This week was pretty Fun crazy exciting thoughtful
knowledge-filled spiritual weeks I have had on my mission (btw Im slowly
starting to forget english so please excuse me).
So highlights of this week!
Tuesday we had an awesome lesson with our Baptismal Date
Mark!!! We taught last week for the first time with him, and then this week we
Taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is definitely fun to teach and
the spirit is always extremely strong with him. Even as we were teaching
the part of repentance, he closed the book of mormon and said I need to pray
and just started praying for forgiveness right there!!!! When we taught about
the Holy Ghost he said he wanted it! So I took the signal and invited him
to be baptised right then and there and he accepted! We are really
excited for him, and even though he punked us later in the week because he
couldnt make it to the church, we are still hopeful that he will enter into the
waters of baptism next month!
Speaking of being punked by him, we went on exchanges to
teach him, I was with elder Suman as Elder Anderson went to meet someone else.
Me and Elder Suman talked a lot and got to get to know each other better.
I related my conversion and mission story when he asked about it.
I'm really grateful to be a member of this church, it was a long road
getting here, but I know that I am where I need to be now :) All of you
that have been apart of me getting here, thank you ^^
Thursday we had quite an interesting experience, probably
one of the most powerful of my mission to this point. Let me relate...
.
On Friday we met a man who suddenly wanted to meet one day. He found
us and gave us his card and said, call me and we can meet, I want to know.
So we met him on Friday and sat down. Immediately he started
saying that we needed to learn who the "True God" of the bible was,
and he went on a rant, bible bashing up a storm. Some of the stuff didnt
even make sense (Noah, Adam, Moses, Abraham, Issac, etc were not prophets, only
guides. Only prophets were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Jesus...)
Elder Anderson and I remained calm, and tried to teach truths where we
could, but we were getting beat down. Elder Anderson started losing his
patience and eventually we gave up and told him that our purpose wasn't to
fight or argue, it was to teach. We finally decided to pray altogether, and we
offered him to say the prayer. After we left, Elder Anderson looked at me
and was surprised at how patient I was (I have really been working on that
lately, I dont want to be impatient anymore). He asked if I was ok and I
didnt answer, because I was trying to comprehend what I felt. After a
couple more steps, I choked back tears, realizing that what I felt was God's
love for this man. This man who was so strong, so faithful, and his soul
was yearning for the truth. I cried and lamented over this man, wishing I
could help him, asking God to help him find the Gospel in his life. I
never lost my patience because I was consumed by God's love for this man, I
wanted to teach him the truth about the Gospel. It was an interesting
experience and Elder Anderson was shocked at how I felt, during the prayer his
fists were clenched into balls and he was shaking he was so mad, but I put my
hand out and stopped him, and he realized it was because I loved this
man.
I
dont know how to explain it, but I felt something for this man. Something
that I had probably never felt in my entire life. Its been days since
then, but I am still praying for that man, by name, every night. I hope
that we can meet again and that we can bring the light of the gospel into his
life so he can experience the blessings of the gospel too.
On saturday a
Plethora of activites happened. We left studies early to go teach someone
at 10, who then never showed up because he thought it was at 2 we were meeting.
So then we went on exchanges and Elder anderson went to go meet him, and
the guy brought his friend and the friend brought his dad!! Crazy!!! The Dad
said he didnt know why, but he felt like he needed the book of mormon in his
life! They said they would come to church (they didnt, dads wife got
sick) and they took book of mormons. Great!!! Like I said earlier, mark
didnt show and me and elder Suman waited for 45 minutes for him. We had
some great talks and such. Right after we met back up and then left to
Gireum, we had a musical to perform in!!! The musical and fireside was a hit,
we had around 50-60 people show up from about 4 different wards. President
even showed up and gave some good words about the pioneers of the church.
Me and Elder Anderson performed in the musical about a Missionary who was
giving his farewell talk and recounting stories from his mission. We were
both in the MTC scenes, and we have videos! It was super fun and we
had a great time there! We also got transfer calls and Me and Elder
anderson are staying together another one!!!! Scalf, Boyack, and Sister Martin
are leaving and we are getting some new people here which is good. We are
really excited for the greenie also coming to our area!
Sunday was
good, the best part being a 2 1/2 hour Jutek hunt with our old bishop. We
searched and searched for this house with no success, finding no one.
Ultimately, we gave up and said we wouuld try later to find it at a real
estate office. But we shared a message with him and had a great time
working with him.
So thats this
week, Im rushing a little now because we have a shiksa with the bishop and his
family in 5 minutes and we are probably going to be late. It was sudden so not
too many problems. But I love all of you at home and miss you so much!
Hope you have agreat week!!!
Elder
Yamagata
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