Week 41- Intentions of the heart

 WAZZAAAP 皆さん、

howzit going everybody. Making sure to get this email going because mama-sama wasn't happy I didn't send one last week. 

Anyways I wanted to talk about the intentions we have. Recently when I've been doing missionary work I find myself wondering about my intentions. More specifically why I am doing missionary work. Now it's time to be brutally honest. I LOVE the people. I LOVE our friends and I LOVE helping them come closer to Christ. But I also catch myself having slightly misguided intentions while I do missionary work. My first and foremost reason why I am a missionary is of course to bring that joy and hope that comes with the gospel. But I also have thought while teaching or inviting people whether or not this will make me seem like a better missionary to others. “If this guy gets put on baptismal date I will look better to other people.” I want to clarify that this is NOT what motivates me to get up in the morning and not why I came out. But recently even if just for a moment or two I catch myself thinking that subconsciously. 

Because I have realized this I've tried to monitor these thoughts. Really hone in on my intentions and my motivations and reasons for doing things. It's crazy that once we focus on things that we do or think subconsciously like comparing and keeping track of our intentions, we realize how often these seemingly small things pop up (at least for me HAHA). Anyways, yeah I don't want to go too into depth about this subject because I honestly could talk a lot about it (and I'm lazy) but I really wanted to share that because I think it's crazy how if we really are honest with ourselves about our intentions then we can really look at why we do, or say things. We can strip down and reflect and look at what our heart intends behind our actions. 

Luke 6:45

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

I promise that as you look at your intentions and center them to good you will find amazing blessings and miracles come from it. ITS HARD (obviously as all things good are) but our words and actions are outward manifestations of what our heart desires. And if it desires good, we will bring forth what our heart desires and God will help us. I invite you all to think about your intentions (among all the other crazy stuff I invite you all to work on with me.) Goodluck, I'll definitely need it. 

Highlights:

-Zone conference

-Yoshimoto

It's been two weeks but these two were awesome.

Zone conference:

YESSUH, I got to see a ton of missionaries I absolutely love. It was a Christmas Zone Conference so we did a nativity and I was the narrator (I found out last second). But it was super cool. It was fun and the trainings we got was super helpful too. But we also did a white elephant and I guess God decided I needed deodorant and a toothbrush because that's what I got :/ but also Uncle Ryan if you are reading this I finally met Elder Holman LOL bros so chill he's awesome. After the Zone conference while we were waiting for our train to come a bunch of us started talking about Soccer and it made me realize how BADD I wanna play soccer again (I'm so fat). But it was hype to bond with a bunch of other missionaries and just talk about soccer for a good hour. (We needa play soccer for Zone Pday) Anyways I digress, it was cool to see a bunch of awesome missionaries I love after being isolated in Kure for this past transfer.

Yoshimoto:

When I first came to Kure, Yoshimoto was scared of everything. God was scary, coming to church was scary, exchanging contact information was scary. But this past week we had two lessons with him and we finally got his line! He also texted us after the second lesson on Sunday and said that he had felt the spirit and that he wants to have stronger faith! I'm SOOOOO happy. It's so awesome to watch him grow and want to learn more about the gospel! He's super awesome and wants to become a better person! But that was super cool and an awesome experience because I didn't have a lot of hope coming in. But things are going slowly but surely!

Alright that's all for this week.

SHOOTS!

愛してるよ

TheRisingSon

エリス長老