Lessons

I'm not sure I have a tone to say this week... We worked. Our bike tires went flat. We taught a few great lessons, and we made our share of mistakes, but that was ok too. The sacrament was a blessing again. I am ever grateful for the blessing of the Atonement. In Gospel principles class we had a lesson on repentance, the very basics. And while I learned a lot about teaching repentance in Japanese I thought about applying the things that we were learning in our lives, really repenting, really going through the process. Using the truths we know to make a change. 

I thought to myself, that if I were going to be able to teach these things to anyone I had be better be pretty familiar with the steps. Too often I just say, "please forgive me". Not taking time to think about the reality of the Savior's Atonement. As I have tried to make a real effort to follow the Savior's teachings more earnestly, more specifically, I have been blessed to have felt the power of the Holy Ghost more fully in my life. I know that this is the true gospel of Jesus the Christ. I love to serve Him. 

Also a mission is fun...     Okinawa Snails!

May 18, 2014

This week was pretty rough on me, but this Sunday I went to church, just trying to do my best, and what a wonderful relief that was! what a blessing! I do not know that I even had the faith to do anything more than that, but I took the Sacrament and thought of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us. I thought of the Savior in Gethsemane, and on the cross, and the burden that He bore for us, and from that point on my burdens were lifted. I felt at peace, I felt happiness. I don't really understand it, but The Lord in His infinite grace lifted from my shoulders that which weighed me down, and gave me the chance to look around me with new eyes, and a new heart. How can we ever express the gratitude and the love that so great a work deserves! I suppose we never will be able to. 

I am glad to be on His errand and about His work. My Grandma wrote this to me, and I think that it catches pretty well the new Spirit I have felt this week: "Pray, listen, work, love, take time for kindness, forgive others, forgive yourself, and depend on Heavenly Father to make your work right. His time, His way."

 I am truly more aware of my weaknesses now more than ever, and I suppose that only leaves me enough room to turn to our God for His divine Help. I can look back now and see that I needed that rough week, and even those mistakes. I am grateful that the Lord gave me those trials to have, I cannot know His mind and His will always, but I guess that I do not. I pray that He will continue to guide me as He has until now. No one knows better than He that I need it. 

My love to all!

Elder Bevan

NAGO!

Hello Everyone!

I got transfered from Nagasaki to Nago Okinawa. It is far more "inaka" than Nagasaki, meaning it has less people.... i dont really know a good translation for that. But the culture is crazy different. The houses and the people are all different, even the graves are different. 

In japan the vast majority of people worship their ancestors. Okinawa takes it to an even greater level. The tombs where they put the cremated remains of their family are giant stone (almost hut-like) things, set up so that the families can go and worship the deceased. I have become accustomed to seeing the normal Japanese "Haka", these things are completely new to me. As we have walked around Nago I have hardly been able to keep my mouth from hanging open the entire time. Jungle seems to swallow everything to close to it, and everything is different in terms of houses and religion.It is rainy season here and the humidity is up to 95%. Giant Okinawa snails are everywhere (the snail's shells are like three or four inches long). I love it here. 

My new companions name is Elder Malen. Yesterday we went with a six-year old kid from church named Akitoshi, who has some kind of autism that makes him like toilets... cutest kid in the world though. He has a route that he takes every Sunday to go and see the toilets of  Nago. Right after sacrament meeting ended we went with him for like two hours hiking through the jungle and the city to go to parks with public toilets. It was quite the introduction to the ward. :)

Oh, and surprise of all surprises I have a ward! It is smaller than the branch in Nagasaki, but it is great. 

I love this work. I love it! In the past few days Elder Malen and I had a conversation about our missions, and what they mean to us, why we came out. Every time I think about those things I am motivated to work harder and to do better, but I have been so blessed. I love this work. I know that the Savior has power to change us, and that he does change us. I know that His truth, is the truth. I have seen Him change me since I came in ways that I cannot even tell. I know that His hand is in this work. 

Love to all! 

Elder Bevan

Working Hard

This week we worked hard. Really hard. We filled our days up and wore them out. It felt so good. We are working with two investigators with baptismal dates (well, three), but none of them have a lot of spare time to meet, and two of them are from Nepal so the language barrier is pretty strong. We do all we can, but the rest is up to the Lord and them. I hope that they will make it to the starting line. 

Because we don't have a lot of investigators that can meet we spent a lot of time this week finding. We literally spent hours just talking to people on the street and at their doorstep. Yesterday was the pinnacle of it all. We worked hard knocking doors and talking to the people on the street, and (I do not feel at all responsible for this) we found three new investigators. The Lord really does see us and know our hearts and know our efforts, and He really does bless us with mercy and with kindness. I do not feel like anything that I have done has been up to par, but I want to do what He wants of me to do, and He blesses us with great blessings. 

He also has a sense of humor I think. Yesterday we found a golden investigator, (or so we thought) she stopped us and said that she had some interest and wanted to know why we were serving our missions. To our astonishment she asked us to meet, and asked if it would be alright if we exchanged numbers. We were understandably excited. Today we met her with the sister missionaries so that we could make a good trade off, and quickly found that she was actually a missionary from a sect of Buddhism that aggressively teaches their own doctrine and is know for their zealous work. :)  I learned a lot about what my calling really is.

We are called to preach the truth by the power and Spirit of God, and not by any other way. HTere is no other way that we can take this message to the ends of the earth, except we have that Spirit. I pray, and hope, and work that I can be worthy of that Spirit. I am grateful for it. 

The day after tomorrow I will transferring to Nago in Okinawa. I will miss Nagasaki. 

I know that this is the Living Gods church and gospel.