Tempel Cleaning & Investigator on Skype

"Konnichiwa! Minasan wa genki??

This week has been pretty awesome! And here's why.

First off, we cleaned the temple. Sounds boring, right? WRONG. We went to clean different rooms inside the temple and because of that we could see some pretty special and holy chambers. The temple is a really beautiful and special place! I'm glad we got the privilege to go deeper into the temple and to see such sacred things.

Our lessons with our "shinpou shite iru kyudousha" (progressing investigator) have been great! Ever since I've been in a new douryougumi I've been able to teach with more faith and power! Monson chourou, my new douryou, really lifts me up and he really makes me a better person!! He is awesome!!

And even our classroom instructions seem to have been more powerful as well! I've learned a ton of stuff just because the spirit was so strong!! Some senkyoushitachi in our district were moved to tears, sometimes. Including me, by the way. Heheheh.

The devotionals have been a little different this week. Because they were cleaning up the building where we would normally have a devotional, we went to a different building OUTSIDE the MTC: the Mariott Center.

It was some kind of stadium, probably for basketball or something. But it was HUGE! And the devotionals were really awesome as well. One was about "Charity", by Richard I. Heaton. There was a big emphasis on teaching with love and how this love truly helps the investigator to feel the spirit. When you teach with charity, you teach with the spirit! Many people say: "What would Jesus do?" Brother Heaton, however, told us to also keep a similar phrase in our heads: "What would Jesus FEEL?" Really liked it.

The next devotional was in that same building, about "The sacred name of our Lord" by L. Edward Brown (former general authority). He told us about the importance and sacredness of the name "Jesus Christ" and how we shouldn't use it in vain. Not only does that mean that people shouldn't swear with His name or use His name in a bad way, but it also means that we, the senkyoushitachi, shouldn't slur off his name in a routine-like fashion. For instance, when we had a long day here and it was really late, I would just say a quick prayer and quickly end with the words "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." That's not how you do it, though. And brother Brown made that clear in his talk. I learned a lot from that as well. I made tons o' notes, so I can read them again later on.

What else... we did this fun little game in our district, called "Tanaka san". It's an SYL game (Study Your Language) In which someone gets to be Tanaka san and the others have to fin out who it is. And Tanaka san can only speak Japanese and can't understand any English for that day! Everyone speaks in Japanese as well, because at the end of the day we vote for who we think Tanaka san is. If someone gets the most votes WITHOUT being Tanaka san, then Tanaka san has to do something for the winner. It was really fun and it really helped us to learn more Japanese as well!! AWESOME!!

We also Skyped with a real Nihonjin yesterday! I was nervous!! But it went pretty well. I'd say I caught around 30-35% of what she said directly. But I was able to understand her completely, through context and known vocabulary. And, of course, through the spirit.

I hope you've all had a great week and I'll see you next week! BUH-BYE!!

~サントス　長老 "