Bitter Cup

My new companion came this Thursday.  He is from Salt Lake, his name is Jacob Bailey. He served in Odatte before coming to Aizu. It is one of the smallest branches in the mission, he worked with my last companion Elder Kuiken too. He is only 2 transfers ahead of me and is in the same group as Elder Thayne, (Timothy Thayne) that came to the Sendai mission. He has a good drive to him I really like it and am way excited to get a lot of work done with him.

 

This week has been pretty crazy with the transfers and things so there isn't too much to talk about but I'll tell you about some of the fun things that we were able to do this week.

 

1st: So every week me and my companion do a family Home Evening held at the church. It's on Friday nights at 7. So me and my new companion thought about a really good message we could share because we had recieved news that a less active would be attending that night. So as we did our personal study and began starting to talk about what we thought to do for Family Home evening in companionship study, we had both had the very exact same idea. It was crazy! So we felt that we needed to talk about Christ and doing it by using an object lesson. So our idea which was the same was to do a "Bitter cup". And this bitter cup is the Atonement. Because Christ has partaken of the bitter cup for each and everyone of us. So we got a glass of water and all the ingredients we had in the apartment, and took them to the church and asked everyone to make a nasty drink with all the food we had. So they dumped chocolate sauce in the water, a Japanese BBQ sauce, Habenero powder, Miso (Japanese soup powder) Parsley and a ton of stuff. And they were having fun and we asked them who wants to drink it. And obviously, nobody wanted to drink it. So we opened up to the scriptures when Chirst was in Gethsamene where Christ asked Heavenly Father if he he would let this cup pass from him, "but not my will but thine be done". We read that and then my companion gives me the look and that was my key to drink the bitter cup they had made. I drank it, and we opened up to our next scripture in D&C where it talks about Christ partaking of the Bitter Cup and that if men Repent they too will not have to taste of the bitter Cup "which caused God even the Almighty to sweat and bleed at every pore". We then bore our testimony that no one wants to partake of the bitter cup and that Christ has done it for us. That if we rely on him and his Atonement we don't need to suffer. That Christ has suffered for all of us. It was a really powerful experience and certainly a memorable one.

 

Definitely not going to be drinking too many more of those in my life.

 

2nd: This week there has been so much snow! Winter will never end. But this week because there was a lot of snow me and my companion could not use our bikes. And yes my bike is still broken, but as we were walking to go and visit a less active we said konichiwa to an older lookin fella`.  He then looked at us and in Japanglish said "come here". So we walk up and he says come in. First of all this never happens in Japan. People do not invite you into their houses randomly. But he says it's cold, come in. So we go in and sit down at his table. There was a lady making food in the kitchen and prepared it all and then gave it to us with some tea which we didn't drink.  I was so shocked. Then he offered us beer. I told him we don't drink beer. He was shocked then he looks at me and tells me the Japanese YOLO (you only live once) Which is Ichigo Ichie! in Japanese and starts pouring me a glass. So I tell him again, I can't drink. He then looks at me and  told me we are some of the weirdest people. And then offered us coffee. We had to kindly turn down that too. He was shocked so he grabbed his liquor and poured a huge glass and told us to eat. SO we did and started talking to him and went through all the stages of his drunkness. It was great. He got way Cuckoo. But during this whole craziness I talked to him about why he let us in and then I saw a picture of his family. So I asked about his family. It was just him and his daughter. He told me that he hasn't talked to his daughter in a long time. That she moved to America and he doesn't know anything other than that. I felt really bad for him and I felt the impression that this man is trying to drown out his sorrows in alcohol and drugs. I talked to the Lady who was there too. I thought it was his wife but she says I am just a friend that is trying to take care of this man. I know the Gospel can help him so much but he thinks that we don't need God. But he is allowing us to come back to his home and I think that even if he can't make a change in this life, that God put us in his path for a reason. Because he really does need help.

 

I don't think I told you about our music night! So there is a Sister in our district who can play anything on a violin piano guitar. It's crazy.  She just has to listen to a song and can pull out everything and play it right there in front of you so we decided to use her talent and make a music night that we could invite members and friends investigators.  We found out that one of the members husbands can do the same thing too, but on a saxaphone so they had a duel at the music show! It was so sick! They wanted all the missionaries to participate in the music night. Well I have no music talent but I can tell you what, my countless hours of playing viva lavida on the piano paid off because that's what I did with a saxaphone and Violin to back me up! It was so Sick!

 

Anyways, that is a report as of right now!

 

Almost forgot our investigator Izumi and Tatsuya got an answer to their prayer! We had a lesson with her the other day going in with the intent to talk about prayer and asked her how her prayers were and she told us that recently she was in a hard situation when her husband told her that they can pray and do what the missionaries say. So they prayed as a couple and she said that she felt an amazing feeling come over her and immediately found peace. I thought it was so Cool! She is slowly progressing but is progressing!

 

Love you all hope to here from you soon!

 

Elder Nebeker