Bold Writing (below)

Dang it rained so much this week! Every day except one it rained and there was about a 4 day streak of constant rain. On Saturday we had a lesson with Kurenuma, an awesome member here, Bro. Suzuki, came and joined us. He told me there had only been two clear days in this whole month! But that tomorrow is sunny. I said, "of course, it's SUNday." Such a bad joke haha. He thought it was really funny though and mentioned it in his talk at church on Sunday lol.

That lesson went super well though with Kurenuma. It was only our second lesson but he is looking really solid! He studies everything we give him really hard and is picking it up real quick! I think he could be baptized in the next month or two. We invited him to be baptized in a month, he said he would like to think about it, definitely understandable. He's coming to church every week and shocked the members this last week with some of his insightful comments in class. He is a little awkward but is starting to really open up!

So it's happening! My buddy Keisuke from Hachioji is getting baptized! He asked me to give the spiritual thought at the baptism so I should be heading back there this Thursday. It's looking like Kurenuma will be be there too! Should be a great experience for him.

One thing that happened back in Hachioji that I am writing just because I don't want to forget ~~ this young kid in soccer gear on the train with a couple of his friends. He was looking and smiling at me the whole ride. Him and his friends would copy whatever I would do with my hands. Whenever I would look at them they would stop, smile and wave. I did a little dance and they did it back. I couldn't stop smiling either, those kids made my day. They almost missed their stop and the adult was yelling at them to hop off the train but they didn't care, they insisted on getting a high 5 from me first haha. I love kids here!

We met with Kouichiro twice this week. Dang I swear I get emotional in every lesson with him. I want to help him so bad! He has a lot of questions and concerns and wants the answers but isn't willing to put forth the faith to find the answers. We had Bro Ishihara come join us for the lesson, they got talking before we got there. We come in the room, we pray and it's go time. I guess the member asked him if he's going to get baptized (they are good friends and speak really straight to each other). Kouichiro kinda went off, he told us very clearly, "I am not going to get baptized." It's hard for him to understand why God would choose one way for everyone to be saved (ex. Christ or one church). He really has some HARD questions to answer. I think he has over-confused God and the gospel. He even said he is going to stop meeting with us. I'm just sitting there like... What do I say to this?! We just kept listening and trying hard to listen to him ~~it was amazing to see what listening to and showing love did in that lesson. Elsmore shared an experience, it reminded me of Alma 32 so we read some of it together. We talked about the seed metaphor. When we see our faith growing we know whatever we are investigating is good/true. Once we recognize that though we can't give up we have to continue to nourish the tree. I asked him what he thinks he should do to nourish his tree. I could tell based off his lack of desire towards church things that he hasn't been reading the BoM, it was weird, I just knew. I asked anyways and he said no. I told him boldly that I can tell he hasn't been reading. Crazy how when we stop "nourishing" our faith it can wither and die very quickly. We can't stop doing the small things, keeping the commandments, reading scriptures/prophets words, praying, repenting, and attending church. 

"But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.

Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof." (Alma 32:38-39)

This is something that can happen with anyone. They do something to draw closer to God, feel something great and know they should continue but they get comfortable. They stop "nourishing their tree". The tree starts to die and they say, "I knew this wasn't good" or "I don't need this." Then they cast the tree out... The problem is, the seed (gospel) already proved itself as good by growing. It's our fault if it dies. 

We talked about all this and the lesson turned around. I remember telling him that I simply just can't give up on him. I started to cry. Our second lesson didn't go as well. I love him a lot, just want to see him and all of you plant the seed/nourish your tree. Wherever you are at in the process, push forward!

Plant the seed, give the gospel/Christ/God a chance and if you feel it grow DON'T STOP THERE! Push forward so you can reap the fruits that come from the tree (eternal & true joy). 

I love all of you

1. Kurenuma next to me, Bro. Suzuki on the left :)

2. Rode in the car with the office elders today, saw Docomo tower in Tokyo!

3. We had a music night and this dude came and freestyled!

George Bush

The thing that probably stuck out most from this week is our friend Kurenuma. He is doing awesome. I met him on splits w/Elder Ramos last week. He then came to church last Sunday and then we had our first lesson this last Saturday. Beforehand he had read the restoration and plan of salvation pamphlet we gave him and understood pretty much all of it! In our lesson we set some really good expectations and invited him to be baptized. He said, "sorry, I don't know if I can do that right now." Haha I guess it didn't fully get passed along that we are talking about a time in the future. He is probably in his thirties, has an IT job and is really smart. He is also pretty dang awkward haha. We love him though. He is praying, coming to church and studying earnestly. As long as he keeps that up you'll be seeing baptismal photos in the near future :) He didn't come to church yesterday though! We were really worried that he came across some anti Mormon stuff or that we said or did something wrong. We get a call later in the day, it was him and he felt really bad he missed church due to a headache. He's got a lot of potential!

I talked about him a couple weeks ago, Kouichiro a young father who had been meeting with missionaries for a while contacted us! We hadn't hit him up in a while and he hit us up first. It feels about as good as when a girl txts/calls you first. He told us he wants to meet this week and asked what he should study to prepare. It's great because we had already decided that it would be good for him to read, "Lord I Believe" by Elder Holland. I've decided to be more bold with Kouichiro so hopefully we have some good news next week. He is so humble and
willing to prepare. I seriously love this guy, my desire to help him is strong.

The last guy I want to talk about is a middle aged Nigerian man named George. We met him a couple days ago on the street and really simply testified and invited him to meet with us. He introduced himself as, "George... Bush." Haha We are now meeting tonight with the bishop! Should be a killer lesson. I love African guys!

Last thing! Elder Yamashita from the quorum of the 70 came for a mission conference! He and his wife are so dang happy and energetic. Actually they came a year ago and it was pretty much the same thing but I still learned so much and got so much revelation for my investigators. After a conference like that I look at the list of all the things I need to change and feel so overwhelmed haha. There was a HUGE announcement while we were there though. Elder Bednar is coming next month! I was so excited to hear that, he and Holland are my favorite apostles. I've heard of him just wrecking missionaries before so I'm tryna work hard so that I can feel confident shaking his hand and answering any of his questions. I guess on a larger scale we should be thinking the same thing about our Heavenly Father and when we meet Him.

3 more months, Love you guys :)

1. We also had zone meeting this week in Tokorozawa!

2. There was a misunderstanding with the timer, and a last second realization that the pic was taking lol

3. Pretty fun zone

4. Giyouza (pot stickers) these things were like little burritos they were so big!

5. Monster UNIQLO

Boom

Yeahhhh buddy! I've got a surprise for all of y'all this week! Remember Tou Takuten (Jack), a Chinese investigator back in Hachioji? I've been talking about him just about every week so I hope you do. I was talking to him on FB and he asked if I would baptize him! So I took a trip back to Hachioji and got to baptize one of my best friends! We took some great pics, I'll send em. Jack & Choyo were both bouncing off the walls. One of my favorite parts was sitting next to Jack as all the missionaries sung "I'm trying to be like Jesus." It's Jack's favorite song and he was audibly trying to keep himself from crying. When we entered the water for the baptism I was naturally expecting the steamy warm water that usually awaits but was shocked to step into very cold water. The ward was stressing when I told them but it was actually way refreshing! Right afterwords Jack said "大好き!" Basically, "I loved it!" He shared his testimony afterwords and he shared pretty much his whole story. He is so solid. I assumed he would say it but he talked about how I "mailed him everyday trying to get him to meet with us" and once he and his girlfriend broke up and he was feeling very down he decided to give it a chance. I didn't email him everyday but he is convinced that I did and apparently that's why he asked me to baptize him haha. We went  out to eat at one of Jack's favorite restaurants afterwords.  It was so great to see all of my Hachioji friends again:

Jack - It all started back two months ago when Elders Cook, Nelson & I met him on the street. He was fairly nice but told us clearly he was not interested. He said he was looking for the truth, had already studied Christianity and feels like he is finding it with Buddhism. I felt like I should try and get his contact info anyway, then we started talking on FB. I asked him a few more times if he would meet and study with us and he got pretty annoyed with me. We saw him randomly on the street with his GF, first thing he said, "my girlfriend is Buddhist and I don't want to talk..." After a bit I invited him to come with us to a member's house for dinner, then he called me on FB. I didn't know it but he recently had a hard break up and was feeling super down. I threw Choyo (Chinese recent convert) on the phone and he went off in Chinese and convinced him to come. He was so happy to be with us that night, his attitude had completely changed. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to meet with us again and he was all for it. We met later that week and continued meeting 2-3 times a week until I left. He applied himself, studied and prayed with real intent to know the truth. He said that when he was feeling super down about his life and girlfriend he would pray and it would replace those feels with peace and joy. During that short time I saw an amazing transfiguration from an unhappy lost Jack to a confident, joyful one. Not even a week after he started lessons we were talking to a random guy on the the street and Jack saw us from a distance and joined the conversation and just started testifying to this dude about the happiness he has felt through prayer and reading the Book of Mormon. The guy said he didn't believe him... Jack said, "that's ok, I literally felt the exact same way a couple weeks ago, if you read and pray you will feel it too." Jack would hear about one of God's commandments and right away decide to follow it and ask us how we avoid the temptations of breaking the commandment. I remember we were teaching about the priesthood (God's power & authority) he said: I can tell you guys have it because you don't give up on people. I hadn't really realized it before but despite how easy it would have been to give up on him at the beginning we never did. I was thinking about that and how God will never give up on us and how Christ told us, "be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." We have a responsibility to share what we have been blessed with to those around us and we can't ever give up on them because we know God wouldn't.

Keisuke - You may remember hearing his name but I met him while passing out English class flyers, he came to English class, then started meeting with us a few times a week and coming to church. He felt like he should quit smoking about 6 months ago and was able to do so. He felt cleaner and more ready to try out Christianity in the process and was wanting to go to church, then he met me. The more we talked the more obvious it became that God has had his hand in his life. He has since decided that he will also be baptized and was able to see Jack's baptism. He came to lunch with us and it was so great to catch up with him. He lost his mother a while back and said he really loved hearing about the plan that God has created for us and everyone one of his children. I'm sure he finds a lot of peace in that knowledge as I have.

Shintaro - If you don't know, Shintaro is a college homie Elder Cook and I met and later baptized. I won't tell his whole story but it was great to see him again. We were a little worried about him but he is doing great :) He wasn't able to come to lunch with us though and I forgot to take a pic :/

It was also great to see Choyo, Brother Misu, other members and the missionaries there. Before this transfer I hadn't been back to a previous area and now I have been to Yamate, Tokorozawa and Hachioji! Today we are chillin with Ishii from Atsugi, he's such a homie. We ate some Ramen that I hadn't had in over a year and half, soo bomb. I'll send a pic. I think I've decide one of the only things that's better here than in America is the food. I'm totes def finna miss it.

This last week we also found a bunch of new friends! One of which came to church this last week named Kurenuma and another named Uchiyama who I hope I have more to share about in the future.

<3 you guys! Here's some pics, including some really bad puns lolz

1. Jack of all trades

2. Jack black

3. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

4. Jack jump over the candle stick

5. Post baptism meal! Some killer Chinese food. Keisuke is also there in the front on the left.

6. This is so much bigger than it looks

7. Twisters for days! Cheapest American style candy bar I've found. Peanut butter and Carmel

God loves Japan

Happy birthday to my loving and extremely patient mother. Love you mom <3 Things have been fairly crazy over here. Just been feeling a lot of pressure with the new situation. There are a good amount of people in the mission in a similar situation but training a 2nd transfer as a zone leader isn't an easy job. It's different being split up from the other zone leader as well, you feel like you are having to do it all on your own. Our district leader also is in charge of two districts and doesn't live here so we kind of take on the district leader roles too lol. So since the transfer started I've felt pretty overwhelmed and that took a shot on my motivation to get out and find people...

---skip this next paragraph if you want, basically I just love being a missionary & these people---

We had MLC (leadership conf.) this last week though and it helped me a lot! Completely different than any MLC I have been to. We talked a lot about the history of the church in Japan. The first time the church came to Japan Heber J. Grant and his companions came to Yokohama. The area that they stayed and place that they gave the dedicatory prayer (Sep.1) for the missionary work all of Japan was in Yamate area, Yokohama. That's the previous area I was in for 5 transfers (abt.7-8 months). That place means so much to me. Since this MLC fell on Sep.1st we had MLC in Yamate! I got to go back!! Man it was so great to be there, I love that place. While we were there we took a trip out to a park named Negishi that I used to go to a lot and we had a testimony meeting and said a lot of prayers. That part was good but what stuck out to me was what we learned about the church beginnings. It did not go well. Elder Grant and his  companions had no baptisms. He said, "I regret I am not able to tell you that we have done something wonderful over in Japan. To be perfectly frank with you, I acknowledge I have accomplished very little indeed, as the president of that mission; and very little has been accomplished--so far as conversions are concerned. At the same time, I have the assurance in my heart there will yet be a great and important labor accomplished in that land. The inhabitants are a wonderful people." 
They actually closed the mission 21 years ago and reopened it in 1948. In 1996, 48 years after the mission reopened, President Hinckley visited Japan and by then there was more than 100,000 members. He said, "If President Grant were here now, he would weep with gratitude, and I feel that way as I look into your faces. I see such strength I never dreamed of in this land." There are now 128,216 members. It's hard here sometimes, it kinda always has been for missionaries but by "small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Sometimes we just don't see the fruits of our labors but if you look at what has happened starting from nothing here, it's amazing. The night before MLC I kinda went off to Elder Yoshikawa about how much the culture here hurts people's ability to accept the gospel. I was just feeling super negative. That turned around real quick at MLC, I was reminded how much I LOVE Japanese people. There are frustrating things but the love trumps all. Being able to help just one person here wrecks all of the hard experiences. The only reason I'm here or any of us are members of this church is because of a missionary. If you're a member, at some point in your posterity someone was taught by a missionary. If it wasn't for that missionary you wouldn't have the same blessings you do today. We get to do that for others and generations to come if we invite and teach those around us :)

All that changed the second half of my week. I've been tearing & choking up out on the streets talking to people about Gods love for them and EVERY SINGLE ONE of his children on earth. One of those times was with our friend Kouichiro who is a young father. Just an amazing guy, been meeting with missionaries for quite a while but is just busy with life. He brought his son, cutest kid. We had a great conversation about the things he has felt through prayer and scripture study. He has some concerns with religion in general. It all comes down to understanding that God has a plan for every individual on earth and sometimes as humans we don't get that plan. We challenged him to have a larger perspective on the things of the world. It caught me by surprise though. I said, "when we understand God's plan for us then we can understand that God loves--" I choked as I felt the spirit super strong and finished as I held back the tears, "--every single one of his children." From that experience and many others, I know God's love is real.

Some funny experiences this week. Remember that black guy I knew in Yamate who thought we thought he was going to steal our bikes and freaked out on us and later we became best friends? We even started teaching him lessons. He thinks everyone in Japan is trying to kill him? Well, when we were in the park in Yamate I saw a black guy walking around aimlessly in white robes and I eventually recognized it was him! I ran after him calling his name, no response. I jogged by his side for a while trying to talk to him and he just ignored me completely! Couldn't believe it, but I guess I wasn't super surprised.. Good to see him again though. Earlier in the week we got a text around 11 pm that said "I'm erotic and gay is that ok?" Hahaha no idea who this guy is but I guess he knew missionaries before. We talked on the phone and he told me that he was drunk but even if that's true it's pretty weird.. He kept asking me weird questions like he was trying to get a feel if I am cool with gay stuff. Kinda like that text was only a mistake if you think it's weird... Haha I taught him about who God is and he agreed to meet sometime this week. Just not quite sure why he wants to meet, we should probably make sure first... Haha

Jack is getting baptized this next week! I'm so excited, hopefully I can make it back to Hachioji for his baptism. We talked on the phone today and he told me he passed his interview, he sounds way happy. Motoki also hit me up. He's doing really well at Mikuni, a church run college here. His English and testimony have both grown a ton. He said right now he is thinking either BYU or mission. I came to Japan to meet him, for sure. I feel like it was decided in the pre-earth life that I would need to go find him.

Sorry, no time to proofread! Love you guys <3

1. Dinner at the Asada's, she is an amazing cook. Here husband basically can't hear a word we say but he was a missionary in Japan a lonnng time ago which has a lot of relation to what I said earlier.

2. Got to have my favorite Ramen when I went to Yamate. Owner hooks it up for us!