A weird thing is that this is my "Week 7" email, but we're finishing up our "8th Week" here on the schedule, and, even though our schedule says we're here for 10 weeks, we have 10 days left. That's crazy. 10 days till go time. That's a crazy exciting thought. I thought I was excited to go last week, but this week my excitement has ratcheted up even more. 

Some fun things:

Every 3 weeks, a district of Japanese natives comes in and they have the classroom next door to us. Yesterday, the district that will be leaving the same time as us came in. We've always tried to be friendly, but it was hard because we've never been able to communicate with them in any real fashion. Demo yesterday we went over there to say hi and ended up talking to hem for about half an hour, until they had to go to an orientation meeting. It was so fun, and it was a real confidence booster for me in the language. I'm still terrible at it, but it was comforting knowing that I can at least carry on some form of a conversation, and knowing that I've come so far since the last nihonjin district. They're all way cool and one sister is going to Nagoya with us. 

 

Our lists have moved on to some more unique things. The other day we all gave each other "Japanese" names by picking a natural occurrence and an element that goes with that for each other, and then finding the kanji for those elements and trying to figure out how it would be read. This most likely means all of our readings our wrong, but it was a fun exercise. I was given 賢森, which we've been reading kenshin, but I don't know how correct that is. It was fun though.

I've also been reading the book "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton M. Christensen. If you haven't read this book I highly suggest you do. It's really a wonderful book that talks about how you can share the gospel and touch others' lives in the most effective way, which does not include being obnoxious or abrasive. In fact he talks about hose worries in the book. Two main points I took out of it were these:

1) Members are so so so important to missionary work. They are much better missionaries than the missionaries are, in most cases. Members are normal, every day people instead of suit-wearing, nametag-having, pimple-sporting 19 year olds who are kind of weird to most people. Don't get me wrong, the missionaries do good work, but when members go about it in the right way, they can be extremely, extremely powerful. The book tells the true story of a branch in Massachusetts, where, in the space of one year, 450 people (about, I can't remember the exact number) were baptized into the branch. This all started through the efforts of 3 member families, directed b the branch president, who each just found one other family who they thought could benefit from the gospel (fun fact: that's everybody) and invited them each to church. That effort snowballed into the amount of baptisms I mentioned above. 

2) I mentioned this briefly above, but the gospel is for everybody. Elder Christensen repeatedly tells stories of asking the Lord to help him find someone with whom he could share the gospel, only to be led to someone who looks and acts nothing like the golden candidate he would have imagined. But by trusting the Lord and extending and invite or talking about the church he found that these people were more receptive to the gospel than a lot of those "golden" potential investigators. I think that's a good reminder for all of us, especially me, that the Lord is no respecter of persons. He does His work how He wants it done and we're here to follow His plan, a plan that often includes people and actions that we wouldn't expect. So I've been trying really hard to prepare myself so that when I do get to Japan with real people who I can help and talk to, that I don't get to decide who needs our message. That's God's job. He has told us we just have to open our mouths and then He'll take care of the rest. 

We had a couple really good lessons yesterday. One of the lessons, our "missionary investigator" lesson (about which I talked last week, I think. Maybe the week before.) was particularly good, I felt. We taught about faith, and our investigator said that what we were telling him sounded wonderful, that all these blessings we were promising if he just would take the steps to strengthen his faith sounded amazing, but he just didn't feel that he was worthy of God's love. 

Now, our investigator was only acting, but he was playing somebody he really knew, and the thought hit me that there are people out there who really believe that our Heavenly Father does not love them, that it's their fault, that they've done something that has caused Him to withdraw His love from them. And that breaks my heart. Because if I have any testimony at all, it is that our God loves us unconditionally. There are no exceptions to that promise. Nothing we have done, can do, or will ever do can cause His love to cease. I have found that true time and time again, that even when I feel at my lowest, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are there for me, because they love me. That is the foundation of my testimony and something that I will never cease to believe. And I was prompted to share Romans 8:38-39, which I have shared before in my emails. It says:  

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That is a divine promise. And it's one that I've felt time and time again. It is truth. Love you all. Hope everyone has a great week.

Love 

Elder Callahan

Pictures:

Elder Hilton and I. One of our zone leaders, with whom I've become very good friends.

Sometimes we role play in class.