mission stories || by elder young

Dear Family and Friends

Hey how’s it going. It’s the 22nd of December and once a stormy
morning is now sunny blue sky in a matter of an hour. Well anyway, I’m
doing fine in good old Mito. There was a Baptism last Sunday! Good
news. He is 54 years old. He has rectum cancer and lives freakishly
far away from church; I think it takes hour and half to get to the
church. (Yes it does.) For those of you who know nothing of this
cancer, well, don’t get it. It sucks. This cancer gets up in the `3
cancers I do not want to get` Rectum cancer, pancreatic cancer and
testicular cancer. .. Oh and I also don’t want bone cancer and
liver... geez. Cancer sucks! Don’t get them! :(

Yes yes anyway. last Sunday was neat because Brother Ojima was
baptized and confirmed but also I was the one who first engaged him to
meet and do the discussions with Elder Abe and I (he was a eikaiwa
student; Mormon English class).
So a thought comes again: what if I never made the choice to come out
on a mission? the obvious fact was that brother Ojima would have never
known about the gospel of Jesus Christ and make the dramatic change in
his life. I remember one time Elder Abe and I taught him about the
Word of Wisdom and he committed. However our next lesson (we were on
our way to church) we saw him waiting for us in front of the church
but he was smoking!
       We dramatically acted disappointed in front of him (well I mean we
were) and talked about it. I asked him to hand over his cigarettes and
his lighter and he willingly did so. The funny thing was I did not
know where Elder Abe put away the cigarettes and the lighter until I
found a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my backpack the next day.
Hahaha

Well how is everyone doing? Christmas is coming and I hope everyone is
in the spirit of giving and or putting their mission papers in (I
speak to some). I got a letter from my Moms visiting teacher the other
day, which contained a Christmas poem for missionaries and money and a
letter, Bless her heart. Well my Christmas season has been really
great so far. Only one more Christmas as a missionary after this one.

There was an All Missionary Christmas party just the day before at the
mission home. The spirit of Christmas was there and I really enjoyed
the time conversing with other missionaries as well. There was a flag
that President Albrecht made.  It said * We Are One with the Father
the Son and the Holy Ghost in the Doctrine of Christ* All missionaries
who would teach this doctrine were asked to come up and sign your name
on it. We all did. The flag color is orange and as the missionaries
were signing the flag, sister Hobbes( I think) later said. *as
everyone was facing down signing their signatures on the flag, the
light was reflecting off the flag and it looked as though everyone’s
face were shining as they were signing it.* I thought that was neat.
Well got to go!
Merry Christmas everyone!

Elder Young