Monday, April 21, 2014

Diving into the Divine

Dear Beloved Ones,

Today was a crazy week! We've been way successful lately at meeting
people on the street and setting up other appointments with them, but
then when it came to coming to appointments we have spent a lot of
time waiting, and waiting and waiting for people to come and not
showing up or answering phones :(. That"s pretty normal, it's usually
like 1 out of 4 or 5 that come to an appointment we set up. But this
week on Tuesday we met this guy named Zaima, we had just had training
from the APs about talking to everyone so on the way to our apartment
from the train station so we talked to everyone we saw and found him
at the end, and set up an appointment to meet him on Wednesday. Then
that night we texted him and asked if he was coming, he texted back
excitedly "Yes! I'm excited!"

Now if that didn't rock our socks off. Well we go to our appointment
on wednesday 10 minutes earlier and he is already there with this big
smile. "When did you get here?" we asked "About 30 minutes ago" he
answered. Yep that's Zaima.

It turns out his mother was a christian, but she passed away some time
ago, so he believes in Christ because of her, but he doesn't really
know that much about Christ. Also he loves english and he doesn't have
a job right now, which means we can meet him a whole ton. He doesn't
talk a whole lot, but he does everything we ask and I don't even
understand why he already believes so much, we'll have to go deeper
later. But he has progressed the fastest of any investigator I've
taught on my mission.

We met him on Tuesday, taught him wednesday, he came to eikaiwa
(english class) that night. Then we taught him on Friday, set up a
baptismal date for May 11 and then that night he came to a branch
party, then read the book of mormon with him before eikaiwa and then
he came to church on sunday....20 minutes early in a way nice looking
suit. And we're teaching him tonight. (It hasn't even been a week
yet.) He is a crazy miracle.

He loves english because he loves american music, rock music,
backstreet boys etc (he actually sang some backstreet boys for me, it
was hilarious) and he is a way super pro diver. He has 7 different
diving licenses including one for deep diving, little does he know,
that right now he is diving into the deepest most fulfilling thing
into the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And oh how sweet he will
discover it to be.

Then also we had another crazy lesson with Rueben (see last week) He
has been way busy with school, but we were finally able to meet him on
Saturday. We had been thinking about how Elder Holland says we have to
go where the investigator needs to go before we can take them where we
want to go. So we just watched some powerful mormon messages
especially for him in his stressful difficult moment in life.
(mountians to climb, and good things to come) and then we watched a 2
min clip of President Eyring in last general conference testifying
that this is God's true Church, and we testified that we really do
have apostles today and they lead and guide God's church. He told us
that he was especially touched by President Eyring's testimony that
this is God's church. The spirit was so strong in the lesson. It was
amazing.

It's been a while since we have been able to meet the Moritas, but
Brother Tohma has had some contact with them, and says they are still
interested just so busy. They need this gospel so much! Please pray
that they can have time and desire to meet!

And finally the crazy miracle we had on the street on wednesday! We
were out just talking to a 23 year old guy on the street who didn't
seem super interested when this woman suddenly comes up to us out of
nowhere and says, "Hey you're mormon right!?"
"Yeah we are, wait are you a member?"
"Yeah I am! I was baptized in Malaysia and then came here 3 weeks ago
and didn't know where the church was, I have been praying to meet
someone who could help me!"

Turns out she was a member who had been baptized 5 months ago, who
speaks english and guess what other language? None other than chinese!
What half our area's members speak. Of course. God doesn't send
member's here by chance. She is an awesome member, and has two little
kids so now we will have a 3 kid primary! Our one girl Megumi is so
happy to have friends. We also got one new college student member, and
a recently baptized 14 year old girl who all moved into our area.
Saijo is growing so much! But it's really not us, it's the lord!

I'm so grateful to be our here seeing all these miracles it's amazing!
It's crazy when I go out on the street and just speak Japanese to
people like nothing (now whether I understand everything is a
different story) and even crazier when I teach some guy equally in
Japanese, English, and Chinese on the street like yesterday.

Even more amazing though is how I'm changing and becoming more like
Christ, and growing to love and focus on others around me more and
more, this is the greatest gift of serving a mission.

I love you all and thank you for everything!

Love,
Elder Walton


Pictures:
-Us at a group activity playing tons of games (there were so many children!)

-The awesome Zaima!

-Me eating a bacon bagel, it's deliciousness is undescribable.

-Me and Elder Rees at the peace park!

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