Email December 30, 2018

Email December 30, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Happy New Year's Everyone!

                  Today is the last day of the year! And what a great year it's been! This was the one chance in my life where I got to spend the entire year in Japan, serving God and His people. I've grown so much in the past year, I've met so many new people, made so many friendships, and seen so many miracles! I'm so grateful for all the people this year in Eniwa, Hakodate, Ebetsu, and Shiroishi, as well as other missionaries and my family and the all people back home who have made such an impact on my life this year. I'll forever treasure all the memories made in 2018, and I'm so excited to start a new year!

                  This week was great! Talking to my family on Christmas was so fun, I love you all so much! We also had Eikaiwa on Christmas so we brought snacks and had some fun afterward. We also gave out little Christmas presents to people on the street, it's fun to see how happy it makes people to receive an unexpected Christmas gift from someone they don't know. Later in the week we went to a children's library to see if we could volunteer to read to kids, but they don't allow anyone with any sort of religious connection to do that which was disappointing. But I got to see a bunch of English picture books which was fun.

Christmas Photos

The Christmas present we got from Shiroishi Ward at the Christmas party!

My desk area decorated for Christmas (thanks for the package Mom!)

Email December 23, 2018

Email December 23, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Merry Christmas Everyone!

            Sorry nobody got my group email last week, my Gmail was being way weird and instead of sending it just deleted it and wouldn't let me send or receive anything for a few days. But it's back now(I think). There's been so much awesome stuff happening in the last couple weeks, we had a ward Christmas party, temple P-day, then a special Christmas Zone Conference with two zones, and my companion keeps getting enormous Christmas packages full of food and candy! And he's awesome so he shares it with me so we've been having a sweet Christmas. At the Christmas party we had a ton of nonmembers come, some Eikaiwa students, friends of members, and a family we had just met and invited a few days before. There were so many kids there! They made little pizzas with gyoza (dumpling) dough it was awesome. I also sung and played the violin at the Christmas party. At zone conference there were a bunch of musical numbers, my companion and I performed "Away in a Manger" with my companion on the guitar and us both singing. I love Christmas music so much! Also, the day before zone conference we went caroling as a zone in Odori Park and after went to Jacksonville, a restaurant that serves gourmet American hamburgers, it was delicious. Our zone reserved the whole restaurant for an hour and it was so packed!

Photos

Christmas!  

Email December 9, 2018

Email December 9, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Hey Everyone!

                  This week was amazing! We had a few appointments fall through, but we also found a few new people and had some awesome miracles! One of the people we found was a 77 year old man named Oki San, and when we first met him he kind of started arguing about why God doesn't exist and it didn't seem like it would go anywhere but we ended up making an appointment with him for the next day. We met, and he had some weird questions about spirits and stuff, and still was very sure God was only in people's imaginations, but we told the the First Vision, briefly explained the plan of salvation, and gave him the Book of Mormon, and his whole attitude changed. He went from asking weird questions about talking to spirits to sincerely wondering what will happen to him after he dies, and he went from denying that God exists to really asking if God was there. It was really cool, I felt the Spirit guiding that lesson more than almost any lesson I've taught. So we set an appointment for the next day(he's retired and has plenty of time) but he didn't show up, probably because it was snowing pretty hard. But he also didn't answer his phone so I was worried we wouldn't see him again but he came to church right as it was ending, and we hadn't even invited him yet. So we had another lesson, and he said a prayer at the end, which was a big step, because he wasn't willing to do it before. We have another lesson this week so we're hoping to be able to set a baptismal date. It's really cool to see someone really change through the gospel.

Photos

Elder Anderson, Tamayama Shimai(the recent convert) and my companion and I.

Some Christmas lights we found!

Email December 3, 2018

Email December 3, 2018 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Hey Everyone!

                  This week was full of miracles! It was amazing! On Monday night we went to family home evening at the McClure's and my companion and I performed a small musical number. He played the guitar and I sang. On Tuesday Elder Anderson, who was my zone leader last transfer and an incredible missionary, came and worked with my companion and I for a few days and I learned a ton! He's way good at talking to people and making friends quickly, and he's really good at making missionary work fun. We also had a video chat meeting with the entire mission, and President McClure emphasized finding more natural ways to introduce people to the gospel, which I think is going to be really good. Between that and working with Elder Anderson, I think my approach to dendo is going to be a lot different from now on, and it's already made a difference this week! We found four new people to teach this week! And a few other people with interest! It's probably the most success I've had in one week on my mission. We also ended up dropping a couple people, including one of the people we found this week, and also Yukari San, the person we brought to FHE, but it's ok, they may not ready yet but they will be sometime in the future. And now we have more time and attention to devote to people who are progressing.