Okayama Nishi Part 3

 Transfer week transfer week transfer week! I'm so glad that it is
over! And I'm glad that... Deschamps choro and I are staying here for
another transfer!! Woohoo! It's been fun to work with him, and I'm
grateful that we get one more together! Inaba choro took off to
Matsuyama to be a zone leader, which was really sad. But I'm excited
him for him and his next part of his mission, and I'm grateful for the
6 months that I had to work with him and learn so much from him!!

    This week we were literally all over the place helping with
different things. It was a blast. We also saw a couple miracles in the
little bit of time that we had to work in our area. We were able to
meet with a lady again who we found a little bit back and she accepted
to take the lessons, and she gave us all of her information. It was
cool to have someone to be so willing to meet with us. On Sunday
night, we were walking down the street and a guy named taguchi that we
had contacted and gave a Book of Mormon to 2 months ago passed by us.
2 months ago, When we first contacted him, we weren't able to get his
information so we never were able to follow up with him. This time as
he passed by,  I failed to stop him, and I was way mad at myself for
letting him pass without saying anything. Deschamps choro and I looked
at each other and said "let's repent and never let anything like that
happen again."

    Well, about a half and hour or so later, as we were walking by
the train station to meet up with a less active member, I was on the
phone with one of our friends, when out of no where, taguchi walked
by. I literally grabbed Deschamps choro and threw him at taguchi so we
wouldn't miss a SECOND CHANCE to talk to him. (Smooth elder Evans)-
Deschamps choro, being the stud that he is, picked him self back up,
and started up a conversation with taguchi and we were able to follow
up with him, and get his information...

    There were 2 things I learned from this. 1... there are better
methods to handle situations like these, rather than panicking and
throwing your companion at someone. And 2. The lord gives us second
chances. No matter what happens in our lives, if we are prepare, and
ready, and commit to the lord, he will show us miracles and give us
another chance. When that chance comes, we better take it, because
that's when true miracles happen.

    I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve here in Japan. I'm
grateful for all the learning experiences that I've had. -Both the
good ones and the bad ones.- I'm grateful for the priesthood and for
the power it has. As we were called on to give priesthood blessings
this week, I've thought a lot about how important it is to ALWAYS be a
ready and worthy priesthood holder. I'm grateful for the Japanese
people, and for my family, and for my friends. I'm grateful for
everyone's love and support. And most importantly, I'm grateful for
the savior, who i feel out here helping us with the work everyday. I
love this gospel and I love the happiness it brings. I hope you all
have a wonderful week, full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and all of
that good stuff. I'll stick to my sushi over here in Okayama japan.

I hope you all have a good week! Love you all so much!!

Ebanzu choro

Bye Bye Transfer 9!

Hey hey!

I don't have much time to write today, but I just wanted to tell
everyone I love them! Transfer week is here, which means my 9th
transfer is now over. Here comes the double digits! 10! I can't
believe time. It's something I will never understand. Anyways! This
past week Deschamps choro and I have decided that we are going to
start over here in Okayama with investigators. Sadly, the Nishiyama
mom and daughter didn't keep our "make it or break it" commitment, so
we made the hard decision of giving them sometime. We will see how
they are doing later on, but for now we are going to try and find some
new investigators. It'll be fun to start some finding! Because we are
going to be doing a lot of it from now on! I'm excited for this next
challenge.

In order to find new investigators, we have been trying to do new
things. We drove with a member and her boyfriend down to a city in the
very bottom of our area, to see what we could do down there. We had
two less actives that we could visit, and then we figured we would do
some housing. Yeah... long story short, THERE WAS NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE
CITY! Haha! But it was a good chance to work with one of our
investigators and his member girlfriend.

Other than that, we did an iron rod activity on Saturday and it went
well. We did it with the other Okayama Ward and there missionaries. We
were all inside tempting people and guiding people through the course.
It turned out to be a good learning experience for everyone involved.
It's fun to try new things as a missionary.

Anyways, we are taking off so that's about it for this week! I love
you all and hope you have a good week.

Evans choro

One year in 日本🇯🇵

Hello hello!

Not too much to talk about from this past week due to getting sick! My
companion and I have both caught colds which kept us inside a little
bit (which we were not happy about). And other than that, it's been a
hard week as far as the work has gone. Here is a bit of the update...

Jay: was progressing super super well. It was looking like he was
going to hit his baptismal date for this coming week, November 13th.
As he was preparing, he talked to his family (back in China) to tell
them about his decision to get baptized, and he ran into a few
problems. His dad won't let him be baptized right now, and doesn't
want Jay coming to church. Jay and I talked on the phone for a while
on Saturday. He was frustrated, but he told me that he is going to
keep reading and praying and if he feels like he should still get
baptized in a few months, he will let us know. I still feel like Jay
will get baptized eventually. Please keep him and his family in your
prayers!! It's just a minor set back!

This area is FULL of less actives. So we have really been working to
help get all of them back to church. We aren't just going to their
houses and saying "hey get your butt back to church!" We are trying to
help each of them build their testimony and find the reason,
personally, why going to church is so important. But with that, we had
4 less actives who said they were going to come to church this week,
not show up. Not one of them came. Which was a bit of a
disappointment. But now we are just going to switch our mindset a
little bit, and try something new working with our active members to
get the less actives back to church!

On a better note, we had a great ZTM this last week! I learned a lot
about the importance of bringing the spirit into our teaching. I've
thought a lot about that as well. Looking back at Jessica shimai and
her baptism, it was the spirit that did everything in her conversion.
As missionaries, and as members, it is our job to make an atmosphere
where the spirit can be welcomed. The spirit is doing the teaching, we
are the tools it is using.

That's it for this week! Love you all!! And congrats to Drew on the
engagement!! Wooh wooh!!

I love you more than Deschamps choro loves Halloween 👻
Evans Elder

"Don't afraid to make mistake" - Inaba Choro

                                     Halloween

  I've thought a lot about that wonderful English that Inaba choro
said weeks back. What a good lesson we can learn from him. Its so
important to try the best we can in everything that we do, because if
we don't, we are losing out on so many big learning opportunities.
Being afraid to screw up or make a mistake is just holding you back
from a great learning or growing opportunity. I'm grateful for inaba
choro's nice word of wisdom. I've learned a lot from that.

  This past week was a quick one, and we got a lot accomplished and
found new people to teach! We also had a great lesson with Jessica and
her son, Hiroyuki! Hiroyuki accepted to he baptized so we picked a
date for him in February where he can get baptized with one of the 8
year old members in the Ward so it isn't as scary. I'm so excited for
him! He is such a good kid!  Jessica is still doing so great! She is
preparing to go to the Fukuoka temple!! Her and Hiroyuki study the
scriptures and pray together before bed every night, and we didn't
even ask them to do that. What an amazing little family. I sure love
them so much!

  Jay is also doing great. He has been praying to know for himself if
the church is true or not, but he feels like he hasn't received an
answer yet. But he really wants an answer! So we met with him and had
a great lesson on faith, and how we receive answers from the spirit. I
love teaching him because he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. So
if he ever has questions about anything, we just point to the Book of
Mormon and he says "oh yes of course!"  He understands so easy when we
use the Book of Mormon, so that has helped me strengthen my own
testimony! We are so blessed to have that book and I hope we are all
using it daily. I personally want to be better at studying the Book of
Mormon.

  The nishiyama family (chikako and eternity) are doing well. We had
a lesson with them yesterday, and it was a bit frustrating. We asked
her if she had prayed about the church and she said yes! She had
gotten an answer that it was true. We asked her how that answer came
and she said it was a warm feeling and she new it was from the spirit.
The frustrating part is that she isn't ready to let go of Buddhism,
and still wants to do both religions even though she has gotten an
answer. So we are trying to figure out how to help her change, because
she is really afraid of upsetting her ancestors. We are working to
help her understand that her ancestors need her help. But her daughter
(eternity) is doing great and would be baptized tomorrow if she could!
They are both planning on coming to church in 2 weeks, so I am super
excited for that. Please keep them in your prayers.

Well, that's about all that I have for this week. I sure love Okayama
and love the people that I have the opportunity to work with. I hope
everyone has a fun, happy and SAFE Halloween! Love you all!!

Elder Evans

Long Lost Matsue Friends

My two favorite kids from Matsue.  They are both being baptized in December!

I don't know if this past week went bye slow or fast. It just
kinda.... went! On Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference up in
Niimi (about a 2 hour drive from Okayama)! I was able to see all of
the Ward members that I worked with in Matsue again and talk to them
for a bit! Im sure grateful that I was able to spend 3 transfers up in
Matsue, those members have become very close friends of mine and I was
so happy to get to see them again.
  On Sunday for stake conference, Jessica and her son, Hiroyuki came
all the way up to Niimi! Hiroyuki is now starting to take the lessons,
and he wants to get baptized. So we are so excited for him to start
learning about the church! It was also great that they came because
the Okayama elders (who are both Japanese) had one of their
investigators who is also from the phillipenes come to stake
conference and Jessica was able to meet him and tell him why she got
baptized. -Go Jessica!! - Since the Okayama elders investigator just
came to Japan, he still is working on learning Japanese. So I had the
chance to translate 2 hours worth of talks during the meeting.
Translating was a lot more of a challenge than I thought it would be,
but it helped me to see where I can improve in my language, and it
also gave me some good translating practice. It was a really humbling
experience to say the least!
  The rest of the week went well! We had a great lesson with Jay at
the church on Wednesday. We taught him lesson 2 and committed him to
pray that what we are telling him is true. He has a strong desire to
know, but doesn't feel like he can get an answer. We told him if he
has faith that he will receive an answer, and if he asks with true
intent, ready to act on whatever answer comes, then he will surely get
an answer. He committed to do it, and we have another appointment set
up with him this week to see how it went. Please keep him in your
prayers!
    We also met with a less active for the first time this week named
Fujimoto kyodai! He is a really nice guy who wants to learn. He got
baptized 3 years ago, and since then he hasn't really came to church.
But we had a great lesson with him and were able to get a relationship
with him. After the lesson he told us he really wanted us to keep
coming because he felt so good while we were there. So we set up an
appointment with him for next week! While we were over in his area, we
did some housing and found a new investigator named Okagi! We are
really excited to start teaching him as well! He seemed to have lots
of interest and set up another appointment with us right away.
    As we have been teaching this week, I have really felt the power
of the Book of Mormon, and how it is truly the thing that holds the
church together. If we have questions or things we do not fully
understand, if we would just turn the Heavenly Father in prayer, and
read from his scriptures, we can have our hearts softened and our
questions answered. So go read the Book of Mormon!!!

    Well, things over here in Okayama nishi are going great! We are
tired as can be, and loving life everyday! I hope everyone is safe and
doing well. Thank you all for all you do!!

I love you all more than Deschamps choro loves Halloween! 🎃 👻
Elder Evans


More Matsue Friends