Elder T. Stout and I are on one of the highest highs of our mission!!

You remembered my birthday! :')  That video was the best ever!!  I especially loved Hudson and Mark's segments ;)  Thanks so much, it means a lot that everyone put together a fun vid! :) And I really appreciated your email :) I like to think that even in high school I was your little buddy ;)

I used to think I was so big in high school because I could drive a car, but you still took me to school and stuff. And then I thought I was so big for living on my own in a foreign country, and then I remembered that you're still managing my life from behind the scenes even though I'm supposed to be an adult! I think on my "birth" day, it's important to remember who gave that birth to me. ;) Thank you so much for being the best mother in the world. Sister Nagano reminded me that a mother's love is entirely selfless and is the closest thing we can relate to Christ's love for us, and I continue to learn more and more that you are the epitome of that pure love for me in my life! (You two dad, this compliment is for both of you :)

We celebrated my birthday today at a brand new sushi shop that opened up TODAY, on my birthday!  Sushi is my favorite food, so we came.

Best Birthday Ever!!!

Genki Kun! He doesn't look too genki!

My favorite sushi!!

I really appreciated your email last week! Sorry I wrote such a downer email, I was definitely having a bad day. I just want you to know that those down feelings are completely gone, and Elder T. Stout and I are on one of the highest highs of our mission!! This week was unreal! :D I'm so happy to hear about the miracles you saw with Davy and cousin Helen Jane!! I want you to know this was a big week of miracles for us, too! :)

Yesterday Toshiki and Yui had a meeting with their parents to discuss whether or not there will be a wedding. We were all way nervous (because we've been praying for them to get married for several months now.) Well, the meeting happened aaaand.... THEY'RE GETTING MARRIED! The date is still up in the air, but Toshiki called us and asked about when the soonest he can get baptized is. President Nakagawa, Toshiki's family, and the missionaries are all going to be heavily involved with, for lack of a better term, the "legal wedding" at Yui and Sister Okuzawa's request, and Toshiki and Yui are hoping to get baptized together right after that. (If I understand correctly, they want to have a more traditional style wedding ceremony after the baby is born in June so that Yui can wear the kimono she wants.)

Toshiki asked me if I would baptize him, and so Elder T. Stout is hopefully going to baptize Yui. Toshiki has been shooting for an April 7th baptism, and is hoping to have the legal wedding planned for before then, but it may be the following week or a little after that. Everyone's saying April, though. Whatever the case, they plan to get married as fast as possible, and there is great rejoicing in Sanjo right now!!! Prayers are being answered!! The transfer calls are on April 10th, so T. Stout Choro and I are... honestly, just really hoping we'll be companions for another transfer... ;)

We have secured 2 wonderful service opportunities!! One at the library where they ask us to help in every activity there, and another at a hospital where we welcome in the patients! So far we've made 10 or so friends who love the missionaries now! Not to mention three really solid potential mission school students whom we will try to get to class this week, two of which lived in America for some time and love Mormons!

Our hope is to be able to start a mission school in the library's study hall because there are some nearby high schools. It's in the works right now.

Right now, our focus in the work is all mission school. I know it sounds kind of strange, but in Japan, the majority of baptisms can be traced back to somebody coming to our English class (eikaiwa). And right now, our mission is seeing many baptisms from the mission school for high school and college students! I am a firm believer that it's going to strengthen the image of Christians in Japan (which is not good at all), and bring many young people into the church in Japan. Mission school is, I believe, what is needed to save the church in Japan. We have so many strong members from years ago, but they're all getting very old. The church has struggled in recent years, and housing and streeting just don't bring enough investigators these days. That's why we're focusing so much here. In a blessing dad gave me, he said I still have a great work to do in Japan, and I've found it!

This is out of my journal:

"At 12:00, 2 hours before we planned to go and visit Mark (due to the library being closed randomly), we decided perhaps it was now or never as we had nothing to do but go home and study. We arrived at his house pretty soaking wet with prayers in our heart that he would be there. As we turned into the parking lot we saw his bike there with the keys in--!! We hopped off of our bikes excitedly and hurried to the stairs, noticing boot prints Mark's size, still wet running to the stairs. "Here's here." "Let's say a prayer."

We knocked on his door and the sound echoed throughout the building. We waited fearfully. And then he answered. Mark, wide-eyed, hair everywhere, in his unzipped work uniform stood with his mouth open, "Uh... hey!"

It was awkward, but way good. We laughed and said hi, and he said, "I was just here for lunch, but I need to be back by 12:45... Did you two bike here? Are you kidding me guys, that's crazy!" He got a big grin on his face, and I knew he felt loved. That's all I needed.

"Maybe we'll see you around?"

"Yeah, maybe..."

"Can you come tonight?"

"Maybe... I don't know, probably not."

"We'll see you around!"

It left on a positive note. We were happy! I yelled back to Elder Stout, realizing aloud, "I know why nothing worked out in Kamo today!" "Oh yeah? Is it a holiday? Is that why the library was closed?" "No. If we had studied at the library or eaten lunch at 12:00, we would've missed Mark!"

A few days later, Elder Manapori and I went to his house on splits and this wonderful elder's culture was so in sync with Mark's family's Philippine culture. It was amazing that the splits happened that day. He eased all the tension. Mark was a little awkward, but Elder Manapori convinced him to come to the church and by the end of the night all awkwardness was gone. Mark came to the church the next day and apologized for vanishing. He said, "I'm sorry man, I'm just Roman Catholic. And I respect your religion, but I can't get baptized."

We were a little disappointed to hear his response, but we were overwhelmingly happy to have him back. He promised to come to church every week and continue to meet with us........ He's already a member; he just doesn't realize it I think. ;) I'm still convinced he'll be baptized like, in the next year as he continues to build his faith and let the spirit into his heart.

April is FINALLY here!! The Japanese school year is opening up. Which means we can finally go to the college library and cafeteria and start up that mission school in the open classrooms we've been dying to do!! We've got three solid contacts there among the staff, (business and English teachers), and feel like it will be way easy to make friends since we already have a couple friends among the students! :) But that's not even the best part of this week. Not even close.

Our relationship with the Nakagawa's is really strong. Both parents and all the kids! (By the way, they invited us over to dinner tonight :D They're my Japanese family, no kiddin'.) We've been doing mission school whenever something doesn't get in the way, and they all love it! But it's a little hard to hold it at their house for Sister Nakagawa, I think. However, this week our branch president took work off one morning and we met together to go visit some places. He had prayed and thought about it a lot, and felt impressed to go to two places. What we secured were rooms for mission school. Community centers. Way easy to invite kids to. Way safe environment. Big 20 student classroom with white boards and free mugicha included! But the best part is, both locations are surrounded by 3 high schools and the only college in our area. As in, they are all within walking distance. Not only that, but both locations are also a 10 minute walk from the Nakagawa's house, and a 10 minute bike ride from Mark's. AND GET THIS! The Nakagawa's want to come each week and are thinking of friends to bring, and Mark promised us again on Friday that after school starts this next week, he will invite ALL of his friends and classmates to come, and now there's a place right next to their schools for them to go. Our situation could not be better. It could not. There are so many prayers of gratitude every single day!!!!! We owe so much thanks to President Nakagawa and to the Lord!

But we started three other classes this week as a branch! We made some friends at an indo-curry shop and all three of them are now coming during their lunch break each week to learn Japanese. The Sisters are teaching it because Sister Kouyama is fluent, but we're trying to sit in when we can because they all have potential as investigators. Elder Stout and I also finally, by a miracle, contacted Sister Kumagai's niece (age 28) who she referred to missionaries a few years ago but nobody's been able to meet with. We met, and she's now doing EigoNouTore Course (English Brain Training. It's the name of one of our classes. It sounds lame in English, but in Japanese it's an iconic title.) with us while the sisters do Kodomo Eikaiwa with her kids. (We have her father as a male present.) Mission school is igniting in Sanjo. I think we're about to see it erupt.

Everything is falling into place, and we're basically about to become full-fledged English teachers. A lot of people are afraid to talk to you after they say the word "church" on your name tag, but we're about to destroy that image! Of course, most importantly, statistically speaking, 8% of our students will be baptized, and many of them will serve missions, be married in the church. That is a much higher number than any other form of finding, so we're going to keep doing our best! It's exhausting work having to learn how to work with representatives from hospitals and libraries (not to mention in another language,) but it's been a truly special experience so far for sure. :) Please pray for us to find new investigators as we share our short messages after each lesson :)

Thank you so much for your email, Mama! I love you so much!! It's always the best to hear from you :) Sorry this email might've been a bit boring, just a lot about the work, but these are huge miracles for us :)

TTYL!

Love,

    Elder Stout :D

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スタウト長老 ^o^