Halverson Chourou: December 14, 2015 - Just had lunch with a great ex Yakuza member!

Just about 30 minutes ago Macnab chourou, Mimaki chourou, Murakami chourou, and I just finished a lunch appointment with an ex Yakuza member. He is the funniest guy in the world. He drove us in his Mercedes all the way over to another area which is Kamisugi. There he bought us the best ramen I have ever eaten in my life! The guy is crazy! He has money just flowing out of his pockets. I guess thats the life of a retired Yakuza member. By the way, yakuza is the mafia here in Japan.

After I emailed last week Macnab chourou and I went to a big supermarket called Aeon. Basically, best buy on steroids and I bought a Tangled sound track that is in both Japanese and in English. haha so that was Monday for ya.

The best part of the week was Tuesday. We had a lesson with a guy from our eikaiwa class. He is the same guy that we had a lesson with the other day. The deal is that we teach him English for 30 minutes and then the rest of the visit is teaching about the gospel and such. It's interesting because he was this book that supposedly teaches him English but it really only teaches him english phrases, some of which I have never heard before like "you are the apple of my eye" nope never once heard that one before.

Anyway we asked him if he has ever prayed before and he said that he does when his boss is mean to him and he says "please God make it so he is nicer" and he said it usually happens that his boss will apologize. So we said that God loves us and he desires to talk with all of us and we can talk to him through prayer. The funny part that he was kneeling down to pray which is very unusual among Nihonjin. As he started to pray, he only said "Ten no otosama" which is Dear Heavenly Father. Didn't say anything else. It was kinda strange but I was thinking the whole time that if he makes a noise I will lift head only then. All of the sudden I felt this indescribable feeling in my heart, kind of a warm feeling, and it spreaded to all parts of my body. When Yoichi finished his prayer, he said in the equivalent in Japanese. "Wow, my heart feels free!" It was the seriously the craziest thing. That's when I knew, again, that the power of prayer is very real. Anyone that asks or prays with a willing and open heart will receive an answer. It was such a testimony building experience for me. It was just incredible.

Also I have been watching the video Because of Him a lot these days. I've realized over and over again that you can really do anything with the Savior help. Because of him and with him, you can do anything!

The zone leaders had a cool story in DTM the other day. Elder Larsen related us as missionaries needing to "burn our ships" like Cortez did when he came to the Americas. Cortez burned his ships, saying that they weren't going to leave the Americas until they had accomplished their goal. Just like us as missionaries, we must "burn our ships". Remove all the things that distract us from our purpose, like thinking of Star Wars for example. He said if we burn our ships now then we will be able to become better missionaries and when our service is all over then we can return to the ships and those things like school and movies and etc. It was really interesting experience to think about what kind of ships I have and trying to identify them and burn them.

Then in August of 2017, I can return on that ship back to Utah.

Well that's all I have for you this week. Have a good week everyone!! Don't give up and don't ever forget your faith!!

Elder Halverson