So I wonder if I will transfer? It will be 6 months at the end of
this transfer and if I don't transfer I have the potential of being in
Aizu for a very long time because the new mission president will be
coming after the next transfer. A.k.a. my year mark. So it just depends
on what he thinks and the inspiration the mission president gets.
So to update you on things this week here in Aizu, we have been able to teach the Hoshi Family,
It is a little bit weird because Izumi wants to be taught by
the sisters and her husband wants to be taught by us and we just want to
teach them as a family. They are on such different levels of
understanding right now so it is really quite confusing, but we were
able to teach her husband Tatsuya. We went over the plan of salvation
with him. It was way good. After we had explained a portion of it, I
looked at him and I felt prompted to ask him what he was thinking and he
went on a 10 minute spill about how cool he thought it was. He
looked at the picture of the plan and he said, "Now that I understand,
what do I need to do to get to the top kingdom?". We were pretty excited
so our next lesson with him is on the doctorine of Christ about baptism,
faith, repentance, and enduring to the end. So we are excited and we are
going to try giving him the baptisimal commitment because Izumi always
just says that his parents are against religion so that is why he cant
get baptized. However, when we talk to him we feel differently so were going
to see if that is really what it is or not. Be praying that the spirit
will touch him and he will open his heart.
This week we weren't able to meet with Yoko and Tom, unfortunately but when they came to church on Sunday
she had a lot of really good questions. The only problem is that she
lives in a place that doesn't have missionaries and we would have to
obtain permission to go and visit her. So we basically have to wait until
she comes to Aizu to meet with her. We are trying to stick closely
to Tom but haven't been able to contact him this week.
Two weeks ago we visited a less active and she wasn't home. I remembered a suggestion given by one of our newly called
branch missionaries and he said that when we visit the less actives to
write a note especially to them. Obviously we have done this in
the past, but as we visited this particular less active I felt like I
should write a note, so I told Elder Bailey and so we took a sit on her
porch and I wrote a letter telling her who I am and that we were really
wanting to meet her. I wrote our number down and didn't think much
about it. So the next day as we were eating lunch Bailey got a call and
said it was for me and that it was someone I gave our number to
yesterday. For the life of me I could not think of who, then she said
thanks for the letter. I remembered and she said she had time for us today
if we could come. So we got very excited and went shortly there after and
when we met her and started to get to know her she told us that she
doesn't believe in God and that she is Drinking beer and Coffee. SO we
asked her why she doesn't believe in God and she says because I have
terrible health problems that make it so I have to go to the hospital
once a week. She said if there was a God he wouldn't do such a
thing, that she would be healed. Now my first thought was obviously she
isn't going to get better if she isn't keeping the commandments, but we
knew that telling her that would just make her mad. We bore testimony
of God and that he gives us trials so that we can become stronger. And
she still wasn't too happy and told us to leave. We asked her if we
could do anything for her and she surprisingly said yes. Because
of her health problems she can't really weed her flower beds, so she
asked us to. We set up an appointment to do that.
So our next appointment with her we pulled her weeds and had fun
doing it. If there is one thing I took from this is my
testimony being strengthened by Service. After pulling her weeds she
was a completely different person she thanked us and gave us fruit and
all sorts of food and asked for some of the members numbers to talk to
them. It was really awesome and she asked us to please come back any
time and talk with her. She told us to make sure to call because she
doesn't always hear her doorbell. It was amazing.
I thought about her questions, and why she doesnt beleive in
God and why do bad things happen. Which I think is a very frequently asked
question. So in my personal study I looked at this deeper. And
as I thought about this less Active person I was drawn to faith because
she isn't keeping the commandments. I was reading in Ether Chapter 12
which is awesome for faith. In Ether it is written that is only
until after the trial of our faith that we will see miracles. So she and
everyone must show their faith before we can recieve the miracle.
For the Hoshi family, they are stuck at the wall of faith where either
they can choose to show faith in Jesus Christ and be baptized and hope
for a miracle that God will soften Tatsuyas parents hearts or not. Maybe that isn't the miracle God has in store for them but I know that
when we show our faith without doubting is when God will provide us with
the miracles.
Now what about people who do good things, keep the commandments, yet
still have trials and sorrows? As I was reading in first Nephi
I realized how many trials Nephi and his family went through. Although
Nephi was a great young man, keeping the commandments and he was put
through a lot. As I read this I looked to my Book of Mormon study guide
book. I read a talk that stated even though we may be living the
commandments and choosing the right, because God loves us so much he
wants us to grow and learn so that we can become more like him. So
sometimes we are given trials not to hurt us, but because God loves us
and wants us to learn something. So when our trial has ended we can
thank God and cherish the things we have learned and seen how our
testimony has grown.
I forgot to tell you all, but I got to play the piano in a big
concert. I had been practicing for a very short time but Bailey Choro
was on the guitar and a members husband played the saxophone. We played
"Isn't she Lovely", by Stevie Wonder. Got to play it in front of all the
branches in Koriyama zone and President Rasmussen because it was his
farewell party. It was way fun. And we got to work closely with this
members husband who is hilarious. Probably my favorite Nihonjin in
Japan. He still hasn't been baptized because he can't give up smoking. I swear everyone in Japan smokes. They have cigarette vending
machines everywhere! But I loved working with him.We call him Haga
Papa.
This week my companion and I decided to ride our bikes to a really
far place because we were recommended to visit a less active who lived
out there. Apparently they were quite the family. The husband was
a Branch President and also served on the Koriyama zone presidency. We decided to go and visit him so we rode our bikes out there and I
had no idea where I was going. I was surprised bailey Choro even trusted
me but I just followed the road signs and we magically got there. It
was probably one of the most pretty bike rides I have ever been on in Japan. As we got there the phone died, so we had no way of finding the
address. We walked into a business and asked a lady and she was
really weird with us and kept on asking why we were looking for this
neighborhood. So we explained who we were and she was still super
weird with us and pretended like she didn't know and told us to talk to
the police. So we left that place with no help. Then we found the City Hall and went in and asked for help from the man working there. He
was super nice. He pulled out google maps and printed out a really nice
directions paper and was super friendly. He asked who it was we were
visiting and said that he knew them a little bit. Then he asked why we
were visiting them and we told him they are friends. He said, oh
cool, I will give them a call. He called them and obviously they weren't
expecting us and so he hung up and
asked us again why we were visiting them. We told him that we were
missionaries and they were members. So then he looked at us and says,
"So you want to go bug them, I see". I kindly said, yes we are going to
visit him and his family and see if we can't help him out with service
or anything and make sure he and his family are happy. Then the man
took the nice maps and directions and threw them away and wasn't as
nice anymore. He said, "yep, well I think you're good to leave now". So we got
out of that joint fast. Luckily from just looking at the map for a
short time, we were able to understand where he lived. We visited him and
he was way nice and gave us stuff to take home. We talked
about scriptures and everything, but we felt like we had to get out of
there fast. We were pretty sure the cops were after us, which sadly has
happened recently in our mission because people think that we are like
spies our something.
Anyways, today I had a member take me and my companion and bought us
3 new pairs of pants, 2 shirts, and a neck tie. It was probably the nicest
thing that I have had happen on the mission. I will be forever grateful
for her. She will be going on mission shortly with her husband to Germany. I am very excited for them. Her husband is German so they
move back and forth every year from Germany to Japan. They have decided
to serve a mission.
Thank you so much I love you all and I pray for you everyday. Hope everything is going well,
Till next week.
Elder Nebeker
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