Today was one of the longest days of my life! But it was a really
good long. We got up at 3:00AM to go to the temple and make the
session in Tokyo at 8, and then had to ride another 3 hrs home after
words! It was long but lots of fun. The temple is such a special
place! Every time I go in there I really feel so close to our Savior.
Such a special place! So lucky that we have the temple in our
mission, and that we have the opportunity to go there once a transfer.
I love it!
So this week, was busy! This is basically what I did...:)
2/17/14 - Today was a P-Day and we love that! Today really was a good
day, we were able to get a lot done which is very important! But,
first we started with some really good study, and about 10:30 we
hurried and finished that and cleaned the apartment really fast. It
was super funny because right now I am currently in the process of
drawing a picture on the back of Elder Nielson's Japanese study books,
and so he just said hey I'll do all the cleaning if you just draw
that. So that made cleaning nice;) After that we were able to go
out and do emails at the church! I love my family so much! Everyone
always sends me the best emails and I look forward to them every week!
I wish I could write longer emails home every week, but there just
isn't enough time! But, I think I will keep trying to get faster and
faster. After the emails, we went and visited a really cool
Phillipino less active family in their little international store.
We got to visit with them for a little bit and that was really fun!
They are a great little family, and I think that they could be active
again so fast if we just showed them a little love! So, that is what
we are trying to do. We finally made it to the shopping center and we
went to this different place today to buy, and it was crazy! All of a
sudden we find ourselves in this line where you get a bag, a pretty
decent size, and then you get to put as many potatoes in it as
possible, and the whole bag is 300 yen, or $3. It was amazing! We
ended up getting a huge bag of onions and 2 huge bags of potatoes that
will probably last us a couple of weeks! Pretty amazing. After
shopping, we dropped everything off at the house and me and Elder
Lammintaus went out to the bike shop and another store for some bike
repairs and different things. The coolest store in the world is over
there, and so I really really really love visiting. It is like this
old american clothing store, and it is just way too cool. We were
able to visit there, as well as the electronic store and we fixed our
bikes. We went and grabbed dinner at an Indo Curry restaurant which
was so good, I love Indo Curry, but the owner B____ who we wanted to
talk to wasn't even there, so that was a bummer! But, we were able to
finish the day off really good with a great lesson with L____! We were
able to skype him and talk to him for about 45 min, and he is doing
really well! Unfortunately, he is not going to hit his date for
Ferbruary 23rd, but we want to try to work with him for the next
Sunday which we really think he can do it! We will see with him!
Great day today, really working hard on P-Day, which was fun but
sometimes I just want to relax! Maybe next week. Lfe's good!
2/18/14 - Today was a great day to start off the week of dendo! We
started with a pretty normal day, studying in the morning and stuff
and then me and Elder Lammintaus didn't really have any lessons
planned or anything so we were just going to go out and do some
finding, but right before we went I kind of felt like we should go try
and visit this cool kid that the missionaries had been visiting for a
while about 6 months ago, but I have never met while I have been in
Mito! His name is S_____ and Elder Hall actually had talked about
him to me when I was leaving Niigata because the guy plays soccer and
loves it! So..I came to Mito really wanting to meet him, but didn't
even know where he was or that he existed, so I couldn't really do
anything! Then Brother Uchida, our ward mission leader, brought his
name up in DCS and asked if anyone liked futsal! So we found out who
it was and got his address and I thought of him before we headed out,
so we decided to go visit one of our other friends, and then go try to
find where he lives and pay him a visit!
2/19/14 - So today, actually not a lot happened, because we had Zone
Meeting today! We had an amazing Zone meeting today and I really felt
like the Zone is doing great. I was able to give a little training
that the Zone Leaders asked me to do on Finding. They gave me sort of
a long time, haha but I was so happy to do it and I thought that the
training went great. However, after the meeting, we basically had no
time today, and so all we did was studied, and then went to Eikaiwa!
Class was great, and after I was able to talk to M______ a little bit,
and we were able to set up another appointment with him for next
Monday. He is way awesome, and today I asked him if he thought the
church would bless his life and he said that half of him thought it
would bless his life, and half of him didn't really understand. So,
we are answering any questions that he has next Monday over dinner! I
am way excited and I really feel blessed to have been able to get so
close with M_____ over the last little bit. I really want to baptize
him..haha but I know that it will bless his life so much and so I am
really working so hard to help him see how important this is. I
really hope that next week's lesson goes great!
2/20/14 - Well today I am going to write super fast because I HAVE NO
TIME! Seriously the most frusturating thing as a missionary is that
we have no time to do anything! We have tons of time to do different
things, but not enough time for little things like writing in our
journals cause there is always something we can do to for our
investigators! But today was amazing. We did not have any lessons
really planned, so after our weekly planning session, me and Elder
Lammintaus went out and started working way hard to find people. We
were able to end the day with finding 5 New Investigators! It really
was just an amazing day! I could not believe the miracles we saw.
These people were so prepared by The Lord, and I am just so excited to
be able to work here in Mito! Love missionary work!
2/21/14 - Today we just another one of those amazing days. Today, me
and Elder Lammintaus went out to find a new person who was just ready
to hear the gospel. That is really something we are working on as a
mission, is trying to find that next person who is ready for baptism.
We went out to the Eki and stopped and talked to this nice old man
sitting on a bench outside the Eki. We went over to him and started
just talking to him about the weather and just normal "conversation"
starter things. We kept talking and getting to know him and it turns
out that he was a really famous animation artist in Japan for years
and years. He started asking us if we had hear about 'Astro Boy,' and
I said that I had and said it was an old animation show and Disney
made a movie out of it. He told us that he was the creator of Astro
Boy! I honestly wasn't so sure, but then he wanted to draw us a
picture, so I gave him a note pad that I happened to have and asked
him to draw Astro Boy. He said it had been a while, but that he would
try. He drew it, and it looked amazing! He really was so good I could
not believe how cool it was. We became really good friends, however he
doesn't live very close...but we got his phone number, and then he
wanted to by us drinks because we made him so happy haha. So we end
up going with him and his friends to this coffee shop, and they buy us
hot coco, and we just keep talking and getting to know everyone. All
of a sudden, a lady that we went with to the shop hands me her phone
and says in Japanese to me, "your fluent in English so please talk
English to him." Haha I answer the phone and it is this guy who is
speaking amazing English to me! We talk for a little bit, and then I
just tell him that we should meet up! So, we switched phone numbers
and planned to meet on Wednesday before Eikaiwa! It was amazing to
get a new investigator on the phone, I have never done that before
from a random persons phone! But, The Lord works in mysterious ways,
and knows where we are going to be and puts prepared people in our
path! I really do feel like The Lord is just really preparing his
people to hear this message right now and I know that as we continue
to work as hard as we can, he will continue to bless us with success.
Another day full of miracles!
2/22/14 - Today was Saturday, and we had a really neat experience
today! In our ward, there was a little girl in one of the ward
families that was baptized! It was such a special day for her and her
family, and even for the ward to be getting another person into the
ward family! The family invited us to come to the baptism, and to try
to bring our investigators to come and see what it was! However, try
as we might, we were not able to bring any investigators to the
baptism, which was such a bummer! It was such a good opportunity to
be able to teach baptism by showing them, and then letting them feel
the special spirit that is there. However, even though no
investigators were able to come, the baptism was amazing, and the
spirit was strong as this little Japanese girl received baptism, and
then bore a powerful testimony after about why she joined the church
and why she wanted to be baptized. The whole time while this was all
happening, I could not help but think about how amazing the church is,
and how it really is the same church all over the world, that we all
believe the exact same thing, and that salvation comes through that
same person Jesus Christ, and that the first principles and ordinances
of the gospel are the same here, as they are in good ol' Utah. I love
that. I loved how the spirit was the same here in 日本茨城県水戸市, as it is
back home. It really was a testimony builder to me, so see that these
are the same, and that this truly is Jesus Christ's church once again
on the earth, here until he comes again. Something else that was
special about today was we were able to go to a members house for a
dinner activity with L_____! It was so much fun to see him interact with
the members and see how he truly could be brought right into the ward
family so quickly, and that he just fits in so well! We had some
really good food, and then we were able to have L____ drive us back to
Mito eki and grab our bikes. It was great! Such a good time to spend
with L____, and I am just so grateful for him and the amazing
opportunity I have had to meet him, and become great friends with him,
and I just hope to be able to give him that thing that has made me the
most happy in my life!
2/23/14 - Today was Sunday! I love Sunday's as a missionary, and I
love Sunday's in Japan! I don't know, I just feel like there really
is a special spirit about Sunday's. This particular Sunday morning
was spent with a nice walk to church! Elder Lammintaus's bike got a
flat tire the night before, and we weren't able to get it fixed so we
had to walk to church! It is usually about a 20 minute bike ride, so
it took us about 45 ish minutes to get there..But the weather was nice
and it was a great way to start off the day! We got to church and
C_____ ended up coming to church again! It was great to see him
at church. He told us this week that he isn't really sure why he
likes church, but he likes the feeling he gets when he is at church.
We are excited to continue to work with him through this week, and
will see about possibly/hopefully extending that baptismal commitment!
After church, we were still walking, and so we tried to visit a less
active, but they ended up not being home. So, after that we went to
the eki and waited to meet our friend for a lesson we scheduled. His
name is P___, and he is from Nepal, but he forgot the appointment!
But, it was ok because we were able to meet two of our investigators
at the station and talk to them about the Book of Mormon, and
challenged them to read some of it before our next appointment with
them. The agreed and it ended up being a really awesome little lesson
with them. Right now I just really feel like our prayers are being
answered and that even though we aren't the most qualified people for
the job, God is making us his tools, and shaping and molding us into
what he wants us to become. I am just incredibly grateful for this
opportunity to be here in Japan on a mission, to learn the things that
I am learning here, and to hopefully become the man that I want to
become! Missions are great.
2/24/14 - Wow today. Sometimes you have these days as a missionary
and you really just wonder why they have to happen? Haha not that bad
of a day, bit definitely not the best day on my mission or anything.
Today, because Elder Lammintaus is a new missionary, we had a "new
missionary" conference in Matsudo at 10. It was way good, the only
thing that isn't the nest about it is that it is a pretty solid 2 hour
train ride to Matsudo, which isn't bad, but it just uses up a lot of
our day! It makes it hard to be effective when we just have to be on
a train for 4 hours in one day! But, after that we had another
problem that we had to take care of...A couple days ago Elder
Lammintaus got a flat tire, so we had to go fix that today! We walked
fromMito Eki to the bikes shop which was maybe 45 minutes? We made it
there, got the stuff and then had to head to our apartment. After
almost an hour, we made it to our apartment, fixed the bike and were
ready to go to our lesson with M____ annndd he said he couldn't do it
tonight. Not a fun way to end the night. So, even though today was
not a day full of miracles, I still loved being a missionary. I think
that sometimes the hard times are here, just to make the good ones
even better, and to just strengthen us in whatever way The Lord sees
fit. I am so grateful to be here!
So that was my week this week! I hope that gives you a little bit
more detail, and helps show what I have been up to! Things are really
just going great here, and it is crazy to think that this transfer is
already almost over! I really can hardly believe how fast it has
gone, it is actually kind of scary! I really am just loving every
minute of being out here, and even though somedays it just seems way
tough, I really do feel The Lord by my side the whole time, and feel
him strengthening when I am weak, which is a lot! I definitely could
not do this alone that is for sure. But just like in my mission
scripture Alma 26:12 - Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my
strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will
boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold,
many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will
praise his name forever.
I love you all so much, and I was so grateful to read all the
awesome emails that I got today! You all give me so much amazing
support, and from that support I feel so much love! I just hope you
all know that I love you like crazy, and also that I love this work!
I know it is his work. I know that we would not be able to do it if
it wasn't through him. Everyone please have a safe week, and I will
talk to you all again soon!
All my love,
Logan
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