowing what the meaning of the sentence would be. We were laughing way hard through most of the lesson though because there was a lot of interesting comments from some of the students. Shout out to the teacher for dealing with that haha.
Sister Seki was actually a big miracle. Elder Nelson and I stopped a guy on the street and while talking to him, Choyo walked by and hopped in the conversation. Then she walked by, introduced herself and also hopped in venting to us about the struggles she has had since baptism. She has had a lot of bad experiences :( but Choyo put in work! He showed a ton of love and gave her a hug at the end. He got her contact info and got her to church. The members were happy to see her again and she was happy to be there. So cool what love can do. All of that didn't really help the guy that we originally were talking to tho, haha he seemed pretty weirded out.
We met a hard core Bruce this last week! Not sure why it's called a Bruce but that's what the whole mission calls a foreigner (particularly a return missionary) who marries a Japanese girl. The Bruce we met is a previous missionary of Hachioji and came back to visit with his wife. The crazy thing is his wife is a previous member here in Hachioji... He met her on his mission and ended his mission here... Seems a little fishy ;) There have been a few awkward questions arise about their history and it is soo funny to watch the awkwardness lol.
There were a few experiences we had out trying to find people this week that I want to share. One was with our new friend Yuki Satou (most common name in Japan I swear). It was the middle of a pretty hot day and I remember saying something like, "you're a child of God, He desires your happiness and created a plan for us. Anyone can follow the plan and find true joy." I say something pretty similar to most people that I meet and I don't know what was different about this time but I felt the spirit so strong as I said that and started tearing up. God is there and so is the plan, I felt it and know it.
The thing is... It's all on us to find and follow the plan. After meeting two people within 15 minutes who yelled at us and said they were calling the cops, we met a man that would only open his door 2 inches, all I could see was his bulging left eye staring at me and we talked for almost 30 minutes like that haha. We promised him some blessings of coming closer to God. He couldn't wrap his head around what "coming closer to God meant." Shooting for an analogy I asked him if he has kids, friends or family. It was so sad, but he said no to every question. We told him we are his friends. He eventually told us he didn't have the best relationship with his parents. We asked how he could have changed that, he said he didn't & doesn't care... I talked about my father, said I have a great dad and I know he loves me. Despite that, if I don't care or put forth effort, I separate myself from my father. It's the same thing with our Father in Heaven. He agreed and we asked, "will you learn more about your father in heaven?" "No" "what?! You don't want to?" "No" This happens sometimes but usually I don't feel as bad as I did right then, made me so sad. I told him bluntly how sad I am, then how sad God must be. He agreed that God is probably sad. I asked how he feels, he said he is lonely and not happy. I asked if he wants to feel happiness, he said no :( I told him him that we sadly can't help him then :'(
God can't help us in that situation either. Happiness is a choice and only through Christ can we feel that true Joy.
I'm not done with this guy, we told him we are his friends and we are going to show him what it's like to feel loved and he will want more.
Love you guys <3
Elder Spackman
1. Dinner w/the Tsukara's last night. Soo turnt! Jack is sitting right in front of me and Choyo's on my left.
2. The homie Ebi that my uncle Doug got us in touch with. He took us to the highest class restaurant ever! So sick. No idea how much it cost but it had to be like $40/person or something
3. "You're nuts"
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