Sunday, September 18, 2011

9/11/2011

ういいいいいす!
愛する同胞よ、
Hey family! Happy/merry one decade anniversary of 9/11! I don`t know if its a subject to be happy or merry about but whatever, I`m in Japan. My companion and I were awestruck when we realized that its already been a decade since 9/11. AH! We just got Pino (way delicious ice cream) from a member! YESSSSSS! Anyways. Yes, so a whole decade has passed by. I feel that coming on a mission has made me age 30x faster than an average human being will. Its a very awkward feeling...I mean I was reading my journal entries from a year ago. A WHOLE YEAR AGO! It feels like just like yesterday I was getting dropped off at the MTC and embarking on this journey. Anyways, being disgustingly old makes me want to work even harder with the time I have left. 頑張るぞ!!!
Well, I`m glad all of you guys are doing awesome. I`m also surprised how quickly my mail reached you guys! Well, I guess I did send them out to you guys over a week ago so it would make sense that they got to you. I don`t know, all the days just kind of blend together nowadays. Can you guys believe that this transfer is almost over already? I swear I just barely started my second transfer with my son...and now its two weeks away from the transfer ending. I wonder whats going to happen to me this next transfer? There is potential for me to either transfer out or stay another one here. I`ve now come to the point in my mission where either way, I`ll just be happy that I still have the chance to serve. I mean, honestly when it all comes down, it doesn`t matter where you are because our purpose doesn`t change. There are still the Lord`s elect scattered in every area and our purpose is to find them and bring them back to fold. I also need to do my part of keeping those who have already come into the fold not to wander off! Ah, missionary life is so fun.
Speaking of fun, we were able to go over to Okayama earlier this week and receive awesome training from President Zinke and the beloved Assistants. Goodness, Burns 長老 is one monster of an AP! I is so proud of him. Anyways, it was a great experience because I had a chance to bear my testimony in front of a good amount of new missionaries whom I`ve never met. Its odd to think that I`m one of the "veterans" of the mission now...but I`m glad I got to feel the Spirit strongly while talking to these younger missionaries. Need to make the younger generation even better missionaries than we are! And after my testimony I spent rest of the training translating for one Japanese missionary...for almost six hours. So, essential I got very little out of the actual training because I was exhausted from translating but Elder Lythgoe seemed to have gotten a lot out of it so I`m glad.
We also had a great experience earlier this week as well. We actually didn`t have that much dendo time this week because we were so busy running around to appointments and lessons. Concerned that we wouldn`t be able to find anyone this week, we had an opportunity to get down and give a sincere prayer on Thursday after one of our planing sessions. I`m telling you, the power of prayer is...just outstanding. I just had a good feeling that everything will be okay in the end after I ended the prayer. So after the prayer we headed out to our dinner appointment at an all you can eat with our beloved single adult, Shinno kyoudai (yes ladies, he is single). The appointment actually went a bit longer then we had planned so we only had about 45 min left in our day to travel home. Before we began to head home we were able to give a quick prayer, pleading with the Lord that He`d guide us to someone on the way home. And lo and behold, the first person we tried contacting stopped and listened to us! I had such a great feeling testifying about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to him and it was amazing because he`d read the Bible before so he was able to accept what we were saying. We committed him to come to church...and he did! I love this guy, he really has been prepared by the Lord and now we have him working towards baptism. It may seem like a small experience, but I`m telling you, the Lord is really in this work. He works through small, almost seemingly insignificant means to bring to pass great things. YEAH MISSION!
haha anyways, it was a way awesome week. I`m lovin` it over here! I hope all of you guys have an awesome week! Can`t wait to hear back from you guys!!!
Mucho love,
Elder Saito

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