Elder Badnar!!!

October 17, 2016

Elder Ricks showing off his unicycle skills.

What two elders won't do while waiting for Elder Ricks bike to get fixed.

I told one of my Eikaiwa students that my birthday was coming up.

 She told me she couldn't come to Eikaiwa that day so she brought me a

present early.

Birthday cake made with love by one of the Eikaiwa students.
I love the Japanese people.

Fireworks at night.

What I draw when I have a few minutes to waste.
 If you can't tell what it is, it is Disneyland!

Elder Ricks sporting his new haircut.

Elder Ricks and Jin.

Jin gave us free haircuts if we would let him take pictures of us to use in his advertisements.  Anything for a free haircut.

Look pretty handsome!

This week has been such a wonderful week.  It has been full of the Spirit and missionary work.  I felt the spirit so much this week.  I also had so much fun with Elder Ricks and we are really getting some good things done!

To start off this week we had a pretty sweet Eikaiwa.  This is the free English class we teach.  But we had three new people come.  That was a pretty cool thing, but what made it even better is two days later they came to our Family Home Evening!  They loved it and I think they have a lot of potential to becoming new investigators.  They love coming to our church and they love our activities.  We are going to invite them to come to the Halloween party in two weeks.  That should be really fun.  I am so excited for them and I really hope that they keep coming to our activities.  They are such a wonderful family!

The next really cool thing that happened was on Thursday.  So every day we plan out our day and what things we want to do and when we want to do them.  We try to follow this plan as closely as we can.  Well on Thursday we had about 30 minutes before we had to do our weekly planning.  Usually I would just go straight into it but I had a feeling that I should go out and do some finding.  But I was so comfy and I didn't want to get up.  But I just had the feeling that I needed to go out and do some finding around the apartment.  So we got up and went out to do some finding for 30 minutes.  Well in that time we found two new investigators.  One of them is from China and he is so cool.  He couldn't meet up with us this week but he said he will come to church next week.  He had to go to Tokyo for something.  So yeah, we are way excited for that.  I now know that if you get up and go to work, you will find people who are ready.  You just need to go out and work as hard as you can and the Lord will bless you.  I love being a missionary!

Which brings me to my next part.  This week Elder Bednar came to Japan and he gave two devotionals.  The first one was for the youth of the church.  It was like a face to face event.  But I didn't stay at that one too long.  I just went and checked it out for a bit.  We had a couple things we had to do that night.  But when he did his second devotional.  It was given for all the members of the church and investigators.  It was such a good devotional. He talked mostly about Joy.  It was such a good devotional because it expounded General Conference and the area plan in Japan.  He also related how Joy is found through the Holy Ghost.  We can feel so much Joy when we invite the Holy Ghost into our lives.  Elder Bednar talked about how in the church we sometimes make these "Lists" of things we need to do.  We need to go to church, pray, read our scriptures, fulfill our calling, help people, and so forth.  We make these way long lists and we don't fulfill them how we should.  A lot of people see them as a check off lists, but what they really are is to do one simple thing.  Everything the Apostles, the Prophet, and the Lord asks us to do is so that we can invite the Holy Ghost into our lives.  Here is the list I took during the conference

• Members create a very long list of things they need to do 

• Pray
• Read scriptures 
• Fulfill my calling
• Go to church

• Everything on the list has the same purpose 
• Why do we pray, to invite the spirit into our life
• Why do we read the scriptures, to learn how to hear the word of the lord in our heart. Not our ears
• Why do we serve, to help other people feel the spirit 
• Why do we go to church, to learn more of the doctrines and invite the gift of the Holy Ghost into our lives. 
• What is hard about doing these "lists" what is burdensome about it? 
• These things are joyful 
• If we look at them as lists, we drive ourselves crazy 
• We do these "lists" so that we can have the companionship of the Holy Ghost 

How true are these words.  I love Elder Bednar so much and I cant wait to see him tomorrow.  He is going to have a special conference just for the missionaries.  It is going to be so much fun!

I love you all so much and I am always grateful to get your letters and see how you are doing.  I love being in Japan but I love seeing the people's life that have changed because they have felt the Holy Ghost in their life.  I love this Gospel, it is my everything and I would be nothing with out it.  I love you all, and I hope to hear from you all again soon.  Take care and keep finding the Joy in your life and in the Gospel.  It is everywhere, you just need eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel.  If you have anymore questions about Elder Bednars Conference, just send me an email and I would love to tell you more about it! :)

I love you all and I hope you have a great week.

Love you!!!