Kinjo Reio

Kinjo and Elder Sherrill

 Another awesome week in Okinawa! I am loving it down here! My companion and I have been so blessed these past few weeks. Before I talk about our investigator that was baptized this past week, we got transfer calls! However, we are staying together and nothing is changing haha. That was what I was expecting though so that is good, I didn't want to leave anytime soon. So I'm really excited for this next transfer and the success I know we are going to see!

Zone Blitz

So on to Kinjo! He is so awesome! I don't have as much time as I had last time but I will try and give a quick summary of how we met him and his progression in the gospel. He was actually found last year by a set of Sister missionaries who he rejected in the summer time. Then some elders came by again and asked him some similar questions and he
decided to give it a try since they had come so soon after the Sister missionaries. They taught him periodically without much success. When I first got here he was a pretty "sketchy" investigator and my companion was pretty close to dropping him. He wouldn't really meet us and it took a couple weeks before I first ended up meeting him. When we met him we actually had a really good lesson and it seemed like his interest was very high, he seemed to just have been taught things to fast before getting a fundamentally belief in God. So my old companion and I focused our first couple lessons solely on God and Jesus Christ
and it helped him develop that belief so when we went to other gospel topics he could build upon the foundation he already had.

Homemade Sushi

Then after transfers came we set up a baptismal date with him and promised him if he started to come to church weekly and meet with us twice a week rather than once, he would receive an answer whether or not to be baptized. He boldly accepted and said he wanted to work really hard to make his date, and he did! As we went through and taught him commandments, he exercised great faith in following Heavenly Father and obeying some of the commandments he still fully didn't comprehend why we have them. One of them being keeping the sabbath day holy, including not shopping on Sunday. He expressed his concern that on Sunday is when they have the best deals for food. So we went through with him how the Lord blesses us as we keep the commandments and gives us ways to be happier than we would be if we wouldn't follow them. He again accepted and trusted in his Heavenly Father.

Traditional Transfer Morning Breakfast with Foist Couple

Shortly thereafter, we finished his lessons and he was baptized just this last week! Like I said in my previous email, the plan was for me to baptize him originally because that's what he requested. But then Nishihara suggested that I confirm him and Elder Lyutsov baptize him. However, when we presented that to Kinjo, he said he still wanted me to baptize him rather than Lyutsov so that's what we did! I actually had to baptize him 3 times because each time he kept lifting his legs up under water as I submerged his chest haha, It was quite the experience. I never would have guessed we would have seen so much success this transfer, but Heavenly Father truly does lead this work and is helping many people become prepared!

Kinjo after his Baptism

I love this work and I simply love being a missionary. It is so different than anything I could have imagined it being and is so
rewarding. I am looking forward to all the time I have left! I love you guys, until next week!

Love,

シェリル長老

Missionary Work is Changing!

Hey everyone! I've got lots of stuff to update you all on. Lots of changes in the way missionary work will be done and in our personal schedule. Last week there was a worldwide missionary broadcast lead by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of the Apostles. He was very excited for our new schedule and lots of missionaries (myself included) are really excited for it too. There are quite a few changes but I'll just run you through some of the basics. First off, with our preparation day. As some of you know it begins at 10am and ends at 6pm every Monday. This is when you have some free time, are able to explore your mission area, and take care of stuff that will help prepare you for the coming week. So instead of starting at 10 amthey pushed it back to 8am! So we have two extra hours on pday! As you can imagine we are all pretty excited for that. 

Along with that they changed our morning schedule so instead of now leaving our apartment around noon we will leave every morning at 10am to start proselyting. Which will give us lots of more time to find new investigators and give us the opportunity to talk to a new group of people that most likely haven't contacted missionaries before. Then at night time we still come back at 9pm but instead of planning for the next day like we have usually done in the past we won't be planning until the next morning and get an extra 30 minutes of personal time to prepare for bed and make calls to confirm appointments. On top of all that, as missionaries we keep track of lots of "numbers" as far as contacting people, having lessons with them, how many Book of Mormons we give out, people invited to be baptized, etc. But moving forward we will only be reporting 5 indicators to our Mission and they will likewise do the same to the Missionary Department in Salt Lake. These key indicators have been stripped down to help us focus on the most important key factors in order to help others come unto Christ and be converted. 

The main theme of all these changes is for us as missionaries to be more responsible and to be "agents unto ourselves". With all these changes the Lord really is putting lots more trust into us and allowing us to choose for ourselves what is most effective for our individual area in helping us fulfill our missionary purpose (help others come unto Christ). This is going to be a really big change and lots will be different moving forward but I am super excited for it! It is so cool to see what the Lord does to move His work forward. He is in charge and He knows what is best to help His children receive this wonderful message of the restored Gospel. I'm so excited for the new success I know we will begin to see. I love being a missionary and all of the amazing blessings that it brings. Speaking of which, Kinjo, our investigator passed his baptismal interview so he is planned to get baptized this Saturday! He asked me if I could baptize him but a member suggested that my companion Lyutsov perform that ordinance and then I give him the gift of the Holy Ghost so I think that's what we will do so we can both participate in it :) I'm definitely pretty nervous because I've never done it in Japanese before but I know the Lord will help me. 

I love you all, have a great week! 

Elder Sherrill 

Life in おき

It was a pretty good week! This week for emails I'm going to try something different and just do a little overview of each day and see how that goes.

Monday- it was our pday! So we of course went out and had some fun. We went on the American base and went shopping for American groceries. Although I could care less about all the candy, ice cream, and snacks. All I wanted was some good milk that was bigger than a liter and wheat bread. So that's all I got haha. Afterwards, my companion and I went up to one of the military bases higher on the island to have FHE(Family Home Evening, its like a game night/Family fun night with food, games, and a spiritual message) with the Foust couple. It went pretty good and there was a non member that showed up! 

Tuesday- I went to go pick up my bike from the bike shop because a couple of my spokes were broken. Afterwards we taught Yaka's lesson and it went really well! We are re teaching him the lessons and his understanding of the gospel is really deepening. 

Wednesday- Another rainy day in Okinawa but that didn't stop us! We had a great lesson with our investigator Kinjo in which he agreed to live the word of wisdom! At the end of our lesson I asked if he had any questions about the lesson and he said, "no but I do have one question, do I need to bring my own white clothes to the baptism, or do you have some for me to use?" I kind of just laughed and told him not to worry about it because we have the clothes for him. He is getting excited for his baptism! 

Thursday- This day was crazy. To start it off we ran into this cool American who has lived in Okinawa since the 80's  who runs his own Karate Dojo. He is a 9th degree black belt (which is apparently the highest you can go according to him). He has all these karate classes he teaches and even does these cool Okinawan festivals each week with drums and karate that he invited us to, so we might go next week! After him the Assistants in our Mission came down a day early before our training and interviews with our Mission President to go on exchanges with me and my companion. I went with Elder Yamanashi who is seriously the nicest person I have ever met. He is an amazing missionary and is practically an angel. He served here as a Zone Leader a little while ago and baptized a couple people so we went and visited them together. 

Friday- Interviews with the President Egan! So this past week I have been given lots of counsel directly from President Egan and at first it was a little tough to hear because he is very open with his comments on how I should improve and help my Zone but it really has actually helped me out a lot to improve as a missionary, leader, and a person. My Zone Leader companion and I made some goals on what we can do to help improve our zone and we are way pumped for them! We have lots of fun activities planned as a Zone to help us find new investigators and increase our unity. 

Saturday- Exchanges with one of the District Leaders in the zone Elder Tschirki! He is such a stud! We had a way fun junkai and saw tons of miracles together. We actually did something as a Zone together called miracle day where everyone prays to see lots of miracles on a specific day, and then we all go out and work way hard to see them. Once they see a cool miracle, they record a voice message of the miracle, they send it to the zone leaders and we send it out to the whole zone! That way everyone in the zone is constantly getting to hear of success the zone is seeing and pumping them up to see success in their own areas. It was a huge success and everyone in the zone saw multiple miracles. We have another cool activity planned this week but we actually need to get permission from the Mission President before we do it. So I will let you know how that goes next week! 

Sunday- We finished the week of strong with Kinjo! He came to church and we taught him for the third time after church! He has agreed to live all the commandments and when I was asking about how his life has been recently he said it has been like a wave. I asked him what was happening when it was at the high points and at the low points. He said he feels good (high points of wave) when he is going to church, praying, and meeting with us! Then he said the low points are when he feels fear. We told him that fear wasn't from God but rather from Satan and to focus on the good feelings he receives. I asked about his baptism and how he feels now that we have been meeting with us regularly and coming to church weekly and he said it is completely different from when he wasn't meeting with us. He says he is looking forward to his baptism and is excited for it. So we are way pumped! 

That's about it for this week! It turned out kind of long and took a while haha so sorry about that. I love you guys and I'm grateful for all the love and support you show me, have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder Sherrill 

Sunny and 65☀️

Hello friends and family! So this week wasn't much different from the other previous ones. The weather is still fantastic by the way, it got a little chilly here the other day because it "dropped" down to the lower 60's but we survived. As much as I love winter and the snow, as a missionary I'm not to bummed to be missing out on the freezing cold weather.

This past week we were really busy but to be honest I am grateful for how busy we have been lately. The only downside to being so busy is that time goes by WAY to fast. I mean we are already halfway down with the first month of 2017 and I feel like I'm still waiting for Christmas to come! It is really interesting how time goes by a lot faster when you start to realize you don't have as much as you would like left. My companion Elder Lyutsov and I are learning a lot together and certainly learning a lot from each other. He brings a lot of new different ideas and experience to the table that I'm grateful I have the chance to learn from. A month ago I didn't even know where Bulgaria was on a map but after some time with him I feel like I know all about the people and the culture. He really is a great missionary and I can tell he will become even better as he continues to learn from others and improve as he is here in Japan. 

Our old investigator Yaka is doing really well! We are still meeting with him and he is on track for all the goals we have set for him so I'm excited to keep meeting with him and see his faith continue to build. We have another investigator too named Kinjo and we actually just set a baptismal date for him as well. His is not until February 4th but so far it is looking good! He has come to church twice already and has had most of the lessons. Yesterday at church as well Elder Yamashita came to visit (Member of the 70 who spoke in the most recent General Conference) and he actually had like a 5 minute 1 on 1 talk with our investigator and it was so cool! It was crazy to see how much an impact he had on him within such a short little visit. In sacrament meeting his talk was on how he was given the assignment to talk in General Conference and it was really funny. 

That's about it for me! We have been working a lot with the Japanese ward and visiting their last actives and recent converts so that has been really good. We went out to this chain of islands and visited a bunch of old members and it was pretty cool, we got some pretty pictures of the water and islands as we went to dinner out there so I'll send those out! I hope you all have a great week! Love you all! 

Love, 

Elder Sherrill 

Yaka Hiroshi 屋嘉 広

What a week! Hello everybody! This email I would like to take the time to talk more about someone who in a very short time has really made a big impact on me. His name is Yaka Hiroshi. Yaka is 67 years old and has lived on Okinawa his whole life. He has 2 children and 6 grandchildren. He has many hobbies but his favorite thing to do is watch old western movies. He absolutely loves coke and potato chips and says no matter what diet he goes on, he won't be giving those up. About 35 years ago, Yaka met with two missionaries from the LDS church. He loved their message and accepted all the teachings. He read from the Book of Mormon and prayed. He was going to get baptized but because of his addiction to smoking, was unable to quit and therefore unable to get baptized. Discouraged and upset he fell out of contact with the missionaries and he thought that was the end of his journey to coming to the church.

A little under two months ago, two sister missionaries who clearly were guided by the spirit happened to knock on his door and run into him. As they talked and he explained his story and the sister missionaries discussed about the gospel he had a desire to meet again and re learn what had long since been forgotten. Except this time, he made it quickly known to the missionaries that he had quit smoking all by himself 2 years ago and that wouldn't be a problem this time. The sisters excited to teach him taught him a couple days later and brought him to church. I saw him at church but wasn't able to meet him. That next week the sister missionaries invited us to his next lesson so we could take over the teaching. Since he is a male, usually we will pass the investigator to the missionaries that are of the same sex. Within the first lesson we had with him I could tell he was different than most people I have taught on my mission. He seemed more prepared and really ready to receive the gospel. That first lesson we had with him we set a baptismal date with him and ever since then we have met with him twice, sometimes three times a week. He came to church that following week and then continued to come and not miss a Sunday for 7 consecutive weeks. 

Throughout his teaching I had the opportunity to see him progress and grow very quickly in the gospel. As we taught him these restored truths the lessons he had heard over 35 years ago started to come back to his memory. He quickly relearned the simple gospel truths and had that same desire to follow Jesus Christ and to be baptized. As we taught all the commandments he had no problems with any of them and was always willing to follow anything we asked him to. He would read and pray daily. Since he has no car, members had to give him a ride to church. In order to give a permanent solution to that problem he bought a very expensive electric bicycle just so he could come to church and various other church activities! Since it has been almost 50 years he has said since he has ridden a bicycle right now he is practicing until he can get good enough to make it to church on his own. Every time I saw him I asked how the practice was going and excitedly he would reply, "I'm getting better!" He had mentioned he fell a couple times but I never realized the depth of his injury from falling until one time, unplanned I visited his home to drop off some goodies for him. When he came to the door he had a huge bandage on his leg I had never seen before, he pulled it off and showed us it was a huge cut covering his whole shin from falling of the bike due to his practice. Later that night I called him to see how he was doing and guess what he said he did right after we left? He hopped on the bike and practiced again! I have never met a person so driven to follow the commandments of God and always do the right thing. His faith is tremendous.

Just two days ago I had the privilege to baptize Yaka. He was the first person I had ever baptized so needless to say I was pretty nervous but also very excited. As I stood in the water with him I couldn't help but feel the spirit so strongly. After he came up out of the water he had this big smile and I asked him how he felt. He said, "my heart feels clean". After he said that I couldn't help but smile and give him a big hug. His baptism went really well and then that next day when he received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It all just went perfectly. 

I am so thankful to those missionaries that taught him over 35 years ago. His baptism is a standing witness that sometimes on a mission we don't always see the fruit of our labors. Because of those two missionaries that taught him, he was more prepared and able to accept this gospel at a later time in his life. Our service really does stretch farther than we realize sometimes. I'm so thankful I was able to work with Yaka and help him start on the path back to his Heavenly Father. This work is amazing and being a missionary is such a great experience. I love it! I hope you all have a great week! I have lots of pictures this week since I forgot to send some last week so I'll attach the baptism pictures to this email.

Love, 

Elder Sherrill 

Pictures!

"Thy days shall be spent in the service of thy God"

Happy New Years to everyone that still reads these emails! It is 2017!!! I can't believe 2016 is over already! As I was looking back at this last year my mind kept thinking of this scripture and that's kind of what I would like to talk about today. The scripture is found in 2 Nephi 2:3. This is when Lehi is speaking to his son Jacob. The scriptures goes, "Wherefore, thy soul shall be blessed, and thou shalt dwell safely with thy brother, Nephi; and thy days shall be spent in the service of thy God. Wherefore, I know that thou art redeemed, because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer; for thou hast beheld that in the fulness of time he cometh to bring salvation unto men."

The main part I want to focus on is the underlined part. I remember reading this a while ago and thinking, wow, all his days he will be serving God? That's a long time! Then I had a thought, as a missionary that's exactly what you do for these 2 years that you are out here.  You are spending your days in the service of God. In 2016 I had the privilege to be in Japan the whole entire year. To be able to devote all my time and energy into serving the Lord just as Jacob was going to do. I will be honest, it has been very difficult at times but it has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences I've ever had. 

Since this time of the year with Christmas being so recently it seems that everyone has this extra spirit of giving and service. One thing I hope for is that we all don't lose it! It is so easy to kind of forget to be as generous or render as much service since it is not the Christmas season anymore. However, if we keep that spirit of serving others as this new year begins we will continue to be in the service of our God and we will be helping so many others along the way. And just like it says in the scriptures, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." So let's keep on serving others! The joy you feel helping others and being involved in service is unlike any other happiness you can feel. 

That being said, I'm so happy I get to spend the majority of this new year devoted to serving the wonderful people of Japan. I know that the service we are rendering here really is changing people's lives and not only helping those we try to serve, but helping us to become even more like our Father in Heaven. I love this work and I love all of you! See you next week! 

Love, 

シェリル長老