Hey Family!
Thanks for your e-mails! I was a little bit shocked to read about Brother W`s funeral...last time I heard he seemed to be hanging in there pretty well. I guess with that kind of illness things can change pretty rapidly though. It sounds like it was a great service though...reading about all the fishing stories that were shared made me remember the funeral that was held for Kelly.
In answer to your question mom...10x is one of the finding techniques that President Baird introduced to us. When we are visiting a referral, less-active, investigator, pretty much anyone really, we go around in the immediate area and knock on doors until we have been able to share a message with at least 10 people. (hence the 10x) It`s something that has brought out a lot of success in areas all over the mission...lots of new investigators being found through it :)
This week was good! We ended Sunday night with everyone thinking that I was going to be here for another transfer...or even until the end, but the Lord had a different plan in mind. Transfer calls came and I got a call from President Baird saying that after being here in Matsumoto for eleven and a half months, I will be transferring to Nanao! (NAH-NAH-OH) I was pretty shocked, as were all the members. Nanao is the farthest, most remote area in the mission! It has a branch of about 15 people, and the area is a peninsula, stretching out into the Sea of Japan. My new companion is going to be Elder Larkin, another Elder who I was together with for six weeks at the MTC...we were here together in Nagano ken back in last January, and now we are going to be together again as companions in Nanao. :) Elder Larkin is from Las Vegas. I`ve been having a lot of mixed feelings about this transfer...I feel really sad to be leaving matsumoto and all of the absolutely wonderful friends that I have made here, I feel sad that I will be leaving Elder Skankey behind here...it`s been a way fun transfer, and we`ve had some of the best times, but I am also really looking forward to working with Elder Larkin there in Nanao. He is a great Elder and I hear it`s an absolutely beautiful place, and I`m going to be constantly by the ocean...that will be a big change from being surrounded by the snow covered alps here in Nagano! haha. Actually to explain the title of this e-mail...the translation for Nanao (七尾） is actually seven tails. There`s a story about that, but I`ll tell you about it later . I feel like this will probably be my last area, and I`m going to put everything that I have into it, just like I have done here in Matsumoto. Looking forward to it :)
This last week in Matsumoto was really good...we found two more new investigators! Satou shimai is absolutely amazing! There has pretty not been a day that has gone by this past week, that we haven`t gotten a text from her, saying that she has another friend that she wants to introduce to us. She is so full of fire for missionary work right now, and it is so awesome to see her reaching out to all of her friends, inviting all of them to learn about the things that have brought her so much happiness! The first friend that she introduced to us this week was a lady from Ghana, someone who has been living here in Japan for about eight years, and got to know Satou shimai through work. We met with both of them at a library, and had a great lesson with her...after which we gave her the restoration pamphlet to read, and invited her to church. She actually didn`t end up being able to come, but we are looking forward to meeting with her again this week. (I won`t be able to now, but yeah) The second person was actually someone that I may have mentioned this past Monday...a guy from Sri Lanka who is a friend of Satou shimai`s husband. He came to church yesterday and loved it! We had a lesson with him and gave him a copy of the book of mormon in Sinhala, and then committed him to read and pray every day, and come to church next week, which he seemed very happy to accept. There is a small bit of a language barrier with him because neither English or Japanese are fluent for him...but through both of those and trying to connect words for him in Sinhala, we make do. He has a really great desire to learn, and I`m excited for the progress that he is making :)
We had an opportunity to go on exchanges with the Ina elders this week! It was a lot of fun...it was my first chance to be able to work with Elder Dinkel. He is a fifth transfer missionary and is absolutely on fire with enthusiasm for missionary work! He is doing great with Elder Tojo there in Ina. We had a bit of an adventure during the exchanges and then during the next few days though...we`ve been getting by a series of blizzards that just come and go...sometimes they are sleet and sometimes they`re snow. We got caught in one of those on the way back from an appointment towards the end of the exchange and I don`t know if I ever remember being so freezing...we were pretty purple. haha. It was totally fine in the end though once we warmed up in front of the heater...just another memorable mission experience!
I was pretty surprised to hear that you have already received my flight plans...that is intense! No, yeah, I really don`t want to think about that all that much right now, but thanks for letting me know :) I think that I will be getting those around the end of this transfer...and I guess we`ll just have to coordinate how things are going to happen when we call on Mother`s Day.
I`ve got to get going...P-day is about to end, and we are going to have a little bit of a good bye gathering later on tonight. Hope you all have a great week! I love you!
-Elder Voss
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
ぬかるみの感じ種類 Feeling kind of slushy 4 March 2012
Hi family!
This week was good! There are so many things to be grateful for here in Matsumoto lately. Yesterday, I was struck particularly strong by the change in atmosphere at church here. I`m sure I`ve mentioned this in my letters before, but when I first came to Matsumoto, you could pretty much count on everyone disappearing from church within twenty or thirty minutes after church ended. Now it`s completely different from that...everyone is actually reaching out and trying to get to know each other better, and so now pretty much every week people will stay long after church has ended, to make the most of the opportunity that they have to talk and see each other. When I first came here, Ifelt it was an atmosphere of "We`re all completely unrelated, unfamiliar people, who happen to end up in the same building once a week" but now it really feels like everyone considers everyone else to actually be a member of their family. That has been a wonderful thing to see! Another great thing has been that again, when I first came here, testimony meeting was kind of a quiet thing. There would be a few people here and there that would get up, but then there would be big silences where nobody would get up. That also has flipped around pretty much 180 degrees...now when we have testimony meeting, there are so many people that get up to bear their testimonies. That`s another that is just so wonderful to see, because I can see how much it strengthens all of them, binds them closer together as branch, to hear all of the blessings and experiences that have been occurring in each other`s lives. It`s also occurring more and more frequently that people express how much they appreciate and love the people here in our branch...another thing that didn`t happen at all before.
Things with our investigators are going pretty well! We weren`t able to meet with all of them this week, but we were really excited to be able to meet with O---- again finally and see how his progress is really doing. His work and other things have been making it pretty impossible for him to meet lately, but I think we have established a time that he will be able to meet more frequently from now on. He`s not really in a state where he is progressing right now...he is praying every day, but hasn`t been reading the book of mormon, and still won`t commit to come to church, so we aren`t sure how well he is going to be able to make progress until he accomplishes that...but we are going to keep doing our best. We are excited to meet again with one of our new investigators, the husband of the Philipina in-active member that we did family home evening with. We are meeting with them again tomorrow to have another family home evening and hopefully commit them both to come to church tomorrow.
We have also been having some good success with 10X lately...that was how we found our new investigator this past week. Actually something that was really neat was an experience that we had on Sunday night. We were visiting former investigators, and even though we didn`t have any success with them, we found some great people whil 10Xing those places. We were walking down the stairs away from the last former investigator, and I felt like we should knock on the door of this person with a foreign name that we were passing by. We did, and the Brazilian man who came out, listened to our message, made a new appointment with us, and became our new investigator. (Elder Skankey was able to do all of that in Portuguese...I mainly just smiled and pretended that I knew what they were talking about...haha. Not really, I actually understood quite a bit, I just can`t speak worth a barrel of beans) Anyway, we finished talking with him, and then to continue 10x, we were trying to decide which building around us we should go into first. I felt kind of drawn to a building that I had never really noticed before, and so we started from the 9th floor of that building. One of the first doors that we knocked on, turned out to be a family from Peru, and the father was an old investigator who`s record I had read before! I feel like that was definitely not chance...I had had no recollection of that record before we started getting to know him and asked his name. He had been meeting a lot with the missionaries before and had come to church a couple times...it was written on his record that he felt the book of mormon was true and that he wanted an eternal family, but that after meeting for a couple months, the missionaries had lost contact. I don`t think I could really explain meeting up with him in those unlikely circumstances as any other than us being guided there. We shared a short message with him, made a new appointment with him and his family for next Sunday, and then left to continue throughout the building. We are really excited to meet up with them again! We found several more potential investigators, and only got through one and a half floors...so there are still a lot of people to visit there too.
It was so good to read about the baptism that Shane had recently! I haven`t been able to see the e-mails for the past few weeks and I so I was really wondering how it all turned out...that is so great! :) I`m not sure if he is still getting my e-mails...but if so, congratulations! That is awesome news! It sounds like it was a wonderful experience...with more in the near future!
I`d better get going, but I just want you guys to know I love you! :) Have a great week, I look forward to hearing from you next week! Actually next week is transfers, so it will be interesting to see what happens! I think that at this point if I stay in Matsumoto again, I`ll probably be here till the end of my mission. We`ll see though. Love you!
-Elder Voss
This week was good! There are so many things to be grateful for here in Matsumoto lately. Yesterday, I was struck particularly strong by the change in atmosphere at church here. I`m sure I`ve mentioned this in my letters before, but when I first came to Matsumoto, you could pretty much count on everyone disappearing from church within twenty or thirty minutes after church ended. Now it`s completely different from that...everyone is actually reaching out and trying to get to know each other better, and so now pretty much every week people will stay long after church has ended, to make the most of the opportunity that they have to talk and see each other. When I first came here, Ifelt it was an atmosphere of "We`re all completely unrelated, unfamiliar people, who happen to end up in the same building once a week" but now it really feels like everyone considers everyone else to actually be a member of their family. That has been a wonderful thing to see! Another great thing has been that again, when I first came here, testimony meeting was kind of a quiet thing. There would be a few people here and there that would get up, but then there would be big silences where nobody would get up. That also has flipped around pretty much 180 degrees...now when we have testimony meeting, there are so many people that get up to bear their testimonies. That`s another that is just so wonderful to see, because I can see how much it strengthens all of them, binds them closer together as branch, to hear all of the blessings and experiences that have been occurring in each other`s lives. It`s also occurring more and more frequently that people express how much they appreciate and love the people here in our branch...another thing that didn`t happen at all before.
Things with our investigators are going pretty well! We weren`t able to meet with all of them this week, but we were really excited to be able to meet with O---- again finally and see how his progress is really doing. His work and other things have been making it pretty impossible for him to meet lately, but I think we have established a time that he will be able to meet more frequently from now on. He`s not really in a state where he is progressing right now...he is praying every day, but hasn`t been reading the book of mormon, and still won`t commit to come to church, so we aren`t sure how well he is going to be able to make progress until he accomplishes that...but we are going to keep doing our best. We are excited to meet again with one of our new investigators, the husband of the Philipina in-active member that we did family home evening with. We are meeting with them again tomorrow to have another family home evening and hopefully commit them both to come to church tomorrow.
We have also been having some good success with 10X lately...that was how we found our new investigator this past week. Actually something that was really neat was an experience that we had on Sunday night. We were visiting former investigators, and even though we didn`t have any success with them, we found some great people whil 10Xing those places. We were walking down the stairs away from the last former investigator, and I felt like we should knock on the door of this person with a foreign name that we were passing by. We did, and the Brazilian man who came out, listened to our message, made a new appointment with us, and became our new investigator. (Elder Skankey was able to do all of that in Portuguese...I mainly just smiled and pretended that I knew what they were talking about...haha. Not really, I actually understood quite a bit, I just can`t speak worth a barrel of beans) Anyway, we finished talking with him, and then to continue 10x, we were trying to decide which building around us we should go into first. I felt kind of drawn to a building that I had never really noticed before, and so we started from the 9th floor of that building. One of the first doors that we knocked on, turned out to be a family from Peru, and the father was an old investigator who`s record I had read before! I feel like that was definitely not chance...I had had no recollection of that record before we started getting to know him and asked his name. He had been meeting a lot with the missionaries before and had come to church a couple times...it was written on his record that he felt the book of mormon was true and that he wanted an eternal family, but that after meeting for a couple months, the missionaries had lost contact. I don`t think I could really explain meeting up with him in those unlikely circumstances as any other than us being guided there. We shared a short message with him, made a new appointment with him and his family for next Sunday, and then left to continue throughout the building. We are really excited to meet up with them again! We found several more potential investigators, and only got through one and a half floors...so there are still a lot of people to visit there too.
It was so good to read about the baptism that Shane had recently! I haven`t been able to see the e-mails for the past few weeks and I so I was really wondering how it all turned out...that is so great! :) I`m not sure if he is still getting my e-mails...but if so, congratulations! That is awesome news! It sounds like it was a wonderful experience...with more in the near future!
I`d better get going, but I just want you guys to know I love you! :) Have a great week, I look forward to hearing from you next week! Actually next week is transfers, so it will be interesting to see what happens! I think that at this point if I stay in Matsumoto again, I`ll probably be here till the end of my mission. We`ll see though. Love you!
-Elder Voss
ゾーン会議！Zone Conference! 27 February 2012
Hey Family!
Another week gone...and even busier than the last! We were able to teach a lot of lessons this week, and we also had Zone Conference on Tuesday! The first three hours of it was President and Sister Baird speaking to us with me translating, and then the last two or three hours was the APs speaking, then Elder Skankey and I speaking, and then at the end we had a testimony meeting. It turned out really well! The topics that they were training us on, we felt were exactly what everyone in our zone has needed recently, and even though Elder Skankey and I were pretty nervous about the training that we were going to be giving to everyone...I think it turned out well in the end. We had exchanges with the APs right after the zone conference and into the following day, which was a lot of fun as usual :) We all went back to the apartment after zone conference, looked over the plans for the day, set the goals that we wanted to achieve, and worked the best that we could to achieve them. We were talking to as many people as we possibly could, as we went to the separate appointments that we had...and by the end of the day, we were able to find four new investigators! It was a really great experience...really strengthened my faith in the fact that the Lord is leading those that he has prepared into our paths.
We have been awesome success in getting the family home evenings going with everyone here! Just for this week we already have three scheduled with different families, and at each one there will be non members or our investigators! Actually one of the new investigators that we had from last week, was the husband of the member that we did a family home evening with recently. We actually had a really cool experience last night while we were out visiting in-active members! This isn`t really related to family home evenings, but it just popped into my mind. It was my first time going to this person`s place, and it took us awhile to find it, but we knocked on their door, which they opened right away, and after talking with them for a few minutes invited us to come in and sit down to talk some more. That is something that is pretty rare actually...I might have mentioned it before. Anyway, it was the in-active member and his mom, and we sat down together with them in the living room and continued getting to know them a little better. Turns out that he was baptized a very long time ago, when he was in elementary or middle school, and that due to the fact that he hasn`t been going for so long, doesn`t really remember much about the church. As we were sitting there, I was trying to figure out how we could make a connection with those memories, how we could help him remember the good experiences that he had at church...so I started asking him about the experience of when he had met the missionaries. (how he had met them, what he thought about them...etc) The one thing that he recalled, was that every time he had met with the missionaries, they had finished with a hymn and a prayer. We asked him if he had liked those hymns, to which he said yes, and that he likes singing...so kind of on the spot, right as we were about getting ready to go, I asked him if it would be okay if we sang a hymn with him and his mom and then say a prayer. He said yes, and so we pulled out our hymnbooks and sang " I Am a Child of God" with them, shared our testimonies of the fact that we all Heavenly Father`s children and that he loves all of us, and then prayed together. It was such a neat experience! It was really simple, but just by that short hymn and prayer I felt like the whole atmosphere changed, the spirit was with us, and we were all able to feel Heavenly Father`s love as we sang. His mom seemed particularly moved, and really seemed to want us to come and visit again...which we plan on doing maybe this next Sunday or around then. I just love the hymns so much! I`ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and I loved them before my mission as well, but of course as I have been out here I have had many many more opportunities to sing them, and feel the spirit that they can bring to us. I feel like they can bring so much strength to our testimonies...the invitation that we have heard many many times to memorize the words of hymns so that we are able to call them to our minds whenever we want to, has gained so much more meaning for me. While I`m riding my bike or doing other things during the day, I quite often have the lines of those hymns running through my mind...it just gives a whole different mood to the day :)
On a completely random note...we a got an American dryer this week! That might not seem like a very significant thing...but we have been hanging our clothes on poles in front our gas heater for the past couple transfers, so it`s been a nice change. haha. It`s made things soo much easier for p-day!
You were mentioning a few things about the weather in your e-mails...yeah, it`s still snowing here on and off. The last few days it`s been more of a nice sleety time of feeling...but actually today was way sunny, just still cold. It`s not unbearable though, spring is coming! :)
I`d better go...I love all of you guys so much! Have a great week, I look forward to hearing from you next week!
-Elder Voss
Another week gone...and even busier than the last! We were able to teach a lot of lessons this week, and we also had Zone Conference on Tuesday! The first three hours of it was President and Sister Baird speaking to us with me translating, and then the last two or three hours was the APs speaking, then Elder Skankey and I speaking, and then at the end we had a testimony meeting. It turned out really well! The topics that they were training us on, we felt were exactly what everyone in our zone has needed recently, and even though Elder Skankey and I were pretty nervous about the training that we were going to be giving to everyone...I think it turned out well in the end. We had exchanges with the APs right after the zone conference and into the following day, which was a lot of fun as usual :) We all went back to the apartment after zone conference, looked over the plans for the day, set the goals that we wanted to achieve, and worked the best that we could to achieve them. We were talking to as many people as we possibly could, as we went to the separate appointments that we had...and by the end of the day, we were able to find four new investigators! It was a really great experience...really strengthened my faith in the fact that the Lord is leading those that he has prepared into our paths.
We have been awesome success in getting the family home evenings going with everyone here! Just for this week we already have three scheduled with different families, and at each one there will be non members or our investigators! Actually one of the new investigators that we had from last week, was the husband of the member that we did a family home evening with recently. We actually had a really cool experience last night while we were out visiting in-active members! This isn`t really related to family home evenings, but it just popped into my mind. It was my first time going to this person`s place, and it took us awhile to find it, but we knocked on their door, which they opened right away, and after talking with them for a few minutes invited us to come in and sit down to talk some more. That is something that is pretty rare actually...I might have mentioned it before. Anyway, it was the in-active member and his mom, and we sat down together with them in the living room and continued getting to know them a little better. Turns out that he was baptized a very long time ago, when he was in elementary or middle school, and that due to the fact that he hasn`t been going for so long, doesn`t really remember much about the church. As we were sitting there, I was trying to figure out how we could make a connection with those memories, how we could help him remember the good experiences that he had at church...so I started asking him about the experience of when he had met the missionaries. (how he had met them, what he thought about them...etc) The one thing that he recalled, was that every time he had met with the missionaries, they had finished with a hymn and a prayer. We asked him if he had liked those hymns, to which he said yes, and that he likes singing...so kind of on the spot, right as we were about getting ready to go, I asked him if it would be okay if we sang a hymn with him and his mom and then say a prayer. He said yes, and so we pulled out our hymnbooks and sang " I Am a Child of God" with them, shared our testimonies of the fact that we all Heavenly Father`s children and that he loves all of us, and then prayed together. It was such a neat experience! It was really simple, but just by that short hymn and prayer I felt like the whole atmosphere changed, the spirit was with us, and we were all able to feel Heavenly Father`s love as we sang. His mom seemed particularly moved, and really seemed to want us to come and visit again...which we plan on doing maybe this next Sunday or around then. I just love the hymns so much! I`ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and I loved them before my mission as well, but of course as I have been out here I have had many many more opportunities to sing them, and feel the spirit that they can bring to us. I feel like they can bring so much strength to our testimonies...the invitation that we have heard many many times to memorize the words of hymns so that we are able to call them to our minds whenever we want to, has gained so much more meaning for me. While I`m riding my bike or doing other things during the day, I quite often have the lines of those hymns running through my mind...it just gives a whole different mood to the day :)
On a completely random note...we a got an American dryer this week! That might not seem like a very significant thing...but we have been hanging our clothes on poles in front our gas heater for the past couple transfers, so it`s been a nice change. haha. It`s made things soo much easier for p-day!
You were mentioning a few things about the weather in your e-mails...yeah, it`s still snowing here on and off. The last few days it`s been more of a nice sleety time of feeling...but actually today was way sunny, just still cold. It`s not unbearable though, spring is coming! :)
I`d better go...I love all of you guys so much! Have a great week, I look forward to hearing from you next week!
-Elder Voss
それはホワイト週間だった！ 2012年2月19日---It's Been a White Week! 19 February 2012
Great baptism!
Hey family! Well, as the title says...it has been a white week! It was absolutely freezing and stormy for the first half or so of the week, and then it came to the weekend, and it cleared up to be perfectly blue and and absolutely beautiful weather...just in time for our baptism on Sunday! In answer to your questions, yes, S---- was baptized! :) I feel that this has been one of the most intensely busy and also one of the most miraculous weeks of my mission. We were continuing to meet with her throughout the week to finish the lessons, and getting her ready for the baptismal interview, but due to some unfortunate circumstances, ......kept on getting delayed, several times in a row. I honestly don`t think I have prayed for, or felt a desire for someone`s salvation, more than I did during this past week. Elder Skankey and I were praying for multiple times everyday, as a companionship, as well as personally, and we doing all that we could to be receptive to guidance as to what we could do to help her make her date on Sunday. With ... getting delayed, she felt a little less certain about things, but we kept contact with her every day and did our best to keep her spirits up and promise her that if we had faith and did all that we could to accomplish the goal that we had set, Heavenly Father would prepare a way for us to receive that permission. Well, it got down to Friday, we were on exchanges with Ueda so that Elder Matson could be here to do the baptism interview, and upon meeting with her at Brother Yamamoto`s place, Due to the fact that there was only two days left before the baptism, and Elder Matson was going back up to Ueda that afternoon, we talked some more with her, and decided that even though it looked like it would be impossible, we would keep on working together to get it and reset her baptism date for the next Sunday. Honestly we were all a little disappointed about it, but promised her that it wasn`t giving up, we would just be working for a new goal...We said a prayer with them, and then left for the train station to meet back up with our companions to end the exchanges. We got to Matsumoto train station, and were sitting in the train, waiting for it depart, when we suddenly got a call from both S---- and Brother Yamamoto, saying that they had just gotten a call from S----`s husband, she could be baptized! Needless to say, we were way surprised! We weren`t able to call her then, but we waited until we got to Ueda, and then called her to figure out what had happened. Apparently, she and Brother Yamamoto had been sitting there at his place, talking about the situation, and she had been just about to erase the reminder for the baptism that she had put down on the 19th, when she got a call from her husband, saying that it was okay for her to be baptized! It was one of the happiest phone calls that I have ever had in my life. Right after getting off the phone with her, we started calling everyone that we needed to to set up the baptism again, and set the interview for the next afternoon. She passed the interview just fine, and everyone in the branch was amazing about helping to get the baptism ready. We had it at 9:00 right before church started, and it was as all of the baptisms that I`ve been to, an experience that I will never forget. S---- asked me to baptize her, and one of the friends that she had made in the branch performed the confirmation. Due to a faulty connection in the plumbing, the water in the font was freezing for the baptism and so we were shivering pretty bad...but it went so so well :) We had a great program, and after the baptism S---- got up and bore one of the most beautiful testimonies that I have ever heard about the power that faith and prayer had had in enabling her to get baptized. The rest of the day was a blur of making sure everything was taken care of with records and all that stuff, but it was all so good. Seeing and hearing her faith and testimony of the power of prayer and the truthfulness of this gospel, meeting with her from the beginning and learning about the gospel and growing together has been one of the best experiences that I have ever had. My testimony of this gospel, and faith in prayer has been strengthened so much by seeing that growth, and the blessings and miracles that she has gained from this gospel. I love being a missionary, it is one of the happiest things in the world.
I am going to have to cut my e-mail short here pretty soon because we are down to one usable computer today, and Elder Skankey hasn`t been able to use it yet...but I just wanted to add a few more things in. We were able to have some absolutely awesome success with one of the family home evenings that we had this past Saturday night! We met with a sister in the branch who`s son has been in-active for well over a year, and we had a game, spiritual message, and then a little bit of refreshments that we had brought. We had a great time talking with the son while we were playing the game, and he seemed to really be moved by the message that we shared about families. He totally agreed that if they were able to do that every week as a family that they would be able to feel closer, and more happy...and he seemed to want that. Well, right when were leaving, we were saying "okay, see you next time!" and suddenly he turned to us and said "Actually I think I`m going to go to church tomorrow...so I`ll see you then!" We were really surprised, but way happy, and said that we would look forward to seeing him. Sunday morning came, and he showed up for all three hours of church, dressed in a suit! It was so so good to have him there! His mom was really happy, all of the other members were really happy to see him too...and he seemed to have a really good time there. He said he is going to do his best to come next week too! :)
Anyway, I`ve really got to go now, but thank you for all your e-mails! I love you all so much! :) Have a wonderful week!
-Elder Voss
2012年2月13日 -- 13 February 2012
Hello Family!
Time continues to fly on by! There has been so much happening this week! Due to the fact that we are teaching the shimai`s old investigators now too, we have really needed the members help to make sure all our lessons have a sit-in, and they have really risen to the need :) We had a great lesson with one of the shimai`s investigators and the first counselor in our branch presidency this past Tuesday, and she seems like she is in a good place to progress right now. She is a school teacher, so she is super busy all the time, but we re-established the purpose for the missionaries meeting with her, and she committed to read and pray. We have another appointment with her next week. O----- we were also able to meet with on Saturday which was a relief! It was great to be able to meet with him in person again instead of just talking on the phone every night. He told us that he feels pretty confident that he has overcome the difficulty he had before, and now just has a little bit of a concern regarding the law of tithing. We are planning to meet this week with him and a member, teach tithing and hopefully be able to resolve his concern with that and keep him all set for his date on the 26th.
S---- has been doing amazing! We were able to have four lessons with her this past week, and she is doing so well! She was a little worried about both the word of wisdom and law of tithing, but we had great help from the members with teaching those things and she is having no trouble with them :) After we taught the word of wisdom, she had an experience that completely confirmed for her that it is a commandment of God, and from that really strengthened her desire to follow it. She continues to share with us every day the feelings that she has as she reads the scriptures and prays, and it has been such a wonderful experience to see her testimony grow, not so much little by little as by leaps and bounds :) She wasn`t able to come to church this past Sunday because she was sick, which was unfortunate because we were going to ask her husband for permission then for her to be baptized, but she is feeling better now, and we have an appointment to do that on Wednesday. She is really really doing great...we are so excited for her! :)
Something else that we have been excited about lately is family home evenings with the less active members here in the branch! I`ve probably mentioned this several times, but one of the things that President Baird has suggested that we do is get family home evening activities going with the less actives to strengthen them and bring them back to church. We have been having some good success with scheduling those, so we are looking forward to that.
I was going to write more, but we actually just got a call from S---- saying that she is actually going to be in Matsumoto this evening and wants to meet up in twenty minutes! :) We`ve got to run and get things ready. Hope you have an awesome week everyone, I love you!
-Elder Voss
Time continues to fly on by! There has been so much happening this week! Due to the fact that we are teaching the shimai`s old investigators now too, we have really needed the members help to make sure all our lessons have a sit-in, and they have really risen to the need :) We had a great lesson with one of the shimai`s investigators and the first counselor in our branch presidency this past Tuesday, and she seems like she is in a good place to progress right now. She is a school teacher, so she is super busy all the time, but we re-established the purpose for the missionaries meeting with her, and she committed to read and pray. We have another appointment with her next week. O----- we were also able to meet with on Saturday which was a relief! It was great to be able to meet with him in person again instead of just talking on the phone every night. He told us that he feels pretty confident that he has overcome the difficulty he had before, and now just has a little bit of a concern regarding the law of tithing. We are planning to meet this week with him and a member, teach tithing and hopefully be able to resolve his concern with that and keep him all set for his date on the 26th.
S---- has been doing amazing! We were able to have four lessons with her this past week, and she is doing so well! She was a little worried about both the word of wisdom and law of tithing, but we had great help from the members with teaching those things and she is having no trouble with them :) After we taught the word of wisdom, she had an experience that completely confirmed for her that it is a commandment of God, and from that really strengthened her desire to follow it. She continues to share with us every day the feelings that she has as she reads the scriptures and prays, and it has been such a wonderful experience to see her testimony grow, not so much little by little as by leaps and bounds :) She wasn`t able to come to church this past Sunday because she was sick, which was unfortunate because we were going to ask her husband for permission then for her to be baptized, but she is feeling better now, and we have an appointment to do that on Wednesday. She is really really doing great...we are so excited for her! :)
Something else that we have been excited about lately is family home evenings with the less active members here in the branch! I`ve probably mentioned this several times, but one of the things that President Baird has suggested that we do is get family home evening activities going with the less actives to strengthen them and bring them back to church. We have been having some good success with scheduling those, so we are looking forward to that.
I was going to write more, but we actually just got a call from S---- saying that she is actually going to be in Matsumoto this evening and wants to meet up in twenty minutes! :) We`ve got to run and get things ready. Hope you have an awesome week everyone, I love you!
-Elder Voss
2月おめでとう！Happy February!
Hey Family!
This week has just flown by! The first week after transfers is always pretty crazy...and this one was no exception. The sister missionaries are gone from Matsumoto, so we have been trying to get all of their records and investigators sorted out...and that along with all of our normal activities has kept us super busy! Every area in our zone changed, and there are first time senior companions and district leaders, so things already feel busier than last transfer...but it`s fun! Elder Skankey has been way fun to work with so far, and has really been a huge help to get things running smoothly for this new transfer.
This week we weren`t actually able to meet for a lesson with S---- due to first having her move the appointment from Wednesday to Friday, and then on Thursday night we got a e-mail from the honbu saying that we had zone leader conference the next morning down in Nagoya...which we had completely not known about. haha. That was kind of a hectic rush to get everything ready to go down there, but it was a great experience like the other two I`ve been to. We have three new zone leaders this transfer, and two of them are Japanese, so for the first time since I became a zone leader we did the whole six hour meeting in Japanese. That was pretty cool. Anyway though, we weren`t able to meet for an official lesson, but she came to church again yesterday, and brought her husband this time! :) It was way way good...he seems to be a really nice guy, and when we talked to him about his wife learning about the church he didn`t have any problem with it. He left early, but S---- stayed for the whole three hours, and then later on in the evening the relief society president invited her and a few other people over to her house to have dinner and get to know each other better. We went together with the matsuhashi couple, and after the meal they shared a great message about the values and things that we promote as a church. We have our next appointment on Wednesday and she looks all good for her baptism date on the 19th. So excited for her! :)
O----- has been busy this week...haven`t really been able to meet, but he has had a lot more success with keeping the commitments that we gave him.
We actually had a really cool experience today, when we were coming back from shopping. It was raining pretty good, and I was just biking along, thinking about how many times I had taken that exact same trip for groceries every Monday, and then as silly as it seems, a movie advertisement caught my eye, and we stopped for a second to see what it was. We were standing there for probably about 10 seconds, talking, when this older looking guy came walking around the corner and started staring at us. We didn`t really think much of it, because people stare at us all the time, but he came over to us and started talking with us by saying " Hey, are you from Utah?" in English! We were pretty surprised, but I assured him that no, I`m not from Utah, I`m from California and that we are missionaries. He was like "Yeah, you`re the mormons, right? Do you have English class at your church?" We told him yes and gave him a flier for eikaiwa and then exchanged phone numbers with him...not really sure if he really plans on coming, but he seemed pretty interested, and that he might want to learn more than just about English. Anyway, to make a long story short...it was just a neat little reminder for me that no matter how many times I feel like I have taken that road, and know it backwards and forwards, the Lord is still guiding people that we can talk to into those paths.
Oh, one other interesting that came up in zone leader conference....we are going to be doing zone conference on the 21st of this month, and as zone leaders we have been assigned to give two hours of training during it! It`s a pretty long time block, and it`s my first time actually doing training like that at a zone conference...but I think it`s going to be fun :) I guess it`s pretty much just like the district meetings that I taught as a district leader, just about 30 minutes longer and along with another person to help.
Yeah, actually I`ve gotta get going...but have a great week, I`ll look forward to seeing your e-mails next week! :) I love you!
-Elder Voss
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