Sunday, April 23, 2017

It's a long one today!



I failed to write an email last week, so I will try and make up for it
in this email today. It's been a crazy last two weeks so I apologize
if my writing is all over the place! - I'll start with news from last
week!

We had a lesson at a member's house with Elias, our friend from Utah,
and two of his friends from his work. One of his friends was from
France, and the other one is from Taiwan...we think. We had a nice
dinner with them that night, and then shared a message on the plan of
salvation with them. Towards the end of the lesson, Elias asked Eve
(the one from Taiwan) if she believed God was there. She said "ya
know, I kinda thought that he was there... but now after hearing this,
he has become a reality to me." It was cool to see things start to
click with them! It just strengthens my own testimony to see others
come to know something for themselves!

Last week, Vui choro and I were wanting to find a new way to find
people. A member of our English class told us that there was going to
be a "Samoan Festival" at the college down the street from us, so
being that Vui choro is Samoan, we thought it would be the perfect way
to meet lots of new people. So we headed to the college, excited and
ready to find some friends. we paid 2 dollars to get in, and sat down
in a...... lecture on Samoa... We ended up being stuck in the back of
a college classroom lecture on Samoa for an hour and a half, instead
of, what we thought was... a Samoan festival. It was a complete
failure, but one that we will always remember. It sure made me not
excited for college this fall...

The good news is, 2 days later we got a referral from a different
mission for an 18 year old boy named Masahiro. We gave him a call, and
he was so excited. The next day he came to church, and then after
church we had a lesson with him. He is so ready to receive the gospel!
Even though it was just our first time meeting him, we gave him a soft
baptismal commitment, to which he said absolutely yes to! He is such a
great kid. And to make it better, he is a basketball player. Nothing
more perfect than that!

This week was also awesome! We were able to have a lesson with one of
our progressing investigators named Hikari. He has been meeting with
the missionaries for a little while now, so we had a lesson on 3 Nephi
11, and then we used the power from Elder Costa at the last general
conference, and watched his talk together. After watching the talk, we
were talking to hikari. He said that he isn't really doing everything
he needs to do to follow Jesus Christ fully, and that he really wants
to work on repentance but it is hard. We explained repentance a little
more to him, and then we were able to commit him to a baptismal date
in May! He said before that he didn't fully understand the meaning of
baptism and why he needed to do it. But now, he said he has no
opposition and wants to do it. So we are way excited for that with
him.

I also had the chance to go back to Otsu this week to work with some
of the elders over there. When we were walking back to the train
station to head home, a kid rode past us on his skateboard, with hard
core rap playing super loud. We said hello, not thinking anything of
it. But the kid stopped abruptly, turned around and yelled back at us.
I didn't fully understand what he said, and I thought he was probably
just a drunk dude. But we turned around and started talking to him.
His name is Sakamoto and he is 17 years old. And no, he was not drunk
haha. He thought it was way cool to be talking to foreigners and we
talked a bit about what we do as missionaries. He thought it was
awesome and agreed to meet with the missionaries over in Otsu!

And last! If you are currently scanning this email because it is so
long, stop scanning now, and read this last part.

After finishing up church on Sunday we had a big meal with the Ward.
As we were heading to the cultural hall, the Bishop came up to Elder
Vui and I and said that there was a man downstairs that wanted to talk
with us. We ran downstairs to see who it was, and there was an 18 year
old kid from China standing there. We started talking to him and asked
why he came to the church today. He told us that he has a friend who
is LDS and he really likes the LDS people and that he has interest in
learning. We told him we would love to help him, and we invited him to
come join the Ward feast! As we were sitting there talking, he pulled
out his phone, and got on his dictionary. He leaned over to me,
showing me his phone with the word "baptism" on it and said "how do I
receive this?" - I about laughed my head off. This had to be a dream!!
I told him that after the Ward lunch, we could sit down and talk to
him! So after lunch was over, we went in to a room and had a great
lesson on the restoration. He also had a bunch of questions that we
answered! And then we committed him to be baptized next Sunday after
church. He is so excited. We gave President Welch a call to see if we
could really baptism this kid next week, and he gave us the Go-no go!
This week we will be meeting with him everyday and getting him
prepared for his baptism next Sunday. Miracles still exist!

Anyways, since this is so long, I'm going to stop talking now! I love
you all so much and hope you have a great week!!

Evans Elder


1 comment:

  1. I THINK YOU ARE A GREAT MISSIONARY LOVE YOU SO MUCH. LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR HOME COMING. IT WILL BE HERE BEFORE WE TURN AROUND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

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