Week 64- This sucks, but that's okay

 Aloha 皆さん、

I like to think that I've had a rather peculiar experience with my mission so far. Especially after rather suddenly extending my mission another 6 months it's been a bit “interesting”


After telling the mission President I wanted to extend (6 months) I obviously felt really good about the decision, it felt right. But recently I feel like the guy with immortality. But like in the “watching everyone you love pass away” type. 

You know when it's like comics or movies they say immortality is a curse, and stuff like that. Yeah kinda like that. 

Obviously I'm not immortal but it's been crazy, watching missionaries who I've been in the MTC with, or who came out after me go home. It'll especially be hard these next two transfers as my MTC group goes home. Even my friends are starting to go back home too😭 I miss everyone fr.

But that's the way it is sometimes. Before I went on a mission I only heard the good about a mission. I didn't think it would or could be hard. But the reality is that a mission is hard, and sometimes it sucks. And that's okay. 

One of the best parts of the mission has been the connections I've made and the people I've met. And it brings me so much joy knowing I'll see them not only after the mission but for eternity thanks to Heavenly Father's plan. 

So right now it may suck, but I guess that's okay.

But if any of you guys gets married before I come home that's a whole other story (I'm already missing/missed 2 weddings😭💀)

Highlights:

-Exchanges
-Car
-MLC
-Zone Challenge

Exchanges:


It'd only been like 2 weeks and I've already had a ton of exchanges. We had Iwakuni Elders, I was with Nicoll 長老, he's from Utah and was overall a chill guy. Had exchanges with Shimonoseki as well and was with Cromar 長老, it ended up being on the day of a one piece release so we went to card stores and talked to a bunch of young guys. Had exchanges with the APes and Nakatsu as well. Wendell 長老 the AP is dying this transfer so we talked a lot about his precious companions and areas it was a lot of fun to talk about older missionaries lol. Marshall 長老 was also super interesting, he did summer sales before so he has a ton of missionary fire. He shared some tips on how he did things at summer sales. It was interesting for sure, don't know if I'll ever use em but he had some fun approaches. We have 3 more exchanges this next week so pretty stoked for that not gonna lie, it's a little tiring but it's always super fun

Car:

I'll never shut up about this because driving in Japan is amazing. Especially for exchanges cause everything is far so I get to go on the highways through all the mountains. It's so beautiful.

MLC:

MLC was pretty good this time around. Always good to see all the missionaries I love to hang around, also felt like we were actually talking about productive stuff this time. Regardless though the food and seeing everyone make it always worth the trip.

Zone challenge:

For this transfer we have a Zone Challenge based on making gospel focused returns appointments, you already know I love my challenges🙌 but yeah basically we have a challenge where when anyone gets a Gospel focused return appointment they send #OneStepCloser🙌 into the chat and a voice message about how everything went down. It's helped the Zone recognize more miracles that happen and focus more on getting appointments that focus in the gospel. We already owe them a mentos cola video and a dance video of my comp toya 長老😂 but it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the transfer a ton!

My parents have been getting on me about going bi-weekly with emails so I'll try to be better about that. I'm also grateful for everyone who sense me all kine emails, I love to hear from everybody fr. 

Kay den 

SHOOTS!

愛してるよ~
エリス長老
TheRisingSon


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 60- I Should Just BE Better

Image
  Aloha 皆、 Sorry no email last week I don't know why but I didn't feel like it. Also this one is kinda long, and pretty personal so feel free to read 'em, or don't. God gave us agency. Going off of my last email. Talking about growing through trials, one of the main reasons I came out on my mission was extremely selfish. I just wanted/needed to be a better person. I think God has a pretty funny sense of humor because it was like “ok wish granted” and smacked me in the Utah Orem mission. But while I was on my mission in Utah I was obsessed with becoming this better person. Looking back, I think I was so obsessed with being this “better person” because I felt like I had to prove my worth to others that I had hurt. Or who knew these terrible things I had done. I wanted to prove that I belonged and I wanted to feel peace. From those feelings stems the thought that consumed my mind.  “I just NEED to be better” But then the mission got hard. I didn't know what I was doing...
Read more

Week 93- The land of conducting and 20+ minute talks

Image
  Aloha 皆さん、 Brahhhhh this week was stressful. One of the various responsibilities I received as first counselor is to conduct sacrament meetings. Which is something I never thought I'd have to do, much less in Japanese. It would have been fine but I also had the “opportunity” to give a talk. I usually don't mind giving talks but since I'm on the branch presidency I get the lovely “opportunity” to be the last speaker. And in Miyako there's only 2 speakers. And the sacrament portion only takes 15 minutes. Which leaves 45 minutes for talks and closing hymns. So I got to fill up the remaining time. But regardless, everytime I get the opportunity to give a talk it gives me some actual time where I have to sit down and reflect on the topic I'm talking about.  As I reflected, one of the things I thought about was trusting In God's timing and the love of Jesus Christ. In a lot of points in my life and my time as a missionary my lack of trust in God's timing and ove...
Read more

Week 69- Moving backwards or forward

Image
  Aloha 皆さん、 Join da Google photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/2tYzpjfjReZvcoCs7 Recently I've been feeling very stuck. Like I'm not progressing or moving forward just as a person, as a whole. It was a really crappy feeling but I kinda wasn't doing anything about it.  I was too lazy to get in the grinder of working out everyday. Even when I did I let one bad day stop me from working out everyday. I was letting my scripture study be complacent, not focusing and being as diligent as I used to be during personal study. And just overall got into a rhythm of saying the same things in my prayers.  Honestly I don't remember if I read this in a Devotional or heard it from someone but it's about moving forward or backwards. We as disciples of Christ do things everyday/week that helps us come closer to God and Jesus Christ. We can pray, study the scriptures, repent, go to church, be kind to others. Doing these things help us go step by step on the path to Jesus. But if we don...
Read more