February 22, 2015

Great week everyone had a lot of fun met a lot of interesting people one was a woman who met with the missionaries 40 years ago, so that was cool. We had dinner with a family from the ward so that was fun, This week was pretty normal a lot of housing and finding this week but we also met with a couple of college student investigators, Otani was sick on sunday he was going to come for a lesson after church but emailed us and said he wasnt feeling good so that was kinda sad, but we set up another appointment with him hope it goes way good, those are pretty much the highlights nothing too crazy happened this week, Love the work and enjoy every part or it!!

Hope you All have a great week

Elder Stevens 

Pics Ice skating last P-day (left to right Elder Kojima, Elder Yamada (Elder Stevens' current companion), Elder Heslop, and then a funny looking kid)

 

 

February 15, 2015

Well this week was awesome we went to Sapporo For Zone Conference and learned about physical health and mental health stuff, That was a lot of fun I was able to see a lot of people from my (douki) the people who were in the MTC with me. Including my Companion it was awesome to talk to and hang out with him for a little bit. We watched MEET THE MORMONS and wow that movie was way good!! Missionary mom was my favorite everyone might have thought I would have like the football coach but all his did was make me want to play football hahah but dont worry i'm good now. We then had an amazing opportunity to go to Yuki Matsuri (snow Festival) and that was way cool.

Sunday I had the opportunity to teach a 5 minute lesson from the PMG for the the priesthood  it was way good I taught about Humility and used 2 Corinthians 12:9-10  9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest?upon me.

 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in?necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ?s sake: for?when I am weak, then am I strong.?

It was we good and this is a scripture that I found during Personal study and I really like it so I thought that I would share it my favorite line is 'Most Gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ my rest upon me.' We all have our problems in life right now and it is way tough to balance life but we should be so grateful that we can rely on Christ and his atonement, It really is true that we come closer to god through our trials and I know that.

All of this was great and fun but the Highlight of the week was definitely our lesson on Saturday we teach a free english program with the guy named Otani, he is about 21 years old, the lesson is about 30 min english 30 min gospel we taught about the spirit and prayer and reviewed the plan of salvation at the end we closed with a prayer and then he told us that he felt something we asked him if he could try to describe it and it took him a bit but he finally said I just felt like all of the bad feelings were gone. and I was just like :O   like the the spirit was so strong during that lesson that was the second lesson that I have taught him and Yamada has taught him like 4 times, but ya that was the real highlight of the week it was soo amazing!!

I love you all hope you all have a Great WEEK!!!!

Elder Stevens

March 8, 2015

Dont have a lot of time this week for emails but here are some pics of our zone conference in Sapporo. Talk to ya all next week love you all soo much!!

Februrary 2, 2014

This week we were able to meet with a lot of our investigators and 2 new investigators Elder Horne and I finally are really teaching good lessons together a lot more 50 50 part of that is that he has been pushing me and that I have wanted to try and jump in more on lessons it really seems that because we are teaching together our lessons are going very well together!! The sad this is that is wednesday is transfer day and there is a 99% chance that we are transfering because trainer and trainee are almost always 2 transfers only together.

 

One of our lessons this week was on the word of wisdom we got him to commit to living the Word of Wisdom he drinks coffee and smokes but he really wants to stop, we are giving him a good scripture every day to read to help him and we are going to follow up this weekend. 2 Ladies we found while housing we were able to meet with again with one we had about an hour lesson the other was about a 30 minute lesson they were good and we will probably meet with them again this week!

 

A miracle happened last sunday a Korean girl just came to church to see what is was about, she speaks fluent japanese, english, german, and of course Korean!! Since she came last sunday she has had 3 lessons with sisters and came to church yesterday, they have another lesson tonight she is what we call a kinjin (golden investigator) I was amazed by how prepared she was by the lord I'll keep you all updated if I dont transfer..

 

Anyways love you all talk to ya next week!!

 

Elder Stevens

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January 26, 2015

Another Great Week!! I am pretty sure that when I start an email every week I say that but it really is true I have been thinking about it recently and I really do have a good week every week I have yet to have a bad week during the mission! There are hard days that sometimes seem like they go on forever but even after those days you feel accomplished so I am not complaining.

 

We met with a lot of investigators and got 3 new investigators as well. One of our new investigator speaks perfect english and wants people to play basketball with so we went and played bball with him on saturday so it was a lot of fun then we talked about missionary work with him and what we do and why we are serving. But we did set up another appt so I think that we made a pretty strong relationship. Another new investigator is 18 and he just wanted to take us out to eat after we talked to him once, I am not sure if he has all that much interest but he is super nice and we made a really good relationship with him he loves us because we are young americans and he loves video games so we talked about some of the videos games I knew and he knew so glad that I have a really extensive knowledge on them;) But we did set of another appt with him I hope we will be able to start to teach him, he was really amazed that we didnt play any games or watch tv for 2 years I love telling that to people because they are always just so amazed by that! The last investigator is a girl I going to say she is 29ish idk the first time we met she told us that god was a important matter and she would love to talk to us again she even gave us sodas when we left she was a super nice person, we talked to her on sunday again it was short because she didnt have much time but we scheduled for another appt on tuesday so I hope that that goes well. We met with our goach family again we left them a present on thursday and then had a lesson with just one of the daughters on sunday because the parents werent home so we just taught at the door we taught the method of prayer and who god is less 1.

 

Housing this week went really good as well we set up three strong appt. and one of them was done all the way by me and I was so shocked when it happened I started, she had interest, I kept talking asked her what her most important thing in life was she said families, talked about familes she thanked me for what I said, then I said, sorry this was a really all of the sudden visit and set up an appt for this tues so I hope it goes good. I have told people that we were coming back and they said it would be ok if they were there to stop again but this time it was a super strong appt, and it gave me a lot more confidence in just being able to talk to people. I'm not going to lie there are still a lot of times when I have no Idea whats going on but the understanding is coming and the none akward give me like 1 min to translate in my head responses are coming as well!!

 

Finally we were able to meet with a lot of our investigators this week as well but my favorite was a lesson with one of our investigators named Hongo he has the coolest name but in that lesson we taught lesson 3 it was easily the best 50 50 lesson that me and elder Horne taught, and I acutally really felt like I knew what was going on the whole time in Japanese!!! Not perfect but I knew enough to be able to talk and stuff so that made me really happy. But I want to share an experience from that I was doing a holy ghost example(tatoe) I cant think of the word in english example works tho, anyways I said before we have the gift of the holy ghost the promptings are like me just touching his had but after we recieve baptism it is like me grabbing with both hands and leading you during your trials in life, When I let go he told me to do it again and I was a little confused but I didnt hesitate I grabbed his hand again. After that he told us that he felt something in his chest my thoughts after that was OH MY GOSH THIS NEVER HAPPENS, ITS JUST LIKE THE DISTRICT( for those of you who dont know what the district is it is just like missionary training videos when you are a missionary you watch them a lot.) But it was just an amazing crazy experience, The only thing that would have made the lesson perfect would have been a bap Date we tried but he said he wants to but he has a lot of Catholic friends so he has to think about it, I was just so heart broken but I still feel like he is gonna accept next time, We left him with 2 nep 31 and told him to pray about baptism so I hope it goes great when we meet again!!

 

Anyways long email and kind of a weird story but I just wanted to share that experience as it strengthed my testimony of you dont have to speak perfect Japanese to invite the spirit. Anyways I love you guys hope you all have a great week!!!!

 

Elder Stevens