Email #58        Monday, December 21, 2015

メリークリスマス！

Dearest Family and Friends,

I literally have no time, we went caroling today and the time just
slipped through my fingers. I'm so sorry! I will send a good weekly
email and belated Christmas individual emails next week. I love you
all!

Love,
Elder Calhoun

P.S. Merry Christmas! Here's our super ghetto Christmas card.

Pictures sent Monday, December 14, 2015

Elder Unsworth fixing his bike in the apartment

 Celebrating Christmas with Mr. Donut

The Hondas, Elder Unsworth's awesome host family!

Email #57       December 7, 2015

Update

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Dearest Family and Friends,

I apologize for the lack of an update for the past few weeks. Things
have gotten busy and I've gotten a lot worse at emailing. Things are
going so well! I am loving Kasukabe and the work and my companion and
all the people here. I'll give a quick summary of what has happened
over the past few weeks. Our mission has had a big focus over the past
two or three months to see a big Christmas miracle. This Christmas
miracle entails having 100 people be baptized before the end of the
year, and every companionship in the mission seeing at least one
baptism. Seeing this miracle has required and still requires hard
work, faith, prayers, obedience, lots of good things. We have been
working hard to see this miracle, and have been so blessed to see tons
of miracles in the process! I'll share the biggest miracle from the
past few weeks. Three weeks ago, we dropped the investigator we had
been working with most closely. He was reading the Book of Mormon
every day, but wouldn't accept baptism. We felt prompted to drop him.
We did so, and that same day, one of the members told us that an
Eikaiwa student had told the member that he had interest. We met with
the student that Friday and used the new pamphlets. We set up
expectations, and he basically said something along these lines,
"That's pretty obvious, can you please teach me about your church?" We
taught him the restoration and have been meeting him weekly the last
three weeks. The first week, his interest in the gospel was only
intellectual. He wouldn't accept a baptismal date and didn't really
want to talk about baptism. He was learning about different religions
and was curious about ours. After our second lesson, however, he
started to really read the Book of Mormon. He also came to church and
heard the primary program. This was last Sunday. We met with him on
Friday, and he had gotten to the church early and was there before us
(we were waiting for him outside and still have no idea how he got
into the church, the doors were locked before we came). He told us
that he had gifts for us because he heard during the primary program
that coffee isn't allowed and since he can't give up coffee or tea,
couldn't be baptized and didn't want to keep taking the lessons. We
were able to sit down with him and teach him the Word of Wisdom. It
turns out he's diabetic and drinks coffee to help his blood sugar, but
after learning about the reasons behind the Word of Wisdom, he agreed
to live it if he comes to know it is true. He also agreed to live it
for a week and see how it goes. We testified about Moroni 10:4-5 and
how he can know of both its truthfulness and the truthfulness of the
Book of Mormon through prayer. He learned about prayer and after that,
agreed to being baptized on December 19th if he comes to know that the
book of Mormon is true! He had a read a lot of passages from the
pamphlet we had given him last week, and he said that the Book of
Mormon. As we were ending the lesson, he said, "We have to end with a
closing prayer. I'm ready to pray." He then gave his first prayer
ever, and asked about the truthfulness of the Word of Wisdom! It was a
huge miracle. He is incredibly sincere and honest and a wonderful man.
He progressed so much in between lessons, and I know it was because of
the Book of Mormon. It has been such a big miracle to see how much he
has progressed in three weeks, from not wanting to talk about baptism
to accepting a baptismal date in two weeks. However, yesterday, he
called the church and said that he couldn't be baptized. We know that
this is just Satan working on him. He hasn't even been taught the
importance of baptism or why we get baptized yet though, so we know
that things will work out. However, prayers would be appreciated! I
know that this gospel will bless his life and his family's life and we
are so excited to see him progress so quickly. These past few weeks
have gone really well. I love you all, have an amazing week!

Love,
Elder Calhoun

Email #56        November 23, 2015

No Time

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James Calhoun	Nov 23

Dearest Family and Friends,

I'm sorry, no time this week. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Calhoun

Email #55       November 16, 2015

Temple P Day

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James Calhoun <james.calhoun@myldsmail.net>	Nov 16

Dearest Family and Friends,

We have temple p day this week, so I will email you all tomorrow. Love you all!

Love,
Elder Calhoun