Chinese, English, Japanese 5/26/2014

 

Hello all!

How is everyone doing? How is the weather? How is everyone's health? Good? Good.

This week was full of lessons learned. One in particular. I'd like to share my experience with the natural man, aka pride.

So our investigator-Ran san- the Chinese 19 year old, is golden. We made him a baptismal date 1 week ago and taught him 3 lessons this week. In order for him to make his baptismal date, we were planning on meeting him every single day and teaching him the rest of the commandments. The assistants called us a week ago (when we made the date) to ask if we were going to pass him to the elders. We said we weren't sure yet... but we weren't planning on it. We really wanted to see his baptism this transfer. Our goal for this transfer was 2 baptisms and we already had one, so we were really determined to see another one. But...Kuroki Shimai and I both felt like we should pass him to the elders. Our mission isn't strict about it but Kaicho [President] encourages us to pass men to elders and women to sisters. We both felt like we should but we reeeeally didn't want to. So we didn't this week. We taught him 3 times with the member who translates/team ups and thought about passing him on Sunday. But then we got thinking, if we passed him, the elders would only teach him one week and then, baptism. I don't know if any of this makes any sense but either way, we felt like we should pass him, but we didn't want to. We went back and forth all week, prayed, and talked about it some more. We met with Ran-san on Saturday and talked about his baptism. He is still smoking (fewer cigs though!) and we just don't want to rush the lessons. Even if he is a kinjin [golden], we want to make sure he hears all the lessons, understands them, and then is going to stick. We had a really good lesson on Saturday and although we pushed back his date by 2 weeks (Jun 14), we felt really good about. After the lesson, we were riding to our next appt and we looked at each other and said, we need to pass him. We had been feeling that all week but both of us had been denying that feeling because we wanted to see his baptism. We realized that we had been prideful and that we wanted credit for his baptism but in the end...it's so not about us. It's about the investigator and their relationship with God. We let our pride get in the way of doing what was best for Ran-san. He needs the elders, not us. After we really decided to pass him, we felt so much better. We felt like something had lifted from our shoulders. Heavenly Father guides us, and lets us choose ourselves, but in the end, His way is best. I've never thought I had a problem with pride but this choose, I got a good taste of it. And don't ever want to experience it again. But it's scary how fast we fall. Makes me understand the Book of Mormon a little better when I experience it myself. Needless to say, we repented and are really happy with our decision.


Ran-san and American friend/translator/BYU student Adrian

 

On a side note, we are fasting from chocolate until he quits smoking. (I won't go into detail about how we ate 4 chocolate pies each on our last night before we started our choco fast...) Picture included :)

We went on exchanges and dendo-ed and did our usual week. It was a good week and fun, as usual :) This week is a little crazy but...On Wednesday I get to meet Elder Christofferson!!! Yay! I was asked to give the closing prayer, so that's a little nerve wracking. Plus exchanges, dendo, and transfers are next week! Sometimes I wonder how time flies so fast, but then I don't have time to think about it since we are SO busy. We have so much to do; I've never been so busy in my life. But it is such a blessing to have so many people to teach! I love dendo!!

Threw these gloves away. So sad but it was their time to go.  :(

Thank you for all your love and support! don't forget that I still love letters :) Love you all!!!!

Love,

Sugihara Shimai