Mission of the Rising Sun: Call Me Elder D.J.

Well first off, this past week was General Conference! At least for us folks living in Japan. Most sessions were AMAZING but to be honest I was kind of nervous all of Sunday morning session. All the elders in the Nagano Zone came to watch conference in English so they all came Saturday morning, watched Saturday conference, stayed the night at our place, watched Sunday Conference, and then they left Matsumoto. One elder`s first area was Matsumoto and we went on a one hour companionship exchange in order for him to introduce me to a couple past investigators and a cool less-active. It started at 9 and we were going to go back to the church in an hour at 10 to be in time for the morning session. I had invited my around 27 year-old friend Calvin that comes to the Japanese class we attend every week and since he is a Canadian from Vancouver, he is awesome and totally came! Me and Elder Bills (the other elder) came walking in as President Monson was talking and there I saw Calvin. I hope that the other elders had explained a little bit to him about the conference as when I invited him I told him it was an English broadcast from our church leaders. I pulled up a chair next to him and apologized that I was late as the sweat trailed down my face. It was a very good session but I was getting worried as I tried to find the right balance of explaining things to him and letting him listen. Not interfering with the Spirit was my main goal. I explained stuff mainly during the lovely musical numbers by MoTab (sorry Grandma Hall, I know music is not a break time) and let him listen for the rest. I was kind of sweating it as I wondered if he was enjoying this or if he was just thinking `I can`t believed I got roped into this crazy boring Mormon religious thing`. As I was thus worrying, none other than Elder Holland came to the podium. From the start I could tell it was going to be good. The way he told the story of the two brothers rock climbing would have gotten even one who doesn`t care about religion at all on the edge of his seat. And then he explained the Fall so clearly and the Atonement that I was like afterwards, `Wow, I am pretty sure Calvin enjoyed that one!`. So afterwards we asked him what he liked about it and he said he really enjoyed the one about the rock climbers. Calvin also said it had been awhile since he went to church as he went as only as a little kid to a random Christian church but he thanked us. I wasn`t able to turn him into an investigator but I will have plenty of opportunities to see him again.

So while Conference was awesome and I want to talk about it all, I would like to instead give all of my thoughts over a period of a few e-mails by highlighting talks so that you readers can be reminded of Conference at least once a week. The one I`d like to talk about today is Elder Andersen`s `The Music of the Gospel` talk. I heard in that talk the perfect analogy for missionary work. While sitting at a stoplight, you see the driver next to you rocking out to his favorite tunes but you can`t hear it and think he is weird. We are the one dancing and singing along to the wonderful music of the gospel. As missionaries, we often try to teach others the steps of the dance. `First you pray, then you read the scriptures.` `God is our Heavenly Father, he created this Earth for us and we need to obey his commandments.` These are great and you need the proper dance steps or else, well, you can`t join in the joy of the gospel. But a lot of the time we forget that the people we talk to or teach, don`t know the why. Why do we do the dance steps? Why do bother doing the right ones while we can just go freestyle? What good does it do?

Most Japanese people have an incorrect or maybe even no concept or image of our church or any Christian religions. They see us dancing the waltz and wonder, `Why are they doing that? That looks too hard. And where is the music?` The music is the reason why we dance and the blessings of living the gospel is why we do the spiritual dance steps. As missionaries and members, we must bring others to an understanding that there is in fact music, that there is in fact real-life blessings in living the gospel. Because just as if we can`t hear the music and won`t see any reason to dance, so it is with the gospel. If our investigators, friends, or less-actives don`t see the blessings of living the gospel, then there is no need to dance.

Even though it was before conference, I tried to help our investigator Tommy hear the music as he already knew most of the steps that other missionaries taught to him. We do the lessons in English because he is Chinese and we used the special Temple Liahona to invite him to baptism. We bore testimony as a companionship of the not only the importance of temples and living the gospel to be worthy to enter it, but as on how our parents` temple marriage has blessed our life. Our invitation to pray about a May baptism date was put in a way in which by doing so and accepting, he could one day see the blessings of living the gospel in his life and his family`s life. He keeps saying one day, one day I will get baptized but I hope to help him hear the music today so that he can join the dance before the music comes to an expected close.

I hope that you all have a great week getting back to school or finishing it or doing whatever you are doing. I love you all!

Pictures of Eikaiwa and P-day selfie!