Hey everyone : -D,
Miracles this week. On Wednesday, we met with a younger single mother with a member friend. She has been having a hard time in life recently and our member friend, Brother Mahlum, decided it would be a good opportunity to introduce the gospel and tell her of all the hope and guidance it gives you in life. I was on splits that day with my Zone Leader Elder Smith. (Habañero challenge for the 3rd time. Brother Mahlum ordered Ghost peppers for the future but I'm not sure about that...) The lesson with this woman went really well, she had good, solid questions and expressed a willingness to put the Book of Mormon to the test by giving it a read. She's in a bit of a sticky situation right now but we hope things will work out with her and that we could at least lead her on the right path.
The other night, Elder Bruce and I were doing some night time streeting when we came across a group of younger Japanese guys all about 19 or 20 years old. After inviting them all to Eikaiwa (our weekly english class) there was one that stuck around while the rest of the group walked off. He was looking especially hard at our name tags and trying to read what church we were representing which is something I've never seen before. He then goes on to tell us he's been wanting to go to our church one of these Sundays and check it out...! That never really happens. He said he'll come to church next Sunday so we got his number and gave him a few pass along cards with stuff to learn more before we sent him off with the rest of his friends, but man, we are excited to see what happens with Ryou. That's one thing we do have going for us in Misawa- the church building A) is the biggest in our mission and B) is located right in front of the train station, you can't miss it. Big, white and beautiful. The branch president and us are working on making a display in the front of the church to make it a more open, friendlier feel for people to see what we, as a church, are about. Should be way effective.
Other fun things this week include a Japanese wedding party! A newly wed couple from Hachinohe (20 mins south) came up to Misawa and held a reception in the church building up here. The missionaries were invited. It's funny, missionaries here in Japan aren't nudged off to the side and thought of as a burden to take care of or spend time with like I feel they might be in America sometimes- people love us and want to hang out with us. It's nice. But the wedding was way fun, way different, and full of the unexpected for most any wedding, let alone a Japanese one.
The bride literally shoveling cake to her husband.
Just remember, when life gets hard, and I mean when it gets to the point where you just want to lay in bed all day and not talk to anyone or do anything- that is exactly the point when God is giving you the opportunity to turn to Him and come to know for yourself the power of Christ in our lives. Here's a quote about how sometimes having those trials and hardships are necessary to become spiritually tuned.
"Sometimes we mistakenly may believe that happiness is the absence of a load. But bearing a load is a necessary and essential part of the plan of happiness. Because our individual load needs to generate spiritual traction, we should be careful to not haul around in our lives so many nice but unnecessary things that we are distracted and diverted from the things that truly matter most." - David A. Bednar.
Have a good week folks and always remember I love you:),
Elder Robins
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