September 12, 2016: Leaving Home Again :(

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

 

 

September 5, 2016: Another typhoon tomorrow!

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

 

 

August 29, 2016: 120mph wind, Typhoon hitting tomorrow

Yep you heard it right a crazy huge typhoon is coming.  And it's going to be a fun experience.

So the week was a blast.  Elder Kudo and I hit the ground running and were busy all week.  We were bouncing around from different lessons and appointments for most of the week.   Because of that I don't remember anything specific and I also forgot my journal.  So I'll do my best.  Once again Elder Kudo and I almost got caught in a huge rain storm but luckily we were close enough to a ramen shop and it was dinner time so we quickly ran in and waited out the rain.  That day was way fun as well.  We found 2 new investigators and taught 6 lessons all in one day.  There were a couple of miracles right in a row, we were able to find new people when lessons fell through and we picked up some more new investigators.

Also had a split this week with Elder Pratt, he is a great missionary.

So we set out to see some miracles and we saw quite a few.  First, after a lot of biking up and down hills and housing, we bike up some more hills and we knock on the first house and it turns out to be the parents of some members that live in Utah and they used to be investigators of some past missionaries.  They were incredibly nice and gave us some food and stuff to take home.  It was interesting to learn that they, like most people, had some weird thoughts on Mormons.  One person thought milk was bad to drink and another didn't know that the real name of the church is LDS (... Latter Day Saints).  Also Elder Pratt and I received the gift of tongues because this family talked so fast it was unbelievable!  The Japanese can really talk fast when they get in the mood.  I am so excited to continue to teach them more about the gospel!! 

Well that is almost all that I remember.  I have loved reading the scriptures recently and know that the scriptures are certainly the word of God and that includes the Book Of Mormon!  I love you all and have a good week!

 

Elder Halverson

ハルバソン長老~日本仙台伝道部

 

 

August 22, 2016: Typhoon rain, splits and Sapporo Temple dedication!! 👌👌

Hello everyone!  It's been a good week with many great experiences!  I can't believe how fast it goes.  It feels like just yesterday when it was last weeks pday.  Time flies and I've gotta use it while I can!  So this week was a roller coaster of events.  Monday, Elder Kudo and I are out trying to expand the area and house all remaining areas but as soon as we get there it starts raining and I thought it would stop but it didn't it poured down on us and needless to say we got pretty wet.  Because of that Elder Kudo got sick and was down all day Tuesday.  So Wednesday was basically like the rest of the week....busy!  Almost no time to do anything but work.  We were on a bus to Morioka for interviews at 9am and back at 5pm, just before a meeting we had.  So it was pretty fun, I always like busy.  Saturday I had splits with the zls and before that I was very excited for the opportunity.  I did tons of praying in advance so that I could learn a lot. And guess what, I did!  What I learn most from Elder Thompson was that I could see the love that he had for the people when we were talking to them.  It was amazing to see.  That entire day was a blast.  We saw some success and were able to have some fun along the way.  Later that day the Sapporo temple culture celebration was broadcast to specific places around Japan!

It was so cool!  The youth of Hokkaido (northern most island of Japan) put on a play about the history of missionary work and the church in Hokkaido.  I was so cool to see the Japanese saints fight through thick and thin of the WW2 era and when Christianity was banned all over Japan.  Now they have a 3rd temple in Japan.  I was watching that and just thinking how Heaven Father is watching over his children in all places and at all times.

The next day I participated in the dedication ceremony. Listing to talks given by the temple president (who is a convert) really impacted me.  He said multiple times how thankful he was for the work of the missionaries who found him and also all the others who made sacrifices to make all this possible.  It's truly a miracle, the temple in Sapporo, missionary work,  the members here in Japan.  This is truly the Lord's work because average 19-25 year olds could not do this on their own, producing these incredible miracles.  We can't do it alone, that is how I know that He is here and helping us!

I know that the temple is the house of the Lord and that families are forever and ordained by God!

 

Love you all and have a good week!!

 

Elder Halverson

ハルバソン長老~日本仙台伝道部

 

 

 

August 15, 2016: Over the hump.

GOOD MORNING,  MIYAKO JAPAN!  It's a nice 26 degrees Celsius with 100% humidity.  It's 12:36pm and it's time to start Elder Halverson's weekly email.

If I could recap this week in one word I would be "finding"!  工藤長老

Elder Kudo and I hit the streets and the rice fields of Miyako this week to find Heavenly Fathers prepared people.  So it all starts on Tuesday, we planned appointments and got flipped around and wound up that Elder Kudo and I had to sprint to catch 3 different buses.  But towards the end of the day we decided to expand the area.  That takes us over in this place surrounded with rice paddies and farm type homes getting nothing but rejection.  Miracles definitely come from enduring and going till we nearly had no time left.   We were housing for 3.5 straight hours and with 19 minutes before eikaiwa, we decided to knock on one last apartment complex.  We knock nobody nobody nobody and the last door opens up and it was a pi that we have been trying to meet with for 12 some odd weeks.  He invites us in and we share a quick message about the Book of Mormon with his family.  If only we had more time, he would have become an investigator but we will go back.  It definitely was a miracle indeed, and it was the one that we needed.  I know that if we use our time wisely the Lord will bless us and we will see miracles.  If anybody has seen the Mormon missionary "Hello" by Adele video it is exactly what happened to me and my comp on Tuesday.

This week has been a lot of lessons learned and not to many lessons taught. 

 Right now it is the Obon Festival and it's basically Japan's Christmas.  My comp (who is Japanese) said it like this.  It's basically the holiday where everyone is actually acting Buddhist and then when it's over it's back to normal life.  Also relating it to Sunday Christians.  Haha he is a funny guy.  But because of that holiday nobody was home and not a lot of people could meet and have lessons.  So we were walking around most of the night talking to as many people as we could.  From that I learned the holiday is for their ancestors.  During this holiday people gather together, go to the gravesites of their ancestors and clean it up, hang out and honor them.  Also after that they go home and give burnt offering to hotokesama (BUDHA). The similarities in the religions is becoming more and more interesting and the realization of the truthfulness is overwhelming.  I know this is the true church and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. 

 Love you and thanks for making this year great and see ya in 1!

 

Elder Halverson

ハルバソン長老~日本仙台伝道部