Halverson Chourou: September 2016

Well I am transferring! Why is it that once an area gets fun and stuff starts to go your way, it all gets restarted? But that is God’s will and it's good enough for me!!

I have loved my time in Miyako and I am almost in tears writing this email. It's been the greatest area with the best people here to help out the missionaries. I am eternally grateful for the members in Miyako and all they do and how great they are. So I am going to Furukawa with a new Japanese companion named Elder Koide and that's really all I know. Haha

Well this week our investigator with a bap date has been amazing. We meet with her 3 times this week and taught her all of the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ. During the lessons the spirit was there and we all were getting the gift of tongues. I was able to explain concepts of the gospel that I never had before and it was all coming to me. I know that she is going to be baptized and she will be happy cause Heavenly Father was making it possible for Elder Kudo and I to teach her clearly. This week was full of miracles. Last night before heading home we stopped this guy and started to talk about God and he loved it said “I love the feeling of this type of talk” and he asked us for another appointment and asked to get the Book of Mormon before I offered it :). I love this, it is so much fun and every day is a blessing :). I love the gospel, I love the Book of Mormon, and my family:). Sorry I don't have much time cause I am leaving soon! Love you all!

Elder Halverson

ハルバソン長老~日本仙台伝道部

Hello everyone!! How great a week it has been and how great this next week will be. For all that are wondering, we survived the typhoon except that our house is so old that it started leaking from the roof in a few places. With that we are supposed to get hit with another typhoon tomorrow!! Hopefully our house can withstand this next one!!

This week we had the opportunity to do some service for a member that was extremely affected by the typhoon. So for about 3 or 4 days we were able to go over to his house and help him by throwing stuff out and redoing the house. It was great to see the branch rally around him and come and help him out. Despite the terrible disaster that was the typhoon, it was great to see the love shown toward shibata KYOUDAI and family. It was a great experience and what I learned was incredible. Service is truly the work of the Lord. The other day I was looking around at all the mud and destruction and I thought of one thing. When we come to this world we are clean but as we live and grow he make mistakes and we need to be clean to enter into Heavenly Fathers presence. Heavenly Father knew that we would make mistakes and become unworthy or unclean. For that reason He sent His only son to atone for us. And because of him we can become clean and eventually return to the presence of our father. Shibata kyoudais house was quite affected by the typhoon and we did our best to make it clean and it was amazing the diffence that we made in the 3 days. I can only imagine how much Heavenly Father rejoices when we make right choices to become clean though the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Also what to shared another miracle. This week we have had little to no finding time cause of the service project we have been doing. But with the time that we had we went out and worked. And we were able to find a couple and one more investigator in the process. The couple that we found are the best two people. They are the funniest and always give us food when we leave the lessons. There are the Hareyama fufu. Honestly the best and the other one that we found is a members husband that used to be an old q and is now keeping commitments and we are working though his wife to get him progressing a little bit more. Also on Sunday after a great lesson on baptism and being worthy, we set up another date for kawame San to be baptized. The date is the 24 of September and as a matter of fact the same day her friend that she used to work with is an investigator of the other elders, has the same day so we are working what we can have both of them baptized on the same day. Right after that lesson there was a guy that walked off the street and into the church wanting to pay donations. He used to go to another christian church and donated but that church disappeared and he walked into to ours and now he is an investigator of the other elders. It's awesome here in Miyako and it's a shame cause this next week is transfer calls. I never know what is going to happen cause smith kaichou is always random with his revelations.

Love you all and have a good week!

Elder Halverson

ハルバソン長老~日本仙台伝道部