Dear Beloved Family and Friends,

This week has been full of so many different things. We got transfer
calls for my final 5 weeks. This last month I get to train a new
missionary! I feel so privilege because that is exactly what I really
wanted to do, to help and love and train like a father. My new
companion is elder Lotti from Arizona and he is a wonderful
missionary!

This week was a little difficult in several ways, we had several
investigator appointments fall through due to the rain, and several
investigators who said they would come to church didn't, so the usual
missionary disappointments. For some reason I also struggled with the
change of being a trainer and having a companion so different from my
last.

It came to the point where I started feeling frustrated at the trials
and challenges I was facing. Then I remembered one of my favorite
scriptures before the mission 1 Peter 1:7

"7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ"

A trial being more precious than gold? How can that be?

 And yet it's true! These trials we have might be difficult, but if
used correctly they can be powerful opportunities for grow and drawing
closer to savior that will truly become more precious than gold. They
might be hard, but trials are truly precious gems in the treasure box
of our life.

Within the trials of being a missionary though, there are miracles
that blow any trial out of the water and his week I had one of the
most amazing miracles of my entire mission.

A few weeks ago I was out finding on splits in another area and we
talked to normal looking older Okinawan man, we asked what he thought
the purpose of life was and he amazed us by giving an answer I had
never heard in my whole mission,

"To find spiritual truth" he said.

I was astounded! I had never heard anyone say that before in two
years! So obviously we gave him a Book of Mormon and testified of the
spiritual truth inside its pages, left it with him and exchanged
numbers. Over the next 2 weeks he texted us and told us what he was
learning. He clearly loved the book and in two weeks had finished 2/3
of it saying "now I see, the Book of Mormon has the fullness of the
gospel of Jesus Christ! Amazing!" Yet still we hadn't been able to
meet again in person or teach him anything.

Then on Friday in personal study I was reviewing my notes from when
Elder Nelson and his wife spoke to our mission. Sister Nelson told us
to "pray to find the descendants of those who are ready to receive the
ordinances on the other side of the veil. Pray to find them so their
ancestors can receive the gospel." So I took a moment right then and
offered a prayer for that.

Then two hours later I got a text from that man we met two weeks
earlier that said,

"Hello, I would like to participate in ordinances for ancestor files
at the temple, but is that possible?"

I was speechless. We had not taught him anything, we had said nothing
of anything beyond the Book of Mormon, and here only 2 hours after I
offered that prayer to find the descendants of those who are prepared,
a man texts me saying he wants to receive ordinances for his
ancestors.  I have never seen a prayer like that answered so
immediately and so dramatically. I was amazed and truly humbled at how
Heavenly Father really does do his work.

I truly know that this is not our work, it is His work and it
stretches across aeons and across generations and the veil, and that
there are truly people waiting and ready to hear he gospel, they are
eager and ready for us and for others we may help to receive the
gospel and to free them from the prison they are bound.

Isn't it truly amazing?!



Photos
-We went to an art museum that had a making of Disney exhibit, look at
my new companion! I think he might scare the Japanese though...


-My son! Isn't he cute!