Area: Kitakami
Companion: Trane Choro
Hey everyone! Wow! It sounds like it was a crazy week! I'm glad Daxton is back home and doing better. That's crazy he had to spend the night in the hospital for the croup. And it snowed in Utah?! That's awesome! It's not cold enough yet to snow here, but it's been raining for like three days straight. It will probably snow soon though.
My week was pretty good I guess. It had some of its disappointments, but it was okay. I'll try to give you the rundown, but this email might be a bit shorter.
Tuesday was kind of a bummer day. We started off visiting a less active and since she is always inside and it was a beautiful day, I suggested we do a lesson in a nearby park and she agreed. We met her there and taught her about faith. She said she didn't even know what she believed in anymore, that her testimony of the gospel is gone. We taught her how she can strengthen her faith. It was kind of sad to see yet another example of how fast Satan can cause you to lose a testimony. It brought me back to my days in priest quorum talking about the importance of feeding your testimony. I remember learning that you are either growing in testimony or weakening in testimony. It made me sad to see another example of someone who stopped doing the small things which led to a loss of testimony. What made it worse was that she called me during church and told me she was done and to stop visiting her.....so that was a bummer. Maybe one day she will find her way back.
Later, we went to visit our new investigator but some unexpected things happened there as well. She told us that she is going be hospitalized for about three months I guess.... We also asked what she thought about our message and if she had prayed about it and things. All she said was she thought it was interesting.... and kind of left it at that. She was kind of out of it because she was on a bunch of medicine, but I think we might have to drop her unfortunately. That kind of lowered our spirits. Right as we thought we were starting to see some good things happen and find an investigator who wants to come to church, she dropped us. So that was a bummer as well.
On the bright side, we had a pretty solid lesson with our other investigator. We just taught simply about God and Christ. He has no background whatsoever, hasn't even thought about God that much. He did however give a pretty cool prayer at the end of the lesson though! He straight up asked if God really did exist. We meet with him tomorrow so I sure hope he can recognize an answer to his prayers and come to know of a loving Heavenly Father. I think he really likes the concept of prayer though. When we taught him and testified of it, he felt the spirit for sure, so I hope we can get him starting to progress towards baptism!
Wednesday morning, we had another good lesson with our less active sisters. For some reason, they wanted to learn about Noah's ark, but since there's not a lot written about it, we kind of turned it into a follow the prophet, keep the commandments lesson. It went pretty well. It was fun studying for it, going through the recent general conference talks and reading various scriptures. It was a good time to reflect on the reason we have commandments, and if we seek to understand that, we will come to know how much God loves us. They truly are a protection from the adversary and through them we can make it safely home.
Here is one funny story from this week. We were in the train station to go to Mizusawa, but we stopped in this small store so Trane choro could buy some stuff. He had a couple of candy bars in his pocket and was going to buy them when this guy comes up to him, snatches the candy bars out of his hand and basically says, "anything for Christianity" and went and bought them and gave them back to Elder Trane. It was way funny, I couldn't really believe what happened. The weird part is that he kind of just disappeared. We saw him walk into the big waiting room and right as he went through the door, he was gone!! We may have seen one of the three Nephites! No, probably not; I bet they have better things to do than buy a missionary a Snickers and a Kit Kat. Haha!
It was raining all weekend and since we can't ride our bikes in the rain, there wasn't a ton to do. We had district meeting in Ichinoseki and then a humble Thanksgiving feast/ birthday dinner for three of the people in our district. It was fun to just hang out and have a meal around the table. It felt like a Sunday dinner with the family. Then I went on splits with a first transfer missionary, Elder Meyers, which was a good time.
We also got invited to play basketball with some foreigners and members in Ichinoseki, as well as a family from Kitakami. It was fun to get out and play again with the other missionaries and people. I know I say this every time I play basketball on my mission, but I'm sooo bad now. It's insane. I feel like the slowest, most non-athletic guy alive now. It's a little hard to realize all of those years of getting up early and shooting or working to get in shape, all of those efforts are kind of gone right now. It makes me motivated to get in shape and get it back as soon as possible after the mission because I hate feeling out of shape. It's just a bad feeling! It was a fun time though playing with everyone.
Well, that is the basic jist of my week! Sorry, this isn't as exciting of an email, I'll try to make next week's better. I'll end with some stuff I studied and things that touched me this week.
I've been going over a talk by Bishop Gerald Causse called "Is it Still Wonderful to You". It's a great talk about constantly marveling at the beauties of the gospel and the importance of always renewing your testimony and to continue discovering and rediscovering the truths of the gospel. That's one thing I want to help the members here realize. Life is hard sometimes, but the beauties of the gospel can help us through any trial. A quote he used in the talk is, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes". The simple truths of the gospel can help us in any situation. We just have to continue discovering and rediscovering the truths of the gospel, and to always marvel at the beauty of it.
Well, I hope you guys have a wonderful week! It's the last week of the transfer, so next week I'll let you know if I stay in Kitakami for my fourth or if I'm headed somewhere else to freeze my face off for the winter! I love you guys! Have a great week!
My week was pretty good I guess. It had some of its disappointments, but it was okay. I'll try to give you the rundown, but this email might be a bit shorter.
Tuesday was kind of a bummer day. We started off visiting a less active and since she is always inside and it was a beautiful day, I suggested we do a lesson in a nearby park and she agreed. We met her there and taught her about faith. She said she didn't even know what she believed in anymore, that her testimony of the gospel is gone. We taught her how she can strengthen her faith. It was kind of sad to see yet another example of how fast Satan can cause you to lose a testimony. It brought me back to my days in priest quorum talking about the importance of feeding your testimony. I remember learning that you are either growing in testimony or weakening in testimony. It made me sad to see another example of someone who stopped doing the small things which led to a loss of testimony. What made it worse was that she called me during church and told me she was done and to stop visiting her.....so that was a bummer. Maybe one day she will find her way back.
Later, we went to visit our new investigator but some unexpected things happened there as well. She told us that she is going be hospitalized for about three months I guess.... We also asked what she thought about our message and if she had prayed about it and things. All she said was she thought it was interesting.... and kind of left it at that. She was kind of out of it because she was on a bunch of medicine, but I think we might have to drop her unfortunately. That kind of lowered our spirits. Right as we thought we were starting to see some good things happen and find an investigator who wants to come to church, she dropped us. So that was a bummer as well.
On the bright side, we had a pretty solid lesson with our other investigator. We just taught simply about God and Christ. He has no background whatsoever, hasn't even thought about God that much. He did however give a pretty cool prayer at the end of the lesson though! He straight up asked if God really did exist. We meet with him tomorrow so I sure hope he can recognize an answer to his prayers and come to know of a loving Heavenly Father. I think he really likes the concept of prayer though. When we taught him and testified of it, he felt the spirit for sure, so I hope we can get him starting to progress towards baptism!
Wednesday morning, we had another good lesson with our less active sisters. For some reason, they wanted to learn about Noah's ark, but since there's not a lot written about it, we kind of turned it into a follow the prophet, keep the commandments lesson. It went pretty well. It was fun studying for it, going through the recent general conference talks and reading various scriptures. It was a good time to reflect on the reason we have commandments, and if we seek to understand that, we will come to know how much God loves us. They truly are a protection from the adversary and through them we can make it safely home.
Here is one funny story from this week. We were in the train station to go to Mizusawa, but we stopped in this small store so Trane choro could buy some stuff. He had a couple of candy bars in his pocket and was going to buy them when this guy comes up to him, snatches the candy bars out of his hand and basically says, "anything for Christianity" and went and bought them and gave them back to Elder Trane. It was way funny, I couldn't really believe what happened. The weird part is that he kind of just disappeared. We saw him walk into the big waiting room and right as he went through the door, he was gone!! We may have seen one of the three Nephites! No, probably not; I bet they have better things to do than buy a missionary a Snickers and a Kit Kat. Haha!
It was raining all weekend and since we can't ride our bikes in the rain, there wasn't a ton to do. We had district meeting in Ichinoseki and then a humble Thanksgiving feast/ birthday dinner for three of the people in our district. It was fun to just hang out and have a meal around the table. It felt like a Sunday dinner with the family. Then I went on splits with a first transfer missionary, Elder Meyers, which was a good time.
We also got invited to play basketball with some foreigners and members in Ichinoseki, as well as a family from Kitakami. It was fun to get out and play again with the other missionaries and people. I know I say this every time I play basketball on my mission, but I'm sooo bad now. It's insane. I feel like the slowest, most non-athletic guy alive now. It's a little hard to realize all of those years of getting up early and shooting or working to get in shape, all of those efforts are kind of gone right now. It makes me motivated to get in shape and get it back as soon as possible after the mission because I hate feeling out of shape. It's just a bad feeling! It was a fun time though playing with everyone.
Well, that is the basic jist of my week! Sorry, this isn't as exciting of an email, I'll try to make next week's better. I'll end with some stuff I studied and things that touched me this week.
I've been going over a talk by Bishop Gerald Causse called "Is it Still Wonderful to You". It's a great talk about constantly marveling at the beauties of the gospel and the importance of always renewing your testimony and to continue discovering and rediscovering the truths of the gospel. That's one thing I want to help the members here realize. Life is hard sometimes, but the beauties of the gospel can help us through any trial. A quote he used in the talk is, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes". The simple truths of the gospel can help us in any situation. We just have to continue discovering and rediscovering the truths of the gospel, and to always marvel at the beauty of it.
Well, I hope you guys have a wonderful week! It's the last week of the transfer, so next week I'll let you know if I stay in Kitakami for my fourth or if I'm headed somewhere else to freeze my face off for the winter! I love you guys! Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Nathan Didericksen
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| Our district birthday party! It was a great time. I'm definitely gonna miss the Mower couple when I transfer. They're amazing. |
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