BLITZ

横浜 zone blitz!

Walter 長老, Abe長老, Adachi長老 and I!



The best missionary tag team ever! Nielson 長老 and I during the blitz!

These are just a few of 田中兄弟's car collection!

The 恩田家族! おす!!!

The kids that helped with the river cleaning!

I HATE BUSES!

皆さんこんにちは！

It was a tough week. My companion and I have been trying to improve our streeting skills so we did a lot of that. We also did some crazy housing Sunday night. We found a community of apartments; there are about 50 apartment complexes in that area! We got 4 buildings done. We knocked on at least 70 doors last night and unfortunately no one was interested. Both streeting and the housing this week was very slow. It can be discouraging but I have to my best to keep moving forward and accept the fact that those people weren't ready to hear the gospel. 

We had interviews with Warnick 会長 on Wednesday, new district leader training meeting on Thursday, and zone meeting on Friday. We used the train quite a bit this week...bye bye money :( 

Oh and we visited a member family, the Minamizaki's, on Saturday. They live kind of far from us so we decided to take a bus. When we got to 溝の口駅, the bus we needed was on the other side; we didn't make it in time and we missed it. We waited for a couple minutes to see if another bus would come and take us to the same place but no luck. We took a train to 武蔵新城駅 (which was the next station down) and tried to catch another bus but we missed it. We went to Family Mart to get wifi and search another route. While we were there, a lady noticed us and asked if we were lost. She tried to help us, but since it was Saturday, buses were terrible. It turns out that the lady had a Mormon friend and used to go to 英会話！We thanked her for her help and invited her to 英会話. After finding another route, we went back to 武蔵新城駅. We asked a guy to confirm it was right; he said he would help us. We got on the bus and talked to him for a bit. We parted ways when we got to our stop. Next, we had to take another bus to get to the final stop. We waited for about 15 minutes and the bus never showed. We walked to another stop and waited for another 10 minutes. The bus showed up and we got to the area. We walked another 10 minutes to their house. Basically, it took us about two hours to get to their house. On top of that, we showed up an hour late. I hate taking buses; the routes and times are way confusing here. But we had a great lesson about the Asia North area plan and sharing the gospel to others!

So we lost one of our progressing investigators, Okamoto 姉妹. She has been taught all the lessons; we were just waiting for the bishop's permission to baptize her. Flashback to last last Friday(Feb 10). We had a lesson about the importance of coming to church. She didn't come to church that Sunday. The last contact we had with her was a text from early Sunday around 3AM. We tried contacting her before church started but no response. Last Tuesday, the 14th, we tried calling but it disconnected right away. She's been in contact with the preacher from her old church and he's been saying things against the church; we figured that he told her to block our number on the phone :( To add to that, her mental health was not helping. The only way to contact her is if we go visit her. We'll give her some time before we do anything else. Hopefully everything will be okay.

On Sunday, we watched a special conference. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to Japan and gave a talk! It was at the Matsudo stake center, in the Tokyo North mission. It was broadcast to several other wards in the Tokyo area. Elder Yamashita and a few others gave a talk and bore their testimony. Elder Holland spoke about the importance of always having Christ in our lives. It was awesome! Elder Holland never disappoints! 

The hardest thing is not giving up. Everyday, we give our best efforts and people still don't want to hear our message. I also can't say I've felt the Spirit. I still haven't found out how the Spirit works in me but I hope I do soon. I want to have those awesome spiritual experiences that everyone talks about here. I realize the only way to do that is to keep on going and have faith. There is no point in being lazy and moping around. From now on, I'm going to do my best to focus on others rather than my personal problems. As Elder Bednar once said, "Forget yourself and go to work. It's not about you". I think that can apply to all of us. If we focus on others rather than ourselves, we will experience many more miracles. 頑張りましょう！

Thank you for the love and support! Please pray for Okamoto姉妹! Have a great week!

-Elder Chab

チャブ長老 or 茶武長老

愛しています^_^

Giant gyoza! 

Eating giant gyoza with the mission office elders in Kichijōji after the training meeting!

Yokohama North zone!

This sums up a mission in one picture!

The Minamizaki 家族！

Dinner with Nakagawa姉妹！

Sho(英会話 coordinator) brought us cake to celebrate Bradford 長老、Gutierrez長老, and 紺野長老's birthday!

I forgot this from last transfer. Meet the 花長老たち (Flower Elders)

Flower ties are the best!

Apartments as far as the eye can see!

Last week's P-day...PANDA EXPRESS!

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE GOSPEL

皆さんこんにちは！

This email is going to be a bit different. I have a lot of things I want to share. But before I get into that, I'll briefly go over what we did this week.

On Monday, we went to Round 1. We went to the batting cages, did some skating, played mini golf. Then we went to Costco and bought enough meat to last the whole transfer (I love Costco).

On Wednesday we went to BAQET; a French themed all-you-can eat bread restaurant with amazing cheese fondue. It was our last meal as a district before transfers. On Friday, we had an awesome lesson with Okamoto-san;we talked about the importance of church. And this Sunday, she still didn't come to church :( (3 weeks in a row now). We also had dinner with the Mitsubayashi family. We were expecting Japanese food but we had tacos!! Also celebrated a few birthdays, so we had cake! On Saturday, we went to a gyoza restaurant for Elder Konno's birthday. We ate a TON of gyoza, it was amazing! On Sunday, we met with a less active and had a great lesson!

Okay, now I can mention the things I wanted to share. I grew up in the church. I remember singing "Popcorns popping off the apricot tree" as a primary kid. For nonmembers reading this, it was a song we often sung as kids growing up in the church. I went to church every Sunday. But I didn't go because I wanted to; I just knew that's what my parents wanted me to do so I did it. I knew all the reasons why I should go though. I didn't read my scriptures everyday. Other than for seminary, I don't think I read all of the Book of Mormon until I was getting ready for my mission. I knew what I had been taught was true but I didn't act on it. Because of that, my testimony wasn't as strong as it could've been. So I guess you could consider me a half-active member? 

I always wanted to fulfill everyone's expectations(good expectations of course) of me. Whether it be from my parents, teachers, friends, my band director Mr.V, and others. Here's the problem though. Whenever I didn't do what was expected and disappointed them, I got disappointed in myself. To add on to that, ever since I started middle school, I became depressed at least once a week. I wasn't a bad kid; I didn't smoke, do drugs, drink, or anything like that. Sure I've made mistakes such as not doing what my parents told me to do or fighting/arguing with my siblings but nothing serious. But for some reason, I felt like I wasn't good enough. I was always willing to help others and gave them advice whenever they were going through rough times. But I never followed my own advice. People always told me to be positive but for some reason, I could never see the good in me or really acknowledge the good things in my life. Times were rough. I felt like it was too much for me. There were even times where I had suicidal thoughts. I knew something had to change.

Eventually, I started realizing I had so many people that cared about me and wanted what was best for me. Family, friends, even people I barely knew. I also started to look toward the gospel more for help. I realized that I am a child of God and He loves me. I started reading my scriptures more. As I read and had that desire to know, I felt better. That strengthened my desire to go church. I wanted to feel the Spirit more. I wanted to feel our Heavenly Father's love. As I did these things, I began to change. It proved to me that by living the gospel and relying on God and Jesus Christ, we will be blessed more than we can even imagine. 

Ever since my freshman year, I knew without a doubt, I would serve a mission after high school. Those 4 years passed quickly. Next thing I knew, I was standing on the podium getting my diploma. I submitted my mission papers before the end of June 2016. I got my call in the second week of July. When I found out I was going to Japan, I was ecstatic! I was overfilled with joy. In order to prepare for the mission, my bishop suggested I go teach with the missionaries. I was made a ward missionary. I went out with the missionaries at least once a week. I didn't speak Khmer, so it was hard to understand. But the missionaries would translate for me every now and then. I felt the Spirit as they taught. I wasn't with them the whole day but just getting a taste of missionary life helped so much. Elder Boyett, Elder Gardley, Elder Griffin, and Elder Hark, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I am so thankful for your examples and for taking me to teach with you. It really strengthened my testimony.

Going on a mission is easy. But SERVING a mission is not. There have been times where I just want to give up. Satan will do whatever he can to stop the Lord's work. That includes making me feel like I am not good enough and reminding me of my past. A few months ago, I got an email from Elder Boyett, who is home now. He gave me a lot of advice but one thing that stuck out to me the most was this: "Whenever the adversary tries to remind you of your past, remind him of his future". Satan doesn't have a body. We already have an advantage over him. He can't influence our life if we don't let him. God has given us everything. We can give him the one thing he doesn't have, our will. We do that by living the gospel and devoting ourselves to God.By doing so, we become more like him. We see things in a new light and our lives will improve. Life won't be perfect and we will still have bad days but that's okay. If we know that we've done all we can and give our best, the Lord will take care of the rest. Most importantly, when we give our will to our Heavenly Father, we experience true conversion. True conversion is one of the most important aspects of the gospel. Ever since I came out on a mission, I've heard this phrase a lot: "Even if you don't convert and baptize anyone on your mission, the one person you should convert is yourself". It is through true conversion that miracles happen. Life is hard. Serving a mission is hard. But as we strive to become converted to the gospel and perfected in Christ, we will know that everything will be okay. I can testify that that is true. I've learned so much in the 5 months I've been out. I've also changed a lot; it's the change I've needed for a long time. I'm so thankful I decided to serve a mission because I don't think anything else would have pushed me enough to become truly converted. I love this gospel, our Savior Jesus Christ, and Our Heavenly Father. I know the Book of Mormon and the gospel is true. I challenge all of you to become converted to the gospel; it will bless you more than you can imagine. I say these things in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

-Elder Chab

チャブ長老 or 茶武長老

愛しています^_^

Round 1 with the Yokohama North Zone

Costco food is the best!