Dear Family,
Weather: rain
Shout out: Dad. Haha. I showed somebody our family picture, and he pointed at you and Joseph and said *I can tell those two are family…they look exactly the same!
Week 5 in Yonago: WONDERFUL.
We actually spent our first 2 days of the week in Kobe. It was my first Mission Leader Conference. It was so great! I love President Zinke. I expect to see him sitting on the stand in general conference very soon. On Monday night when we got to Kobe, we stopped by the mission home to say hi to Sister Zinke and show an english presentation that Tojo shimai prepared, and we were able to talk with Sister Zinke and President Zinke for a while, just the four of us in a normal conversation. It was so fun to be with them when they were not training and see them as normal people. They are awesome! We saw them again on Thursday when they visited our zone to say goodbye to us (theyll be back in America soon!) They talked about how they have been training us not to be good missionaries, but to be good people. Disciples not just for 18 months, but forever! They talked a lot about families and temples. It was WONDERFUL. It made me so even more grateful for the family I have now, and excited to go to the temple again! Interestingly, it did not make me want to go home. It made me want to be a better missionary now and work my very best now!
I love missionary work. We visited the Takekawa family again. (The family with 6 kids!) They were just as willing to let us into their home, and we were just as impressed with the family. They prayed together for their first time and it was probably the cutest thing I have seen, and definitely one of the happiest moments of my mission! There were five kids in a row with their hands clasped and their heads bowed, and at the end of the prayer, they all said *amen* at the exact same time!! We arranged for them to come to this weeks ward family home evening, (we need two big cars for all of them!)nand I have a feeling the ward is going to love them to pieces. I think it is perfect to have a wonderful family of 8 with good values and aspirations to be living in a ward with so many families and primary children. The Lord knows what He is doing. It is a joy to be working with families.
I also love being involved with less active members. It is pretty adventurous biking from one house to the next, finding out that some people moved years and years ago or passed away or something. The crazy thing to me is that we receive their record from the ward, place the name on our map, and then when we are planning, we usually just look at how much time we have and determine where we should go based on that. However, I still feel like the Lord is leading us so much, and I can recognize His hand in the work often as we go along.
One day, we went to visit a less active brother. His mother answered the door and said he moved to Osaka almost 10 years ago. As we talked to her though, we thought there was something different, and we found out she actually got baptized too. She was baptized with her son in Osaka over 20 years ago, but the ward did not have any record of her, and she does not really remember anything about church either. We sang a hymn with her and prayed with her, and tears came to her eyes and she asked us to visit again. The Lord is leading us to His lost sheep.
Something about less active members makes me love them SO MUCH. Probably because they have already been baptized and I know they are so close to being able to go the temple and feel of the blessings that I have in my life! Instead of just picturing them being baptized, I picture them going to the temple and having families like my own, and it really makes me want to help them! I am so grateful for the responsibility we have to help the less active members.
I am also grateful for music. Tojo shimai also loves music, so we use it a lot. Almost every time we sing a hymn for a less active member, whether they are interested in the church or not, it brings tears to their eyes. We also sing hymns to random people who we meet housing who may not have interest in the gospel but seem to have a hard life. The Spirit is always very strong, and I feel like I can share my testimony powerfully through music. We are so blessed to have music in our lives!! I will be performing the violin a few times this week…I am excited!!
Thank you for being the best family in the world! I mean it. I love you so much!
Love,
Kris
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