Elder Bronner is back in Brazil. I'm still in Kurashiki. BUT, a LOT of things have changed.
President Isa told me that I was becoming a Senior companion AND a District Leader. Needless to say, I'm feeling just a teeeeeeeeensy bit more stress. . . (Teensy, a word which here [in this email] meaning 'alot', but used in an ironic manner to denote the amount of stress that may or may not be phasing the person in concern).
My new companion is Elder Eagar (pronunciation: eager), from Sacramento, California (however his family moved to Logan, Utah right before he left). He came to Japan in July last year, and his Japanese is AMAZING! This will probably turn out very well, because it looks like he's really bold, so hopefully he'll help bring out some more boldness in me!
Rosalie was confirmed in Sacrament Meeting! We got to participate in that wonderful experience. Then, Elder Eagar and I both spoke.
Things with Elder Bronner ended on a really good note. We had a talk the night before he left, and I feel very at peace, reconciled, and thankful for the chance I had to work with him.
So, did I ever show you a picture of Elder Rea? He was in my room at the MTC. Well, after waiting for about half the mission, we're FINALLY in the same district!!! He transfered to Fukuyama! We got to do a tad bit of catching up on the phone. What a tender mercy!
Please pray for Jenny Lu. We had an amazing visit with her last night, and the spirit was very evident. I felt as though we really had been used as instruments in the Lord's hands. She's Christian, but was a bit afraid of coming to church. But, looks like that is about to change!
Well, I better go, but please pray for me and Elder Eagar in this new transfer! I'll probably be here in Kurashiki until at least February 18th, but we'll see!
Paul
Showing posts with label tender mercies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tender mercies. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
MTC #10: Ready to Run
Thank you for your love and support. It's hard to believe that I've been here for just under ten weeks! I leave for Japan on Monday. Am I dreaming? I have been wanting to go to Japan for quite some time now, and it is just about to happen! Hontou ni waku waku shi te imasu!
Well, we are STILL waiting to find out whether or not Elder De Menezes will be getting surgery. The consultation with the doctor went well, and the surgery would be very beneficial, so now we wait, some more.
Thursday last week was SO awesome! We got our Flight Plans. We'll fly from SLC to Los Angeles, and from there to the Narita Airport in Tokyo. I'm not too worried about packing, because it looks like I don't have as much stuff as I thought I did.
Ooh, part of last Thursday wasn't so good. . . Well, it was, just interesting: While Elder De Menezes went up to Salt Lake with a service missionary/interpreter for the consultation, I stayed with my class, and joined Elders Everts and Sheffield to teach in the TRC. It was actually really cool, being able to switch between three people. The flow was really fun. However, the "investigator" was a little rude in my opinion. We were constantly searching for ways to keep the investigator involved, asking questions, trying to relate it to him (well, maybe we could have done more of that), and etc. However, quite a few times throughout the lesson, he would pretend to nod off to sleep. Even when I was in the middle of doing my best to give the Joseph Smith experience with real testimony, he nodded off right then and there! I almost got a bit frustrated, but instead took a chill pill and tried to remain calm.
That's one thing I'm still working on though, focusing on the investigator. I'm getting better, but I kept sticking to the weird idea that I had to start at the beginning every time. Like yesterday, we taught Sister Woo at the Teaching Evaluation Center, and it went pretty well, but we could have taught toward her needs a bit better. Good experience, nevertheless.
The Referral Center on Saturday was awesome. I spoke with a man named Roy Wright. He had ordered a Book of Mormon a while ago, and had read a little bit of it, but it had been a while. I challenged him to read the introduction, and more of the Book of Mormon, and he accepted. I then offered to send the missionaries by, and he almost declined - but I said they would call first to set an appointment, and he agreed! Awesome!!!
Sadly, I still haven't been able to get a hold of Amy D. again, but I called and left a message about how she can go to LDS.org to read the Book of Mormon. Oh well.
Oh, I bought a new set of scriptures. I had been wanting to for a while, my old set is so beat up and worn out, and marked way too much (it's hard to read some of the pages because I was so careless). Elder De Menezes gave me the advice that he heard from a General Authority: on the mission, you have a new life. New life = new scriptures. So I did it. I will most likely send my old quad home, after searching through to find the items I would like to transfer over.
Ooh! Thank you SOOOOOO much for the package. Elder De Menezes was so happy when he saw that you bought him a 4 gig memory card (ME TOO!) And all that EFY music made me so happy - hearing music from my childhood! Thank you so much for the cinnamon sugar pop-tarts. They really hit the spot. ooh, and the Japanese snacks! Good stuff! Perfect ties, I'm trading them up! :)
Thank you for everything! I love you!
Well, we are STILL waiting to find out whether or not Elder De Menezes will be getting surgery. The consultation with the doctor went well, and the surgery would be very beneficial, so now we wait, some more.
Thursday last week was SO awesome! We got our Flight Plans. We'll fly from SLC to Los Angeles, and from there to the Narita Airport in Tokyo. I'm not too worried about packing, because it looks like I don't have as much stuff as I thought I did.
Ooh, part of last Thursday wasn't so good. . . Well, it was, just interesting: While Elder De Menezes went up to Salt Lake with a service missionary/interpreter for the consultation, I stayed with my class, and joined Elders Everts and Sheffield to teach in the TRC. It was actually really cool, being able to switch between three people. The flow was really fun. However, the "investigator" was a little rude in my opinion. We were constantly searching for ways to keep the investigator involved, asking questions, trying to relate it to him (well, maybe we could have done more of that), and etc. However, quite a few times throughout the lesson, he would pretend to nod off to sleep. Even when I was in the middle of doing my best to give the Joseph Smith experience with real testimony, he nodded off right then and there! I almost got a bit frustrated, but instead took a chill pill and tried to remain calm.
That's one thing I'm still working on though, focusing on the investigator. I'm getting better, but I kept sticking to the weird idea that I had to start at the beginning every time. Like yesterday, we taught Sister Woo at the Teaching Evaluation Center, and it went pretty well, but we could have taught toward her needs a bit better. Good experience, nevertheless.
The Referral Center on Saturday was awesome. I spoke with a man named Roy Wright. He had ordered a Book of Mormon a while ago, and had read a little bit of it, but it had been a while. I challenged him to read the introduction, and more of the Book of Mormon, and he accepted. I then offered to send the missionaries by, and he almost declined - but I said they would call first to set an appointment, and he agreed! Awesome!!!
Sadly, I still haven't been able to get a hold of Amy D. again, but I called and left a message about how she can go to LDS.org to read the Book of Mormon. Oh well.
Oh, I bought a new set of scriptures. I had been wanting to for a while, my old set is so beat up and worn out, and marked way too much (it's hard to read some of the pages because I was so careless). Elder De Menezes gave me the advice that he heard from a General Authority: on the mission, you have a new life. New life = new scriptures. So I did it. I will most likely send my old quad home, after searching through to find the items I would like to transfer over.
Ooh! Thank you SOOOOOO much for the package. Elder De Menezes was so happy when he saw that you bought him a 4 gig memory card (ME TOO!) And all that EFY music made me so happy - hearing music from my childhood! Thank you so much for the cinnamon sugar pop-tarts. They really hit the spot. ooh, and the Japanese snacks! Good stuff! Perfect ties, I'm trading them up! :)
Thank you for everything! I love you!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
MTC #7: Teaching with the Spirit
Well, there's no verdict yet about Elder D. We found out some time last week that Elder de Menezes will have to wait for a consultation with the surgeon on March 5th (11 days before our scheduled departure date). It looks like the surgery to reconnect the severed nerve is quite expensive - VERY expensive. The only way Elder de Menezes will get to have the surgery performed is if the surgeon will offer a discount - something that has happened in the past. Please pray extra hard for this whole situation. As I thought about it a few weeks ago, I got a good feeling about Elder de Menezes serving in Utah for a few months before Japan, but who knows. . . Only the Lord.
Wow, last night was amazing. We practiced teaching Lesson 2 in Japanese with another district. We were all really worried, because our district didn't have all of our outlines finished yet, and hadn't gone over all of the topics in Japanese yet. Oh, and we had just barely learned about the Atonement in Japanese. Yeah, it was a little frightening. Anyway, Elder D and I started teaching Elders Allen and Dadivas. At first, I had my outline notebook out, flipping through it to try and find ideas. I got the feeling to just close it and not worry about it. So I did. I started focusing more on what Elder de Menezes was saying, I started praying harder for him. It was taking us quite a bit of time to explain some of the doctrine, and then Bro. Durney popped his head through the door saying that we had three minutes left.
At that point, I moved into teaching about the atonement, or testifying about it, or both. . . I can't remember exactly what I said, I just remember how it felt. Yeah, Elder De Menezes and I have taught with the spirit before, but never quite like it was last night. I can't really describe what it felt like, just that it was so amazing. I wasn't saying anything profound, they were little, simple statements - but they came from my heart. Wow. . . I hope and pray that we will be able to have that spirit every time we teach.
Hey, can you remember Elder Rea (Ray) and Elder Childs in your prayers. Last night after we got done teaching, Elder Rea wasn't doing too well, he was really frustrated. I was talking a bit with Elder Childs after and he's having some hard times with patience and loving. Please think about them. I think sometimes we get caught up in not knowing what exactly to say, or how to say it in Japanese. But that's not what matters. As Elder Allen said last night, "The investigators won't remember what you said, they'll remember how they felt."
Thank you for the packages and goodies. I'm going to make a confession. . . At first, I tried to give up sweets. It lasted for a few weeks, but then people kept sending me cookies and goodies and sweets. There is NOTHING wrong with that, however, as I have decided to give up my anti-sweet crusade. I figure that when I get to Japan, goodies won't be as readily available, and the food will usually come in really small proportions. I'm sure I'll be able to stay healthy. Although I do have a request. . . Maybe sometime, like at my half-way mark in Japan, you could look up this service Bro. Jacobson told us about. I think it's called Flying Pig (search for it), it's a service that will send actual Costco Food to Missionaries in Japan (yes, they have Costco in Japan). It might be a little pricey, so if so, don't worry about it. But wow, it'd be nice to get something like a nice Costco Apple Pie, chicken bakes, or tortillas - items they don't normally have in Japan, but which do exist at Costco. Again, if it's too pricey, don't worry about it :)
Hey! I just remembered some tender mercies I'd like to share.
Last week, as we were walking up to the temple early morning, we passed some ROTC cadets from BYU. I didn't know any of them, but I called out "ROTC, Hooah!" They responded with "Missionaries, Hooah!" That was pretty cool. THen, on my way back from the temple, I ran into Chris Dunning from my math class, the one we ran into at the Distribution Center that day. Okay, and this morning, my alarm didn't wake me up! But, someone pounded on our door when I needed to wake up. It woke me up, they pounded again. "Oh, sorry, wrong floor". They had unintentionally gone to the wrong room, but it was awesome! We wouldn't have made it to the temple on time if they hadn't made that mistake.
I want you to know how much I love you, and how much I love this Gospel. My testimony of the atonement has grown quite a bit since I've been here. Sometimes, I think the adversary wants me to forget, and those are the times when I get a little down. But then I just get back on my feet and head on upward, remembering that this isn't about me. I know I've got to focus. There is a lot I still have to work on and learn here, so I will.
Wow, last night was amazing. We practiced teaching Lesson 2 in Japanese with another district. We were all really worried, because our district didn't have all of our outlines finished yet, and hadn't gone over all of the topics in Japanese yet. Oh, and we had just barely learned about the Atonement in Japanese. Yeah, it was a little frightening. Anyway, Elder D and I started teaching Elders Allen and Dadivas. At first, I had my outline notebook out, flipping through it to try and find ideas. I got the feeling to just close it and not worry about it. So I did. I started focusing more on what Elder de Menezes was saying, I started praying harder for him. It was taking us quite a bit of time to explain some of the doctrine, and then Bro. Durney popped his head through the door saying that we had three minutes left.
At that point, I moved into teaching about the atonement, or testifying about it, or both. . . I can't remember exactly what I said, I just remember how it felt. Yeah, Elder De Menezes and I have taught with the spirit before, but never quite like it was last night. I can't really describe what it felt like, just that it was so amazing. I wasn't saying anything profound, they were little, simple statements - but they came from my heart. Wow. . . I hope and pray that we will be able to have that spirit every time we teach.
Hey, can you remember Elder Rea (Ray) and Elder Childs in your prayers. Last night after we got done teaching, Elder Rea wasn't doing too well, he was really frustrated. I was talking a bit with Elder Childs after and he's having some hard times with patience and loving. Please think about them. I think sometimes we get caught up in not knowing what exactly to say, or how to say it in Japanese. But that's not what matters. As Elder Allen said last night, "The investigators won't remember what you said, they'll remember how they felt."
Thank you for the packages and goodies. I'm going to make a confession. . . At first, I tried to give up sweets. It lasted for a few weeks, but then people kept sending me cookies and goodies and sweets. There is NOTHING wrong with that, however, as I have decided to give up my anti-sweet crusade. I figure that when I get to Japan, goodies won't be as readily available, and the food will usually come in really small proportions. I'm sure I'll be able to stay healthy. Although I do have a request. . . Maybe sometime, like at my half-way mark in Japan, you could look up this service Bro. Jacobson told us about. I think it's called Flying Pig (search for it), it's a service that will send actual Costco Food to Missionaries in Japan (yes, they have Costco in Japan). It might be a little pricey, so if so, don't worry about it. But wow, it'd be nice to get something like a nice Costco Apple Pie, chicken bakes, or tortillas - items they don't normally have in Japan, but which do exist at Costco. Again, if it's too pricey, don't worry about it :)
Hey! I just remembered some tender mercies I'd like to share.
Last week, as we were walking up to the temple early morning, we passed some ROTC cadets from BYU. I didn't know any of them, but I called out "ROTC, Hooah!" They responded with "Missionaries, Hooah!" That was pretty cool. THen, on my way back from the temple, I ran into Chris Dunning from my math class, the one we ran into at the Distribution Center that day. Okay, and this morning, my alarm didn't wake me up! But, someone pounded on our door when I needed to wake up. It woke me up, they pounded again. "Oh, sorry, wrong floor". They had unintentionally gone to the wrong room, but it was awesome! We wouldn't have made it to the temple on time if they hadn't made that mistake.
I want you to know how much I love you, and how much I love this Gospel. My testimony of the atonement has grown quite a bit since I've been here. Sometimes, I think the adversary wants me to forget, and those are the times when I get a little down. But then I just get back on my feet and head on upward, remembering that this isn't about me. I know I've got to focus. There is a lot I still have to work on and learn here, so I will.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
MTC #1: So Much to Say, Not Enough Time
I had a pleasant surprise last night when I found out that we would actually be able to email you while at the MTC (contrary to what I thought the mission handbook said).
Unless you are a Peterson or are living the Peterson home, please please please include a return address on letters. On normal days, yes, I have NO time to write letters. However, Tuesdays will be my preparation days and I will have enough time to respond to some letters then. So please! Return addresses!
My companion's name is Elder De Menezes, and he is from Salvador Brazil. He's going to the Hiroshima mission as well, but speaking Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Japanese. I love him to death! He is so funny! "I don't-a-baleev it!" "Waaaaght!!??" "Elder Fart, you stink" Through my interaction with him so far, I have started to realize some of the reasons why we are companions. It has strengthened my testimony concerning our Heavenly Father's mindfulness of us and what we need. I got a little discouraged Thursday night, when we started teaching little pieces of the first lesson with our companion. Elder D is still learning English, so communication is a bit difficult sometimes. We play translation game just about every day in class. Thankfully, there's an elder from California (Elder Everts) who took three years of Spanish and speaks it very well. Elder D speaks Portuguese, but is very very skilled in Spanish as well, so it works out. I started thinking things like, "Why wouldn't H.F. call Elder D with Elder Everts?" and as I saw how good the other companionships were at teaching, "If I were with another companion, this wouldn't be nearly as difficult." But don't worry, it's all good. My last thoughts thursday night as I went to sleep were directed toward my Heavenly Father: "Tasukete onegaishimasu. . . Tasukete onegaishimasu!" ("Please, Please help me!")
Thankfully, another testament of H.F.'s love came through a series of events. Elder D was having a lot of difficulties trying to learn English, so we went to the bookstore looking for a Portuguese-Japanese dictionary. We couldn't find one, so we went and talked with a sister in the back. We found out that they forgot to give Elder D the books he needed. She then gave him a whole bunch of Portuguese-Japanese books, A LOT! I was so relieved, and as the days go by, more relief comes. I know that we are companions for certain reasons, ones that I'm discovering, and ones that I have yet to find out. The church is true!!!!
One thing that I was a little worried about was the teaching. In school, we're used to Teacher-directed teaching. However, here, a lot of the teaching is "Self-Directed" teaching. We get three hours a day of Missionary Directed Time. I have resolved to be better, to work on my planning skills so that I can be so effective. Elders Jemmet and Ward (some of the elders that taught me at the TRC) had only been here for a week when they taught me, and did an amazing job. Please pray for me to be able to be better at planning, and more obedient as well (I'm still working on that 10:30 bed time. . . Well, the other three elders in my Residence Hall are working on it as well ;)
Okay, in our room, there's also Elder Childs from Vernal (and Arizona, and West Virginia, and everywhere in-between) and his companion Elder Rea (the first Elder I interacted with after the meeting on Wednesday; miraculously, he's going to Hiroshima as well!) They both seem so familiar, in fact so does Elder D. Like before with the army, when things just click together, when the people I interact with are so familiar, I don't take it as coincidence. This is all meant to be.
I have had soooo many tender mercies, and chances to run into Elders I've known before. Elders Carter and Heath from the TRC, I was so blessed to see them, they taught with such a strong spirit. They left for the mission field today. I'm sad that I won't see them any more, but am so thankful for their examples, and am excited for them!
Ooh, and I saw Elder Patrick Walton for the first time Sunday night!!!! So cool! My high school buddy Elder Jonathan Horan (who has the same meal schedule with me!). This happens so much! I can't even say how many people that I have run into in this manner!!
I LOVE the MTC. It's kind of like a vacation like dad said. Compared to basic!! OH! Some Elders complain about how long the days are, and waking up at 6:30. I'm not being prideful about it, but for me, it's no big deal. Yes, I have some hard experiences, like communicating with my companion, but it's all good, because of the mountainous spiritual blessings I receive. Maybe this is like the Celestial kingdom. . . Hard work, but never-ending happiness. . . More to come next week!
I know this is where I'm supposed to be, and I don't really feel homesick.
My prayers and love to you!
-Pitason Choro ;)
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