Week 20 :: 100 day BOM challenge
Week 20
Horito Shimai | Nagano, Suwa | Week 4 T2
3/25/2019, 2:55 AM
美しい人 こんにちは !
(hello beautiful people!)
Another great week over here in Suwa!
Thank you everyone for your prayers, I've felt a lot of love, strength and blessings from Heavenly father ♡
This week is pretty similar to last week, very busy and very blessed.
Great news, we have a Yakusokusha! - which basically translates to we have someone who has accepted the invitation to receive baptism! Her name is Yuri, she is the twin sister of our friend we teach AB (after baptism) lessons to. She attended church for the first time yesterday, the soonest she can receive baptism would be April 7th, and she said she can that day! She accepted this very quickly, so now we need to make sure she receives the rest of the lessons, is keeping the commandments and understands the Gospel. I honestly did not see this coming two weeks ago, but we are very excited for her to soon take this first step of her journey towards the Celestial Kingdom!
We started teaching a new family of 6 from the Philippines! It's kinda cool because we ran into the mom on the street a while back, and then came across her family but she wasn't there when we met them so we didn't make that connection yet. Just yesterday we taught them, including the mom we originally found! They are having a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon, I know that if they have a true desire to know of its truth that they will be able to receive a witness through the power of the holy ghost. They are a wonderful family and I am excited to continue teaching them.
Fun little fact: I had a dream, and the last part of it was in Japanese! I can't remember what was being said, but it was so cool and I want to have another one. Hopefully this is a sign that Japanese is starting to subconsciously make sense in my brain because consciously its still roughhhh.
Also another fun fact, one of the Elders in our zone is in the same ward as his grandma as well as his great grandmother. He has been teaching his great grandmother, and just recently she was baptized! That's not all, she's 101 YEARS OLD, and she's also deaf. Also this elders father is a member of the 70, Elder Wada! So crazy. So good.
Zone conference was this past Tuesday, as always it was wonderful (it’s only my second time). We focused on the Book of Mormon, not only how it is the keystone of our religion, but it is the keystone of our testimonies. I'm grateful I was able to read it before I arrived to Japan, I feel like Heavenly Father helped me understand and comprehend it better than I have ever been able to before.
Honestly, before serving a mission, I don’t feel like I "truly" read the Book of Mormon. I definitely have read it, and I believed it but I didn't feel like I needed to go any further because I felt like my testimony was fine. I look back and have to disagree, my testimony and knowledge has been able to expand so much more. I truly have been able to "feast" on its words and felt the power of the Holy Ghost by taking my time to understand what it means and ponder why the passage was included and apply it to myself. This Book is evidence to me that this is truly the restored church of Jesus Christ in these latter days. Since I know the Book of Mormon is true, that means Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God and that this church is the true church.
We have a 100 day Book of Mormon challenge to read it and create a marking system for the purpose of aiding us while OYMing and teaching our people. So far I've thought of 18 different topics, i'll include it in the pictures. Let me know if you can think of any other helpful topics to use for this purpose!
I encourage all of you to Tad R. Callister's talk, "God's compelling witness; The Book of Mormon," and of course to read the Book of Mormon, maybe even create a marking system for yourself that will help you with your own understanding and more importantly, your personal keystone for your testimony.
いつも愛しています Love always,
堀人姉妹 ♡ Horito Shimai🇯🇵
Sister Michaela Horito
Japan Nagoya Mission
1-304 Itakadai,
Meitou-ku
Nagoya-shi, Aichi
465-0028
Japan
