Transfers!

Museum

I'm a transfer 5! This last transfer has flown by, it feels like I
just got to Kure yesterday. Today we get our transfer calls and we
still haven't received them yet so I guess you all won't find out if I
stay in Kure or transfer until next week when I email again. I more
than likely will be staying though because I just got here and my
companion has only been here for a couple months as well. This was a
pretty regular week but we had a lot of fun and got to teach some
great lessons

So to begin I want to talk about this new person we found, her name is
Hiromi. Elder Ratzlaff and I found her while knocking on doors about a
week ago. She is a little older and lives by herself but one of the
nicest people ever! We have already taught her three lessons and were
about to teach her a fourth but she got sick and couldn't meet. At our
first contact with her she said she really enjoyed talking with us and
felt at peace as we talked. She asked us to come by and talk with her
everyday so that's pretty much what we did haha. We set up a return
appointment right away and then began teaching her and she has been
really receptive to the message and has really been interested in it.
She experienced a tragedy a while ago with her son passing away and as
we taught her the plan of salvation and told her how she could be with
her son again she lit up and talked about how that is all she wants.
Our next lesson we are going to talk about baptism and hopefully be
able to set a date with her! I'm so excited to see how well she
progresses these next couple weeks.

Then onto the rest of the week we ran into a couple cool people. The
first guy we ran into I started talking to him and he told us how he
was Catholic. I told him that that was okay and that our message was
for everyone and started to explain it. He quickly kind of dismissed
it and said he was busy but grateful we were sharing a message of
Jesus Christ in a country that doesn't really believe in Him. Before
he could leave I gave him a flyer that has some questions on it and
our website. Then he pulls out his wallet (I'm thinking he's going to
stick the small flyer in his wallet) and tries to hand me a sen!
(About 10 dollars worth of Japanese money) I tell him I can't accept
it and he said he wanted to give it to me for the cost of the flyer. I
told him sorry again and he accepted then walked off. After that
contact I looked over at my companion and said jokingly that I wish we
ran into more people like him, considering people refuse to take just
the free piece of paper and this guy was about to give me 10 bucks for
it haha.

This other guy we ran into was a highschool kid. We started to talk
with him and he was really interested in us and what we were doing as
missionaries. He seemed to really like Americans and was marveled at
the fact that we were speaking Japanese to him. As we being to explain
more of our message we introduced the Book of Mormon. He was really
interested in it at first and had lots of questions, as we answered
them we could tell he was really drawn to the book and wanted it. Then
at the end we offered to give it to him and he was so thankful, he
kept using polite Japanese and thanking us over and over again and
told us how he was going to go home and study it. Unfortunately we
couldn't set a return appointment because he said he was busy with
school and activities every day but he said he would call us soon
whenever he had time to meet. I really hope we can meet with him again
sometime soon.

That's about it for this week, there were many other things that
happened but not enough time to write them all. I have a lot of
pictures I will be sending though today so look out for those! I love
you all! Have a great week!

Love, シェリル長老

Elder Quentin L. Cook

Bullet Train!

Bullet Train!

Hello everyone! So I don't have to much time today so this will be a
little short. We are planning on going to this museum in Kure with
some elders from outside the area so it will take up most of our pday.
I will be sure to send pictures of it next week!

This week there were lots of great things that happened but since I
don't have much time I want to focus on just one, that is the special
conference we had with Elder Cook. As a mission we all gathered
together in Fukuoka (except for those serving on the islands and
Okinawa) to meet and have a special conference with Elder Quentin L.
Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. There were about 140
missionaries there and I got to see a lot of old friends from the MTC
and from my past area. At the beginning of the conference we all got
to shake his hand and I was so excited! I had heard when you shake an
Apostles hand it is like during that 2 second shake he interviews you
with his eyes and he knows exactly the kind of missionary you are. I'd
be lying if that's not exactly what it felt like. As I shook his hand
and looked into his eyes I knew he was a chosen Apostle of God.

After we sat down the training began and we heard from our mission
president and his wife. Then afterwards Elder and Sister Yamashita had
joined us again and talked for a little while. Finally we were all
about to hear from Elder Cook and you could tell everyone was so
excited for what he had to say. He gave his training and it was
amazing. I went into the conference with a couple questions written
down and those questions were answered directly and clearly. Aside
from his wonderful training I want to focus on the last thing he had
said. He relayed to us an experience he had when posed with a question
from a young man in the church. The question was if the senior
brethren of the church still have large spiritual experiences like
those prophets of old in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. He had said
and acknowledged that the senior brethren of the church have not been
to open about these experiences with the church. Then he said he would
like to share something without going to deep to ruin the sanctity of
the spiritual experiences himself and the other Apostles have had in
the church. He said, "I know the Saviors voice, I know His face, I
know Him." As he said those words the spirit filled the room. It was
so quiet it was almost as if you couldn't hear anyone breathing. The
whole atmosphere in the room changed and it was confirmed to me once
again that he is indeed an Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was by far one of the most spiritual experiences I have ever felt
and I'm so grateful I was able to be there for it. I know this church
is true and I know it is guided by living prophets and apostles today.
It is such a wonderful time to be a missionary and have the
opportunity to share that with others. I love you all and hope
everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sherrill

Interesting Week

A visit from an old friend 

Huge Bee!

Hello Everyone!

This week flew by so fast! There were a few interesting things that
happened too. To start off the week we were in Kure out dendoing and
we heard from someone that there was a small American military base
close by with American pizza! So we of course went to look for it and
found it! To get on base we need an escort though but with our luck
the dining manager for the base (he's American) showed up at the gate
the same time we tried to get in and said he would escort us. He's way
cool and told us to come back anytime and he would be happy to escort
us back on so we could eat American food haha. We went there today for
lunch, it's kind of a far bike ride but definitely worth it.

So onto the rest of the week we had a couple lessons and they didn't
go to bad. Our first was with one of our investigators Kawahara. She
has been taught by missionaries for about 6 months but not really
progressing to much. We met with her and she expressed her concern and
disagreement with the commandments we have but we focused the lesson
on Jesus Christ and first developing faith in him and she took it
pretty well. We're going to try and keep meeting with her and
hopfeully she can progress more. Then another lesson we had was with
Ooshita. She is a mom who has a lot of sincere interest in our
message! My companion found her about a week before I got here and I
just had my first lesson with her. She is kind of searching for truth
right now and currently learning a lot about other religions and
trying to find which one she believes to be true, so I'm really
excited to keep teaching her!

Last night we went and visited Girly and Alex. Girly is the Philipino
lady my companion and I found a couple weeks ago and Alex is her
husband. We talked with the husband and he has a really strong
testimony of Jesus Christ. He is currently some branch of Christianity
but he told us he doesn't believe it to be fully true. We told him a
little more about our beliefs and gave him a Book of Mormon (in
Portuguese, he's Brazilian/Japanese). He was so grateful when we gave
him the Book of Mormon and he told us, "Give me 3 weeks. I will read
it all and cross reference it with the bible and call you so we can
talk about it". I tried to tell him we would like to study with him
but he kind of shot that down and said he wanted to study by himself,
so for now we will probably just stop by weekly and see how he
understanding the Book of Mormon.

The last person we met with is quite an interesting story. Let me just
saw we ran into 5 Jehovahs Witnesses and then ended up teaching one of
them the restoration haha. So the first 2 we ran into actually dendoed
our apartment in the morning. We were studying and they knocked on our
door. So we went and talked to them and they left pretty fast lol.
Then on the way to a return appointment with some nice lady we met the
day previous, after we parked our bikes we see a Jehovah's Witness
walk out of the house. So we hop back on our bikes and go knock on
some doors for 30 minutes before coming back. Then guess who opened up
the first door we knocked on? Another jehovahs witness! So we talked
with her and actually had a really good conversation. She shared some
of her beliefs and we shared the restoration with her. After we finish
that little lesson we run back to our return appointment and as we
talked with the lady she seemed like she had a really deep knowledge
of God and Jesus Christ which was kind of suspicious because everyone
here is Buddhist and doesn't know much about Christianity. Then at the
end of the lesson after we taught the restoration and testify she
tells us she is actually a Jehovahs Witness and she's actually not
interested in taking lessons, she just wanted to learn what we
believed. It was kind of a bummer but we were grateful for the
opportunity to teach and bear testimony to her.

So that is about it for this week! This upcoming week we get to go to
Fukuoka for the conference and get to go up to Mihara to dendo so it's
going to be an awesome week! I love this gospel and this great
opportunity to serve a mission! Have a great week everyone!

Love, Elder Sherrill

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day Skype

Hello!! So this email will be pretty short and sorry it is coming so
late! A member unexpectedly showed up at the church and wanted to take
us out to eat so we had to cut emails short. Since it's so late I will
send a picture of where they took us out to eat to make up for it
haha.

So first off I would like to give a little shoutout to my wonderful
and amazing mom! I love you mom! Today I got to skype my family
because it is of course Mother's Day and it was so fun and I'm so glad
I got to see them!! I taught them all a little Japanese and especially
my little brother Derek some fun words. Skype was over before I knew
it but I'm so grateful they have skype and I'm a missionary in a time
and place where it is available to me so I can see them a couple times
a year.

As far as this week went we had quite a few things that happened. We
got drenched in the pouring rain last Tuesday and all my stuff got
ruined. My planner, Book of Mormon, pamphlets and clothes all got
soaked so that was a lot of fun. We met this random guy on the street
when asking him for directions and he invited us over to his house
because he liked Americans and fed us lots of candy. We met some lady
in the heart of Kure who owns a little candy store. She stopped us as
we biked past her and told us how missionaries used to visit her and
then she pulled us in her store and closed it down so she could talk
with us. She talked with us (about an hour) and we had a good time as
she told us stories of her traveling the world 21 times! She also
showed us souvenirs from all the countries she went to and even had us
try some salt she had gotten from the Dead Sea when she went there!
She was a really interesting lady!

There was a lot more that happened but I ran out of email time! I love
you all and I'm so thankful for this gospel and the happiness it
brings to me and the people I share it with. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Sherrill

First full week in Kure!

こんにちわみなさん! Kure is finally starting to feel like my home now and I
have some pictures this week too! Not to much out of the ordinary
happened last week but probably the best news is that suit season
finally ended! As missionaries (male) we are required to wear suit
jackets everyday up until April 30th and with it just becoming may we
get to finally take them off and just wear our white t-shirts. It may
not sound like that big of a deal but when you're biking all day in
the heat the last thing you want to be wearing is an uncomfortable
suit jacket. So other than that exciting news we had a great week!

To start off the week we had a lesson with our main investigator
Matsuoka and he is really interesting to teach haha. He has a really
deep knowledge of other religions and the bible so as we try and teach
him usually it turns into him talking about other beliefs and how they
relate or asking us really deep doctrinal questions. So we usually
keep it pretty simple with him and this week we focused on the spirit
and I think that really helped him. He has been searching for truth in
his life through lots of individual study but not through prayer and
acting on any promptings he receives, so that's mainly what we tried
to focus on. I'm excited to keep working with him and see how well he
progresses.

This week as we were out knocking on doors we met this Philipino lady
named girly. I think she may be a kinjin (golden investigator). We met
her and as we talked she explained how she studies the bible but
doesn't think her church is true and is searching for the truth. We
shared our message of the restoration and it really connected with
her. As we talked about the Book of Mormon she said she would like to
read it and hear more but we unfortunately didn't carry and English
copy with us that day so we set up a return appointment to meet this
week! Just from talking with her she seems so prepared and I think
that's will go really well with her.

Later this week we had a fishing activity as a branch and it was so
much fun! Two of our investigators came and 3 students from eikaiwa
showed up so it turned out really well. I have pictures I will share
in a little bit. During a zone meeting we had this past week as well
they shared some awesome news with us. Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder
Gary Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are coming to
visit our mission later this month!! I'm so excited to have training
and to be able to hear from two Apostles. That's about it for this
week, I love you and pray everyone enjoys all the warm weather coming
up! Have a great week!

Love, シェリル長老