The third week of the the transfer in the mission home is one of my favorites and the reason being is from all the dendo (proselyting) time we get! During this last week we have already finished up our Zone Conferences and it's too early to start on stuff for transfers so we have this week with practically no office work so that means more dendo time! We were able to go on two Junkai's (companion exchanges). One with the Kumamoto Zone Leaders and the other with the Hiroshima Zone Leaders. Both of them were great learning experiences as I went with newly called Zone leaders. They had much dendo fire and their example left me with lots of commitments for myself I could improve on.
With each Junkai we didn't have any lessons scheduled so we had what we like to call a "dendo slam" day which means 8 full hours of dendo starting at 10 am which doesn't include our study or meal times. So needless to say we went to it and got to work! My first Junkai on Tuesday with Elder Snyder was amazing. I have never met such a humble and hardworking missionary. We went out and saw tons of miracles. One of the cool little miracles we saw was after dinner on our way to the area we had planned we stopped this guy who was about 25 right by the church. In the beginning he wasn't super interested but we kept talking him to try and break some barriers with him and eventually he got to a point where he was getting more interested. After about 10 minutes of talking we invited him to come to our church down the street for a quick tour. So we walked to the church together, had a church tour, explained the sacrament and went over baptism while we showed him the font. We finished it off by praying with him and by the end of the contact he had completely changed! He wanted to meet again so we set up an appointment for next week and exchanged numbers.
That is just one of the many miracles we saw while we were out working. Early in the week Elder Sorensen, my actual companion and I were on our way to this park (Ohori Koen) and we ran into this way cool guy who is from Okinawa. He is 26 and as soon as we started talking to him he was really interested in all that we had to say. We started with the restoration and taught him all about that and when we got to the Book of Mormon he really wanted to read it. We shared a few scriptures with him and after about 25 minutes or so of talking to him we asked if we could say a prayer and meet him again and he said of course! So we prayed, exchanged numbers and our next appointment is tomorrow right before church begins.
There are so many prepared people here in Fukuoka. Sometimes it is overwhelming because there are so many people to talk to and it feels almost impossible to search out that "one" who is actually prepared but Heavenly Father always guides us to them or them to us! I know that to be true, I have experienced it time and time again. However, in order to receive that blessing we need to be doing all we can which means to continue to be obedient, work hard each and every day, and always work smart by the spirit. I'm not sure if I have ever shared on my group email before my mission president five steps to become a happy and successful missionary but it truly works. The steps are:
1 - Work Hard
2 - Work Smart by the Spirit
3 - Be Strictly Obedient
4 - Have Fun
5 - Come Home Tired
Every since President Egan has come to this mission over 2 years ago he has continued to emphasize these five steps and how vital they are for not only being a successful missionary but to being a happy one. Sometimes it is difficult and I've struggled with different steps in different stages of my mission but the times I have been the happiest have definitely been when I have tried to live up to these steps to the fullest. Nothing compares to meeting new people on the street each and every day and telling them about the simple truths of the gospel. When they hear how they can be with their family forever or that God really cares about them sometimes it really touches them. Seeing them hear that and act on it to learn more is one of the best experiences we get to have as missionary. This work is true and it is so much fun to be a missionary! President Egan always tells us, if you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. So always have fun and be genki (happy) :) I love you all and I look forward to hearing from you next week!
Love,
Elder Sherrill
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