Week 46: With great power comes great responsibility! (week 37th on the field)

Hey,

   So it's been a nice short week in Amami.  Well, first, let me start off with leaving to Kagoshima. Well, our boat ride wasn't the best boat ever, but it was alright.  This one was from the company Marix Line, and the economy is a bit worse than the other A Line boat.  Remember how I said that the boat ride had a block of stiff foam covered in leather, which I called "The Brick", well, that was still there, and the blankets were thinner than the other ones.  Unfortunately they still smelled like they hadn't been washed in a while.  The worst thing was the fact that they had no dividers.  Everyone is sleeping next to each other, and there is no stopping from the person next to you rolling on top of you while you're sleeping.  It was at least better than standing up though... every time we would take a step it was almost as if we were drunk.  Well, when we arrived in Kagoshima, we were picked up by the senior couple missionaries and dropped off at the bus station.  It was about 5 minutes later, in which, the bus came to pick up Elder Pauperio, so we said our goodbyes, and I gave him a big hug, wished him good luck and he was gone.  I didn't feel too sad to see him go.  It's good that he gets to go see his family, but it's kind of a bummer not being able to see him later in the mission.  I bet he'll read the blog so... 😉.  I hope he's doing well at home.

  

   This is where I stayed in Kagoshima for 2 days instead of 3.  Elder Campos, one of the missionaries getting a new companion in my district, was with me so we studied and Dendou-ed by a mall.  It was really nice.  We went down this one alleyway next to the mall, and there was this dude Elder Campos saw walking by.  Elder Campos just glanced at the guy, but I felt like it would be good to talk to him.  So we turned around and I ran up and introduced myself.  We then continued talking, and he was walking over to the train station so we didn't have much time to talk anyway.  We were just about to get into a conversation with him about the Plan of Salvation when a high school girl came up with her bike and stopped right in front of Elder Campos.  I was still talking to this man as I was walking along with him, but I knew I couldn't leave Elder Campos alone with the girl, so I stopped... and he stopped.  It got awkward, and he was in a rush so I handed him a pamphlet and a flyer, and he walked off.  I went to talk to Elder Campos when he was done talking to the girl.  According to him, she came to some church activity wayyy back, and she wondered if the church was still holding an "open house?" on Wednesdays(?)  We told her that we were only in Kagoshima for a day so we didn't know, but she could call the Kagoshima missionaries and find out.  So, we gave her their number... good problems, I guess.

    The next day, my new companion came in... oh, yeah... haha... I forgot to write about that last week... hahaha... well, I went up to Senior Companion and my new companion is a 4th Transfer, Elder Ackroyd.  He's from Canada.  He came from Hamada (Which is all the way at the top of our mission boundaries) and traveled all the way down to Amami (Closer to the bottom of the mission)-- Oh, little known fact about my mission; It has the longest mission area by distance in the world-- then we left Kagoshima as soon as he got off the bus, and traveled here.  He's super meek, and humble.  He's fun to be with, but the first day was rough--I expected that.  He was really quiet since (1) it was his first transfer, (2) gaining a new companion is always pretty hard, and (3) he traveled from Shimane ken to Amami.  The way I think I can make anyone feel welcome is with my mom's cookbook.  I've been using that ever since day one in the field.

 

 On Saturday, it was super weird, during English class, a random person came to the front door of the church, and said, "Excuse me?!"  We were all surprised since it was just about the end of class, but Elder Ackroyd and I went to the door, and there was this man standing at the door and he said "Is church tomorrow? I'm coming!" and left.  Yesterday, during church, while I was bearing a testimony in church the man says "Excuse me!" from the door and some members went and brought him inside the chapel.  When sacrament meeting ended, we pulled him aside to a different class room and taught him a lesson with our reactivated member.  The man will come again next week!  It was so weird, but definitely a miracle for sure.

  

   In my personal study this week, I reviewed in Preach my Gospel; a book designed to help missionaries teach.  Inside of the book is a section devoted on the Book of Mormon and one of the sub sections is "The Book of Mormon answers questions of the soul".  I read through the section and, as people, we usually have these questions and REALLY want them answered; such questions could be: "Is God really there?", "What is my purpose in life", "How can I free myself from guilt?", and so on.  I was studying this section, and one of the activities invites missionaries, or anyone, to do is to think of Questions of your soul and search for them in the scriptures.  It truly helped with fervent prayer and diligent study.  One of my questions was "Why does God work through imperfect people?" Then the answer I got was found in Mormon 9:31.  It reads:

"Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been."

  

   It states that these imperfections cause people to be better.  Because of the mistakes that we've made, we can grow brighter than we've ever been.  We can show the next generation, the people around us, our family, our friends, even those we don't really know that much, to be better.  God gives us weakness that we may be humble, and so that we can mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.  This life is a time for all people to prepare to meet God and because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and all that he has done for us, we can be better.  We can change!  We can rejoice when that forgiveness comes upon us and we can become clean again. How wonderful is that?!

Love y'all!  Keep Pushing forward!

Elder Jacob Wilson

So... I went the ENTIRE trip to Kagoshima with 2 different shoes.
...I was in a rush to get out of the apartment and it was dark.

Also, when you're going through papers in your apartment, and you see your MTC teacher's name in a statistics book. (Shoutout to Nelson 兄弟/Brother)