Dear Mother, Father, Brothers, Sisters, Family, and Friends
You know, I`m starting to wonder if I should really bother emailing so much anymore. It`s not all that long before I go home and I`m just running out of things to write. It might just be "Old Missionary" Syndrum, and just focusing on working or just everything feels the same. Not sure, because I do know that everything does seem to blur together a lot.
This week was pretty good though, although it was filled with quite a bit of frustration. With not being able to find people to teach for the past couple weeks it`s been very frustrating on me and on Elder Wilkes, who is still new and wants to see many big miracles. Patience has been a key role in all of this, and it was running very thin through a lot of the week. But we`ve gotten over that and with a new investigator found a lot of that pent up frustration has been relieved along with a great laugh.
We also had two companion exchanges this week. I got to work with Elder Dantas, a Brazalian missionary and that was pretty fun. He can really talk my ear off though. Then I worked with Elder Bailey again, and he`s been in the area right next door to mine for just as long as I`ve been here. So it was good to get together and almost like old friends. We had a good time and talked a lot of people and just generally had fun.
Now for the experience of the week:
"Shinpo Kyodai"
So, we have this 80 year old man in our ward that just recently got out of the hospital. His back had given out because he`s old and so now he`s confined to his apartment and has to use a wheel chair to get around, which is horrible for Japanese people because their apartments are so small and there is absolutely no room to manuever in there. We decided to visit him to cheer him up and share a quick message, but instead it turned into one of my most hilarious experiences in my mission. Let us just say that we sat down together on the floor like must Japanese people do and I asked him how he was doing. That was my first mistake, because I spent the next 45 min. trying to say something to let him know that we needed to go. He talked at full speed and I swear he didn`t take a single breath at all as he spoke. I could understand quite a bit of what he was saying but there was no time for me to jump in and reply or say anything. He just spent 45 min. complaining about his life. With only a few intervals that made this experience all the more hilarious.
After a few minutes he asked me to grab something, and I didn`t understand the word for what he wanted me to grab. (I don`t even know what to call it in english) I got up and started looking for this mystery object as he described to me what it was and where it was. "It`s that plastic container thingy under the chair!" He was very urgent and so I reached under the chair and lo and behold to my surprise it was a "pee bottle!" I quickly handed it to him and he started unsipping his pants and turning away from us, so me and my companion stood up and left the room for a moment to let him have some privacy, before he called us back in. The rest of the time we were just trying to get out of the there to no success.
But it gets even better. As we finally manage to let him know we need to leave Elder Wilkes asked if we could say a prayer and Shinpo Kyodai said it was just fine. Well, Elder Wilkes start saying the prayer and I start hearing Shinpo Kyodai shuffling around. I open my eyes and Lo and Behold! I see him unsipping his pants and turning around again to go pee. The rest of the prayer me and my companion were trying are very hardest not to laugh as Elder Wilkes was praying and I was literally biting my lips trying to stiffle my laughter. As we ended the prayer and apologized to him for interrupting he thanked us for the visit and we left the apartment. As soon as we were out the door and in the elevator we were laughing so hard.
We felt so bad afterwards for laughing, but we just couldn`t help it.
That was the highlight of my week. and other than that we had an awesome time going about teaching people and also finding people to teach.
Elder Tateishi`s Gospel Message of the Week
"Be still and know that I am God!" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:16)
When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt they were chased by pharoh and his chariots. When the Israelites saw the Egyptians they cried out in fear and desperation to Moses "Because there were not enough graves in Egypt, didst thou bring us out here to perish in the Wilderness!?" They were afraid that the Egyptians would come and slay them and many of them were angry for what Moses had done for they said it would have been better for them to be slaves in Egypt than to perish. But Moses Boldly turned to the Israelites and said "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." (Exodus 14:13-14) With that God commanded Moses to split the Red Sea and we all know the story from there. The Israelites crossed the Red Sea on try land and performed one of the most famous miracles in Biblical History.
The simple key was Faith! Moses trusted in the Lord that all thing swould be will. He stood still, calm despite the pressures around him and he rose his staff and caused the Red Sea to split hither and thither. When our lives are hectic, when we are seemingly overwhelmed with a list of things that just have to be done, do we remember the Lord our God? Will we pause and remember the words of the Lord "Be still and know that I am God?" Those are powerful words to me. Even moreso with the way Moses phrased them; "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Or in other words "I`m God, I`ll do it, you be quiet and watch."
So let us not be like the Israelites who quickly forgot about the plagues that God placed upon the Egyptians, or like Laman and Lemuel who quickly forgot that they had seen angels and heard the voice of the Lord. Let us be like unto Moses who stood fearlessly before the waters of the Red Sea, or as Nephi who stood to go and get the plates and against Laban; "For [God] is mightier than all the earth, then why not mightier than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands?"
God Lives! In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
With much Love,
Elder Randall KK Tateishi
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