Reap What You Sow

Family & Friends,

This week was pretty usual but there were still some really cool miracles. This week we were able to meet with Hamato san and teach him the Plan of Salvation.  He really liked it and it made sense to him. He said that he wanted go to the 日の栄　celestial kingdom.  He has depression and he was trying to stop tobacco in a week doing a week program thing that we challenged him to do.  He didn't make it so he is really depressed and has kind of lost the desire to stop smoking. He also didn't keep his promise to  come to church. So that was really disappointing, but we made another promise to have him come to church next week. I think he really needs to feel the spirit more to get his desire back. 

This week we were able to make an appointment with an Eikaiwa student. She is dating a man from Whales. So that was pretty cool. We will hopefully be able to start teaching her.  We are slowly working on her boyfriend. They are really cool and we will be going to have dinner with them sometime soon here so that is when we are thinking to invite her boyfriend to hear the lessons. 

This week we were able to get Kudo san to set up to meet with the missionaries to just hear the lessons separately from teaching 30 minutes Eikaiwa and 30 minutes Gospel. Now she will be hearing the lessons from us on a weekly basis! I am pretty excited because she will be able to progress even more. 

On Saturday  the Old mission President of Sendai, Tateoka, visited and the branch threw a BBQ for him and we were able to get Eikaiwa students there and a less active actually came and brought a few friends. It was really cool. So we got to talk with him quite a bit. He is the son of a member here who actually ran away so that was a really cool reunion to have him back with his family.

On Sunday a less active that I gave a blessing to when I first came to Kitakami came to church and was really happy. She thanked me and told me that she is always praying for me so that I have success. It made me really happy. I was so happy when I saw her at church.

Today  I read a talk in this months Liahona about Reaping what you sow. It is about a lady who sells seeds and the complaints that she gets are just ridiculous. But she ties all the complaints back to us and how sometimes we expect things to happen when we don't sow.  I challenge you to read it. I thought it was really good and applicable with missionaries or anything we do. Please read it.

Well I love you all, And I pray that all will be well with you all!

Love,

Elder Nebeker

The Gospel is Wonderful

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was awesome I absolutely loved it!

So this week we had the opportunity to go to a member's house that was kind of far away and do some service for her friend.  Unfortunately we were a little late and were not able to do the service but we were invited in to the home and had some snacks.  When the member had some questions I started answering them for her and it turned into a huge gospel discussion with her while her friend was there. We talked for a while and we were getting into some pretty big stuff. Her friend stops and looked at the member and said, "You are like a child, how can you believe all of this stuff?" And the member said back to her politely, "I think it's wonderful".  Before I could bear testimony, the lady got up and walked out of the room to do something. The member we went to visit looked at me and told me, "I think the gospel is wonderful, but then sometimes I think I am crazy." With tears in her eyes, I looked and I told her that I know the Church is true. I haven't felt more power behind a simple saying before.  Its amazing how a pure simple testimony can help.

This week as we were riding our train back from Zone meeting I spotted a high school student that I had given a Book of Mormon to last time I was on the train. I waved at him and he came towards me and gave me a Bro hug, and we started talking and jumped into a conversation about his family. His dad left his mom and the kids when he was really young, and he explained to me that his mom's life hasn't been easy but that she has always been there for him.  Even though they  have arguments he really loves her and that when he gets older he wants to repay his mom for always being there for him. I talked to him about it for a little bit longer and had to get off the train but I was able to get his phone number and want to follow up with him again this week. He blew me away. He was so cool.

This week we went to play basketball with a potential investigator and there were some high school kids on the court that were watching us kind of like they were too cool.  We challenged them and utterly destroyed them. I had a good chat with them after and come to find out they are a bunch of baseball players, so I got really excited and asked one of the kids their positions.  He said pitcher, so I told him I was a catcher, so he pulled out two gloves from his bag and we played catch for awhile. It was a blast and the kids all told me to keep the baseball for the memory. And we traded numbers to talk more about what we do. So I am pretty excited I would love to turn a whole baseball team into investigators!

That was basically my week so far. Our investigators were either sick or too busy with work this week, so it was kind of hard to meet with them. But I got call from one of the Eikaiwa students saying they want to do Family English Program which is half Gospel and half English! That was really exciting.

There are a lot of miracles happening here in Kitakami, and I wish there were a lot of people here like the picture you saw. We are lucky to see 5 people on main street in one hour!

Love you all and good luck with everything!


Elder Nebeker

Typhoons, Earthquakes, Giant Spiders

Hey!

I am doing fantastic, like you might have known a Typhoon came in this week but it didn't do anything here in the Sendai Mission.  It basically rained for three days, which is normal here then the Typhoon cleared up.  The next morning around 4:30 a.m. the phones in the apartments started to go off like crazy.  So I woke up and it was a big earthquake alert.  I have never received an earthquake alert before so I told my companion to wake up cause its probably going to be a big one.  The apartment started shaking a little and was over. It was the littlest earthquake I have felt in Japan and I probably wouldn't have known that it was an earthquake except for the phone letting us all know. So we are all okay. I don't know about the rest of Japan, because I have felt a ton of earthquakes and that little one was a different feel.  It felt like it was deep underneath us like a wave pool. I am used to rapidly shaking earthquakes. So I hope the rest of Japan is good.

Well, I had to tell my really good friend Kobayashi goodbye.  It was actually really harder than I thought. But I am excited to work with my new companion Elder Thompson. He is from Washington state, (Seattle).  He is 19 and is turning 20 next week. He came to Japan the same time as me. So we are considered, in Japanese, (Doki). He will be fun to work with.

This week as I was talking with an investigator, we somehow got on the topic of spiders, and apparently they do not kill spiders in Japan. So there are like thousands of giant ferocious man eating spiders here! I asked why they don't kill them and she told me it is because they are scary and if you kill one then more spiders will come to haunt you. Pretty logical to me if you ask, especially with the spiders here in Japan. The last spider I saw was about the size of my palm and had the biggest body ever. I am pretty sure you can't even categorize it in the insect family. It was brown and its body looked like leather off a new baseball glove.

Since no one kills spiders in Japan, tracking when the sun goes down is terrifying.  You will be knocking on a door and then realize there are spiders crawling on you!  My companion knocked on a door and I let him take the lead.  I looked up and realized there was a spider on his forehead.  I wasn't sure what to do, So I just let him keep talking. I don't know if the lady at the door realized either, but they ended and for some reason I just forgot to tell him.  When we got back to the apartment He looked at me and said, "I feel a big bump on my forehead, is there a red mark?" I kind of laughed and said, yeah... And let him know. I thought it was pretty funny.  Apparently I failed at my duty to protect my companion.

We were able to get a new investigator from Eikaiwa, me and Elder Kobayashi set up the appointment before he left. So that was a cool miracle this week.

We visited less actives and I got so LOST! It was pretty bad but we found our way back to the apartment before 9, We were on foot because my bike is broken. Not sure if I told you that. The gear system exploded on me as I was riding my bike the first week I got to Kitakami. But Its okay because we are getting new bikes today!

Recently in my personal study I have been studying about Charity and how it is related to Missionary work. I don't think I quite comprehended how important it is in missionary work. In Moroni he states it clearly That without charity we are nothing. I like it a little bit better how it is translated in Japanese. "If you dont Have Charity you have nothing in worth." It is pretty strong, and as I studied it I learned that charity is really loving our brothers and sisters and having that desire to help them.  When we have that charity, even if the people don't accept our message they will be impacted for good by our charity.

Well that was sort of my week! A lot of things happened, We had 2 LA members come back to church this week, also Eikaiwa in Kitkami which has been only about 2 people for the past 4 years has jumped up to 10-12 active students every week. There are a lot of miracles happening and I think that the lord is really blessing Kitakami.

I love you all!

Elder Nebeker

Bringing Someone Closer to Christ Brings Peace

Dear Family and Friends,


This week has been crazy.  Wednesday we got to meet the new mission president that was pretty cool. He is really nice and he is working really hard to re study Japanese with his wife. He is a very inspiring man. He gave a training on obedience and said that obedience is faith. I really enjoyed his talk. He said he had a dream of an awful tsunami and it was full of debris and tearing down everything in its path.  He said the Tsunami was the sins of the world and that we are the rescuers. It was pretty cool.

I had an interview with him and he is very nice. I am way excited to work with him.

Also this week our Eikaiwa had a huge jump in numbers. When I first arrived, their was about 3 students who came on a regular basis.  Now we have 12 students coming on a regular basis. We were also able to find some more investigators through the jump in numbers.

This week we had some awesome awesome lessons. We met with Hamato san on Tuesday.  He has been reading the Book of Mormon faithfully and when he walked in the first question he asked was, "How do I become a Christian?", It was way cool.  We told him that it's through Coming unto to Christ, receiving Baptism, and keeping the commandments.  He then realized he will have to quit smoking so he can be baptized. So he is trying really hard to break his habit of smoking. I have been offering a lot of prayers for him. I really like him, he is a very humble man who needs help from the Gospel.

Next we taught Kudou and her son. We watched a video about a car accident that took the lives of a Church member's family. It showed how he was able to forgive the person who took his family's life away. We then talked about the power of Christ. She was in tears, and told us that her first son was also killed in a car accident.  He was three years old and she has been searching forever to know what happened to him. She was so happy and so grateful for the lessons. She sent a big text that night after we got home about how much the lesson meant to her.

I love the feeling of knowing that peace of bringing someone closer to Christ.

This week we also were able to attend a Sports activity, held in a big city called Morioka. It is not in our area but we got permission to go because some of our investigators wanted to go. It turned out way good. We had 12 people come all the way from Kitakami to Morioka to play. We had more people there than from any area that attended.  It was way cool, and only one person that came from Kitkami was a member. So we had a lot of good Mission opportunities.

This last transfer ended early because the last transfer was 7 weeks and so this transfer was 5 weeks. It ended so quick and because my companion only has one transfer left we figured that he would just stay in Kitakami and finish off there. P.s. I dont know if I told you but my companion is my grandfather in the mission - He trained my trainer. But anyways we got Transfer Calls last night, and I am staying in Kitakami but my beloved companion is being transferred!! I was pretty sad last night and so was he. But I will be getting a new companion named Elder Thompson.  He left on his mission the same time as me. He is from Washington state. That's about all I know about him. I have been asked to serve as District Leader here in Kitakami. Which is pretty terrifying I just barely came to the area. But I will do my best!

Well anyways I love you all!

Love,

Elder Nebeker