It's been another week. Things have occurred, events have taken place. It's a good time.
We visited Nakamura-san on Tuesday hoping to follow up on his listening to the Book of Mormon CDs, but it turned out the CDs wouldn't play, so now we're kind of up a creek without a paddle because the poor man can't see very well and we have no idea where to get a large print Japanese Book of Mormon. We're working on it. But! We read 1 Nephi 1 with him with the text size on our tablets to max size and committed him to coming to church! And the best part is he actually did come! And in a suit! It was super great. We talked about the Atonement in Gospel Principles and he had a lot of fun in third hour cos we were all together learning about self-reliance. All the members were really kind to him and it was just super good.
On top of that, we had another lesson with Suenaga-san, which was probably not the best lesson we've ever taught ever, but alas. We got through the first three principles in the Plan of Salvation, but he was very caught up in the whole agency vs. sin vs. redemption balance and we ran out of time before we could talk about the atonement. But! We gave him 2 Nephi 2 to read and we're going to focus on he atonement next time so that should help him out.
We've been making lots of brownies and cookies and things for members recently, and then dropping it off at their houses as we try to dendo in the area. It's been a really good time. The Tanakas have been really awesome and helped us out with Suenaga-san so we made them brownies and they were way happy. It was adorable. Brownie love is my fav.
Saturday was the best though. We got to go help out Kurose-san again cos she hurt her finger and now can't get it wet, which makes things like dishes really difficult. And we got to sing hymns for her and talk a little bit about the gospel and why hymns make us feel so good. She loves the song "Love is Spoken Here". It's adorable. And then we had a meeting with Bishop and our dendo shunin about EnglishConnect. It was great. We've got a solid plan for starting it up for real now and on top of that, our dendo shunin's goal this transfer is for us to be able to build a really strong relationship with the ward members through mogi lessons every day! It reminds me of Bagoyo Shimai's stories of Yonago, I'm very pleased.
The very best thing though, the greatest miracle, happened last night as the typhoon was raging and the wind sounding like a fourth grader trying to play recorder. We were messaging a member referral, Kame-chan, over LINE when out of the blue she asks us if it's possible to hear the voice of the Spirit. We, being very enthusiastic missionaries, gladly explained what the voice of the Spirit is like and how it speaks to our minds and hearts. The conversation continued and we asked if she'd ever heard the voice of the Spirit before. She told us she hadn't, but she had felt the presence of one of her ancestors before. Now I, having just recently been called once again as the zone Family History Specialist and having been thinking very deeply and hard about what we can do to revitalize everyone's fire and help them immerse themselves in the Spirit of Elijah, was very, very, rather extremely excited about this new information. We taught her that God sometimes guides us through our ancestors because families are eternal, and those connections are important. She was super excited and wanted to learn more. I told her some personal experiences about how my ancestors gave influenced me, and she said she wants to be able to feel close to her ancestors again. She said she's busy this month, but she really wants to learn, so we're going to work with her member friend to see if we can't start teaching her properly. It was honestly just such a huge miracle. People want to feel close to their families, but I feel that its too easy sometimes to just treat family history as a means to an end, and we end up sacrificing some of its potency. Temple and family history work is vital to the end we're working towards. Without our dead, we cannot be saved. I particularly like D&C 128:22-24 where Joseph Smith is waxing poetic about the joy of temple and family history work. But yes these are my Feelings about family history in a condensed format. Thought I should share. π
ζγγ¦γγΎγ！ π
Sherwood ε§ε¦Ή
19ζ³ 20ζ³
Gomen the only photo I have is this Rilakkuman, aka a chocolate filled bun of deliciousness that looks like Rilakkuman. (Bagoyo Shimai go eat them if you haven't yet they're delicious)
(I got her to send a couple pix while they were at Costco for P-day)
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