To start from the beginning...first, on Tuesday, I had the chance to give a blessing to one of the sisters in our district. It was the 2nd time (the first was in the MTC) and it was still just as scary. I think it went well though. That day it was pouring rain, then Wednesday was a blizzard. It snowed so hard. We were walking into the snow for probably an hour or two, just totally blinded by the snow flying in almost parallel to the ground. It was crazy. The snow was good snow too--it was like little dippin' dots. Tons of 'em. Everywhere. In the snow we had a cool miracle! There is guy named M San who was a PI from like May or June. We have been trying to visit him off and on but he has never been home when we visited. Then this week, we were going to try and visit again. Right before, we met a couple in the parking lot of his apartment building. They were changing the tires on their car, so we stopped to help and we figured we would knock on M San's door after that. But as we were talking, we found out it was actually M san that we were helping! So that was pretty funny. We had a good chance to get to know him and his wife a little bit, they have read from the Book of Mormon they received and are interested in learning more! We weren't able to set up a specific appointment but we will definitely stop by again sometime.
Another miracle this week! We were sending out a bunch of texts to invite people to the baptism, and I sent one to all of the former investigators in our phone. One of them, O san, responded! As if that wasn't miraculous enough, he called and said that unfortunately, he couldn't make it to the baptism, but he wanted to start taking lessons again! We looked on his record and he has a tooonnnn of stuff--most of it was from paper records from 2010, added into the ipads in 2013. Apparently he was super close to getting baptized multiple times. He was dropped twice before in the digital record, maybe more before his records were put into the ipad. Basically he would be keeping all the commandments and ready for baptism, but his father was opposed to it. So the missionaries would keep trying to meet but just couldn't gain any ground with his dad, then eventually dropped him. So we met once, and it went well! I think. Apparently he sometimes hears voices in his head (in Japanese and sometimes English) and sometimes sees his dead relatives...Murakami Choro didn't seem at all phased by this so maybe it's common in Japan? I don't know but we'll find out more about everything this week. He told us some seriously creepy, weird, spiritual visions/experiences that he has had. But he and Murakami Choro were just conversing about it like it was a normal conversation topic, so I just kept it cool while I was kind of freaking out on the inside.
Overall it did go really well, we got a good feel for his understanding and expectations. He still understands the gospel and the commandments well, the main thing still keeping him from being baptized is his father--who hates all religion. O is in his 20s so he can be baptized without his father's permission, but he personally doesn't want to go against his father. O wants us to knock on his father's door, but act like we are just doing regular tracting and just happened to run into him. So we agreed to, we'll see how it goes! I feel like he is just going to have to confront his dad about it and make a stand eventually, but hopefully this "coincidental" housing idea will soften his dad's heart.
So after the blizzard day, it got warm again. Still cold enough that we are wearing sweaters and jackets, but warm enough that it has been raining on the piles of snow on the sides of the road. On that one really cold day, something got damaged in our water pipes. That night all we could get out of the sink was a tiny trickle of water. Before we realized something was damaged, we were visiting the Funahashi Kazoku and they decided to send us home with some rice and curry. That was super nice of them, and then when we got home we found out that we wouldn't be able to make any rice or pasta because the water wasnt working! So that random dinner was a lifesaver. Definitely a miracle!
That night we called the landlady person and we figured out that the damage would take a while to fix and it would be pretty invasive, so we needed to move apartments! We spent most of Friday moving. We are still in the same apartment complex, just on the second floor. That morning I took the coldest shower of my life (they fixed the water enough that we could get a full stream, but it was ice cold--and if you turned it to hot water it just turned into an ice cold trickle instead of turning warm). It was like an ice-bath for my entire body. I went numb all over, just like when we would do the whirlpool ice-bath after track practice. Except for track it was just my legs. Seriously, I could see my breath forming clouds. It was frigid. After that, the other 3 guys didn't take showers that morning haha.
Moving went well, the ward mission leader came and helped us take stuff up. The apartment people hired some guys to take the fridge and washing machine up and install them, so basically everything is the same except the apartment is so new and clean! The layout is exactly backwards from our old apartment, so that has been a little weird. Also, our desks are still downstairs...they are too big to fit through the doorway without taking them apart so we can't really move them on our own. We have just been doing studies sitting on the floor this week.
Finally, the baptism! It went so well!! The night before, a bunch of members were at the church so we had a joint lesson with 4 members and Ryouma. We had a little testimony meeting kind of thing and it was so good! We were so busy that night that we didn't end up having time for dinner, but one of the members who taught with us brought us food! Another little dinner miracle. At the baptism, I was a little stressed out to be honest. That morning Ebina Kyoudai asked if I could play the organ for the baptism, He showed me the songs I was playing on the organ and one of them doesn't exist in he English hymnbook--I had never seen it before in my life until like 30 minutes before I was supposed to play it on the organ. So I was trying to fit in little bits of practice here and there while we were prepping everything else. He also asked the 6 missionaries in our district to do a musical number. We had decided to sing I Need Thee Every Hour. We were practicing that morning and one of the Shimai was way sick and her voice was gone--but we wanted all 4 parts and there were only 2 sisters, so I ended up singing alto and she sang tenor haha. I was so preoccupied with all the music stuff, trying to figure out how/where I would change, and trying to memorize the baptism words in Japanese, that I totally forgot he had asked me and Murakami Choro to introduce Ryoma Kyoudai to the branch over the pulpit. I remembered when he invited us and Ryouma up to the stand. I said a little bit about him but quickly realized that I did not have the necessary vocabulary to do an adequate introduction, and Murakami Choro still didn't know him super well. So after the first awkward 30 seconds of me stumbling through a brief introduction, I told everyone that we wanted to do an interview type of thing and we opened the floor for questions about Ryouma. I started off by asking where he would pick to travel if he could go anywhere in the world. Then the branch participated really well, and we had a fun time listening to his answers.
So that part ended up way good, and my organ playing wasn't terrible, the musical number went well, and I said all the baptism words right! The ZLs told me horror stories of missionaries having to repeat it 10 times before getting everything right. But luckily we only had to dunk him once! It was such a cool experience though. Right after, I kneeled down in my make-shift changing room in my soaking wet clothes and said a prayer of thanks that everything went so well.
Overall, I was just so overwhelmed by how much the Lord really loves us, and how perfect His plan is. As Ryouma bore his testimony at the end, it really hit me how little I did. He mentioned some things that I said during lessons that I had forgotten about--things that I had said just in passing, but were things that he needed to hear or things that had a profound effect on him. Things that the spirit said, through me. I don't have what it takes to convert someone--not even close. I don't even have the capacity to tell the barber how I want my hair cut. But the Lord knows exactly what each of His children need, and I am just lucky that I get to have a front-row seat to see the Spirit converting Ryouma. This work is real! It was also comforting to me to reaffirm in my mind that I do have what it takes to be a successful missionary--because the Lord does all the work! Alma 26:11-12 became real to me that day.
God lives. He loves us. He has a perfect plan for our eternal happiness. I know it. I am so grateful to be able to a part of his marvelous work!
I love you so much, thanks for all you do and all you sacrifice for us!
XoxoxoxoxOoxXoOooxoxoXxooOoxXo
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett
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| Highlight of the week! All 3 of my eggs were twins! |
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| The beginning of the snow |
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| The Branch--the ones who came to the baptism |
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