#36 "Taking You All The Way"

I'm sure these blog posts must start to repeat at some point - I do the same thing every day. Sometimes I sit down to write and I have absolutely no idea what to say for that week - the same things happen every week! So here is the news for this week;

Sister Aoki and I taught an investigator yesterday. It was my first time teaching this investigator, but Sister Aoki had taught her before. Her name is Tomoko, and we also teach her son, Kouki. Yesterday we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how we can follow him through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. It was my first time teaching this lesson to someone so I was pretty nervous, but my companion let me (attempt to) explain faith, baptism, and enduring to the end. She understood faith really well already, so I just added to her knowledge saying that when we have faith we rely on God and we pray to Him. Then Sister Aoki talked about repentance and how through the process we can correct mistakes we have made and have a  fresh start. Then, I explained baptism, and how when we are baptized we take upon ourselves Christ's name and we follow him. Sister Aoki talked about the special gift of the Holy Ghost, and I concluded with enduring to the end, always using faith, repenting, remembering our baptism, and striving to keep the Holy Ghost with us. When we finished all of the other steps, we went back and asked if there were any she didn't really understand. She said baptism was a little confusing, so we went back and explained it a little more, and even asked the member who had come with us to share her experience. We asked her if that was something she would want, to receive baptism, and.....she said yes!! 

She and her son will be (aiming to be) baptized on the 15th of June. 

I just remember thinking of that song from the Princess and the Frog, when Ray, the firefly says "we know where you're going and we're going with you, taking you all the way!". I remember he was helping Tiana navigate through the swamps of New Orleans, but it reminded me of our lesson. When she said yes to baptism, Tomoko said that she wants to but she doesn't know how. I (smiled so big and) told her that we will always be here to help her. We know where she's going, and we're actually going the same way, we're following Jesus Christ. We'll take her all the way!

#35 "And the World Will Know"

Week 2 in my new area in the city of Nagoya and I still absolutely love it. There's so many people to talk to here! We go from activity to activity, from house to house, talking with every person we can. So, for this week, the Disney reference is from Newsies. As you already may have guessed I cannot for the life of me remember lyrics perfectly. And without the aid of Google, I'm left to my always-lacking memory. I do remember one phrase from a song in Newsies that is stuck in my head from time to time as we go around talking to people:

"And the world will know what we have to say!" 

Although the Newsies and the missionaries have two very different messages, the drive to share those messages comes together in that phrase. The world will know what we have to say! 

Sister Aoki and I talk to a lot of people every day, but usually, nine times out of ten, people walk away saying they are not interested in hearing our message. It can be frustrating to feel God warming my heart, to know these teachings to be true, but to have someone not give you the time of day. They read your name tag, see 'Jesus Christ' written there, and then cut you off and walk away. You know, Jesus is actually a pretty great guy. I think everyone should at least get to know him. 

Anyways, at these times of discouragement, I have this phrase pop into my head and I realize that even if they don't listen to the second sentence I try to stumble through in my horrid Japanese, they'll know at least a portion of the truth we teach, and they can hopefully learn more in the future. 

Even if I only get to tell them a sentence of what I know to be true, I know that single sentence by single sentence, they will eventually hear our message. It might take some time, some days, months, years or so, with thousands of missionaries stopping them to tell them what they know to be true, but I know that eventually everyone will know just who this Jesus Christ really is. 

A photo of the new district at Fukutoku

"On the way to the hospital with a friend"

Newly arrived in Fukutoku (Nagoya, Japan) May, 2014