2017.1.29 Quero tudo!!!

皆さんこんにちわ!!!

Man, we are just a few days from February. It's interesting because here are so many ways to measure time. Transfers, birthdays, general conference, presidential elections, missions, summers, midnights, cups of hot chocolate. The year is almost 1/12 done. I know that can seem like a long ways away, but that 1/12 went by like that, and there are only 12. We are only ten months away from Christmas!!! 😉  Anyways, I guess I should probably give you the full scoop of ice cream with that pie you've been wanting. Would you like fries with that?

As I write this it is raining and cold. It's funny because this week has been quite a mix of weather. It started with snow on Monday. Then cloudy. Then sunny and warmish. And now it's cold again and yesterday gave us some rain. It's fine though. To be honest, Matsue cold rain is worse than this so I'm not complaining. February is supposed to have the coldest weather of the year so we are about to hit the top of the hill. From there we will make the climb back up the thermometer.

From our weekly planning last week we had the goal to talk to as many people as we could while finding in a park, on the street, in a station, anywhere. We doubled our weekly goal of lessons and put our minds to work on how to accomplish this. There was also much prayer behind this effort. We developed an approach that was focused on hope. We would stop the next person we would see and tell them we want to ask them a question. That question is: what gives you hope/what do you get hope from? I have been blown away at how fast and easily this opens people up! And when we start explaining what gives us hope it is a SEAMLESS transition to any gospel principle you want to teach or focus on. We linked it to sharing Ether 12:4 from The Book of Mormon and giving them that copy of The Book of Mormon that we used. It's been good, but now we are trying to expand how to develop contact ideas using similar components of the one we have been using. It's been way fun! We all need hope, right?

We had a joint lesson with the Kobe sisters on Saturday because an investigator that we found recently actually lives in their area. We met with the investigator at 9:00 and had an awesome hour and a half
lesson with her. It was challenging to control the conversation because she has a million and two questions. That, and she was doing her best to speak in English the whole time which was fine but a little rough. She said that she will go to church next Sunday! She has a huge interest to learn about the Church. I'm way excited for her even though we passed her to the Kobe sisters.

We had another after baptism lesson with our recent convert. Actually, it was funny because we had his lesson on Wednesday in the afternoon, but then he said in on a lesson later that night for another one of our members. Lesson and a sit-in on the same day. Such a boss! He is progressing very well. And he has been talking to his boss about his work schedule to get Sunday's taken off. Yuuuuusssss!!!! He will be able to start attending church every Sunday from the middle of February. Last week we had okonamiyaki and churrasco with him. He is so cool!

We watched the worldwide missionary broadcast which was way cool because he set up was like a meeting room with the apostles and other general authorities. There were those new schedule and key indicator
changes which is going to take a while getting used to. But, I am very excited to try it out. We went to CostCo to get popcorn at the request of our district leader and we have left overs. About 30 packets of popcorn. Needless to say we have been having many church film nights in our apartment. If you drizzle chocolate sauce over popcorn it's really good! 😆

This week is going to be good. We have an extra zone training meeting on Friday, stake conference where Elder Yamashita from the Asia North area presidency will come. Today we are going to have a meal with our
next door neighbor, groceries, nap, tune up our bikes, email all you lovely people, probably watch more church films about the amazing modern-day prophets like Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson. Then we have a meal with the Tsuda family tonight. I love this ward.

Anyway, have an amazing day and week you guys. Fight the good fight and never give up!
愛している! 孔雀長老より

2017.1.22 金人の週

Hey everyone!

This is the weekly 挨拶 from your favorite elder in Japan, 孔雀長老. January may be waning, but the cold, my companion's optimism, and our recent convert's awesomeness, isn't. We have had a very good week and it's
given our spirits a big boost. Let me fill you in.

After I sent off last week's update we had a lesson with our recent convert. We had another member join us for the lesson. Afterwards we went to visit a less-active, the four of us. We all shared our favorite scriptures. After that we all went out to sushi which was awesome! I'll send videos. So we ended up spending half of our Preparation Day with our recent convert which was amazing!!

On Tuesday we found a way awesome woman! She was way easy to stop and talk with. After explaining what we do as missionaries we asked her a question: "what gives you hope?". She said that she believes that the
people who do bad things will be given justice. At that point we shared Ether 12:4 from The Book of Mormon with her. She read it, and the first words out of her mouth were, "do you believe that bad people will be given justice?". I told her that that is a very good question that we can talk about on another day. We asked if we could set up a day to talk about it and she said that she really wants to meet. We exchanged numbers and gave her a copy of The Book of Mormon. She said that she would read it and contact us after her trip to Korea. I'm WAY stoked to meet with her!

Then we met a way cool youth at the college town up north. You know those people who are way too cool to be true, but you can even tell from 25 meters away? Yeah, that was this guy! We talked with him and gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon and he said he would read it. He was laughing with us and was very personal. Man, it just made us feel so good! I'll send you the picture he took to show how cool he is. But, I'll tell you, he did it by himself, I didn't ask him to.  We also made a CostCo run. Oh yeah, pizza, hot dogs, Mountain Dew, Açaí juice, Pão de Queijo, and new memory-foam pillows. Life is good.

We had a lesson with one of our members. He is kind of a recent convert because he is no longer a "recent convert" but he is still new. We focused on The Book of Mormon and shared the "Scripture Legacy-extended broadcast" which is a video in the Gospel Library app. Give it a look because it is SOOOOO good. But when we taught the lesson I thought to myself, "if I didn't have The Book of Mormon or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my life, my life would not be nearly as good". And then it really hit me. By their fruits ye shall know them. The Book of Mormon is divine. It is not of man nor by he power of man. No evil man could write a book like it, and no good man would unless God commanded him to. Yep, it's true.

We had zone training meeting on Friday. I would like to tell you that I learned some good stuff. However, it was hard to focus on the messages because I was too focused translating. Yep, my first experience translating for a missionary meeting. It was tough! Some of the missionaries were going so fast, and there were a lot of words I
didn't know. It was fun, a challenge, and I look forward to next time.

My companion's shoe split apart while biking so we got him some new shoes. We met another guy that has some potential on Saturday night. He knows English and some Portuguese because of business he has done in Brazil. He works in a coffee business and he loves coffee. But he took a copy of The Book of Mormon and said he wants to meet again!

And we spent five hours on Sunday with our ward mission leader visiting less-actives. We were only able to meet with one, which was good. But it looks like that less-active is really hung up on some struggles.  It his will to change those things is almost non-existent. Sad to see, but I can't give up on anyone!

Those are the highlights. We hope you enjoyed is episode of The Fantastic Adventures of Elder Peacock in Japan. Stay tuned for next week's episode! I love you guys. Keep your trust in our Father. Fight the good fight and never give up 😉

With all the love I can type,
Elder Peacock

2017.1.15 Magic men, snowy Sundays, and 美味しいおこなみやき

And the subject line goes with a shout out to my mother. Thank you for being an SLP 😉

Hello everyone,

I hope January is treating you all well. We are half-way through the month already! It's hard to believe.

This past week was good. The end of the week was the most interesting. The Asia North president, Elder Whiting, do a mission tour here starting on Wednesday. We had our meeting on Friday in Kobe. We had a
joint lesson with the sisters for one of heir investigators and it was pretty interesting; more on that later. We also had some snow, but just a little. We also had an awesome Sunday because everyone we wanted to visit were home! *fist pump*

On Friday we went to the Kobe Ward building and began spiritual preparation at 9:30. Elder Whiting walked in at 10:00 and shook the hand of every elder and sister while asking them where they were from. The morning session was a time of questions. One elder asked how, as missionaries, we can help the ward/branch improve the relationships they have with themselves. Not missionary-to-members, but members-to-members. One sister asked how to use the Atonement of Christ to continue to progress as opposed to plateauing. I wasn't able
to ask it, but my question was how to use The Book of Mormon to change/improve the way I talk with deity. It was a very uplifting morning. After that we had lunch break.

When we came back for the afternoon session the discussion was focused on the gift of the Holy Ghost and free agency. When we are given the gift of the Holy Ghost they don't seal it upon us, they tell us to receive it. This means that whatever we do either brings us closer or pushes us away from the Holy Ghost. It is not there no matter what, that is not how it works. I can testify that is true because I have had experiences where the Holy Spirit left me after a decision I made. And contrariwise, I have experiences where a decision I made brought the Holy Ghost closer to me. So I felt that what Elder Whiting was saying is true. The Holy Ghost testified that to me.

After the meeting I was assigned to have an interview with Elder Whiting. It was a good interview. I can testify that he is a man called of God, through authority, to minister to those here. He ministered to me personally and for that I am very grateful.

That night we had dinner with our recent convert, Furukawa Kyōdai. After that we went to the church and had a short lesson focused on the sacrament and the Atonement of Christ. He is still progressing which makes me so happy. I can see more and more, in different ways, that he does have a desire to learn more. And he is applying it to his life! He is so good. He texted us yesterday asking for another lesson today, so we will teach him today. I'm so excite.

We went to the castle park next to the train station downtown and found a couple of magic men. Well, really it was one magic man and his friend who could kind of speak English. But the guy was so good at magic. He was bending forks, teleporting cards, and, the most mind bending, was solving a Rubix Cube, with one hand, in tree seconds. That's when my mind really exploded. I wanted to take a video but I wasn't thinking that far ahead. He isn't even professional. He is studying to become a nurse right now. Yeah, I'll show you a picture of the fork he gave me. But the English-speaking-friend wants to learn more about Christ and why He died. #perfectquestion We will see him again.

We had a combined lesson with the sisters for one of their investigators. It's actually a family of four plus the mom of the mother. The father is a nice guy and fun to talk with, until we start talking about religion. And it's not like he believes in anything out of the ordinary, he is just hard to teach because he won't see our point of view. Whenever we would try and show him how it all fits he would bring it all back to the two things he is focused on. He has actually been meeting with the missionaries for quite a few years. It was only a couple of steps away from going into a Bible brawl, but it didn't go that far. After the conversation was over we got right back to normal chatting so he was still on good terms with us which was good. Then the sisters had a lesson with the mother and grandmother while we kept the father busy. And then the mother came to church with her two boys. And now they will come to church next week. Yes!!!

Speaking of church, the sisters also brought a new investigator to church. He is way cool and he loves the members. And, from what the members told me, he seems pretty serious about the church. Awesomeness!!! After church we had lunch with the Garrets who moved here from Idaho for the fathers job. We played games, had Hawaiian Haystacks, and shared a message with them. After that we visited members in that area (the eastern part of our area) and everyone was home! So good! We got back and hit the hay because there we hills, man. There were hills.

Last week and this week I have been focusing on prayer. I really want to make my prayers what they are  supposed to be, that is, talking with my Father. I have the growing need and desire to be able to talk with
my God and then receive personal revelation so I can progress the way God wants me to. I can see, looking back, that my prayers have changed and improved. Now I want to take the next step. And I invite everyone to do the same. Please make the next step towards God through your prayers. I promise you will receive blessings of confidence and peace.

Well, I think that's it from the exotic east (once again, thinking of you Mom). Today we will go get the weekly food. But, other than that, I think we are just relaxing today. The cold is cold, the snow is cold, and the wind is colder. Fight the good fight and never give up!

あいしてるわ!

Faithfully,
Elder Peacock