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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
11.30.2010 / 4:53 PM
Minasan konichiwa!
My oh my! Hello everyone. I have to apologize. My e-mails and letters have been, well, lacking of late! Sorry! I just don't have enough time! Some good news! The computer in the phone booth is fixed! So I can send pictures today! I know you are thrilled! I'll start with the pictures.
IMG_2942.JPG - Here is the Japanese Fall picture I promised! Looks about the same.
IMG_3012.JPG - This is Elder Swenson as the Laundry Monster. It's a book by Steven Spielberg probably.
IMG_3016.JPG - So this is a picture of the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. So. Elder Swenson is about to leave soon, so last P-Day he wanted to stop quick and buy a souvenir from a seond hand shop. While I was waiting for him as he browsed the books for some sort of Anime thing... I found this. It's a 12'' doll of Luke Skywalker! Never been opened! I just about died, and I spent the 10 or so dollars, and bought it. Best purchase of my life! (Thanks Dad haha). Jon, you may be jealous. There was also another one of Luke Skywalker AND a Wampa Beast, but I couldn't quite justify spending 50 dollars. Unfortunately. I'll probably mail him home sometime when I have some other things to mail.
IMG_3032.JPG - This is me, in Japan. I thought it turned out pretty good.
IMG_3037.JPG 967.00K - This is me wearing a scarf that was given to me by Sister Chiba! She's amazing! I mentioned ONE time that my neck was cold and I was probably going to buy a scarf sometime... Wouldn't you know... Now I don't need to!
IMG_3086.JPG 1,181.00K - This is a picture of me after doing some maintenance on my bike. The reason it is on here is because this is the first time I wore anything but missionary clothes in like 4 months! So I was excited, so I thought I would share my excitement with you.
IMG_2962.JPG - This is a comic. Yes this experience really happened.
IMG_3104.JPG - This is another comic about an experience that really happened. I was sitting there writing a letter and I saw someone out my window! So I shouted 'person!' and ran and talked to them. Nothing came of it, but it made writing letters rather difficult. Sorry I'm so slow to reply some times!
Oh my! I have way too many pictures and I'm not even sharing 1/10th of them! Oh well. That's all for now.
So these last weeks have been great. Unfortunately we don't have any baptismal dates though. But one is on the horizon, I can feel it! Elder Swenson is doing well. I wouldn't say he is the most focused missionary I've ever met but he knows a TONNE about being a good missionary and is really helping me! Plus, we are having lots of fun together. And of course, we are working hard. I come home each day with my legs, and cheeks sore (from smiling! - This isn't a joke by the way), don't worry!
One particular story from this week was a great lesson we had with Kasahara San. He's sort of an eternal investigator beause he hasn't been able to quite smoking for over a year... Even though he follows every other commandment! Well, while we were teaching him a few nights ago, we were once again going to give a lesson focussing on the blessing of baptisms and staying for the full 3 hours of church (he often leaves early >.>). But, midway through the lesson I thought we should switch and talk about prayer instead! I wasn't sure how to send the signal to Elder Swenson, but I figured if I opened my scriptures to a scripture on prayer, he might get the memo. So I began opening my scriptures to 2 Nephi 32:9. It's really good if you don't know it.
Imagine my suprise when before I reached my destination, Elder Swenson spoke up and said he wanted to share that exat same scripture! Talk about revelation! We then started talking about prayer and Kasahara San brought up that he hadn't been praying lately! It was amazing and the spirit was very strong. I know the spirit guides us, and those around us, to accomplish what the Lord has planned. We'll meet with Kasahara San again this week, and I'll tell you how it goes.
Well, that's all the time I've got for now. I love you all, and thanks so much for the letters and support. I couldn't be here without it! Also, I recently learned how to write in Japanese on the computers here... So I changed my signature a little. Just an FYI I suppose.
Kbye!
--
Fluidly,
シャウ 長老
Tanoshinde imasu
Hey everyone! So today I have to go to Sendai early for Zone Conference, so I have a very limited amount of time! And I also can't send any pictures, because the computer I'm typing on (which is different than the normal computer), can't accept SD cards. So, no comic or photos for this week. Which is a shame, because I have so many good ones to share! This last week has been a ton of fun! Elder Swenson is really cool and we get along famously. Maybe too famously I suppose. But don't worry, we are working.
This last week we got lots done! We found 4 new investigators. I'll briefly illustrate them:
1) Yoshida Fufu (fufu = couple). They are great! They are massueses of sorts (spelling?). They also work a lot with NuSkin products and have always been impressed with the owner of NuSkin. Who's Mormon! So far we've only taught 2 lessons, by the wife of the house has already read up to 2nd Nephi 26! Which is pretty awesome. We haven't got them to pray yet, but things are looking good!
2) Satou San. She owns a hair cut place in Furukawa. And apparently she's loaded. She goes almost every other week to Sendai to go diving in the ocean! Crazy. Her son also used to be practicing for swimming in the olympics. But he couldn't quite make it, so he had to retire. She has met with the missionaries nearly 25 years ago, but remembers nothing! But she has a really old Book of Mormon. In Japan, newer translations of the Book of Mormon come out all the time, so her copy was ridiculous! It has all sorts of really old words that aren't used anymore and what not. So we gave her a new copy. She said she'd read!
3) Akana San. He was really close to baptism almost 10 years ago, and while scavenging the old records, I found him. We met and he seemed way nice. But he said that around the time he was about to get baptized, he had a serious nervous breakdown and had to quit his work and pretty much quit everything. He still suffers from serious panic attacks whenever he feels pressure. So giving him commitments has been... hard. But he remembers a lot about missionaries! Like he knew we had to be home by 9:00. Weird! Anyways, whenever there are a lot of people around, he feels severe pressure and panics. So coming to church is... at the moment... 'muri.' Which means impossible. But we'll work with him.
4)Koichi San. He is a way cool 31 year old guy. He lived in Canada for a year and is mostly fluent in English! He is unmarried and has no prospects. But that's normal for Japan to not be married till like 35 or so. He's really fun and a very thankful guy!
Anyways, that's all the time I have for this week! Which is too bad because I could say so much more! Oh well. Too busy. Sorry. Love you all lots. Thanks so much for your prayers and support!
Mate ne!
--
Sincerely,
Brian (surprise!)
