Dear Family and Friends

Well it’s been two weeks or so. 


Hmmm geez I forgot what I did
haha. Let me check on my planner real quick
ok couple of things I really enjoyed in this past three weeks or so,
our whole zone got together on P-day and had plenty of activity. The
sister missionaries made us a great meal and smoothies which were
quite delicious to the taste. The other Elders and I constructed
little soccer goal to play footsal in the gym. Way good. Really fun.
It was a fun time for me to associate and to get to know other
missionaries more in a personal level as well.

As of November, the Matsudo Zone missionaries were; Young, Abe,
Stewart, Darlington, Romer, Takae, Provost, Cooper, Reynolds and
Kojya. The sister Missionaries were KIra, Saeki, Inoue.

There will never be a gathering with the same group, so for future
kicks I figure I would mention the names of the group. It will most
likely give me a good nostalgic feeling when I reflect on these two
years after my mission.

well let’s see.... on Sunday the 21st Elder Abe and I went to Ushiku
to stay over the night for the 5 Zone conference that was going to
take place the next day. At the apartment two more other elders from
another area came to stay over the night as well. There I met with an
Elder who is from Brazil. His name was Elder Cretli (kuretori  roma
ji) and I enjoyed talking with that lad. Apparently there is a need
for Portuguese speakers because there are many Brazilians here in
Japan. SO... well my Finnish will be useless and will probably die
when Elder Abe goes home, so I decided to use my language time to
study Portuguese! Only If I receive permission from President Albrecht
though haha.　But man. Portuguese would be fun to learn haha. Falla!

In the actual day of Conference about 5 zones got together I think,
But four general authorities from the Seventy came. Elder Evans,
Aoyagi, Stevenson aaaaand....... freak
chey? tey?

Anyhow. Elder Evans gave us training all day. Which was crazy good.
You can just feel the spirit so strong when he talks. He is a Master
Teacher and a spiritual Giant.
Maybe next week I will gather all the notes that I took during the
conference and write couple of things that I thought was good. I would
like to share one quote with you that I heard and now Cherish.
*Today I will Obey and Tomorrow I will understand+ Marjorie Hinckley
I love this quote.
Well just to quickly wrap it up. I am really grateful that I am
serving a mission. I am really happy that I made the right choice. It
has been uplifting, joyful, and a giant spiritual experience. Ive
learned many things while out on a mission. I am grateful I have the
fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. and so grateful that I am
sharing it with others. I’ve seen it bless people’s lives and seen
many miracles. It has strengthened my faith and has given me witness.
I can only see this rest of the two years will continue to be a great
experience. I Know the church is true, I know our father in Heaven
lives, I Know Jesus Christ dies for us, and lives today. I Know Joseph
Smith restored the gospel, I Know President Thomas S. Monson is the
prophet of God in this latter-days.
The gospel uplifts us and gives a great joy and love! Haha
Alrighty. Got to roll.
Oh and gordo Utah Jazz Rocks.

228 = golden number

howdy everyone. 

its been a good week! it also felt super long though.
i feel like last sunday was two months ago.... this week has
been good though. im excited for  lot of things this month! 

can't believe it's already november. 

I know my buddy Ethan will be going to the MTC soon, i know my best bud is planning on putting his papers
in this month, i know this month is thanksgiving too haha. even though i forgot when it was haha. 

im steadlily forgetting english which is not good! but i started reading the scpirtures in both japanese and
english so that has been really good. in fact its shed more understanding in the scriptures for me.

In the tokyo mission, we have a goal to bring 228 people unto christ this year. in the mission, the last time 200 people came unto christ in one year was over 20 years ago. last frieday we had an all zone missionary conference and we talked about this goal for a while. after the conference, my zone went into a different room and talked about this goal and what we can do to accomplish it. it was evident that we needed to be humble and show faith and prepare ourselves to see miracles. I know the lord will help us.

The other day i just saw one. last sunday i saw a Big one. i see miracles all the time, i know elder abe and i could acheive the goals we have set for this translfer as long as we be obedient and give our availability to the lord. Japan is a very unique country, it has everything, including all the bad. which sustains the good thats in
this country. I know if we give all our best all things are possible. ive seen it, im seeing it all the time.

Elder Abe is going home at the end of this transfer. ill miss this guy. cant believe im in my thrid transfer already though. well i got to go! see you. love you all and write me when you have a chance

P.S todd or nate or dave. where is C-tina? what mission was it?

first baptism

Dear Family and Friends.

Hey everyone. this past week has been really good. It also felt very long
too, BUT it’s one of the best weeks that I’ve had as a missionary. I’m
still in good old Mito! My 3rd transfer in mito now. Still
with my trainer too! I hear being with the same companion in the same
area for three transfers is pretty rare.

Last Sunday (the 24th here) Chin-san got baptized!!! What a wonderful
thing that is. The best part is I found her too! And she asked me to
baptize her.

I am in deep gratitude that our Heavenly Father has trusted me and
Elder Abe to find her and teach her at this time of her life. I was
also in joy when our dear sister chin asked me to do the sacred
privilege of baptizing her last Sunday. 

In first Nephi   6, it says "and I was led by the Spirit, not knowing
beforehand the things which I should do."
When I read this, I thought that we all may not receive a really
strong feeling prompting from the spirit. As a missionary to the lord,
when we prepare well and just do the best we can to our ability, the
lord will set forth the people who are ready to hear the gospel. As we
show are availability to our Heavenly Father, he will make things
happen. That all is ever is. In missionary work we don’t convert
anyone, the spirit does. What we really are is just a guide for the
people to reach the doors of celestial kingdom.

Being a missionary is awesome. It’s so hard! But it has been a great
honor and a privilege to change people’s lives here is Mito. I have been
expressed many times by people that I have just changed their lives
it’s been humbling. Then again I’m not doing anything, other than what
the lord would have me do. I am just doing his work, and try to do his
will. Blessings just follow through obedience.

Other things this week, on Friday we got that call from the honbu that
we are not transferring. EVERYONE in the ward didn’t want us to
transfer, so the next day we had so many people ask us if we are
transferring or not haha. On Saturday, elder abe and I planned an
activity for the SA and the youth and did this thing called pizza
movie night. It was a success. Had them watch legacy while we make
pizza haha. We also had two part-member families and two non-members
come to the activity so it was really effective. Sunday was the sweet
baptism, and on Tuesday I spent like three hours doing translation
that the mission home asked me to do haha. I am extremely slow now. I
was so surprised (or mad at my self) for being so slow and taking a
long time haha.
Wednesday was eikaiwa (English conversation class) It turns out that I
am a really good teacher. All my students really love me. I think I
just make the class fun.
And today is a semi-P-Day for us! We are just doing e mail and we got
to go back to work. We got a lot of stuff to do. But that’s really
good!

Alrighty everyone. Write me when you have the chance! See ya
Love you all
Elder young

blind

Dear family and friends
Well another week has passed. Seriously, this whole memory loss thing is really starting to annoy me when it comes to writing mails haha.

i went to the Tokyo temple last monday and that was awesome. Going
through the endowment session in japanese was wicked cool. Tokyo
temple has its own cafeteria! Eating curry and ice-cream in the temple
was very fun, i must say.

for two weeks now i have been completely blind! on the 9th of October
i found out i have an infection in my eye so i cant wear contact
lenses! and i REFUSE to wear my glasses because they give me constant
headache. So this past two weeks have been a blure to me... no wonder
i cant remember anything!

funny thing,  the mission doctor's wife sister Goth (nicest lady on the
planet) asked me if she could see my glasses, i showed it to her, she wears
it, and then calmly tells me "Elder....dont wear this!"
my reply to her was "YES ma'am!"-- so relieved i dont have to wear it anymore.
I finally told my mission president in a interview four days ago about it. the
day after he calls me and tells me "Elder... you need glasses.... the
mission will pay for it, you just go get one asap"

i'm so blessed to have him as my mission president. i'm blessed to be
here in japan tokyo mission.

this chinese girl investigator i found a month and a half ago, is
planning to be baptized this sunday with her friend. I dont want to
sound too excited or anything yet because anything can happen, but
man.... imagine i didnt go on a mission. She would have never found
out about the gospel and would have never received the happiess she so
intimately described to me the other week.
I know god has put me in a place and time for a purpose. I know he has
HIS timing and everything happens for a reason.

No wonder satan tries to do everything he can to stop worthy young men
and women to go on a mission.anyhow... the mission is awesome. im
learning a ton of gospel stuff and learning daily! whohoo!!!!
じゃーねーバイバイ
ヤング長老

memory loss....

Dear Friends and Family.

 

Alright, it has been busy! BUT i got a letter from a buddy of mine so i was super happy. Ha, thats the only happy thing i could remember this past couple of weeks. I have been super busy and i cant remember what i have been doing. I seriously have to sit and think what i did yesterday. good thing i write journals. I do think i have short term memory loss though. haha. Forgetting things are blessings though. I seriously work with a ton of people and it would totally distract me from what im doing if i keep thinking about it.

So... geez. i really dont remember what i did this week... other than General conference! oh and i went to the Tokyo temple today.

General Conference was awesome. I really cant wait to re-read the talks again. I do remember one talk the most, and the talk touched my heart the most too. It was Elder Uceda (i think thats his name) during priesthood session. yikes... everyone should hear that talk.

I also remember that one elder yelling out "that stupid cow!" haha whos gonna forget that?

 

i do also remember 7 investigators came to see general conference in total. Two of our chinese girls are really progressing. They believe president Monson is the prophet of God and the church is true and wants to get baptized. we just gotta teach them couple more things and just take it nice and surely.

 

 

well, my time is up... 

got to go! ill write next week.

 

elder young

genki to the young men in mito!

Dear friends and family.

 

well. another P-day came

elder Abe and I are doing great. We are working really hard. This Sunday we got three inactive families to come to sacrament and we had two potential investigators come to church. And that’s not including our lovely Chinese girls.

Did I mention that I committed four of young single adults to get their patriartical blessing?　And two of them came to church､ so elder abe and I gave them a priesthood blessing to give them strength for the temptations and the trials to come. Its good….. even if 1 out of 4 gets the blessing? What a wonderful thing that is! All of you already received their patriartical blessing, know how much life changing and a big blessing it is. I asked one of the young adult "hey if were to never made to get your patriartical blessing couple of weeks ago, would you have tried getting it around this time?" he said "no. I wouldn’t have even thought about getting it."

So there you have it. I can see that i'm helping changing peoples lives and leading people to keep their covenants with the lord and trying to lead people into the road for the Celestial kingdom. I dearly hope at least one of our Chinese girls will make the right choice and choose to be baptized. Well, all 5 of them would be super but yeah haha. Working on it

The Mito ward LOVES us. They really like us. The young men praises us to be the best missionaries that mito has seen in a long time.

We have been working with the young men a lot, and this Sunday there was about 5 6 young men there! When we came to Mito frist, there were NONE. Nothing, zip, no one. But finally after some weeks and a month and a half, out youth is starting to come to church. The parents have been thanking us a ton.

Well I have been taking a pretty hard hit on the health still.. My right eye is kiiiinda messed up. My right wrist has this bump on the back that really hurts. Fortunately when I go do splits with one of the zone leader 様様 (Elder McDonald) I will be meeting up with the mission doctor to get my self looked at so that’s some good news. Hopefully it’s just a fluke…. Of lots of pain… hahaha

Im super excited for GC that’s coming on this weekend here in Japan. Elder Abe and I are gonna do our best to invite investigators to come see it. Out lovely Chinese girls and one more Chinese investigator is saying they will come and see the prophet speaks so… hopefully some of them come.

I can always put the money on the prophet hehehe

Elder Abe and I have been reaching out to people by a type of dendo. That dendo type is called cookie dendo! We made big cookies and been giving it to our investigators and the inactive to show love and concern for them.

I need some news. What is going on in the world? Whats happening in Utah? Or anywhere else for that matter. ????

With lots of love

Elder Young

army of mabu dachi

Dear Friends and Family.

This week has been good as well.... the week has flown by again. The mission has been amazing. I just got back from Urawa (Saitama) where we had a 3 zone specialized training. So lots of missionaries came to this. After the good training, all the missionaries talked with one another, just mingling. Since I knew practically No one, I decided to just start greeting people left and right. By the end of the day I had an army of my new MABU DACHI so that was really fun. Got some laughs from everyone and made my presence known ha

So back in Mito it’s been great. Elder Abe and I made cookies for the entire ward and their families (on Saturday) and gave it to everyone on Sunday. With the cookies we also put in a spiritual message and a clever answering card to the missionaries. (So we could get referrals ha-ha) we have been doing a ton of other little things but overall, the ward has gotten extremely genki and I can’t wait for the next fast Sunday (fruits basket day) because we will probably get a ton of food from the members. Also I can’t wait for the fast and testimony meeting too. I just want to drop a spiritual bomb to those people haha.

OH! And I gave a talk at sacrament meeting about love in 9/12/2010, and man, I just blew those people away. Basically I told them that "If you don’t say and express love to your family then you can’t go to the celestial kingdom, god wouldn’t allow you to"　I said a ton of things like that and just destroyed people (that was me and Elder Abe's intention, but rebuild them afterwards) It was a pretty darn good talk I gave, and I wrote my talk down writing it in Japanese, so I copied dozens of copies and put it on a counter for people to take, and freak…. They were gone by the end of the day. The intention of writing the talk and making copies was to give it to less actives and people that didn’t come to church that day, but everybody wanted it! So that was nice. ]

We are really working on these Chinese investigators of ours (gotta love the Chinese) and we are making good progress with them so far. And for sure on of them will be coming to see the GC at church with us (in Chinese though haha) but Tthis general conference that is coming up will be a great chance for us to really make a push for the restored gospel and the authority that is back on the earth now.

Interesting thing happened the other day, I was in the train and we were talking with some people from India, and also a Chinese man was with them and my companion started trying to talk to him in Chinese, and I heard him trying to talk in Chinese behind me so I turned around and just started introducing myself in Chinese and that I am a missionary here in Japan and what not, and IT WORKED! He totally understood me Haha geez. That was fun

Well here in Japan I am learning daily and I am having a good experience. I hope all of you back home are doing well…. I miss you all and I hope to hear from ya sometime

Elder Young

stained futons are standard....?

Dear friends and family.

My companion is Elder Abe. He is THE first Finnish missionary ever to serve in Japan. He is one enthusiastic man. I love him to death. I’ve learned a LOT from him already. it’s interesting, I had this special training with my Zone leader (ZL) and one of the Assistant to the President (AP) and two other younger missionary, and we would do もぎs (role play) and they all just kinda nodded along saying *yeah thats Abe*s bean* Hahaha. they would also refer to me as the Japanese Protege so I feel honored.

Like i said my companion is Finnish so im learning Finnish almost daily. its been pretty sweet. I can formulate sentences in my mind from all the words ive learned so far, so its been pretty amazing learning it.

When i was in the MTC, I got this thing called Epstein Barr Virus. Another words an adult version of mono as they say it. I can’t tell you how miserable that has made me feel both physically and mentally. But it has served me well. Its has toughened me and made me rely on the lord more. I have just barely gotten over the Epstein, BUT right after that I caught a cold….. so I was really convinced that god wanted me to realize something through these sicknesses hahaha.

And when I came to Japan I was feeling so sick. And Elder Abe and I were assigned as companions and we were going to be whitewashed to Mito Ibaragi (where I am at right now). Took us almost three hours to get there and we were also dendo-ing too. He didn’t know that I was feeling really bad. I didn't tell him that i was ill. I just wanted to dendo as much as I could. ( I ended up telling him when we got to the city). And after all the things we did that day, we finally arrived to the apartment for the first time, only to find out that we were going to be living in a pigs hole. It took us Full 3 days to clean it. But I was just feeling miserable both physically and mentally and feeling SO overwhelmed with the work, even though I would have been mad at the situation, I just didn't have the energy within me. That night, I decided to just sleep. Our futons were also just laid out (not folded and put away) and both stained yellow with sweat and who knows what-- just horrible. I ended up crying myself to sleep that night from the physical exhaustion and feeling so overwhelmed with the things that needs to be done and to top it off, I was sleeping in a garbage apartment that was so called "missionary standard apartment"

SO, a day or so has passed by and I figured I would stop thinking negatively and get to work. Which is what I did. Or what we did. I’m glad Elder Abe is a great person. He has helped me learn and grow a ton.

When we got here、 there was 0 investigators. Now we have so many investigators we are just too busy. We are also bringing incredible change to the Mito ward. Giving genki and making church a good experience for everyone.

I am having the sweetest time in my mission. As long as we keep being faithful and trusting in the Lord, everything will be fine. I testify that THAT is true.

The mission has been truly great. I can’t explain all the things that had happened so far, but I’ll try to write these weekly mails to continue my story.

じゃーね～

Elder Young