So, I made a discovery yesterday when I was putting my contacts in. I went the whole week with just using my glasses to spice things up a bit and then Sunday, I popped in my eyeballs and I looked in the mirror and and discovered my eyes are huge!! Why didn't anyone tell me!?! It's probably because I forget I'm a foreigner and I think I look like everyone else..but alas, I don't have small eyes. As to the tangle comment in the title, longer hair=tangles....so sad.
Well, this was the last few days with my beloved Blu. We had so much food! Members fed us every chance they got. We went and saw some fancy autumn leaves (Oh my, it's almost Christmas!). Brother Swasey took us out there and it was like taking a drive with your dad. He really is like a dad. He made puns about the things we saw and jokes about bowel movements....it might not sound fantastic but we were laughing pretty hard on the way home. He even bought us ice cream! Yum!
Food schedule last week was:
Monday-Ice cream with Swasey, dinner and Tim-tam-slam with the Maeda family.
Food schedule last week was:
Monday-Ice cream with Swasey, dinner and Tim-tam-slam with the Maeda family.
Tuesday- sushi and shabushabu with Matsumoto couple and Chinese with Asami, Wednesday-lunch at Tomato and Onion (a restaurant) with Kameya Shimai, and thenndinner with Swaseys. Oh my I'm so stuffed!
Tuesday our eikaiwa class was huge! I'm not entirely sure why but Sister Ito brought her four daughters who brought boys with them and then a new student and Omae Kyodai and Asami. It was wonderful! Then Ito Shimai surprised us and brought out banana brownies! Oh, those were delicious!!!
Wednesday night we were given a ride by Brother and Sister Swasey to Yonago (we had to stay the night there for transfers) and when we got to the Yonago Shimai apartment they weren't home yet so Swasey Kyodai was like, well, I'm hungry are you? So he took us out. It felt kinda like a little family. He and I made fun of Blu Shimai and we were just dying of laughter.
Thursday morning, I walked my dear sister to the bus stop. I was still in my pjs, green shorts colorful socks, plaid blue shirt...I was a sight. As she stepped on the bus, she shouted, "Mohana you ugly, I love you!" I died! I was laughing so hard! Right as the bus door shut I held my invisible gun and shot and she pretended to fall and every old lady on the bus was so confused! Man we had some fun!
Later that day I waited at the station for my new companion, Sister Laxton! She is so cute! Very different from my last companion but just as amazing! She is from North Carolina and this is her fourth transfer! I'm pretty sure that she thinks I'm a giant weirdo. Like, she is so sweet and I am so strange. I'm definitely the brownie with nuts in this relationship. But we have seen already so many miracles! Like a Pi (potential investigator) that we haven't been able to meet suddenly was home and we gave her a Book of Mormon! Her name is Gloria pray for her!
Then we had a weird encounter with a bald guy who had tape all over his house and tape all over his motorcycle and his boots...and he was talking to us about children and babies....I was so confused.
We also met a woman out side of her house and we started talking about the Restoration which she though was nice but obviously not too interested, but we started just chatting and turns out her mother past way a month prior and so we talked about how through Jesus Christ we can over come death. We testified that God is our Father in Heaven and he gave us Jesus Christ. That seemed to hit her a little more and you could see the spirit start to tinker at her. She couldn't talk longer but it was way cool to meet her.
Sunday was good. I love the members so much! Also Hayase got to bless the sacrament this week!! Ahh! He's our recent convert, and he said the prayer so pretty and clean and you could tell that he practiced! And then! Franco was given the Aaronic priesthood! It was so awesome! Yay!!!! Now he can pass the sacrament! As usual, before church we met with our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Swasey. He loves the gospel so much! He likes to tell us (more like teach us) things about it all. What we learned this last week was really cool so I'm going to share. (If you don't know the story, pull out your Book of Mormon and go to page 490).
Jared. Or really the Brother of Jared. Cool guy right? Well what happened?
16 And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water.
He built those barges according to God's instructions, and he was obedient and built them exactly the way they needed to be built. God gave him instructions, but when they were finished, the Brother of Jared told the Lord that he had done all that he had said but there was still no light and where would they get air? If it was the Lord's instructions, then why were there still problems? Couldn't the Lord just tell them how to do it all? And the brother of Jared must have known that there were mistakes in the blue prints but what did he do? He built it anyway! He was obedient and even though he saw the problems he never tried to fix what he thought needed to be fixed, he continued to be obedient.
Well the Lord answered one of his questions:
20 Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood.
So now they have air! Wo! (See picture below.) but now what?
22 And he cried again unto the Lord saying: O Lord, behold I have done even as thou hast commanded me; and I have prepared the vessels for my people, and behold there is no light in them. Behold, O Lord, wilt thou suffer that we shall cross this great water in darkness?
23 And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire.
24 For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth.
25 And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?
So why does the Lord give him the answer to one problem but not the other? Well let's first ask another question: what does air symbolize? It is a symbol of Life.
We, children of God, are entitled to life. This is something that God gives to us freely, we need not do anything to earn it, the right to live is divinely ours.
In verses 24 and 25, the Lord speaks of the ocean and the storms and the floods which will come. 'I will send them but what will you do if you have no light?' Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea? In our lives how many storms do we under go? How many times do we go under and are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?
So what does the Brother of Jared do? He goes and finds some stones and brings them to the Lord. But not just any old rocks. Ether 3.1 (He) did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass; and he did carry them in his hands upon the top of the mount, and cried again unto the Lord.
He has prepared these stones. What does a rock usually represent in the scriptures? (I'm asking a lot of questions but it's hard to hear your answers so I'll tell you) It usually means the Gospel. This isn't something that is just gifted to us. We need to work out our rocks so that when we bring them to the Lord it can give us light! We learn the gospel, some are born into it and some are not, but we learn and come to understand. But nothing comes out of learning the gospel if we, for ourselves, don't turn to the Lord and ask for ourselves, "Is this true?" The rocks in this story are the spiritual life or light that Brother of Jared and his people needed to cross the ocean of life, to get to the promised land (God's Kingdom). We need our own spiritual life and light to survive and pass through life. This isn't something that we can just ask from God and he gives us the answer. We must work out our rocks, we must polish them and be ready for when we receive that testimony from the Spirit. Without our physical life and our spiritual light we cannot return to our 'promised land' or the kingdom of God.
I probably didn't say it that well but yeah, I love the Brother of Jared so much more now!
My dear loved ones, turn to Christ! He is the way, he is the Light! This Christmas is Light up the world with the light of Christ campaign by the church if you don't know about it yet go here!
There is more information on it coming out on November 25th.
Also I forgot that Thanksgiving existed....we'll have fun over here in Japan, it's been Christmas since Halloween! Woah!
I love you all so much! Please remember you are amazing simply because you are a child of the supreme being, who is Father to us all!
Love, Oswald Shimai
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