It's been really hot this week. Like 90°F weather. Now I realize that this is nothing in comparison to Arizona but you see in Arizona the humidity levels are -40% so 117°F weather is fine. In Japan, the humidity levels are 4000% percent. Therefore it feels like you're swimming in a 300°F pool the moment you step outside. Shade does nothing for you. A solid brick of ice water bottle becomes water in less than 30 minutes. No one is outside. If by some miracle they outside they look at you like "why are you preventing me from going inside where I won't melt" when you try to talk to them. If I don't send an email next week it means I've died from heat stroke. I want the typhoon back.
As for interesting and astounding progress made by our investigators, there is not much to report. Natsuki is still floating in the doldrums of "I'll just wait til I'm twenty to get baptized" and Kunitsu-san is taking a nap in the plains of "maa I just haven't gotten an answer yet". Low-key (high-key) I want to pull an Alma and cry repentance with the voice of an angel and be all "do not procrastinate the day of your repentance the time to act is now" but we can't always have what we want, ne.
But maa anyways Sunday was probably the most effective day this week. We tried to visit Nakamura-san (no dice) and then biked up Mt. Everest to visit Ooba Shimai. I cried and also lost all ability to breathe due to biking up Mt. Everest in 90°F weather. But anyways by the tender mercies of the Lord Ooba Shimai was home and talked to us for quite a while. Turns out she has a literal pet owl. It was way cute. Fun fact: owls don't hoot. They actually sound like a 1 year old baby saying "ow". She also gave us some way good black bean tea and chocolate. She's a way nice lady. #kiseki
Then we biked about halfway down Mt. Everest and visited this waaaaay nice less-active guy who hasn't seen missionaries in 30 years (probably because he lives on Mt. Everest) but he was down to chat for a sec and gave us some mugicha cos the heat probably would have killed a small cat. #kiseki We invited him to our cool Hawaiian party this weekend.
Then we visited a potential potential investigator named Matsumoto-san. She's way awesome. Gave us lassi and invited us inside. She apparently is way good friends with the guy who runs the indo curry place in Okaba and told us his whole life story and basically long story short we got a referral (technically). Also turns out she has a TON of way old family photos (literally no one has old family photos in Japan) and she showed us this way huge scrapbook of them all and told us stories about it and said she wants to be able to put it all on the computer so now we have a solid family history investigator now. #kiseki
But anyways. Completely unrelated but Smoot Kaichou directed me to 2 Peter 1:5-10 a couple transfers ago and hey its interesting so why not share. Basically 2 Peter 1:5-10 is the literal stairway to heaven with a way cool promise y'all. Now, I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but there's like a literal actual thing called making your calling and election sure, or obtaining a more sure word of prophecy. (see: 2 Peter 1:10; D&C 131:5-6) In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
"After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints...
Now what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and this is the sum and substance of the whole matter; that when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even He will manifest the Father unto him, and they will take up their abode with him, and the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him, and the Lord will teach him face to face, and he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; and this is the state and place the ancient Saints arrived at when they had such glorious visions—Isaiah, Ezekiel, John upon the Isle of Patmos, St. Paul in the three heavens, and all the Saints who held communion with the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn"
This is the goal of every disciple of Jesus Christ. To truly know Him and attain an assurance of an inheritance with Him in His kingdom on high. Is this easy? Not even a little bit. We may call attention to the incomprehensible tribulation that Joseph Smith and the prophets of old endured. "Deep water is what [we] are wont to swim in" as Joseph Smith so eloquently put it. (impressive for a young man with a third grade education, ne? The Spirit truly is a mighty teacher) Nevertheless, as disciples of the Lord God Almighty, this end is possible in and through the grace and mercy of Him who bore all things.
Oh the joy of this calling I am privileged to have been entrusted with. As a missionary and servant of my Lord and Savior, it is my duty to bring the children of God closer to this end which is most precious and desirable of all things. There is no nobler work to be engaged in than this of the gathering of the Lord's scattered people into Zion. This joy is what enabled Christ to endure the infinite agony of atoning for the sins of the world. It is what enables me to continue in the days that seem endless and when I feel like I might actually melt in the heat or drown in the depths of emotional anguish. One day I will see my Redeemer in the flesh. And not just after the days of my probation are finished. No, I am determined to make my calling and election sure and join the ranks of the Lord's noble and great ones in whose footsteps I am wont to follow. And in doing so, become a living epistle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the Lord God Omnipotent, here to bring the world with me to His presence.
This is my commission. If you've been baptized a member of His Church, it's your commission too. How great is our calling!
愛しています！ 💕
Sherwood 姉妹
(gomen pictures won't load this week)
Sister Sherwood wasn't able to send pix with her email, but she loaded a couple to Google Drive for me to share. However, I don't have any captions for them.
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