01 | August | 2016 | Elder Tyson Bauer

Week 45

This will be a very short entry due to my lack of time of being able to do a journal entry daily and my laziness to recount everything that happened from a week in one hour. Time is money. And by money I mean spiritual gains and investigators.

Monday we visited an investigator of ours who is a single mother. She thoroughly enjoys her family and wishes to know how we can help her and her family be more united. Including eternity. We mentioned prayer and church as we need her to feel a connection to god and to members so we have a solid foundation to work on. When we said church is full of young families she went 0-100 real quick. She was super excited and wanted to take her family to church. As promising as it sounds, (spoiler) she didn’t come. So we are going to visit her today and see if she can make it next week.

Tuesday we had a lesson with Yuko my favourite Japanese woman ever. Taught her a bit about faith Jesus Christ which lead into an awesome lesson about the Atonement. She texts us time to time to thank us and how much she enjoys the lessons. I’m excited as to what the future holds.

We were referred by a member on Sunday to meet this women he met who is from Brisbane Australia. She hosts an English, Japanese conversation thing at a cafe. So we went there was a decent size group. As we were talking to the people there, a lot of them knew a little about Mormonism. One read a little bit of the book of Mormon. Another did a home stay in California and went to church. We got to teach the restoration and the plan of salvation. No joke, a few I was talking to started to clap when they found out that we paid to be on missions. My favorite sub miracle from this, has to be meeting Makcy. He is a total Beach bum that learn’t English by traveling to different countries to surf. He earns a surf shop that we ride past every day. I went on p-day, but Monday is his break. He said we can visit him anytime. I found a way in without being wanpaku (womp, disobedient). Blessings!

Thursday we had a lesson with a recent convert, fu. We taught the commandments and ate Indo curry. It was good. I’m convinced that Indo curry is the milk and honey they refer to in the scriptures. Later that day we had a special English class just for high school students. No high school students came, but 5 new people aged 26 and up came. So that was a successful finding activity. After the exchange ended we were on the train to meet up the other missionaries. When some South African (now Australian) homies talked to us on the train. Helped them fix their train schedule as they missed a train which ruined their plan. Said we can email them and come to Perth anytime. I’m down. #service #missionarywork #eternalfirends

Friday was DTM and the zone leaders came. I felt there judgement. It was a good DTM. We discussed goals and making a plan to achieve them. After we started a koukan. (Companionship exchange.) I got to go with Elder Burns, who, fun fact, was the first person I went on an exchange with as a missionary. He is hilarious and full of energy. We had a great time. No investigators were found but we miraculously ran into an Eikiawa student who was going to help out at a festival nearby. She invited us to come and support her so we did. We made paper lanterns and launched them into the river. It was beautiful. Only downside was we stood in line for an hour listening to a Buddhist monk chant a prayer which made us late to an appointment. We couldn’t get out of it.

Saturday we had an open house party on the 8th floor. It’s the same night as natsu matsuri (summer festival) so we had a great view of the fireworks and many eikaiwa students and investigators came. Relationships were made, fun was had, dendo (missionary work) was done. I love missionary life.

The next day was also matsuri so people who we had lessons scheduled that day were not home. So we decided we would dendo where all the people were. At the festival. It was good fun talking to groups of kids and invite them to Eikaiwa or hearing the gospel. Many asked for photos. Being white at a party makes the party.

Overall lessons taught, activities done, party life is missionary life.

Spiritual reflection of the week.

Just a simple quote that will make you want to change.

“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” CElder M. Russell Ballard PMG page 146.

If you are not setting goals and progressing, struggling, maybe failing along the way, you will not reach your full potential and will not make much a difference in your life. Set goals, make history, eternal gains.

1: Which one is Japanese?