Email November 11, 2018

Email November 11, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Hey Everyone!

                  This week was amazing! I'm so grateful to be here in Japan serving the the Lord. There were some great miracles this week. On Tuesday, a mom and her three kids came to Eikaiwa! We met them on the street last week and told them about it, and the mom just immediately said 行きます(we'll go)! And they came and had a great time! The kids are 3, 4, and 7 years old and they're so much fun! We're going to invite them to learn more about the gospel so pray it goes well!

                  We also had a lesson with Yukari San, and she still has some issues keeping her from being ready to be baptized. She's allowing small, temporary problems to get in the way of seeing things from an eternal perspective, kind of like the spiritual eclipse Elder Stevenson talked about. But, we realized that part of the problem is that she doesn't understand the plan of salvation very well, even though she's been taking the lessons for a while. She doesn't really understand what the final goal exaltation is, and so doesn't have much desire to achieve it. It's pretty hard to get somewhere if you don't want to get there, and it's hard to have that desire if you don't understand it correctly, so we're going to try to reteach the plan of salvation which should help.

                  This week we also visited some returning members which was good. There's a lot of members in this ward who know the church is true but are just too scared or busy to come back to church. And there are a few we've met who believe strongly in Jesus Christ but have forgotten their testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. So hopefully as we continue working with them and helping them feel God's love they'll be able to come back and once again partake of the fruit of the tree of life.

                  There's been quite a few other cool experiences this past week but I'll just share one more. A returned missionary from Arizona came to church this week which was fun, his wife is Japanese and so although he's been back from his mission for a long time his Japanese is really good. He asked us when we have time to visit his mother-in-law who lives in our area and isn't a member. We had some time that evening so we went and visited and to our surprise he was there too, which we weren't expecting. I don't think he expected us to visit that night but it turned out really well. We talked with him and his mother-in-law, and she showed us a picture of her grandson, who's serving a mission in Sendai right now and I realized he was at the MTC with me! So it was pretty cool that I got to meet his dad and grandma. They also gave us tacos, which I haven't had in a while which was awesome. We also got to testify of the Book of Mormon and that what her grandson is doing as a missionary is God's work. When the snow comes we're going to go shovel her driveway and share more about the gospel. She's met with missionaries before but hopefully this time her heart will be prepared to accept it. It might help that she already knows us. It was a cool experience either way. I know this church is true! I'm so grateful for the chance to declare that truth to everyone I meet. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Burton

PS: One of the things I like about this area is there's a bread factory near the church so there's a really good smell in the air when we go to the church. The bread company is called ロバパンwhich means Donkey Bread which I think is pretty funny.

This is what you do when all of your チラシ get wet in a rainstorm:)