WOW 7 MONTHS

February 1, 2016

A cool park in my area

Selfie of two goofy missionaries!

Celestial Bright!

P-day Ramen

I love these Elders!!!
I cant believe it is already February!  It feels just like the other
day I was in Kasukabe celebrating Christmas!  Where does all the time
go?  As a missionary, time is so weird.  The days feel so long and it
feels like you hardly get to sleep at nights but when you think back
on all the stuff you have done, time goes fast!  I feel like I was
also just at the MTC last week.  It is amazing!
Well this week actually was a bit rough when it comes to missionary
work.  We did so much finding.  We tried our hardest to get some
lessons in with some investigators and they either wouldn't answer the
phone or they canceled on us.  It was a bit hard but we tried our
hardest to stay positive and work our way through it.  There were some
ups and some downs but by the end of the week, we were on an up.  One
day we were just having one bad thing happen after another.  Our
appointments canceled on us, finding was rough and it seemed like no
one wanted to talk to us.  It was hard to stay positive.  At those
moments, it is the best time to pray.  That night, I went through my
day and I though about what I could do better.  I remember praying to
the Lord and asking him to help me.  I wanted to be able to start
meeting with people and teach them about our church.  I wanted to help
people and I wanted to be able to serve those around me.  Well the
next day was church and I think the Lord heard my prayer. When I got
to church I was talking to the members and saying hi, out of now where
I heard "Hey I am here".  To my surprise in walked a guy that we met
on the train about a week and a half ago.  His name is Peter and he is
half Japanese and half American.  I was so surprised to see him.  He
said he was sorry that he couldn't come to Futsal yesterday so he
wanted to make it up by coming to church.  It was so cool to see him
there!  It is amazing how the Lord blesses you when you work hard.
Here I was thinking that we were not going to have anyone at church
today and then the lord blesses us with two investigators at the
church.  One brand new investigator that we have never met before!  It
was so cool.  During the whole meeting I was explaining stuff to
Peter.  He loved being there and he thought it was pretty interesting.
But today was kind of a weird Sunday meeting.  We had a presentation
about the Area Plan after sacrament meeting.  I explained to him that
this usually doesn't happen but he went a long with it.  Then as we
are watching this video about the area plan, this Aname movie starts
playing on it.  It was church related but I feel like it drove the
spirit away.  It made the movie fun and entertaining but it was hard
to feel the spirit during the meeting.  I was trying to figure out how
to explain to him that we don't usually come to church to watch Aneme
movies.   But at the end of the video the area Presidency spoke and I
felt the spirit come back in the room.  It was a very interesting
meeting.  I explained to him who Heavenly Father is and why we want to
return back to live with him.  We then had a normal lesson in a
classroom and we talked about the Spirit.  He had a bunch of questions
about it.  He like learning about it I think.  At the end of class we
had a fire drill.  That's right a fire drill.  I couldn't believe all
the random stuff that was going on that day.  He came on such a weird
day to come but at the end of the day he said he liked it and he was
happy he came.  The members were amazing to him and really nice.  He
said he loves them.  We then had a lesson after church with him and
discussed some of the things that was taught that day.  We had a
member present with us and he helped out a lot.  We testified of the
Holy Ghost and taught a bit about the Book of Mormon.  We then asked
him if he had interest in learning more and he said kind of.  Thats
better than nothing!  So we gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to
read it and he said yes! He is going to read the introduction and then
we will talk about it on Saturday when he comes to our Futsal
activity. It was an amazing miracle and I was so happy to see Peter
come to Church.  He was amazing and I hope he comes again next week.
He is a really awesome guy and an answer to my prayers.  That was just
the beginning.  At the end of the day, we were doing some finding and
I just wanted to go home.  I was tired and my feet hurt.  We talked to
some really cool Americans and Canadians but they didnt have too much
interest in the Gospel.  Well on our way home we stopped this one guy
on a bike and he had a lot of interest.  He spoke perfect English and
that made me so happy.  When people speak English I feel like it is a
whole new game.  I can teach them things that I have been learning my
whole life and a language doesn't have to be a barrier anymore.  We
taught him on the spot about our church and the Book of Mormon.  It
was awesome!  He took the Book of Mormon and he said we can meet up
again sometime in the future.  I was so happy.  When he was getting
ready to leave, I asked him where he was going.  He said he was going
to the Book store to buy some new books to read.  I then said "You
didn't think you were going to get a free book did you?" hahaha I
thought I was so funny.  But he laughed and said he looks forward to
seeing us again.  This was a huge answer to my prayers.
Something interesting that happened this week was we got an email from
the Mission President saying that we are no longer aloud to use one of
our name tags.  So there is this name tag that every missionary uses.
It has their name in English and Japanese.  It is very convenient for
when you introduce yourself and they also just look really cool.  Well
it turns out missions have been buying those name tags from people who
are not authorized to make those name tags.  So they are copy righted.
Salt Lake city just found out about the name tags and they told all
the mission presidents in the world to discontinue the use of those
name tags.  They are trying to figure out a way that we can order new
ones from Salt Lake but from now on, we have to use our MTC tags that
just have our name either in English or Japanese.  It was crazy news!
But hopefully we can get some new name tags soon.  haha
Besides that, not a lot happened this week.  We mostly did finding.
Talking with new people on the street is always fun.  It is a great
way to practice you Japanese and a great way to share the Gospel with
others.  Hopefully next week we can start to get more lessons in! haha
 Another fun thing that happened is I got to go on Exchanges with
Elder Hansen who is a really good friend of mine in the Mission.  I
love him and I love working with him.  We had so much fun and it was a
blast working with him.  I am going to miss him a lot when he goes
home next transfer.  He is a great friend!
Well that is my week.  Lots of finding, a cool miracle that happened
on sunday, and a fun exchange with a good friend.  I hope you all had
a good week too!  Thank you for all your love and support.  I love my
mission so much and I am grateful for all the experience I have gained
since I have been here.  I love being out here and I know that the
Savior blesses me and my family every day.  I love doing his work.
Missions are amazing!  I love you all so much!  Take care and have an
amazing week! Talk to you next week!  :)

Love,
Elder Unsworth