April 9, 2018--Post-Easter Snow

My marvelous Mommy,

Glad you are feeling better and still managing to stay on top of everything! 

Yes we watched general conference this weekend! We watched the Saturday sessions in Misawa at church, then the Sunday ones just in our apartment in Towada. What an amazing conference! All the changes are truly inspired. I love how the focus is on people—we use the phrase “teach people, not lessons” all the time as missionaries, and it seems like everything is heading more and more in that direction, to minister to and love individuals instead of just checking boxes and to-do lists.

Glad Grayson is becoming a skillful MC! Haha what a stud. And that’s fun you got to be in Provo...is Maddy going to join the Ballroom Dance team? Hope she gets into Heritage! If the waiting list doesn’t work out then she can come study at my apartment anytime, haha. 

This week has been good here, we had some surprise snow!! First it was rain, then hail, the turned into snow. I couldn’t believe it was April, we were out in our scarves and coats and hats, haha. But I think that was the last snowstorm...probably. We had a lot of new English class students this week! One friend of one of our investigators came and brought her kids. Our next door neighbor also said she had a friend who wanted to learn more English and asked for a flier to give to her! One lady came with her family as well, she said we met a few months ago and we offered to help her snow shovel her driveway. She was almost done so she declined the help, but we gave her an Eikaiwa flier before we left. She said we were super nice and talked to her 4-year old daughter, and so she remembered us and our English class the whole time, and decided to come now that’s it’s warmer. So that’s been cool! I honestly don’t remember meeting her the first time, but I guess it goes to show that even little things like offering to help snow shovel can make a difference, even if they don’t accept the help.

We have had to drop a lot of investigators this last week, for various reasons. One older lady said she didn’t want us to keep coming over because she was worried what her neighbors would think of her meeting with Christians, a few decided they were too busy to do lessons, and a good number were just not interested but it took a couple visits to be able to talk openly enough to find that out. So it’s been sad, but it’s helped us lift our sights to seek out the ones who are ready now, and we’ve found a lot of new investigators!

Yesterday we met a super solid high school student who plays tennis, we passed by him on the street right after our last visit with a Q who dropped us. It might have been justifiable to feel sad or cynical or lazy since we had just had our last contact with this investigator, but we brushed it off and kept opening our mouths—and I’m so glad we did! He was so friendly and responsive. We exchanged LINE and he said he’d be down to learn more about getting guidance from God. He just started his senior year of high school so he is starting to really think about his future and stuff, and he’s still young enough that he’s chill with talking about religion!

We also met a new college student who just moved here from Yokohama and doesn’t really know any people in Towada yet, but now she has 2 gaijin friends! And we met a guy who just graduated from college and moved here from Hirosaki. He just started working and doesn’t really know much of Towada yet, so we got to be good friends right away. We taught him about God and prayer and the Book of Mormon, and he seems so open to everything! We set up another appointment for this week, please pray that it will go well :) His name is K.

God is putting a lot of good people in our path! As the new school year is starting there are lots of new college students moving in, and people moving in who just graduated, etc. so even though Towada is super small we have a lot of areas with fresh new people now! And we have been meeting a lot of people who are experiencing changes in their life, being in a new area and environment, etc. so a lot of people are in the perfect stage of life to find the gospel!

One cool thing I felt this week was how important the fullness of the gospel really is. We had the opportunity to go to the church service of one of our investigators, discuss beliefs with a Buddhist monk, and do a lesson with some very strong believers in a religion that is kind of Buddhist, but kind of not. Anyway, I learned that all the religions that I have come in contact with have so many good things—Go really does work through all religions to help His children. Any light or truth, regardless of which “sect” is teaching it, comes from God—even if it’s a sect that doesn’t believe in God. But God doesn’t get frustrated that they don’t believe in Him and withhold the light, He just lovingly gives as much as we can handle, drawing us to seek more.

And then, in general conference, I realized how amazing the fullness of the gospel really is—despite all the wonderful things I saw and heard in these other religions, none of them pierced me to the core like general  conference did. It was truly God speaking to me specifically, through His ordained servants. I got answers to all kinds of questions; every single question I wrote down and brought into conference, questions I had written down a long time ago and forgotten about until I learned the answer, even answers to questions I didn’t know I had! Such a powerful, powerful conference. Truly a revelatory session, in every sense of the word. 

No matter how many good teachings or practices a religion has, it won’t have the same power without personal revelation and the gift of the Holy Ghost. (“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”). The fullness of God’s gospel is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—I felt that so strongly during conference.  Just like President Nelson said, we will not be able to spiritually survive the coming years without personal revelation and the Holy Ghost. This means receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, or for those of us who have already received it, to learn how to really use it. “The arrival of a typhoon is no time to dust off the gift of the Holy Ghost and figure out how to use it.” Now is the time to prepare and learn to be spiritually self-reliant! I know the Lord speaks to me through the Spirit, and I want to be better at listening to it. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost, and for this experience to be a missionary to really learn how to receive revelation.

The church is true!

Thanks for being such a fantastic Mother :)

愛してますよ！

パスケット長老

Elder Paskett

1-6 - Zone Taikai (back in my hometown of Aomori)
7 - my no-recipe double chocolate cookies (some turned out better than
others...)

April 2, 2018--Happy Easter!

Hello hello and happy easter to my beautiful mother who is forever mine,

This week has been solid! We have been really trying to seek revelation on where to go whenever we go finding, and we have met some really good people. Almost every day it has been the last few doors we knock on that we meet new investigators! And we have been going to some places on the outskirts of town too where it just seems untouched by missionaries from any church.

We met one high school boy who had interest in God and took a Book of Mormon, one older lady whose husband passed away recently and had interest in life after death, a lady who used to be married to an American and said we were right around the age of her half-Amerikajin son who just moved out to go to college so now she is just living alone and needs friends, and a farmer who listens to a Christian channel on the radio every morning! God has put us in the right places at the right time as we’ve sought His guidance.

We had Zone Conference on Saturday and it was great! We are focusing a lot on doing mogis and really improving our teaching skills to be able to guide more investigators to baptism. I got to be back in Aomori for a few hours, way natsukashii. The Ward Mission Leader Ebina Kyodai stopped by the church while we were eating lunch to say hi to me and the other missionaries who used to be in Aomori! I was a little surprised he remembered me but it made me happy.

After Zone Taikai we became a trio with Elder Nathan (he is on a special assignment in the honbu and went to all the zone conferences as President Sekiguchi’s companion), and visited a few people that night and Sunday morning. We brought some people Easter candy and invited them to church! One of them, Ak san, came that night for the first time! He has read the entire Book of Mormon and says he likes it, but doesn’t think he needs to get baptized. He is a pretty funny ojiisan, he is making progress slowly but surely.

The Sekiguchis came to the morning sacrament meeting and it was an awesome fast and testimony meeting. We also had interviews with Kaicho right after that and he is sooo tired! I think he almost fell asleep during our interview, haha. He showed me some things he has been working on on the mission facebook page and I was like...”Kaicho, it says you posted this 7 hours ago!”
“Yeah, I did.”
“...it’s 11:00 right now.”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing up at 4 in the morning?!”
“I just had a lot to do that night, don’t worry about it!”
So basically our President never sleeps, he is just going hard literally 24/7. Our interview was good though, I want to work so hard up to the very end!

Anyway sorry I don't have more interesting or cool stories, but the work is plugging along. I am loving it!

Even though Easter isn’t really celebrated in this country, it gave me a chance to personally reflect on the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and how much it means to me personally. Not only would my life be drastically different if it weren’t for Christ, but my life would have no purpose. There would be no repentance, no forgiveness, no hope. But because of Him, I have hope. I have a reason to live, a reason to keep going even when I feel weighed down by my own weaknesses. I am so grateful that Christ loves me enough to suffer and die for me, and I know that he literally rose from the grave with a living, perfected body. He lives! And so will we. I know it with every fiber of my being!

 Love you more than words can express!
XOxoxoXOOXOXOxoXOXXOXOOXoxoxOXOXO
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett

Just 1 this week, our Easter Sacrament Meeting ft. Elder Nathan and
President and Sister Sekiguchi!

March 26, 2018--highlights from the week

Glad the ballroom competition went so well!! Sounds like Maddy is just killing it. Grayson too! So proud 😅
Working hard at video games I guess is an honorable pastime too. がんばってね！

Just a couple highlights from this week... 
First, we had a great lesson with A san! It was her first lesson and it was so solid. She read all of the pamphlet we gave her. Like, really read it! And it made such a difference. She even read the list of terms in the back and right off the bat she asked us about バプテスマ and asked if that was still a thing in this time period!! We told her definitely yes. Mateaki Choro showed her pictures of his baptism and she liked it a lot.

She understood everything really well, I think it was the most in depth Restoration lesson I have taught yet. Usually it takes an entire lesson to make sure they understand God is Our Loving Heavenly Father, but she just soaks it all up so quick. During the Joseph Smith part, we were even able to talk specifically about what the priesthood is and how it was restored. Miracles happen when people keep their commitments to read stuff you give them! We taught her about prayer, and she has never really prayed before in her life, but she was down to try! First we each said a prayer and talked about it a little bit, then she tried praying and it was so simple and wonderful :) She said what really stood out to her about our prayers was how we sincerely thanked God for simple blessings like the good weather. So we are having her pray daily this week, and she is getting a little busy prepping for the start of the school year but I think she will continue to progress crazy fast! She is so prepared.

There was a blizzard on Thursday (my birthday present from the heavens)! That was such a surprise since we have been biking recently. But we pulled our scarves and coats and gloves and boots back out and did some 久しぶり snow dendo. We weren’t having much success but the last door we knocked on was a super nice middle-aged man who was kinda quiet but talked with us a bit. Then as we were talking, his mom and little brother pulled in, and the mom talked with us for a while. She works at the post office and lives with her 2 sons, and loves her family so much. She is so nice and welcomed us back to share a message another time!

We made a personalized Book of Mormon for our investigator H san, she is a lady probably in her 50s. We are having a hard time getting her to come to church, but she likes when we visit and she loved her Book of Mormon! We wrote our testimonies in it and marked up a bunch of our favorite scriptures. We also made a similar one for another investigator, an ojiisan named M san. We are having a hard time getting him to pray or come to church, so we figured a personal Book of Mormon would be good because he would not only be more likely to actually read it, but it would help him to see that we want him to accept the gospel because we love him and know it will bless his life, not because it is our “job” to get people to join the church.

Other than that we have been dropping a lot of new investigators lately, there were quite a few who took a pamphlet and expressed some interest, but when we were able to get in contact again basically told us they weren’t really that interested. Some people just take pamphlets because they are too nice to say no, haha Japanese people are the best. They really don't want to offend us and they want us to feel successful, so it is super hard for them to tell us straight up if they aren’t really interested. It’s kind of nice because they are so nice even when they reject you. These people are the best! But yeah we are hoping that some seeds were planted with the ones we had to drop, and we have faith that they are more who are ready now!! From here on it is supposed to get way warm and hopefully no more snowstorms! Short-sleeve season will be coming soon :)

Love you so much Mama!!!!

--
パスケット長老
Elder Paskett

1 - Elder Mateaki made me a wonderful birthday breakfast!
2 - The leftovers from the last snowstorm
3-5 - DTM!  Ft. My birthday potato (both the Sisters are from Idaho so they gave me potato with a little bow on it haha)  Also ft. the Omer couple from Herriman, Utah! They have never been to Japan before but just got called here to be Military Relations/Service missionaries at the military base in Misawa!