8/26/13: Transfer Calls be comin'

Good morning! :)

Yesterday we went to a fireside in Kichijoji with the YSAs of the Yokosuka Military ward. I was so happy that we could go, it was trully a learning experience. My favorite thing I heard last night was "you have two years to work, and all eternity to reflect on it". It's SO true! As I get closer to the end of my mission I've already started reflecting on things I used to do as a younger missionary, and the things I've learned. I feel like I've come a long way, but I know I still have a ways to go as well.

Another thing I liked from the fireside last night was the explanation of the "What e'er thou art, do well thy part" stone. I'd never heard that there was a mathematical magic square in the symbols below the phrase! If you assign the "x" as roman numeral 10, and the "||" to be 2, then count the sides of the symbols and assign them to their respective symbols, you can note that each side row, column and diagonal totals to 18...  That's so cool!!!  As I applied this to my role as a missionary, I found comfort in whatever happens at transfers . No matter what I'm called to do, I'm ready to act well my part.

This also fit right in with my study the last few days. Recently our mission has taken the motto:

"Obiedence is the Price

Faith is the Power

Love is the Motive

The Spirit is the Key

Christ is the Reason"

 To be honest, up until recently I'd been a little against reusing a motto from another mission 20 years ago. It's a great motto, but I'd felt like we should come up with something of our own. Thankfully I decided to study it out and learn more about what our mission motto means. I the BYU speech that had been posted on the mission portal, and thought that would be a good place to start. I went and downloaded it from the BYU website and have been listening to it every night. As I've listened to the talk, I've come to love the motto more and more. There's so much to learn from it, and I've realize that if the whole mission will unite under the motto we can be such a strong force in the battle to save the souls of Japan. I'm so sad now that I only get to see the beginning of what this mission will become. I am excited however to "act well my part" in this mission, no matter how small/short it may seem. I understand now that my 5 months here is a necessary part in helping the mission meet it's goals, just like the first symbol (coincidentally also representing 5) is needed as a 5 to fill it's role in the mathematical magic square.

But anyways, that's what I've learned this week. Here's an update on investigators. ;)

Nagaii family: They were busy again this week and didn't get a time scheduled to meet with us. I'm not sure if they'll be baptised before my mission ends or not, though that's not really important. What's more important is helping them to progress as a family before dad has to go out on a ship again next Spring. Dad has been reading, though not much. He still seems a little hesitant in general about the church, which worries me, but I think that the support the ward is working to give them will be a big help to him. Mom has been reading the book of mormon frequently from what I understand, though I don't end up talking with her much on the phone. They want to either go out to eat with us, or just have us over again sometime this week, though we need to follow up today on that and see when works for them.

Step Mom: Desilva's step mom has been doing pretty well. She came to church yesterday, and has been reading from the book of Mormon. She has a hard time understanding what she reads, so our plan for the next lesson is to read about who Jesus Christ is, and what his role on earth was. There's a really nice scripture chain in the PMG that we're hoping to follow and explain to her what things mean as we go. Though we may choose to default back to 1 Nephi 1 with her instead. We'll be meeting with her on Thursday provided we can find someone that has time to drive out to the other side of the peninsula with us.

Bridger: Bridger contacted us last Wednesday night and told us that he had interest in our church, but that his knowledge was "not sufficient" so he'd like to meet with us. As we taught him the first lesson I was amazed at how much he already knew. Turns out his mother used to come to church when he was very young, but I guess went Less Active. As we taught him he seemed to have an underlying question, but we couldn't seem to answer it, or get him to voice it. He's a busy college student, so meeting with him might be tough, but he said he's very interested in church, and would like to become a member. We didn't set a baptismal date with him >.< but we did get a soft baptismal commitment. He didn't make it to church yesterday, but we're going to call him today and see how Book of Mormon reading and prayer has been, and then invite him to another lesson.

That's all I can think of right now, plus I'm very much out of time so I'll end here. I'm excited for transfer calls tomorrow. Whether I stay or go, I feel like there could be a lot of change in Yokohama Zone, and it'll be fun to see what happens. Thank you so much for your prayers and everything you do for me!

-Elder J. Mosdell

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8/19/13: A day at the Zoo

Well, another week down and we actually seem to have started making some real progress again here in Yokosuka. For the last several weeks it's felt like we've been just kind of spinnin' our wheels, but I'm super happy to have had a couple Member Present Lessons, and a New investigator this last week!

A sister from the Tokyo North mission just finished her mission last week, and his visiting with her Father and Step mom here in Yokosuka. She's brought step Mom to church twice now, and we got to teach her a lesson after Gospel Principles. To be honest the lesson its self I felt went pretty poorly. In the end though, I think everything turned out well. Mom felt the spirit, and was happy to pray at the end of the lesson. We'll be meeting with her again next Wednesday, maybe while we're on splits with the APs... (@.@). I'm praying that lesson goes well, and she'll start coming to the Japanese Branch next Sunday on her own (the daughter should have left back down to Nagoya yesterday). I think she has a lot of potential, we just need to make sure we can find members to join with us for the lessons.

But anyways, We also got to meet with the Longs this week for just a short little while. We stopped in with the new Ward Mission Leader and dropped off some cookies (thanks mom :D ) and talked with them about how they were doing as well as how their son's knee is doing. I asked about reading the Book of Mormon and I was super happy to hear that they've been trying, but it's hard for the mom to understand everything she reads. I recommended some scriptures to her that she can read in search for comfort and hope, and also briefly explained how to apply the scriptures to herself. Hopefully we'll be meeting with them this coming week and teaching a full lesson on the subject.

This is kind of a lame update this week, there should be like 3 times as much stuff, but I just don't have time to write it today. It's 10:24 right now and I haven't even had time to reply to anyone yet... Something about my companion checking his email for 2.5-3 hours and not leaving me with any... Hopefully I'll get them written during lunch tomorrow... I'm sorry everyone for not replying sooner. >.<

 I'll have to send all of the photos for this transfer next week... Sorry. >.<...

Love,

- Elder Jeff Mosdell

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8/14/2013: busy busy busy...

Good Morning!

This last week we were unable to meet with the N. family because their son wasn't feeling up to having people over. Like I think I mentioned last week, he slipped at the pool and regressed quite a bit. I feel so bad for him, we've been calling most everyday to check on their family, but it almost sounds like their son has given up. His mom said that she's afraid he thinks he'll never get better. He wasn't going to his appointments at the beginning of the week, but he had started going again by the end of the week. Of course with his set back in health, they also didn't come to church this week. I really feel like that's going to be the big key to their conversion is coming to church and meeting more of the members.

Brother K. has been doing great! He reads the Book of Mormon a ton, especially on days that there's no job listings in the paper. When he told me that I was super excited to hear that he's still really trying to find a job, and that he's devoting so much time to gospel study. I've seen an improvement in his understanding of the gospel since I've come to Yokosuka. It's amazing how much faster he learns when you actually go at his pace, and teach with love not sternness. Elder Nakayama has been very good at helping change the way we teach Brother K.'s lessons.

Brother M. hasn't progressed much recently, however our meeting with him seems to be reminding him of how he felt when he first joined the church just under a year ago. He's known the church is true the whole time, but his testimony fire hasn't been fed well for awhile. We're noticed that he seems to be happier as we meet with him, and I think he's trying to make a bigger push in his life to come into harmony with the teachings of the church again. We met with him yesterday talked about a lot of things. It sounds like he has a friend or two that we'll get to meet this Friday or Saturday, but we're still getting the details.

Elder N. and I have been trying hard to come in line with the mission rules again. It's hard sometimes, but it felt good to be ready for and in bed at 10:25. Hopefully this week we can continue to improve and work on lights out at 10:30. Regardless, I do love working with Elder N. He's a fun companion, and knows how to teach good lessons.

Sorry this email is overly slow. Apparently all I had time to finish so far is this one. I'll get personal emails out later this evening, after Zone meeting, meeting with an Eikaiwa student, and then meeting with a member. Busy day today!

Email you all next week!

-Elder Jeff Mosdell

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8/6/13: Helping the couple missionaries move... cont.

こんにちは!

This last week was a pretty fun week. We got to meet with the Nagaii family again. Fortunately their son had progressed a little bit so they felt like they could meet with us again. Sadly however he fell the other day at the pool, and that has set him back a ways. It also means they didn't come to church yesterday. Hopefully we'll still be able to see them again this week. I'm really hoping they can go to the Brad Wilcox Fireside this coming Saturday, though I'm not sure they'll be willing to make the journey in their current situation.

This last week at district meeting was awesome! I loved the district leader's idea to only teach using direct quotes from the scriptures, I was able to select a nice list of scriptures relevant to my topic from the scriptures I've compiled for teaching lessons. Sadly due to time constraints I had to reconfigure my presentation, but I still feel like it was a great success. I'm super glad that that list has proved effective. Great great training.

Brother Moore (a recent convert, slightly Less-active) has been doing great ever since we started doing things with him more. I hadn't realized that he'd moved her very shortly after his conversion. There's a lot of things he could use a good refresher on, but he knows that this is the true church, and he comes every Sunday that he back/muscle pains will let him. I think he could benefit from hearing the lessons again, so we'll probably try to teach him something from the After Baptism lessons every time we're with him.  We spent a lot of time with him yesterday, and talked with him about patriarchal blessings. He doesn't have one yet, so we're hoping to work towards him receiving it soon. Sadly his back wasn't feeling well enough to adventure out to Sarushima (Monkey Island), so we'll have to try and go next week with him. That should hopefully provide some great photos for this transfer (which I am rather lacking in for some reason...).

 

Sorry to those who where waiting on this message, I didn't have a chance to get it sent off on Monday because of our appointment with Brother Moore, and helping the Couple missionaries finish moving (finally).

 

Thankfully no follow up from the cops, so I guess that means it wasn't as big of a deal as I was afraid. Figures. :) Oh, we also saw Gen "the name of the guy we helped" again the following day. It was 5:00 and he was already pretty tipsy. turns out his family were also at the festival not too far away, so when he saw us he got all excited and introduced us to everyone. It was fun to get to meet everyone, though the whole time Gen was unknowingly trying to polish my shoes with his most recent cup of brew. *Shrug* Good thing I wore my old pair that day.  His son thanked us for helping him home, then informed us that Gen is very much a drunkard... something I'm not sure I'd have guessed on my own. ;P ha ha

 

Well, I'll email again next Tuesday (temple P-day). シーユー

-Elder Mosdell