Email #92                 October 11, 2016

Dearest Family and Friends,

This past week was a great one! I am loving working with Elder Atkinson. He's a beast. We're working hard and trying to get our area going. We've been doing a lot of finding trying to find new investigators to teach, and need to do more of it. We had a lot of meetings that kept us off the streets last week, but we had a cool experience on Tuesday or so. We were leaving the church to go finding, and Elder Atkinson saw a door that looked like it was glowing and felt like we should go house it. We knocked the whole apartment complex and saved that door for last. We knocked it with high faith and even higher hope, but no one came to the door! We left and continued to try to follow the Spirit. A little while later, we saw this cool looking kid and tried to get his attention a few times, but he was listening to really loud music. Elder Atkinson finally succeeded in getting his attention, and then we ended up walking to the station together and having a good talk on the way there. He became a new investigator! We had told him we were going to the McDonald's by the eki, so we went after saying goodbye so we wouldn't be liars. We talked to a college kid in the McDonalds who was wearing the same kind of watch I have (I've never seen anyone else wearing that watch). He was leaving McDonalds so we quickly gave him a flier. He read the 無料英会話 (Free English) part and lost his mind. I've never seen someone so excited about Eikaiwa. He was saying, "まじですか？完全に無料ですか？これの代わりに何かありますか？めちゃ興味ある(Pretty much just "I'm pretty hype about free english class.") We ended up switching contact info and have been in contact since, and hopefully he will becoming this week. It was a sweet experience because if Elder Atkinson hadn't followed his prompting to house that apartment, we wouldn't have been in the right place to find that kid, which means we wouldn't have gone to McDonalds and found a potential investigator/Eikaiwa student, the only person I've ever seen who had the same watch as me. As Brother Curtis, our 伝道主任 would say, "As if by chance!" God's hand is so in this work! That was one of the sweet miracles we were blessed to see this past week. We were also super blessed to watch General Conference. I learned a lot. I think my favorite talk was President Nelson's, "Joy and Spiritual Survival." I love that God's purpose and our purpose is for us to be happy! I'm so grateful that I have really applied the good news of Christ into my life these past two years and have had the opportunity to really find and spread that joy. I have never been happier in my life! 

We had the opportunity to go to the temple today. I don't like listening to it in Japanese usually, because I don't want to make going to the temple into a language study, but today I was given a headset that only had one earphone. It was nice to listen to it in both Japanese and English. My Japanese still has a long ways to go, but it was nice to be able to understand it in both languages and pick up on a few nuances from each. I love Japan and Japanese. I'm soaking it in as much as I can. I love this country and this people and this work! Life is good. 

As promised, I've been studying about having a change of heart. I think I understand pretty well what having a change of heart entails, but I'm going to hold off reporting for a couple of weeks. For a spiritual thought, I've been reading from 3 Nephi 11 this past week, where Christ visits the American Continent after His resurrection. I don't think I've ever been more touched by scripture. I'll share one part that really stuck out to me:

3 Nephi 11:13-15

13 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying:

14 Arise and come forth unto me... that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.

15 And it came to pass that the multitude went forth... one by one until they had all gone forth...

There are a few things here that really stuck out to me. The first is that Christ invites us to "come unto [Him]." He doesn't ask us to go somewhere He hasn't gone, or somewhere He knows we should be but He isn't. He invites us to COME to HIM. Christ lived a perfect life and set the perfect example for us. If we are willing to come to Him, He can change us, heal us, make us better, happier people. However, that willingness must come from us. Christ cannot go to us, we have to come to HIm. The second thing I loved is how the Savior ministers to the multitude one by one. Jesus knows and loves us as individuals. He knows our needs and our wants, He knows our pains and our joys, He suffers with us when we suffer and rejoices with us when we rejoice. I love that the Savior knows me and you, individually. There is nothing more life changing or powerful than learning that God is our Loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I am so grateful that I have come to really know those things. 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Calhoun