Greetings, fellow humans!
It has been a good week! This week we had interviews with the mission president. I'm really grateful for this opportunity I've had, as he had been able to answer some questions about some thoughts and difficulties I have had about creating a "vision" and setting effective goals to accomplish that vision. He gave some usfeul hints and ideas to try and figure out these things myself.
Then I had a koukan with one of our new zoneleaders: Akagi chourou! I really liked this koukan. Not only did I learn some new finding techniques, but we also had a good talk with each other about creating a vision and setting goals (as mentioned above). He gave me a really good idea to involve the scriptures in creating a vision. He encouraged me to use the Elder Aoyagi Challenge -- a recently introduced scripture reading challenge -- to find missionaries in the scriptures that would be a good example for me to follow. Finding the strengths and attributes of these missionaries is really inspiring! I really like this new challenge!
Another highlight of the week was Free Family English. Eikaiwa (our free english conversation program) is an effective finding tool and it has proved its usefulness once again. A while ago, we found a couple through giving out Eikaiwa flyers who had a lot of interest in English (their English was really good, too). Unfortunately, they said that attending Eikaiwa would be impossible, as they are always busy with work. But they really wanted to come to Eikaiwa. So we offered the handy-dandy Free Family English program and set up an appointment to meet up with them. The Free Family English program is part of our Eikaiwa program and consists of a scheduled one-hour visit, divided into two parts: Half an hour of teaching English, Half an hour of sharing a spiritual message. Anyway, the day we met (last week), the wife told us that she had a lot of interest in the spiritual message part of the program and was eager to talk about it. So, after a quick self introduction in English, we proceeded with the spiritual message. Turns out that she had been thinking about her purpose in life and life after death a lot -- she had been reading this book written by a professor at a Christian university in Tokyo (where one of her daughters is studying) about what happens when we die. So we taught the couple a little bit about the Plan of Salvation and our Loving Heavenly Father. We bore powerful testimony of a perfect God's love for His imperfect children; that despite our flaws He truly loves us and wants us to be eternally happy and perfect, just like He is. The wife was visibly moved by our message and felt a feeling of joy and relief when she heard these things and she agreed to meet up again to hear more of our message! Eikaiwa strikes once again.
Thank you so much for reading this, o ye fair ones! Let's keep doing our best to establish the Kingdom!
Love,
~サントス長老
~サントス長老
P.S.: Check out these awesome ties I got bordered by a good friend of ours:
"Seito" (orange) -- "Saint(s)" ("Santos")
"Tomo ni ayuman" (blue) -- "Walk with Me" (Mission Theme)
