No worries!

May 29, 2016

Sorry I didn't send out an email last week. I was putting pictures onto a memory chip and it basically took all of my email time for the week. I'm fine though, so don't worry about it.

I feel like I need to make my emails more funny (like my personality) but today will probably be more of a serious one because of the specific thing I want to right about.

This week was one of the best spiritual weeks I've had on my mission.

We had the privilege of having Elder Quentin L. Cook, Elder Stevenson,and Elder Gong (of the 70) come and talk to us. Yep, you read that right! On Thursday all of the missionaries in this mission (one of the smaller missions in the world, ranging from around 100-130 missionaries) went to a church in Sapporo and got to hear from these 3 wonderful speakers, as well as their lovely wives. We also had the privilege of walking in a line and shaking the hands of those 6 spiritual beasts! The power of shaking the hand of not just one, but 2 apostles was amazing. Those men are totally called of God.

They talked a lot about preach my gospel and how we can use it for after the mission too, and how we need to be taking it more seriously. I've begun to read and study that thing like never before. Really desiring to become a better missionary for the 2nd half of my mission. I want to grow a lot more than I have, and to do that I need to be showing a lot more faith and a lot more effort.

Elder Cook's final testimony was by far the most powerful spiritual experience I have ever experienced in my life. I want to share a little bit about what he said right before he closed.

He was talking a lot about the savior and why he is important and then he says something along the lines of the following: "I want to bear my special witness to all of you here today. Without breaking any kind of rule or anything like that, i want all of you to know that I KNOW THE SAVIOR'S VOICE, I KNOW THE SAVIOR'S FACE, I KNOW THE SAVIOR LIVES" the room was literally dead silent as he said those few sentences. It was also amazing to see how much his countenance changed just from the normal speaking to his final testimony. Truly powerful!

I talked with some missionaries about everything after and we talked about how there is literally no greater witness than what he just told us. There is no other way to interpret what he said other than the fact that he has seen our savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. Of course he can't just tell us that because then there would be no way for us to show as much faith as we need to and the whole purpose of having faith would just diminish. That was literally the #1 best spiritual experience of my life.

I am forever grateful for how much I felt the spirit that day. I hope from here on in my life, whenever I have something hard or any doubts about the church, I can think back to those words and remember his witness. This is god's true church and was restored through Joseph smith by the help of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am so grateful to be on a mission right now. This is the best experience of my life. I am learning to love the good times and really embrace the bad times. I have learned so much and am really trying to consecrate myself from the rest of the world and let a God shape me into the person he wants me to be.

I hope you all have a good week. I'm praying for you all! Love you

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[They had cheese nan, pumpkin nan, mixed fruit, regular nan, garlic nan, and chocolate nan, I love this place. We also gave the owner a flyer with our number and he wants to call us and talk about Jesus Christ. Hopefully his Japanese and/ or English is good enough to talk about church stuff.]

[Some sick origami I've been making lately]

 [These were so freaking hard. The one on the right took almost all of language study haha]

 [They have bakeries like this all over the place. Get your act together America!] 

Just show faith!

May 15, 2016

First off...... We got our transfer calls, and as expected we are

staying together. In this mission if you are training or being

trained, the norm is to stay together for 2. Not much of a surprise to

me haha

Hello everyone. To be honest, this week was a harder one for me.

Here is a little background to give you a picture.

We have tons of investigators, and actually numbers wise this week was

great. We found 7 new investigators! We taught over 10 lessons! Etc...

However, the actual situations behind the numbers are the most

important. Although we did find and teach a lot, most of the people we

taught are extremely weak right now and might not be the most prepared

during this time.

This week we tried visiting everyone. Members, investigators, less

actives, people from the area-book, old investigators, numbers in the

phone, etc...

It just seemed like no one was home and if they were home, they

couldn't meet because of how busy they were.

We have investigators we are really focusing on, but no one is really

progressing. This week I really saw why this area needs to pick up. It

made me think a lot about how to help this area, what's

effective/non-effective/why no one is progressing/........

All of the investigators we are focusing on have some sort of problem

and don't think they can fix it, which is why they have stunted their

progression. We talked a lot about how we can help this and if there

is one thing I have noticed this far on my mission it is this.

Everyone needs faith! It's short and simple, but provides a very

detailed meaning if one thinks it out thoroughly. All of our

investigators needs to rely on Christ and his atonement. It's

obviously easier said than done, but it's really hard to promise these

people blessings and watch them beat themselves up because of their

lack of confidence.

For now we are just trying to meet our investigators again. We are

trying to set up appointments and other methods of meeting. Hopefully

next week picks up again

I have faith in our Savior, and know that this last week was all part

of his plan. It's all on the Lord's timing, so we can't get

discouraged. We literally just need to give ourselves to the Lord and

do what he wants.

I'm learning so much out here and am learning to appreciate the hard

weeks as well as enjoy the easier ones. I hope everyone has an awesome

week and shout out to my little sister for turning 15 this last

Saturday. Love you!

Sorry this wasn't one of my more funny emails or detailed cool food,

miracle, etc... Emails, buttttttttt

Okay. Hope you all the best. Please email me questions or anything really

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[My comp. did get a haircut from one of our investigators. This isn't an ordinary haircut. In Japan, you get a haircut, your whole face shaved, eyebrows cleaned up, back massage, face massage, and head massage. I got to the point where I can cut my own hair now, but I want to go to him just for the experience for sure!]

 [On Saturday had a young men's activity. We basically have a ton of meat (A TON) and have rice, cook your own meat, and then eat it. We call it yakiniku.]

[A sister drew this for me. I love this little guy]

Keeping it short

May 8, 2016

So I get to call my family today on skype and don't really feeling

like putting in effort to email this week, so I'm sorry.

This week we did 2 splits in 3 days and boy was the traveling a lot.

We had to take a bus to the train station and then ride the train for

a while, and then walk to the apartment.

Train time = literally the only time it's okay to nap on the mission

We didn't get a whole ton of time in our area because of all the

traveling, so we didn't get to teach a lot of our investigators.

Something cool though: before going to the old folk's home on

Wednesday we found someone new. We showed up a little too early to the

old folks home (about 15 minutes) and it would've been way easy to

just go in and talk to old folk's home people for an extra 15 minutes,

but we are also here to do missionary work. We decided to house in the

tiny amount of time we had and we prayed about where to go and to

receive help. The very first house we knocked was someone who has

learned about Christ and Buddha and all sorts of religions. She also

said we can come back and I think she might have potential. Just a

nice tender mercy of the Lord.

It's been raining a lot here. That's your weather update.

It was my birthday on Saturday, and the sisters in my ward made an

awesome photo album. It seriously made my night because up to that

point on my birthday we didn't have a whole lot going for us. We had

taught 0 lessons and had a 3 hour planning session, and the weather

was bad, it was just hard mentally and physically. The sisters and

other people in my zone made that day really special.

Also, had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday. Up until now, all

the areas I have worked in are in the same stake (asahikawa). So, I

got to see a lot of old members from 8 months ago and actually talk to

them in correct Japanese they can understand. So awesome to see how

everyone is doing... Also awesome to hear my Japanese has improved

from people that actually noticed it and not just everyone in your

zone saying "you're so good" even if you suck. Haha

Ok that's it sorry, but I'll add a couple pictures. Ok bye bye love you all

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

Pretty normal week

May 1, 2016

Honestly I don't know what to write about this week. Obviously, it

wasn't boring because missionary work is never boring and you're

always busy, but I can't seem to recall anything I really want to

write about.

On Saturday we spent basically the whole day with a family and a less

active. We went to a place called biei and ate at a famous restaurant,

etc... It was honestly just like a P day, but no one knew it would

take all day. The family just told us it was their family home evening

and it wouldn't be super long. The sisters weren't too happy that we

spent all day having fun, but we spent a good time with the less

active. His name is Brother Uchida, and I have seriously grown so

close to him since I came to suehiro. It's amazing to look back and

see how much he has progressed to coming back to church and watching

his testimony grow again is so awesome. I love him so much.

We also spent P day with some members going to an ice museum. We got

to see a bunch of cool frozen ice, and then went to this huge theater

like room and played this awesome piano on this massive stage.

Something cool I did this week was make inarizushi for the first time.

Look it up! It is seriously my newly discovered favorite food. I've

had it before and it's always been pretty good, but lately I've been

pounding it like its no one's business. I asked a member to teach me

how to make it, instead she bought all the ingredients (way expensive)

and dropped it off at our apartment. Shout out to minamide 姉妹. I put

way to much vinegar in and it basically ruined the inarizushi, but it

was a learning experience and I'm reading to take another go.

Missionary work was pretty slow. It seemed like not a lot of the

people we wanted to visit were home, so we taught some people who

aren't really progressing, and won't follow commitments. However, the

spirit was their and we still have faith, so it was a pretty

successful week.

Our baptismal date, tawaraya San didn't come to church because of work

and we figured out he has a problem with the law of chastity, which

could take a while to fix. He doesn't really have hope, and we are

trying to encourage him, but he is just really down on himself. Please

pray for him. He needs confidence and also needs to quit his job haha.

I'll send some cool pictures since this week's email was really typical.

Crazy In less than 2 months I will hit my year mark. I feel like I

just started this thing?

Love you all, have a good one

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[It's not snowing where we are working, but we traveled pretty far out for that "FHE" with the family. So freaking cold.]

 [My attempt at inarizushi.]

 [My companion's attempt haha.]

[Forgot to mention that my bike tire got punctured twice this week.

That made my life so hard holy cow!

Sorry mom it cost 50$ for a new tire]

 [Ice museum's stage]

 [Pretty waterfall in biei]

[Me before dinner]

Miracles lead to strengthened testimonies

April 24, 2016

This week I just want to talk about one miracle in particular and keep this email a bit shorter than other weeks.

So, we have an investigator named tawaraya San, who is basically a 40 year old video game need haha. He plays video games all day, and has Monday and Tuesdays off work. His job? Oh yeah did I mention he's a nerd. He has a Game Center job (still not quite sure what he does, but yeah). If you still can't picture it, try and think about my oldest sister Nicole. Haha jk love you. Basically, when he has work off, he plays computer and phone games all day, non-stop. But, he showed me his recently changed phone wallpaper. It is a picture of Christ looking down from heaven with a hand extended to earth portraying the "follow me" theme we all know and love! So sick!

So he has this desire to come to church and get baptized, but because of his work being the busiest on Sunday, he is unable to attend. We have been praying really hard as a companionship, as well as individually for something to happen. This last Tuesday we met him at the church for the first time and had a team up lesson with one of my favorite members. We basically showed him around the church (a tour) because he has never been and can't really come due to work. We then taught one of the best lessons of my mission. We taught him about how if he just shows faith and does what we are telling him he needs to do, the Lord will provide a way. We finished and he left. We knew he couldn't come to church this last Sunday, but that doesn't mean we were going to give up.

I have literally been praying so hard for this situation, because it is the second time I have experience it since coming to Japan in September, and I don't know what to do other than: suggest he quits, keep teaching, pray, ask him to talk to his boss, etc... I've been praying for guidance, but haven't felt a strong path I should take.

I've tried many things, but nothing seemed to be working. However, this last Saturday we got a call from him. For some reason (he still doesn't know and neither do we) his work gave everyone Sunday off this last week. That means he had time to come to church! He came and literally had a blast. He fit in so well and everyone was so friendly to him. It was a real testimony builder for me, especially after teaching him that the Lord will provide a way. Plus, during our lesson we made a baptismal date for June 6th, and I made a very bold promise that if he commits to the date, the Lord will provide a way. I didn't know the Lord would provide the way as fast as within a week haha Obviously this one week of having Sunday off was just for this last Sunday, but it strengthened my testimony and I know it strengthened his. Hopefully that is just the last push he needed to fully commit and be ready for baptism. He is progressing so well and I love him so much!

Sorry, little longer than I wanted, but I barely even said half the stuff I wanted. Anyway, this church is true and I promise the Lord is watching over each and everyone. 1 Nephi 3:7! Read it, look it up, it's true. No doubt in my mind!

1 Nephi 3:7 "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and go the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save the shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

Ok have a good week everyone, I'm praying for all of you!

敬具 (sincerely yours)

ー  シャイト長老 (Elder Scheidt)

[Tawaraya San is in the red, and my favorite member (ishikawa 兄弟 at the bottom)]

 [Check this sushi out]

[Oh boy.]