Dear Family,
Thank you for all of your happy birthday e-mails! :) They were wonderful to read. Thank you for sending the package too! I haven`t gotten it yet, but I`ll look forward to it :) My birthday this year is actually going to be pretty interesting I think...it`s on Wednesday and we are going to have kind of a partial birthday party with our english class students so it should be fun. The zone activity that was planned actually got canceled...so Elder Larkin and I ended up coming at the same time as usual to e-mail and we aren`t in as much of a rush as I thought we would be. Thanks for making the extra effort to get everything sent early though...I really appreciate it :)
Well this week we had a really good experience in meeting with that woman who we visited last Sunday! She has a ton of questions all about where we came from before this life, why we are here, and where we are going to end up after we die...and is really enthusiastic about learning. She actually had so many questions and they were all so good that it was a little bit difficult to discern which ones we should focus on in that moment. It was pretty awesome too, because when we met with her she had a bunch of pictures and different things that she had gathered from going to St. George and different places in Utah, and was describing to us all the church locations that she had toured, and all that she had learned about Brigham Young, the pioneers, etc. Really really cool. We are going to be meeting with her again this next Wednesday and our branch president and one of the two sisters in our branch is going to be attending that lesson...so we are excited for that.
We had interviews this week! They were pretty good...probably the shortest that I have had so far though. Everything was on a really short schedule this time. I had the exchanges with Elder Gottfredson right after that which was really good too...actually his very first area in Japan was Nanao so he was able to share some more information on the background and situation of the area.
General Conference was awesome! In the end, we stayed here in Nanao to watch it...the other members of the branch watched it in the main room of the church in Japanese and we watched it on the computer in English. So many great applicable things to the work here...re-activation is something that the branch has really been focusing on lately with getting the Home Teaching established again, and reaching out to fulfill the goals they have set for helping less-actives come back to church. I heard those talks and it just reaffirmed my testimony Heavenly Father knows exactly what his children need to hear the most, and reveals those things through his prophets and apostles.
The gospel is true. I have felt the truth of it so much through the teaching experiences that we have had this past week, in my studies every day, and through listening to the messages shared in general conference. Even though there are people who stuff their fingers in their ears or run away in the opposite direction when we try sharing our message with them (both of which we experienced this past week), the gospel is true. Having people react in that way to our message is something that could be disheartening, but this week it has just strengthened my resolve and desire to share it with everyone that we can. Understanding for myself a little bit more every day the love the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us, and the happiness, the peace, the direction that can come from having the gospel in our lives...that is something that kindles the desire to do everything I can to help the people around me to feel that in their lives as well. To not run away or stuff their fingers in their ears, but to feel the love that their Heavenly Father and brother Jesus Christ has for them, to learn of the plan that has been made for them, and from it gain that peace and that happiness for themselves.
My time is again gone, but I hope you have a wonderful week, I love you all so much! Again, Happy Easter!
-Elder Voss
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