This past week has been a tender mercy from the Lord. Becoming sempai (senior companion) so early with a young companion is definitely a calling that you don't feel ready for. Heavenly Father truly knows your fears and your feelings of inadequacy. Everyday this past week at some point during the day I got this feeling of calmness and comfort and I knew everything would be okay. Heavenly Father doesn't call perfect people, because they don't have anything to learn. I have never experienced so many `out of my comfort zone` feelings in such a short time haha. But from these experiences I have learned to rely on my Heavenly Father and trust him more than ever. If we exercise our faith and continue to take steps forward, He will fill in for any inadequacies.
This past week we found a really awesome investigator. We had an appointment on Tuesday night and we got there a little early so we decided to go housing nearby And we only had time to do one or two houses. So we parked our bikes at the park and picked a street to go down. We walked to the end of the street and turned the corner and there was a small apartment complex and the middle door on the bottom level seemed to draw us in. We knocked on the door and after several minutes a lady answered inside and after we introduced ourselves she was like `hai, dozo!` We were like, what? Rarely, rarely does someone invite you inside. So we opened the door a little bit and she was like, `it`s cold outside, come inside`. Super nice lady. So we went inside and talked with her for a while. She has Parkinson`s disease so she talked about how everyday is hard for her and we talked a little about God and how he is mindful of us and then we introduced the Book of Mormon and how it can help us in our lives. We gave it to her and asked her to read the introduction for our next appointment. We didn`t have time to read it together. But we made an appointment for Thursday and she was like, okay you two bring some food and we`ll eat lunch together` haha. So we went back on Thursday and we ate lunch together and we talked for a while and then we were like, so did you read the Book of Mormon? And, happy day, she did! She didn't understand a lot of it but that's okay, she read it! We taught her about prayer and how she can pray for help as she reads and to know that what she reads is true. We have another appointment for this Thursday and I'm so excited to go back and teach her more. The Lord truly has prepared people to hear the message of the gospel and he guides us to them or them to us. I love being a missionary!! This gospel is so true and it brings so much joy into peoples lives!
I hope everyone recognizes the blessings of the gospel in their lives because there are so many! I talk with so many people everyday who have never even thought about whether or not God exists and who have never thought about why they`re here on earth. The gospel truly brings so much comfort and gives us our purpose for living. Such a huge blessing!
I hope everyone has a great week!!
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| Sapporo Sports Dome |
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| takoyaki! These are not cake pops...they have a piece of cooked octopus in the middle. Put some sauce and shredded dry fish on it and enjoy! ("tako" means octopus) |
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| MTC doki reunion |
Love, Murray Shimai
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| Baseball!! |
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| Udon |
Thank you so much to Soko for helping with translation and explanations!
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