I love the Book of Mormon. There is so much knowledge and the hour in the
morning for personal study isn't enough, but I'm not just here for me, which
takes me to Tuesday.
On Tuesday we went
to 😺Nishikawa Shimais house and taught her and a few other sisters, a new convert and
a less active. Our lesson was on prayer
and it was so good. Now, it wasn't
fantastic because of my Japanese skills, no, it was because of the spirit. One sister who is less active at the moment,
expressed to us that this lesson was exactly what she needed to hear. I have a sense of fulfillment at last.
Sometimes I can't tell if I'm doing any better
than planting seeds, but today I contributed in helping someone remember who
they are and why the gospel is so amazing! And actually my Japanese today wasn't
terrible, so there is a plus!
“His work will go on just the same, whether we pray or
whether we don’t. … Prayer is something that we need, not that the Lord needs. The Lord has drawn over our minds a curtain of
forgetfulness so that we do not remember him and our association with Him as
members of his family in the pre-mortal life.
Prayer is something that humbles the soul. It broadens our comprehension; it quickens the
mind. It draws us nearer to our Father
in heaven." by Joseph Fielding Smith. I love this quote, we shared it today, and I
realized I don't pray because God needs it I do it because I need it. I really do need prayer. Otherwise how and who
could I possibly turn to. We are on a
path, a path that he built. There are
choices for us to make and he will show us the best path for us if we only do
two things; keep his commandments and simply ask him.
Why not just go to the source for guidance than a path of
riddles and consequential mistakes?! Alma the elder, Mosiah, all the prophets turn
to God for guidance, for assurance that they are doing what He wants them to
do. They were mighty, spiritual men. If
they do it then I must too. And let's
not forget we can pray literally anywhere at anytime!
So 😺 Nishikawa Shimai has
this beautiful, I mean beautiful, cat.
He is orange and spotted like a cheetah and is the same size as Sawyer in
shape and as soft as Kate. I about died
when I saw him. But that's beside the
point, I love Nishikawa Shimai. She can
speak a little English because she has been to Europe many times. She is so kind and wonderful to us. She is a very gentle person, but also has
style, haha, I just love this woman and her testimony (and her house!)
Okay today. The 21st of October, is the day I had a break
down. Yes, in the middle of the street walking to the church. Thank goodness
for prayer and the spirit or else I think I'd be drowning in a puddle of my
tears right now. What you may be wondering, is so troubling to Sister
Oswald? Well I'll tell you. This gospel is the absolute most important
piece of all the knowledge on this earth right now, that any one soul could
know. The second most important thing on
this earth right now is knowing that there is so much more. Now this is not what I was upset about. No, actually this is amazing and I want to
tell everyone about it! What is wrong is
that I don't want to fail!
Wow. That statement seems so redundant. We're human! We are
imperfect!
Of course we are going to fail! I have the knowledge in my
hands, and I don't want to screw up (excuse this use of the word screw)! I want
to understand and be understood. I don't
want to feel confused about teaching the restoration to somebody. But there is Satan, just standing to the side
doing the sibling finger thing, he stands there and points his finger at you
and says, I'm not touching you! It gets
under your skin and by the 100th time you want to strangle him! He calls out
look at your mistakes, look what you can't do. He doesn't even bring it to the attention of
another person. He only wants to get to
you. He won't touch you unless you touch
him first. Yes there will be days you
feel worthless and days where God puts you to your limits, but those are the days
you have to say okay, this is hard, but I'm trying, please help me. We need to humble ourselves for our own sake.
In other news today, I have a bug bite on my elbow and my lip.
These mosquitoes here are vicious. Speaking of bugs, imagine a spider the size
of a sticky note pad....I saw five today. And they're not just nice looking spiders they
look evil, angular with green and black stripes and red on their heads. Also tracker-jackers do exist here. Same size, sometimes bigger than the spider.
So I was sick today, today being Thursday. And by sick I mean I just ached head to toe. My wonderful amazing companion helped me buy
this Chinese medicine thing that helps when you’re sick. It's this nasty but not horrific tasting
bottle of juice. I couldn't exactly tell
or didn't experience any difference but why not? I kept trying to read the bottle like I would
for any medication and I just sat there staring realizing after about two minutes
that I can't read it! It's in Japanese!
Even if I could decipher in my unsteady state, what each
character was, I still would not have understood because the only vocab I’ve
learned is about the gospel. My
fantastic companion also made me soup.
She also made me sleep but I just wanted to sit in bed
reading my Book of Mormon. Seriously who am I? Whoever I am I like who I'm
becoming.
I'm in Alma and it's so interesting! Mosiah's sons are awesome and faith is the key
to the gospel of Jesus Christ, if I had
to chose one thing I learned today. It
was just getting good when Uchida Shimai took my BOM away. Then I slept for two hours. Ugh, I
felt so useless today, not getting any work done. We did however give a restoration pamphlet to
a prospective investigator. So that was
good! Also, if I was perfect then I
wouldn't need Jesus Christ, but I do need him, that means I'm not perfect. I'm trying not to be "perfectionist"
more so with the language more than anything. But if y'all get a chance read July 2014
Ensign, talk by Garrett Gong “Becoming perfect in Christ.
Random but look how awesome Uchida shimais name is : 内田。
Today, we had district meeting, always fun and learned a lot
of things but one thing that is just awesome is James 2: 18, (19), 26. So good!
Faith is so important. Faith is a belief that is put into
action!
Faith requires and is work. For our district meetings we take a 45 minute
bus ride and the train to Kobe and meet at the mission office. It's the closest middle point for everyone. After DM, we went bought lunch and looked at
the time and saw that if we didn't leave now we wouldn't catch the bus back
(that means getting to the train station, take the train and run the bus
stop.) We got on the train and we moved
down like three cars, trying not to fall on people sitting down, so we could
get off at the exit point. As soon as
the car doors opened we RAN down stairs, up stairs, across the platform to see
the bus was there waiting. The elders
ran before us and held the door to the bus so that we could get on. I looked
behind me and I don't have a companion!!!
What?! And then I see her running out of the pass gate and
she jumps on to the bus. All four of us sat
down and Otani Choro said a little too loudly (but no one actually understands
English so it's all good), "God answers prayers!" And afterwards I said, "The church must
be true!" It was so funny and we
were all amazed that we actually made it. About 10 minutes later we came to a stop with
about 30 maybe 35 kids (6-9) and their 3 teachers. They are absolutely adorable with their red
and white hats and tiny back packs, (so yummy, mom I'm dying) and they all
start to pile in. The whole bus is
filled with children. No joke. I wish I could have gotten a picture. We
talked to them and literally all of them are staring at me because I'm white
and when I start speaking Japanese they get so confused and smile really big.
Every time the bus turned or stopped they would scream and
laugh and my heart was filled to the brim with joy! Ahh! I think I know now I have to be a teacher
after the mission! It was awesome. We
also visited some members today and they also filled my soul with happiness.
Sunday was cold. I
mean it went from warm to flippin’ freezing overnight. We got to church and us four senkyoshitachi
(missionaries) were singing in Sacrament meeting! We sang I need thee every hour.
First verse was in Japanese, the second was in English and
parts of the last verse and the third verse was first verse as a solo. Yup you guessed it! It was mee! I don't think my singing was the best thing in
the whole world but what made our singing good was the spirit that we brought. As we sang I looked out to the significantly
smaller congregation than any size in America, I saw the faces of my brothers
and sisters. I saw them and I love them.
They are like my family, they laugh with me, sometimes at me but I love them. Their hearts are so good. As I sang, a few people nodded their heads because
they knew what I was singing about even though they don't know English. But I tried my best to share my testimony as I
sang. I love singing, it specifically brings me closer to God. I could feel the spirit and if I could feel it
so could the people around me. Afterwards
I'm pretty sure I shook everyone's hand because they came up to say thank you
or good job.
After the week I've been having it made me feel so loved. Today was just a better day in general. A woman helped me understand Relief Society
(because my dōryo doesn't know enough English/doesn't know how to translate and
explain well enough yet) and I have a few young woman friends. Yesterday we did a baking activity with them
and they are so sweet!
Our Sunday also
consisted of biking across town to visit a family (members), who are the
sweetest things! They have five kids and
they are so kind to us. We laughed and
talked about families and how they can be crazy and funny. When we left we shared lots of hugs, high
fives and super cool handshakes:D then we biked home in the cold. Not fun.
 |
| Japan Kobe Mission - with President and Sister Welch |
 |
| I found a kitty! |
 |
| Best Chocolate Ever - Black Thunder |
Please love Miss Sonja!!!! Give her a hug for me. And if possible the same for Sam and Ben! I loved the happy report, also the temple is
awesome I miss it. What movie did you see?!
Okay love y'all!
Tuck-n-Roll
No comments:
Post a Comment