Elder Mason Ford Bloomfield Tokyo, Japan Mission: Week 20 - Zone Conference

Man the weeks are just flying by! Next week I will no longer be a trainee! That's insane!

Sounds like things are going good at home. We had to drop Aoyama as he just wants to be friends and isn't really progressing anymore. We had Zone Conference this week and it was great! We had President and Sister Nagano and the AP's come. They all gave some training's and we learned a lot!

Here is my email to President Nagano. It talks a little bit about Zone Conference and a miracle we saw last night.
This week was great. We had a lot of time to Dendou last week as we don't have any progressing investigators at the moment. We also had Zone Conference. At Zone Conference I really enjoyed the five points Elder Anderson shared. They all seemed to support the idea that you can find and baptize as long as you have faith and believe that you can. If we don't have faith or get discouraged we won't even be able to see miracles or have a strong desire to work. If we plan, work, and have faith to see those miracles we will see them. It was especially
faith boosting as this past week or past two weeks have been full of trying to find new investigators and people who are prepared. I know that as we continue to work and show faith the Lord will guide us to the people who are ready to receive the gospel or he will guide them to us. Last night we saw a wonderful example of this. We went to go visit a less active sister who ended up telling us that she was busy but we made an appointment for tonight. Miracle 1. Miracle 2- We decided to go housing nearby since we didn't have a lot of time to travel to the place we had planed originally. The first and only house we knocked on ended up being a 26 year old girl who had a ton of
questions. We had gone past this house multiple times and never once even noticed it. But last night we noticed it and knocked and she answered. She has a half Christian background and was really interested in what we were teaching. She asked so many questions from "How do you know you have repented?" to "What happens after death?" To "Why did you leave college to come on a mission?" It was an amazing experience and the spirit was so strong and I know that she felt it as well. We ended up giving here a Book of Mormon and 2 pamphlets. She
said she learned a lot and for right now she will read the Book of Mormon but that later she would contact us. She also gave us her Facebook. I know that we will be seeing her again soon as she has found the truth and will want to get more. I am so thankful for the chance I have to be a missionary and to spread the work of God. People may not always be willing or ready to hear it but I will continue to do my best to share it.

So right now in Joetsu we are trying to get the work rolling again. We met a guy earlier this week and he was like yeah I have some time if you guys want to teach me right now. So we taught him the restoration and he really enjoyed it. The spirit was way strong and he agreed to pray at the end! Afterward we invited him to meet with us again and read the Book of Mormon. He said he would read but doesn't know if he wants to meet again or not. He said he would call us. He was a super nice guy and really had a desire to learn about Christ. He also has some interest in the Book of Mormon and will probably read it. We invited him to church and he said he would probably come but he didn't show up. I know that we or other missionaries will see him again. We also saw another miracle. We have tried to contact this less active man like twice a day since I came to Japan and there is always no answer or anything. But this week we visited and talked and we told him the church might be moving closer to his apartment soon and he seemed pretty excited about that. He also said he might start coming to eikaiwa.

This week was a week of hard work and miracles. I know that with anything in life, if we work hard and prove to the Lord we care he will provide miracles to help us accomplish those things.

This week will be my companions last week as a missionary. Very sad but I know that we will see lots of miracles and that we will work harder than ever this week. I am so thankful for him and for his great example.

Also next week I will be getting a new companion. So I'm pretty excited for that. At Zone Conference President Nagano said we are getting a lot of new missionaries so transfer two and three missionaries don't think that because you are young you won't be training. So maybe I will be a trainer. Who knows. He also said that by the end of next transfer 1/3 of the Tokyo missionaries will be under 4 transfers!!! That is insane!

While we were traveling to Zone Conference we stopped to rest at a park by the sea and it was so pretty. Here are some pictures. The guy in the picture with us is Brother Takigawa. He's pretty crazy but a great guy and really loving.