Letter to Mission President--
Well first off, at the Zone Taiki (conference) I committed to Latu Shimai I would write a paragraph about what I will do to achieve better retention in recent converts.
I will build a relationship of trust and love, enough that they can share their spiritual struggles with us. As I teach our investigators I will do so with such a love they will be able to know a surety of the Spirit of God and recognize they need this love of their Heavenly Father through their whole life. As I teach the fundamentals, I will teach these things with a testimony of how I KNOW this is true so as to allow the Spirit to touch their hearts and remember these things which they have already heard before this life. As I help them to understand fasting and prayer is a privilege, that we come closest to our Heavenly Father in times of sacrifice for him, we spend a few mere milliseconds in Gethsemane, take just a couple steps toward Calvary, we recognize how much the Lord is in our life. I will do my best to make sure they have multiple members they trust enough to go to in times of need and they understand this is an eternal commitment and baptism is only the beginning. President, it truly breaks my heart thinking of any less active and the love they are missing as they just don't understand, I can promise you that you won't have to worry about me ever attempting to rush a baptism just so we can achieve the key indicator, in my mind this is the worst thing and the reason there are so many less actives. I will do my best to help achieve better retention in recent converts.
President this week may have possibly had more miracles than any other week so far in my mission. At the beginning of the week I read a scripture in D&C 124:44 that said if you labor with all your might, I will consecrate that spot that it shall be made holy. President I can see this happening in Saijo everyday. This last week Azumi progressed amazingly. Elder Dolbin and Elder Collett most likely told you about her though as well as our lesson with Reuben and Kevin so I will leave that to them. There are many people prepared in Saijo. This last week we found a new investigator who is a college student named Sho San. He read on the internet about the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity so that was slightly difficult to teach with the restoration. He struggles with the no tea because it is a big part of his culture from China. We set a baptismal date for October 13th but he fears that if he is a member of this church and still drinks the tea he will feel guilty and doesn't want to feel guilty. So hopefully our joint tomorrow about the atonement and some how tying in the Word of Wisdom can help clear that up. It is sometimes hard though because my Japanese still has much to improve but we will ganbarimasu. President there are so many people in Saijo that are ready and we are finding them everyday. I may be the first missionary to stay in the same place my whole mission because Saijo and I are kinda like two peas in a pod. Inseparable. I love Saijo and will continue to work hard. Thank you for all that you do and may all be well.
I will build a relationship of trust and love, enough that they can share their spiritual struggles with us. As I teach our investigators I will do so with such a love they will be able to know a surety of the Spirit of God and recognize they need this love of their Heavenly Father through their whole life. As I teach the fundamentals, I will teach these things with a testimony of how I KNOW this is true so as to allow the Spirit to touch their hearts and remember these things which they have already heard before this life. As I help them to understand fasting and prayer is a privilege, that we come closest to our Heavenly Father in times of sacrifice for him, we spend a few mere milliseconds in Gethsemane, take just a couple steps toward Calvary, we recognize how much the Lord is in our life. I will do my best to make sure they have multiple members they trust enough to go to in times of need and they understand this is an eternal commitment and baptism is only the beginning. President, it truly breaks my heart thinking of any less active and the love they are missing as they just don't understand, I can promise you that you won't have to worry about me ever attempting to rush a baptism just so we can achieve the key indicator, in my mind this is the worst thing and the reason there are so many less actives. I will do my best to help achieve better retention in recent converts.
President this week may have possibly had more miracles than any other week so far in my mission. At the beginning of the week I read a scripture in D&C 124:44 that said if you labor with all your might, I will consecrate that spot that it shall be made holy. President I can see this happening in Saijo everyday. This last week Azumi progressed amazingly. Elder Dolbin and Elder Collett most likely told you about her though as well as our lesson with Reuben and Kevin so I will leave that to them. There are many people prepared in Saijo. This last week we found a new investigator who is a college student named Sho San. He read on the internet about the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity so that was slightly difficult to teach with the restoration. He struggles with the no tea because it is a big part of his culture from China. We set a baptismal date for October 13th but he fears that if he is a member of this church and still drinks the tea he will feel guilty and doesn't want to feel guilty. So hopefully our joint tomorrow about the atonement and some how tying in the Word of Wisdom can help clear that up. It is sometimes hard though because my Japanese still has much to improve but we will ganbarimasu. President there are so many people in Saijo that are ready and we are finding them everyday. I may be the first missionary to stay in the same place my whole mission because Saijo and I are kinda like two peas in a pod. Inseparable. I love Saijo and will continue to work hard. Thank you for all that you do and may all be well.
That was my letter to the Mission President this week. I don't have much time so I just copied and pasted it. This week we indeed had many miracles.
We found a new investigator from China and I set a baptismal goal with him. He is way cool he doesn't know if he wants to join though because he likes tea and he says if he joins the church he will feel guilty about tea and doesn't want that. So, lucky for him we are teaching him the Plan of Salvation tomorrow after Eikawa (English lessons).
Another miracle is we found a new investigator that is from Islan. He told us how in his country you are born into the Muslim Religion and if you quit it you are killed and he knows you should have your free agency. haha When we taught him about prayer he was like is it okay if we kneel right now just so I can see how you do it? So in the middle of the building we teach in we knelt and prayed (we still don't have a building so we either teach in this small library at this foreigners building or McDonalds or something. It is quite difficult) and when we were teaching him about the Book of Mormon he was like ohhh that makes sense because Jerusalem was destroyed in 590 BC or something like that I don't remember and was like and that means Lehi must be a descendant of Jacob! We then opened up to 1 Ne 5 and was like ummm yeah actually he is, it says so right here. The man is way smart. After our lesson he was like is it okay to hug your holy book? or even kiss it? and then he kissed it and we were like yeah go for it man. He was like oh good! I just love to hold things close to me if it makes me so happy!
We taught the man from Africa again and learned a lesson about BOLD. He was baptized when he was about 1 and so we told him he needed the proper authority from God and how much the Holy Ghost will help and such and then invited him to prepare himself to become baptized by the priesthood. He was just like, you did exactly what you should. You have aroused my thoughts and made me realize I need to do more research on the things I believe and Gods path for me. I thank you for this. We committed him to begin taking the lessons to help him to know if this was the path for him.
For P-Day we went to a Van Gogh Art Musuem with the entire District and Azumi. It was neat.
Sorry I don't have much time. Hope all is well.
Love you all bunches.
Elder Bloomfield
Thought for the Day:
Thought for the Day:
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