Found in Translation

to Adam, me, Allison, +37
Dec 15, 2014

Details

Hello there, my beloved friends and family!
Last week felt like a grind. Our days were packed with every kind of finding activities. We did streeting, housing, visiting less active members, former investigators and potential investigators... Nothing came out of it. And I know why. I haven't been the missionary I should have been. I didn't give it my 100% last week. I didn't open my mouth and speak to people as I should have, I didn't help out my companion as I should have, I didn't fellowship investigators and members as I should have... There are many things I did wrong last week. But as a fellow missionary once taught me: "The past is the past. Learn from it and move on."
There is at least one thing that stood last week, though. One fateful day, in the midst of our routine dendo activities, the Tokushima branchpresident called us and wanted to speak with me. He asked me to give a 10-minute talk about "the love of Christ" the next Sunday during sacrament meeting (this was on a Thursday). "Sure", I said. "How hard can it be?" I think that at that time, I didn't realize I'd have to do it in Japanese. So as the days went on, my stress and anxiety started piling up. I didn't retire to bed on time. I'm really glad I have an amazing yonnin here in Tokushima. They knew what I was going through, so they wanted to help me -- and they did. A lot. Not only with the translation to Japanese, but they also pitched in a few ideas for the main structure of my talk. And you know what? All the hassle and worry? And the help the wonderful elders have given me? It payed off. It turned out to be a good speech. Many members seemed to be impressed and congratulated me for various reasons (mostly the length of the speech). But that's not the reason why it payed off. That Sunday, a member brought a friend with her to church. He seemed to be really impressed by the funiki of our church: everyone came out to greet him and shake his hand, for instance. Such an outward expression of love was foreign to him. But he really liked it! He really felt the members' love and caring for him. Not only that, but the other elders went over and sat next to him during the sacrament meeting. He had picked up a Book of Mormon before and started reading it. As the elders talked with him about what he was reading, he seemed to have been really impressed and eager to read this wonderful book! And to finish it off: he had his mind blown by the talk I gave. He had his mind blown because of Christ's selflessness and charity and infinite love for us -- His brothers and sisters -- manifested through His acts and teachings in the scriptures I shared during the talk. The member's friend loved every single bit of that Sunday and is looking forward to next week!!

I'm happy to say that I have learned a lot through preparing  that talk. I totally love the scriptures. They are applicable to our lives, even in this generation. Christ's acts of love and charity really inspired me to become a better missionary. He is the perfect example of love and He wants us to follow His example through service and charity, so that our brethren may recognize the light of our Lord in our works and know for sure that we are true representatives and disciples of Him.

 

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love‍ one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love‍ one another. By this shall all men‍ know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love‍ one to another."

-John 13:34-35

Oh, yeah -- We also had a Christmas Devotional on Sunday as well. The talks were touching and heartwarming and the music offered to us by the Mormon Tabernacle was splendid. What better way is there to boost the Christmas spirit, than by having our beloved general authorities speak to us?
Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you've had a wonderful week and I wish you another one!
Love,
~サントス長老

Goodbye Kurashiki # HelloTokushima

Hello. How is everyone doing?

Last week, during my final days in Kurashiki, I've felt so much love from the church members, investigators and all our other friends -- I was really in awe! A lot of investigators wanted to meet up immediately once they heard I was leaving that Friday. One of our investigators even gave me a a very nice and warm scarf, so that I wouldn't catch a cold.It was really heartbreaking to say goodbye to all the wonderful people in Kurashiki. I will never forget them and what they did for me.
And then I was in Tokushima. I met up with my goofball of a companion -- Powell chourou. Before leaving the apartment after having dropped off all of my stuff, he gave me a brief summary and description of all of our investigators in the area. After that, we took off and went to dendo!! That very day, we assisted an english class by a different organization as volunteers. The day after, we had a weekly branch gamenight, where we played different kinds of board games and ping-pong. It's a very good idea: members can invite their friends to come over and play -- and they also get a chance to meet us, the missionaries! We can also bring our investigators to become friends with the members! It was a lot of fun!!

The Tokushima branch is amazing! There's over 100 members here, and they are all really nice and loving people. I'm truly blessed with the opportunity to serve with such wonderful people here! I really want to strengthen and help them out as much as I can!

Also; today we climbed the Bizan mountain at 5 o' clock in the morning. After a long climb in the cold and dark morning hours, we got to the top and I layed my eyes upon one of the most amazing and breathtaking views I have ever seen. I saw the iconic Japanese red sunrise with my very own eyes. It was beautiful! Not only that, but we also passed a lot of cool ancient shrines on the way down. Japan is AWESOME.

Thank you so much for reading! I will see you all next week!

~Santos chourou

Transfers!

Whoa! Hey there! How've you all been?

The day has finally come. Last transfer, it started to dawn upon me that I would most likely move out by my 4th transfer. I'm leaving. The Kurashiki era is over. From now on, I will be serving in:

Tokushima!

On a little island called Shikoku...

I'm going to miss Kurashiki so much...

And at the same time I'm really looking forward to whatever awaits me over there, in little Shikoku!

This week, here in Kurashiki, has been tough. We haven't seen much success at all. We've been searching all around, trying new contacting strategies and we even tried visiting former investigators and old less active members. Our efforts seemed fruitless. Numbers have reached a new low and I grew a tad grumpy.
A good thing to know, though, is that my efforts may have seen useless, but they were not in vain. Our zoneleaders kindly reminded me of that in our follow-up calls: they quoted various general authorities when talking to me. We are actually planting seeds for future missionaries to harvest; it really cheered me up and made me feel at ease. That's the power of the words of the prophets. Not only in the scriptures, but also the speeches of our modern-day prophet, his counselors, the Twelve and all the other seers and revelators chosen by God. They guide us in our lives and strengthen us. I'm extremely grateful for these exemplary men who share revealed truths of God with us.
Also! We've seen yet another baptism here in Kurashiki yesterday! The other elders -- elder Beck and elder Hansen -- found him 2 months ago, and he'd been making remarkable progress up until the very day he joined the flock. He's a really nice guy: he'll definitely become a strong member and a huge addition to the Kurashiki ward. It really made me happy to see our Chinese recent convert help the new one out before the baptismal service as well. So proud of him! Hehehe.
And what made that day even better was elder Hansen's birthday! We all came together after the baptismal service and ate some super tasty cake (a savory one at that -- kind of like shepherd's pie, but then... shepherd's cake). See the pics. Delicious!

That kind of sums things up. Thank you so much for reading! I love you all!

Stay strong,
~Santos chourou

Kurashiki, peaks & valleys

Hello, dear people!
This week has been like the mountains here in Kurashiki: high peaks and low valleys. Climbed and traversed through all of it. It's been one of those weeks. I'm super exhausted, hahaha!
Started off with a bang on monday. Preparation day was over, and it was time to do some dendo. For some reason, I was on fire (not literally) and feared no man we came across in the streets. We stopped every single moving thing to talk about the Gospel. I had never felt such courage and desire to serve before in my missionary life! We may not have found any people that day, but I was glad. I was glad because I knew that on that day, I did my very best and I knew that God is proud of me.
We've also visited less active members this week! Some of them were our kyuudousha already, some of them weren't. Those who are our kyuudousha are making a lot of progress. This week we visited one of those less actives again. As we shared our testimonies and experiences with them, he really seemed open and willing to make an effort in order to strengthen his testimony. He still hasn't come back to church, but we're getting there. We also visited another less active who hasn't been to church in a few years. We really focused on reading scriptures from the Book of Mormon with him. When we shared a scripture about how much God loves us with him, the Spirit really touched his heart and moved him to tears. He really desired to talk with God again in a long time. It was super swell!

And finally: this week I've had another koukan. I worked with Sorensen chourou, our District Leader, in Kurashiki. We had a full day planned out with lesson appointments. I was really confident that it was gonna be an awesome day and that we were going to get a lot of work done... until our appointments were cancelled. And then I lost confidence, and crashed emotionally. But I truly believe that God put Sorensen chourou in my path... because he lifted me up and taught me like no other. Sorensen chourou had been a victim of a negative mindset as well and he knew exactly how to help me. We may have taken a huge chunk out of the day just for training, but I feel like it changed me for the better.

That's it for this week. Thank you so much for reading this. Whoever you are, I truly appreciate you. Truly!

Have an amazing week,
~Santos chourou

LOVE koukans

Hello there, peeps!

Can I start by saying that I absolutely LOVE koukans? Because I absolutely LOVE them. This time I went on a koukan with Mizuguchi chourou, an Okayama Nishi Zone Leader -- it was on a Wednesday. Before then, I'd been feeling kind of lost. Our investigator pool is sukunai (with old investigators being dropped here and there), and our finding efforts seemed vain and useless. I was starting to lose hope. But then, during that koukan, I learned a lot from Mizuguchi chourou's example, about being more active and, here it comes, BOLD. It seems I keep forgetting that I need to be BOLD. Mizuguchi chourou made me take the lead in some teaching opportunities. Even though I kept claiming that I can't speak Japanese well enough, he insisted that I actually could and that I should have a little confidence. Just do your best and be an active missionary, instead of a passive one. I left Okayama reinvigorated, with a roaring fire in my heart to preach the Gospel again! WHOOHOO!
We also had the baptism and confirmation of a 9-year-old kid we'd been teaching for a while. It was amazing. And we also managed to get his itsumo isogashii mother (who is a less active member) to come see both the baptism and the confirmation of her son. Finally, after pushing back many baptismal dates and facing diverse complications and problems, we did it!! Take that, Satan!

District meeting was awesome. Learned a lot from it. I'm also really looking forward to the Zone Conference this week.

Time is short, gotta go.

Thank you so much for reading! Have a great week!
~サントス長老

Lost and found in Misushima

Hello, tomodachies.
This week has been very good. (I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of having a Japanese companion, hahaha!)
We finally had the baptismal mensetsu done for our shigansha. Our district leader, Sourensen chourou, did a koukan with one of the Kurashiki yonnin in order to get this done. There was no time to waste -- our schedule was really tight, so we had to go at turbo-speed, especially because our shigansha lives about 40 minutes away from Kurashiki eki. Sorensen chourou and James chourou, the district leader's companion, deserve props for their extreme efforts to make it in time. A lot of weight fell off of my shoulders and I could rest easy again; I was actually really worried we wouldn't make it in time and whether our shigansha would pass the mensetsu or not. The night before I prayed about this matter, hoping that my mind could be at rest once I did. The day of the mensetsu was hectic, but it went extremely well. I'm really grateful that everything went right. God really listens to our prayers!

Also; getting lost is good! Wait, what? Let me explain: one day, we had a lot of time on our hands. We decided we wanted to visit some old potential investigators in Mizushima. "I got this", Santos chourou said to himself while he lead the way to Mizusima. And totally got lost. But in being lost, we we're able to do finding in areas we had not been to before. And we found someone with genuine interest in the gospel -- he even wanted to meet up at our church to talk about what we share. Isn't that just marvelous?

And then there's kaki. You know kaki? I know kaki. I imagine it's the closest you'll ever come to tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Life.
Yes. I like it that much. And guess what? It rained kaki this week. Too hard to believe? Let me tell you the story of how we received kaki from members of the church, random people we don't really know and vague acquaintances. That's... the story. There's still a lot of kaki in our fridge. My companion was wondering if kakibread would be as tasty as it's banana-ey counterpart. Yatte miyou ka?

One thing that I've learned this week is to have confidence. A zoneleader told me the exact same thing. Even though I thought that our shigansha's mensetsu would fail or that I would never find that place in Mizushima, it all worked out. The Lord's got my back, after all. It's best if we don't forget that.

(Don't have pictures, so sorry, busybusybusy.)

Thank you so much for reading. Have a nice week!
~サントス長老

Bijschrift toevoegen

Yamaguchi in Kurashiki

Hello there, friends of mine!

Another week has passed and I'm exhausted. Which is both good and slightly less good (but mostly good, so don't you worry).

We've seen old investigators of ours rise from the dead and people whom we've met with before reemerge and have interest in meeting with us. Having a new companion truly is a blessing. Every time you transfer to another area you bring knowledge and a different perspective of でんど with you. Yamaguchi長老's arrival in Kurashiki was really refreshing and it offers me a total new way to look at the Lord's work. Plus, he speaks Japanese fluently, which makes phone calls and visits to people much more effective. Nice!

We've also been part of the confirmation of our Chinese investigator, who was baptized last week, as an official member of our Church. He also immediately received the Aaronic Priesthood! How cool is that! I truly believe that he is laying down the path to true happiness for himself and may to follow. I'm happy!

And now... the slightly less good stuff. (But still good... only slightly less.)

My new companion and I are still trying to find the "balance". We get along very well with each other, but preparing and teaching lessons is still a work in progress. The language barrier is probably one of the bigger reasons.Contacting people has also leveled up in difficulty. Since there's now a 日本人 they can talk to, they've ceased to speak  "かんたん語" and have switched back to normal 日本語. Following conversations between Yamaguchi長老 and someone else has become a little bit VERY HARD. If my Japanese won't skyrocket while working with Yamaguchi長老... well, that'd stink.

I have received some wonderful advice from the district leader and zone leaders concerning the sudden change of responsibility and companion. Whenever I get advice I can follow clearly I feel much more secure: I have a better perspective on how to become better in different ways. So I'm really looking forward to the coming week!

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Emailing times have been halved because of problems with the computers.

Thank you so much for reading! See you all next week!

~サントス長老