Elder Landon Paskett's Journeys in Japan: June 19, 2017--Hello!

This week has been great! Here are a few more stories...

We followed up with a PI named S, we knocked on his door a few weeks ago and he shared with us about some recent deaths in his family. We gave him a Book of Mormon and introduced the Plan of Salvation, and we kept trying to follow up but it never worked out until Monday! He was home and even invited us in. We sat on his couch and talked about God and the Plan of Salvation. I felt like it was going really well and the spirit was guiding our conversation. We talked about how we can know if all of these things are true by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon--I asked him why he thinks it is important to know if these things are true, and he said he doesn't really think it's important. He told us that even if what we teach is true, he won't change anything in his life, so it doesn't really matter. That crushed my heart! That was a pretty discouraging night, but he told us he would read the pamphlet since we asked him to. Hopefully the spirit will soften his heart!

We made a big group of basketball friends! We met a guy named I on the street who is 19, and he coordinates a group of friends that get together to play ball. Our target age range is 18-26, but that age group is really hard to find in Kitakami. But we played basketball with like sixteen 19 and 20 year olds, it was awesome! They were all pretty surprised that we live in Kitakami. Made a lot of good friends, and we are trusting that the Lord will provide a way for us to share the gospel with them.

We met a crazy-ish lady named T--she came out of nowhere as we were near a park giving out GoEigo fliers to middle schoolers and high schoolers. She wanted to talk to us in English, and she loooves to talk haha but she has a weirdly vast knowledge of religious history and was very excited to hear about the Book of Mormon. She kept calling us handsome and we were very uncomfortable, makes me glad to have sisters here haha. So now T is an investigator for the sisters!

We have been making solid progress on our crazy long PI list--there are so many who have been so friendly and open to talking with us. It's great because when we just go out and knock doors, it can be really hard to find people are willing to talk. But the recorded PIs all were willing to listen to the missionaries at least once before, so we are able to save a lot of time and go straight to people who we know have some good potential.

On Sunday night, we had a great lesson with the M Family--they are a couple with 2 sons who are both away at college. They are less active members but it seems like they want to come back to activity! The branch president gave us some families to home teach, and one was the M Family. Takano Kyoudai (recent convert) wanted to dendo with us on Sunday so we went together to visit them, and didn't know what to expect at all. We found their house and knocked on the door, Takano Kyoudai told us he was really nervous. I was praying so hard that everything would go well, both for the M's and for Takano Kyoudai's sake.

First, an old lady answered the door and told us that she had no relation to the church. But she went in and got her son--M Kyoudai came to the door and was glad to see us! He invited us in right away and sat us down and gave us some castella cake. Such a nice guy. His wife joined us as well, they are such an awesome couple. They are both return missionaries and have such powerful testimonies. At the beginning, things were actually a little stiff--I didn't want it to be awkward so I was trying really hard to get them talking and I was asking a lot of questions. I didn't think they were weird questions (like how did you two meet, how long have you been a member, what do you do for work, do you have any kids), but Takano Kyoudai kept laughing at me when I would ask questions! Haha. It was pretty funny. I guess he was just wasn't expecting us to try and get to know them that well on the first visit. But it went so well! We talked and got to be friends with them really quickly, we were all talking and laughing within 10 minutes.

We didn't have a specific message prepared, but we asked if we could share a message and I was just praying so hard that the spirit would help me out. I felt like we should read 3 Nephi 17 together, so we read and talked about Jesus' love for us. It was so good! I could tell they felt a little bad/embarrassed about not coming to church for so long, so I didn't want our visit to feel like we were condemning them or calling the wicked to repentance, I just wanted them to feel our love and God's love. And they definitely did! We asked if they had any insights from the scripture as well, and they shared some really good thoughts. M Shimai said that it had been so long since she had read the Book of Mormon, and reading reminded her of how good the gospel life is. That was a such a cool experience! I'm so glad the branch president took the time to give us inspired assignments about who to visit for home teaching :)

Love you so much!!!
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett