Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

Dear Family,

 

I appreciate the last letter that you guys sent.  It had a lot of advice and council that applied directly into my dendo here.  Thank you.  Sorry it has taken so long for me to reply.  I read the emails two days ago, but we didn't have time to write emails until today because we went to the temple and had various meetings.  Because we are the zone leaders we met with the stake presidency and had a big meeting with them, exactly what dad was asking about, haha.  

This last week has been one of the most exhausting weeks for me my entire mission.  In one weeks time, from Monday to Monday, we went on splits 4 times.  All 4 of the missionaries I went with were new missionaries, haha.  The only day that I was not on splits was on Sunday, 'cause we had church.  It was incredibly exhausting, but with splits comes miracles and we had a huge miracle this last week. 

 

On Friday, we got an email from the mission office saying that we got a referral from Mormon.org.  We got the name, address, and phone number of a man named Andris Zapata.  We didn't have time to visit him that night because we had a lesson that went long with Mukaiyama, but we looked up his address and he lives like less than a 30 second walk away from our house. The next day we went over to his house.  When we went over, he wasn't home, but his wife was and we were able to meet her.  We left our phone number with her and that night Andris called us up.  He told us that he has been wanting to come to church for a while, but couldn't remember where the church was.  We agreed to meet up at the station Sunday morning and walk to the church. 

 

He showed up at the station the next morning and we attended church together.  Andris is from Columbia and he moved to Japan about 13 years ago.  He was born Catholic but has some Mormon friends and knows a little bit about the church.  He moved to Japan, got married, and has one 7 yr. old boy.  Ever since he moved to Japan he has strongly adopted the Japanese working culture, after work he would meet up with his buddies and go out drinking every night.  He has been doing this for a while, but one day it really hit him how guilty he felt about always going out drinking and leaving his wife home with his boy.  He came home one night and saw how sad his kid was cause he had been waiting a long time for him to come home and he knew that he needed to change his life.  He remembered how happy he was at church with his family in Columbia and decided that he needed to come back to church.  The next day, before he ate breakfast, he said a simple prayer of thanks over the food and his little boy walked in on him offering the prayer.  The boy asked him what he was doing and he told him that he was praying to God.  The boy then went and grabbed a little snack and sat down and starting praying silently over the snack.  Andris saw this and was deeply moved and felt that he needed to teach his boy about Christ.  He then went to YouTube and pulled up a video on the life of Christ and sat down and watched it with his boy.  During the part where they crucified and buried Christ, he felt little tear drops on his hand.  He looked down and saw that his son was crying and asked him why they did those things to Christ.  Andris was even more moved by this and felt an even stronger conviction that his son needs to learn about Christ.  He then thought about who could teach his son, who could help him learn about Christ.  That's when he remembered our church and went to Mormon.org and asked for the missionaries to come over. 

 

Andris had an amazing time at church.  He shared his testimony of Christ with everyone, absolutely loved the Primary, had a great gospel principles lesson with him in which he shared all the defined moments he has had in the past concerning his son and wanting to come back to church.  We gave him a BOM in Spanish and he started reading it.  But that's not the best part!  The best part is that we live at the Stake President's house.  Andris lives less than 30 seconds away from where we live.  He and the Stake President's wife hit it off very very well at church (Andris practically fellowshipped the entire ward himself), and they have children the same age. 

Instead of telling only President Ito (the Stake President) all the things that I feel are misplaced about our ward and it's dendo, I am going to give Pres. Ito an investigator family and they are going to help us teach them!  We are going to make Pres. Ito an example for our ward and especially the whole stake!  We have already started arranging plans for an FHE all together and inviting them over to their home to hear the lessons.  Andris is very excited to teach his family the gospel and Pres. Ito is more than willing to provide his home for us.  We had the big Stake Presidency meeting yesterday and Pres. Wada was there as well.  I brought Andris up during the meeting and so now all eyes, including Pres. Wada's, are on Pres. Ito and his responsibility to convert this family. 

 

It's a huge huge huge miracle and it has the potential to be the spark that will ignite the entire stake!!!  I'm way pumped up about it and Elder Hill is as well. 

 

In answer to Kyle's question, all I can say is read the white handbook man!  All we do is follow the white handbook.  The only thing that is different about my mission is that we are not allowed to talk to women in a finding situation unless they talk to us first.  We can't stop a woman on the street and start talking to her about the gospel.  It is just too sketchy.  They aren't interested in the Gospel, just cool Americans.  Also, we can't go into a house if there is only women there.  There has to be another man above the age of 20, or a priesthood holder of the age of 18.  20 is the legal age in Japan, like how 18 is the legal age in America. 

I have 3 new missionaries in my zone that were born in 1995.  They are barely 18 and they had their calls while they were seniors in high school.  CRAZY!  Think about that, Kyle!

Love you!  愛していますよ！！！

 

クランダル長老