July 26, 2010

Well Well! I`ve been very excited lately to write this letter home! This last week has been amazing!! So I`ll start of at the beginning. This last week was week five of this transfer. Monday again, we went on Splits with the traveling APs. And no not a lot of areas do this. Like our mission President is just doing this once as an experiment. It was way cool! Wednesday we had Eikaiwa, and a lesson before that. (Eikaiwa is English Conversation Class. 英会話)　Then on Thurday we disrict meeting in Oizumi, service with Moe at this daycare center for Handicapped people. Way fun! Then we went once again to the Sakurais. We talked about Jun for a little bit, then we went over to visit, and meet the mother. It was way cool, like we talked about Church, and how it would help him, and we asked the mother if it would be ok for him to come to church, and to learn, and maybe be baptised. She said yes. So we set up an appointment for the next day at the Sakurais. So friday came, and we went to the Sakurais. We started teaching him, and asked if he had read any of the Book of Mormon. He said yes. Talked about Prayer, and overall just reviewed briefly Sunday`s lesson. Then we finished teaching lesson one, and did lesson two. But during lesson one, we were talking about Christ, and we talked about how Christ was baptised even though he was perfect. We talked about that for little bit, and asked him how he felt. We read Alma 7.15, which is about Baptism. We then just turned to him and asked, well do you want to? You read the scripture? What do you think? Do you want to be baptised? He said yes. It was really cool! We set a date for this Saturday night. He seemed pretty excited about it. We`re way excited too! On Sunday at Church he sat next to me in Sacrament Meeting and i saw his Book Of Mormon we gave last week, and i saw some things marked. So I took it and starting looking through, and I was way shocked! He had read until 1 Ne 22, and he also had multiple scriptures marked up. I looked at some of the scriptures and they were about Baptism. Like part of the index in the back was marked, 5 or 6 notes in scriptures, and just stuff like that. I asked him if he did all that. He said yea. And i asked why? He just looked at me and said, baputesuma o ukemasune? or like, Well I`m getting Baptised right? It was way cool! I was soo impressed!
Also at Church on Sunday Juria and Haruki were finally confirmed. They were baptised about 3 sundays before but just couldn`t get confirmed yet. It was really cool though. Brother Matsuzawa confirmed them, and in Haruki`s blessing he started crying, and blessed Haruki that as a missionary he would be able to help others come to Christ, and preach the Gospel. It was really powerful. so cool!
But yea things are going well here in Kiryu! Transfer calls come this weekend. Scary! I`ve been in Kiryu for almost 4 months! Its been fun. Everyone including me and my companion are shocked at Kiryu this transfer. We`ve had 3 baptisms so far, and now another one this week. Everyone I`ve talked to is really shocked. I really am shocked too. It just shows me that not everything is about us. really we haven`t done much here. Everything has just come, and we`ve just done the rest. I know the Lord has had his hand in this area this last 6 weeks. I know thats True. I know he guides us, and also those who are ready to us. This work is amazing! After all that has been said, the greatest and most important work is to PREACH THE GOSPEL!!! -Joseph Smith. I`m so greatful for the Opportunity to serve. I love this gospel. i love Japan! I Love being able to teach in Japanese. Its such an amazing language! This church is true. And nothing can stop it from effecting every person here on Earth.

スチュワート長老