Hey!
It's great to hear from you, as always. :) Elder Frazier and I are doing
great.
Last week we
met just about daily with Fujii san and answered all his questions, cleared up
his concerns, and taught him about many of the commandments. There was a
member at almost every single lesson. Things had just been getting better and
better and he seemed very excited for his baptism on the 25th of
September. Things were going perfectly! On Sunday morning we
announced to the Ward Council that he desired to be baptized that Sunday and
everyone was excited and talked about setting up the service. Same thing
in DCS (our Missionary Coordination Meeting, or Dendo Chousei Shukai.) As
sacrament meeting was about to begin Elder Frazier sat on the stage getting
ready for his talk, and I stood out in the congregation waiting for our tall
friend to enter the meeting. That's when we got a text. I handed
the phone to a Japanese member because some of the kanji was beyond me, and he
just handed it back, "He won't be getting baptized next week." As
bishop was standing up to start the meeting, I ran up to the front and
whispered what had just happened, then sat down in the pews.
Elder
Frazier had overheard what I said, and he, Bishop, and I just sat there
frowning during the whole meeting.
Apparently
Fujii san found a job, and so he's moving far away and won't be able to meet
anymore. "If we ever have a chance in the future, let's talk then." 「機会があれば、よろしくお願いします。」Frankly, we're all kind of
devastated. His phone didn't work yesterday, but he called us back this
morning after a few tries, and said we can meet tonight! I guess you'll
know what happened next week, but things are looking grim. Please pray
that he'll be able to meet with the missionaries near where he's going!
We love this
man and all we've ever wanted is to help him be happy. Whatever he
chooses, we'll respect. But until he chooses something, we're not gonna
give up on him! There are so many funny stories I'll be able to tell you
about him. We've really become good friends in these short few months.
On a
brighter note, one of the members present while we taught Fujii san was an
elderly man named Yamanita Kyoudai (kyoudai is just "brother" in
japanese if I haven't explained that before :) He reminds me of Grandpa
Austin! After the lesson he said, "Your Japanese is 95%
perfect. But let's have a lesson tomorrow and make it 100%." So we
did our language study with him and he's helping us so much!! It's been
AWESOME! On the topic of Japanese, this week we're going a full week with
no english, so wish me luck ;) I'm so excited to learn a ton!
So, Fujii
moving has been a low point in the week, but here's a really high point.
A cool tender mercy!
We got a
call from Tokyo 1st (Elder Frazier's old area, the other set of 4 elders
besides the Shibuya elders in the 8-man apartment,) and Elder Lyn asked,
"Hey, do you want a referral? His name is Oliver, and he said he
wants to meet you!"
Oliver was a
random name in there phone that they had no information for, so we called him
up. When the phone began to call him, we saw his name flash up on the
screen. His number was already in our phone! A very kind man
answered. Without hesitation he asked to meet at one of the eki (train
stations) closest to our apartment. We said "of course!"
When we met
him there, we began talking and could not believe how prepared this man
sounded. He loved the church, loved the Book of Mormon, loved the church
booklets and had read one of them all the way through. Elder Frazier
boldly asked him, "So, you've heard about baptism, right?"
"Yes, I
was baptized a while ago in Tokyo."
HUH!?!?!
We found a
less active member who was just looking for an english ward and an excuse to
come to church! We told him about our building, and he said he'd been,
but what he didn't know was that we had an English speaking unit. He was
so excited to come and started joking around saying, "Here, give me a call
on Tuesday and try to convince me to come to church more so I don't
forget!" We all laughed, and we're gonna do it! We're now in
frequent contact with him.
We also have
been meeting Matsuda san more and more. Once with Morishita kyoudai, and
the two of them talked for EVER. But it helped us get to know him well :)
The best was that he came with us to a dinner at a members house yesterday and
we all made tons of Gyouza together! I'll attach pics. It was one
of the best activities ever for an investigator: we had a competition trying to
eat the most. He had a good time! Matsuda san may be a slower
progresser because of person struggles with certain commandments, but his
desire to learn about the gospel and respect for Jesus Christ astounds
me. He and his wife are two extremely good people.
Yesterday we
also had our international group! I forgot to tell you about something.
I have a new calling! Not only am
I the ward chorister, but I'm also the ward's choir director!! I lead the
little congregation of 20 people every week and we've been learning "I am
a Child of God" in Japanese and English to perform at our stake conference
in a few weeks! It's been so fun and everyone gets a kick out of doing
the breathing exercises I learned from marching band. It's been so much
fun to conduct again, I'd forgotten how thrilling it is to lead music :D
I love that feeling more than most in the world!
I also
taught a lesson in the group. The missionaries kind of run the show,
we're trying to build the group up. It's been great though, I showed lots
of pictures of Hudson and the rest of the family because we were learning about
families :)
So, another
tender mercy: before the meeting I was greeting our little congregation and had
the opportunity to shake a woman's hand. As soon as I shook her hand I
knew that she knew someone close to me. "Stout. Do you know
President Stout from Kobe Mission?" she asked quietly.
"Yes,
he's my grandpa."
She got
emotional and assured me that he is an amazing man and that she loves him and
grandma so much. She asked about aunt Wendy and I told her that Wendy's
doing well, although a little sick. She was excited when she learned that
I was dad's son, and was curious about how Davy is doing as well. She
then asked me how Grandma is doing. I shared the hard news that he had
passed away some time ago, and she took my hand with both of hers and began to
cry. She asked about Grandma Stout and the news was just as devastating
to her. Even though it was sad, her tears meant a lot to me. They
made me feel loved, and they reminded me of the impact that grandpa made here,
and of the impact that one person can have on the life of another. She
then told me that she would love to give the whole Stout family hugs, and then
said she wanted to meet again soon. While I was conducting the opening
hymn "Be Still, My Soul" she had her face buried in the hymnal, crying.
I believe
the sister's name was Ayako. Or maybe Amiko... I'm so bad with Japanese
names, I feel awful, but I'll memorize it when I meet her again. I love
her and all of the wonderful people of Japan.
Man,
I love Japan with all my heart might mind and strength. I want to help
these people so bad. The church here is struggling bad. Almost all
of the members are first generation and so maintaining wards is extremely
difficult, but the hardest thing for the Japanese people is raising their
children in the church. It is so against everything that japan says about
religion and beliefs, so outside influences are awful as it is, but then the
members learned the gospel when they were older, so they struggle to make it
fun. So, so many of the youth think that "the gospel" is just a
long list of "don't do this or you'll be damned." And if that's your
mindset, it's no wonder it's not fun for them!
The
gospel is about joy, and sorrow. Anyway, I've thought a lot about that as
we've found time to hang out with our youth and play basketball/help them with
english (missionary work is pretty different where I am than I thought it'd be
;)
We've been
talking a lot about how we can be more effective with our dendo. We're
offering mission school now, and helping kids with all sorts of homework and
test prep. President Nagano is sure that it will lead to a lot of
good. I just want to help people. I feel like I haven't done half
of what a missionary should be doing, I just want to help more people.
I've reached that point where I love my mission and want to give all I've got
to being the best I can be.
 |
| Elder Frazier and I cheezin' for the camera! We sent that picture out in our first email for all of the newbies. |
So, our
zone's new Zone Vision is "Be Not Afraid, Only Believe."
With 5 new
trainees and 3 new areas, it's a great start to helping people fearlessly talk
to everyone they see! :D I'm so excited for this transfer!!
 |
| The new Zone Vision. The zone is the celestial kingdom and each of the 5 rays represents one of our focuses for this transfer. |
This is the other Elder's investigator Egami San! He's deaf and does Japanese sign language which a member interprets and missionaries respond to. It's so cool!
I love you
so much Mama and Dada! :D Thanks for the talk that you sent, by the way dad, I
love it so much, it meant a lot. I love hearing from you each week and
look forward to writing again. Thanks for being the best parents in the
whole wide world :)
Love,
Elder Stout :D
スタウト長老 ^o^🇺🇸 • 🇯🇵
