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About
The adventures and misadventures of Elder Shaw as he teaches among the Japanese, and is no doubt taught in return.
Head to the 'Profile,' section to read more about who I am, and what I believe in. For more information on where I actually am, please click
here.
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Profile
My name is Brian Shaw, though you can just call me エルダーショー (Elder Shaw). As of the 19th of May 2010, I have been rigorously engaged in serving the Lord by laboring to bring the Japanese people back to their savior, Jesus Christ; and I will continue to do so faithfully until the 19th of the same month in 2012.
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have an unshakable testimony that this church
is of Christ. I know Christ lives, and I know he suffered for my sins, so that I could return to live with my Heavenly Father after this life. I know that Joseph Smith, the founder of this church in the latter days, was called of God to restore Christ's authority to this earth, and establish the covenants and ordinances that were lost long ago. I also know that Joseph Smith was given a set of gold plates to translate into scripture called the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
If you would like to know this just as I do, please click
here, or click
here for a
free copy of the Book of Mormon.
2 Nephi 25:26
"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."
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Entries
8.25.2010 / 11:11 PM
Atsui! Which means hot in Japanese
Atsui is the title of this weeks e-mail because, frankly... Japan is the hottest place on the earth! Everyday has been 35 degrees celsius or hotter (what is that... like 100 Farenheit?) and the humidity is an absolute killer! At any rate... I'll start with the pictures today.
(1) - IMG_2296.JPG - This is a spider, obviously. The spiders in Japan are EVERYWHERE and they are always gigantic! For the most part, they never get bigger than maybe... a small cell flip phone, but Elder Aiura and I have seen a few spider skins (by the way, when they get really big, they shed their skins like snakes) that have been about turantuala size, or close to. The one in the picture, if you can tell, is about the size of a regular flip phone. Pretty crazy huh? But the spiders are actually really nice, because without them, Japan would be infested with mosquitos I think.
(2) IMG_2291.JPG - Everyday at around 6;30 or 7;00 pm, Japan looks like this. It is actually the hardest time in my day to stay focussed because it is so pretty, and this picture really doesn't do it justice! Later today I'll try and take a picture of Furukawa from a tall building at night, so you can see what I get to look at everyday while housing! It's beautiful! Also, sorry if I'm spelling things wrong... Keyboards in Japan are weird.
(3) - IMG_2144.JPG - This is just an example of one textbook that I'm currently studying. I thought it was cool.
(4) IMG_2289.JPG - This is me! I don't have many pictures of myself, so even though this isn't a very good picture, I thought I'd include it.
At any rate, this last week has been good and bad. Good in that we found two new investigators! Bad in that they both dropped us since finding them. Chiba San is still a good investigator for us, but he DID NOT come to Church this week. Which is super sad... I hope he will still be ready for baptism on the 5th of September! But as of right now, I'm not totally sure.
At any rate, something I've been thinking a lot about this week, is doing impossbile things. Like, for instance, learning Japanese. Or maybe going to Law School, or raising Children, or writing a book (or books as may be the case). Preparing for a mission, or preparing for school... even school in general is improbable! A lot of things seem impossible when you think about them. For me at the moment, learning Japanese is the most impossible thing I've ever had to do. I mean, consider English for a second. How many words do you know? How long does take you to create a sentence using those words? How long does it take you to interpret someone else's sentence and to understand PRECEISELY the idea that they are trying to communicte? Think about it... Think about the difference in my sentence had I said "exactly," instead of "precisely,"... Is there a difference? Isn't there?
The amount of words we know and the speed with which we can process and understand one another though the English language is phenomenal! And then when you consider the implied meanings, the conotations, the denotations... Impossible! And yet we do it. And now, I'm trying to do the same thing in Japanese? Sometimes I'm not so sure I can. But my mission president shared some ery helpful advice of late. Everything is impossible until you believe you can.
100 years ago or so, people believed that the human body was incapable of running a mile in under 4 minutes. The world believed that the body just was not capable of moving that quickly. And so it was never done. I don't remember by whom, but eventually, the 4 minute mark was passed by someone by mere fractions of a second. The world was amazed. It could indeed be done! And now... If you can't run a mile in under 4 minutes, you aren't professional caliber! Countless athletes can run a mile that quickly... What's the difference? I'll tell you it has nothing to do with Gatorade, training programs or anything like that.
It all starts with our faith. Everything is impossible until you believe you can do it. Suceeding at anything is impossible until you believe you can. Learning Japanese is impossible until you believe you can. Seeing baptisms isn't possible until I believe I can. Forgiveness is not possible, until you believe you can receive it through Christ.
I don't know what everyone is going through right now, but this much I do know. You will not succeed if you don't believe you can. And I leave you with that in Jesus Name, amen.
Until Next week, I love you all!
PS. Thanks for the mail everyone!
--
Sincerely,
エルダーショー
Elder Shaw
アドレス
Address
To my friends and family... Write me! And I promise I will write back as promptly as reasonable.
First, please do not contact me through e-mail. I have an e-mail, but have been told by my mission president not to read e-mails from anyone (not even family!). Sure, some other missions might do it differently, but for Sendai, I'm not supposed to read your e-mails. Just write me lots of letters instead!
And please direct all mail to this street address:
While at the MTC
Elder Brian Derek Shaw
Provo Missionary Training Center
MTC Mailbox # 89
JPN-SEN 0804
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
While in Japan
Elder Brian Derek Shaw
Japan Sendai Mission
3-1-5 Yagiyama Minami
Taihaku-Ku
Sendai-Shi, Miyagi
982-0807
Phone:81-22-245-8851
