so excited for all of the miracles that we are seeing right now!
Our area right now is really just exploding and we are really excited
to see where everyone goes over the next transfer. The people have
been building up, and now we have a really strong teaching pool with
really strong progressing investigators and some really solid
baptismal dates! The big baptismal date right now for us is H_____
and he is doing great. Right now he is in the process of getting a
new job, and his money is a little low because he hasn't had one for a
few months, so he wasn't going to be able to make the 45 minute car
ride into Nagaoka from Kashiwazaki this week for church. We called
our ward mission leader and asked him what advice he had, and he told
us that there are some members that could maybe give him a ride to
church because they should be coming as well. N______ called a less
active member who lived there, and she wasn't planning on coming, but
decided that she should come and that she could bring H_______! It
was a huge miracle because he has been to church for the last 2 weeks,
and is just making huge progress towards his baptism. After church we
taught him the word of wisdom, and we knew that this was going to be a
hard one for him considering he had cigarettes in his front pocket
when we were teaching him, but it went really well. He understood why
we had the commandment, and he knows it's going to be hard but he
wants to follow it. We took his cigarettes from him right there and
committed him to throwing anything away that reminded him of smoking
or anything like that. We followed up with him last night and he said
that he went home and cleaned his apartment and threw all that stuff
away. He is still looking really good for baptism on the 21st and he
is going to be an amazing addition to the branch here in Nagaoka!
Elder Wheatley and I are having a great time working together and I
have been really impressed by how much desire he has! He is a really
good missionary and I feel like I am learning a lot from him, and I am
excited to continue to learn more from him! We have been friends in
the mission for a long time, ever since we were first up here together
as transfer 1 missionaries, so it is fun to work with someone who is
such a great friend! We are working really hard, and seeing great
miracles because of it! It's amazing what The Lord can do if you
trust him and give it your all. But this really has been one of the
funnest transfers I have had already, and we are only a couple of
weeks in! We work super good together, and we both just have a really
good sense of how to work hard and how to play hard. It has been fun
to see so many amazing miracles already together, but also have so
much fun doing it. I definitely feel like that is the way that
missionaries are supposed to do it. This week Elder Wheatley and I
trained in one of the district meetings on attitude, and a few Zone
Conferences ago President Budge showed us a really cool quote on
attitude. The first quote he showed had ATTITUDE written really big
on the top and then underneath said, "Don't walk as if know the world,
walk as if you rule the world." He talked about how sometimes we get
this idea that attitude is really cocky and arrogant. He changed the
words to, "Don't walk as if you rule the world, walk as if you know
WHO rules the world." We used that quote for our training and just
helped the missionaries realize that we have to have good attitudes
and be happy while we are doing the work otherwise nobody is going to
want what we have. Elder Wheatley is really teaching me how to have
an even better attitude so I am excited to keep learning from him!
One other really cool person that we are working with right now is a
member named Brother Y______. He is a member, but has been less active
for years but he really is the man. Unfortunately I don't have a
picture with him yet, but I'll take one this week so you can know who
he is but he is one of the kindest people I have ever met in my whole
life. He owns a restaurant, and so when we visit him he always brings
us a big drink and all this candy and just gives it to us he is the
man. His story is kind of crazy, because he was baptized years ago
here i Nagaoka, and then moved down to Tokyo and actually ended up
getting into the mafia and went to prison for 8 yrs. While he was
there, he read the Book of Mormon a lot, but once he was out he didn't
feel like he could go back to church. He ended up coming back to
Nagaoka and starting up this restaurant and actually Elder Wheatley
last year when he was on exchanges here found him and found out that
he was a member and the missionaries started working with him again.
He has only been to church once or twice since then, and hasn't really
made much progress but he really likes Elder Wheatley and I, and he is
actually reading the Book of Mormon and praying daily right now, which
he hasn't been doing for a really long time! We are really excited
for him because he is definitely one of those people that once he
comes back he is just going to be rock solid and isn't going to go
anywhere. We are excited to keep working with him this week, and I
will let you know what happens next week! Hopefully he will come to
church this next week. Pray for him!
Well that is pretty much the big stuff for this week..Things are going
really good! Thank you for all you do for me! I look up to each of
you so much and I am so lucky to have so many people that I love
supporting me every week! Have an amazing week and I will talk to you
soon!
Love
Logan
Sent from my iPad
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