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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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4.25.2011 / 10:24 AM
そうか そうか 手稲 に 行きますね。。。
Dear Family! I hope everyone is doing well. Once again, I am doing fine. I e-mailed just the other day, so there isn't a whole lot to report, but today is Preperation Day, so I am e-mailing once again. Preperation Day in the Sapporo Mission is the same - Monday, so you can expect e-mails at around this time from here on out. In regards to transfers I am staying with my green bean, Elder Taylor. Yipee! So I am still trainer, although I was relieved of my district leader duties, because, well, we had a few too many district and zone leaders when the missions combined, and since I'm also training, it seemed like it made most sense I guess.
I'm serving in an area called 'Teine.' It's an area within the Sapporo city. It's by far the smallest area I've served in yet. I only cover like 100 000 people or something because there are so many different missionaries within the city of Sapporo. The Teine ward though is by far the biggest I've worked in! It has about 70 members coming every week and it's actually a WARD. Not a branch. So that is pretty cool. The building we met in was also really huge. It has a small area for basketball and everything! Pretty crazy, I know. Today we actually got to play a little basketball. It was the first time I had played basketball in over 9 months! (But don't worry, I wasn't a bit rusty ;) I even dunked the basketball! Of course the net was only 9 feet 8 inches or something... But it still felt good!)
Also, obviously they wouldn't just send my companion and I to Teine and tell us to get to work. Since we know nothing of the Sapporo mission, the Sapporo city, the Teine area, ward, etc... We needed someone to tell us where to go, right? That person is Elder Kobayashi. He is one of the Zone Leaders living with us in the same apartment. He has been in Teine since November, so he has been showing us the ropes. The other missionary living with us is an Elder Ovard, who came from Sendai with us and is just as clueless about the area and what not as we are. But it's been fun so far living with 4 people (even if our apartment was only built for two!).
Also, this is random... But someone from my ward is going to Salt Lake Tomorrow! So if you see any Japanese around Temple Square, make sure to stop and talk to them! I'm pretty sure they can't speak English all that well... But they'll have translators for sure! I imagine it will be pretty impossible, but maybe you'll find some Japanese people who have met me!
That's about all for my living situation I suppose... Let's talk a little bit about missionary work! So, we didn't have any time to do missionary work here except for one hour on Saturday and then Sunday after church meetings and what not. But we saw an amazing blessing! Her name is Yamakawa san! As we were walking the streets of Sapporo (just around the apartment so we didn't get lost!) Elder Taylor and I were stopped by this one lady. She asked us what we were doing and we started to teach her about God and the plan of Salvation on the street. The spirit was very strong. I felt very keenly that the reason that I am in Teine is to stop, help and baptize this person (even though I had only barely met them). I told her this on the street (which is pretty forward) and promised that it wasn't a coincidence that we met. She also mentioned how she NEVER talks to people on the street (she's someone overweight and very shy) but just felt that she needed to talk to us. The Lesson on the Street was amazing, and we committed her to come to church. She accepted. However... We didn't know where the church was and we told her the wrong address! So... Unfortunately, she didn't make it to Sacrament meeting.
We were a little discouraged, but after Sunday School we were blessed again! So apparently, she went to where we told her to go and quickly learned that it was the wrong place. Then spent TWO HOURS on foot searching for the church until she found it! She then went to Relief Soceity and had a great time for the one hour of church she was able to attend. We were ecstatic! She also told us that she prayed on her own (as we commited her to) and that she had felt a strange feeling, and felt that it was God's will that we met. Pretty awesome huh?
After church we were also able to have a lesson with her. We taught in more detail the plan of salvation and commit her to baptism. She accepted and we are going to work together for her to baptized on the 23rd of April. Obviously, there is still a lot we don't know, but as a tentative goal we are excited to continue teaching her.
And if this miracle isn't good enough... There's even a little bit more. We gave her a Book of Mormon after the lesson at the church and asked her to read and pray about it last night. She said she would. And she did! Last night, like we said we would, we followed up to see if she had any questions, or if she had read any at all. She read up to 1 Nephi chapter 3, and thought it was an interesting story. Afterwards, she prayed about it and wrote her thoughts down in her journal. She said that she wrote this exaxt sentence (translated): Dear God, even for someone like me, is there someone who can help?
At that time, she said she felt a light and hear an audible voice say 'Yes!'
Miracles are real. They happen everyday. Do I know if Yamakawa san will get baptized? No. But I know that she has already taken the first steps to drawing nearer to her saviour. And that, IS a miracle. Even if it ends here, I'm glad to have been a part of it!
Well, I'm out of time. But I love you all, and apologize if my English is strange, or spelled wrong or whatever else... Thanks so much!
Kbye!
PS. Here is my new address for you to send letters to:
テ０６４－０８２２
Hokkaido
Sapporo-Shi
Chu*oku-kita 2 Jo* Nishi 24 Cho*me 1 - 25
*The letters with stars AFTER them mean they need to have a line drawn over them to elongate them. I.E. Chuoku would have a line overtop of the 'u' to make it longer. I just don't know how to type that in English.
PPS. So... I lost some stuff when I came to Hokkaido and might have to use some personal funds, just so you know. They said they are going to forward us some money to buy things, but I don't know how much... So I might not need any, I might need some... Just to let you know.
PPPS. Short description of the pictures...
IMG_2629.JPG (image/jpeg) 1,052.00K - This is where I'm e-mailing from. Pretty weird huh?
IMG_2611.JPG (image/jpeg) 794.00K - This is the plane I took after it landed in Sapporo. First, Sapporo has lots of snow! Second, isn't it great that the Japanese put Pikachu on their planes?
IMG_2566.JPG (image/jpeg) 691.00K - This is the last picture I took in Hachinohe. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries shortly after this, and, as you can see, we didn't have any power for a while... So I wasn't able to recharge it to take any pictures of what happened at Hachinhone. Then later when the power came back we didn't have any time to go to the harbor... So you'll just have to use your imagination. This is in our appartment. You can't really tell, but we had two bowls of dry cereal (I think, I don't really remember) that we were eating for dinner by the light of our two flashlights :D You can also see that we still had a little fuel left at this point, which we were using to cook all the meat we had because it was about to go bad.
IMG_2617.JPG (image/jpeg) 975.00K - This is a picture of the Elders I stayed with for two days while I was in Sapporo before I came to Teine. They are all from Sendai except for two. I don't have any pictures of Elder Ovard or Kobayashi. Sorry.
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キセキで
シャ 長老
