Snow, Fasting, and Prayer

Hello fam!

 

  We`ve had a crazy weather week here in Osaka! On Wednesday we woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground. It was the first time in close to ten years that they`ve had that much snow here. Thankfully it was warm enough that it only stayed for a day or so. It was super wet and gross, nothing like the snow in Utah. It was so weird though! We had fun making snow men in the few extra minutes we had at lunch that day.

 

  This week has been awesome! Our numbers shot up and we are feeling the blessings of the Lord so strongly! Because we have such an important goal to achieve this transfer we decided that it would be really helpful to fast every week. We started our fast on Thursday in hopes of finding a new investigator and having a baptism by March 23.  We were street contacting around the train station by our apartment when I watched this guy walk into the station, wait as if he were waiting for someone, then turned and looked at us. He casually wandered out of the station when my companion called out to him. We introduced ourselves as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and he told us he had seen one of our churches in his previous area before moving to Sakai but had never really known anything about our church. We talked for a little bit and he expressed real interest in our church and desired to learn more about Jesus Christ. He didn`t have a phone so we walked with him down the street a little ways so he could show us where his apartment was. We asked him if we could meet him at the station the next day and walk to the church for an introduction and a lesson. He accepted and then walked back to his apartment. I didn`t think about it until later that night during our planning session when it hit me. There was no real rhyme or reason for him to be at the station that day. He walked in, simply looked around as if he was waiting for someone, proceeded to talk with us, and then went back to his apartment when we were finished talking. It was so weird!

 

  We met him and went to the church the next day and he absolutely loved it. We gave him our `Setting the Table` lesson where we give him an overview of what we teach and he actually had a really good foundation about God! He told us he saw things as God is on the top, he`s our Father, and we are all his children so the whole human family is actually related. We were like, `Yeah thats pretty much it!` He was more than willing to come to church yesterday as well. He came to church and stayed for all three meetings and even took good notes during Sunday school! We taught him after church with a recent convert from the ward who was baptized in December. We talked about God again and our member gave a great testimony and his personal experience about meeting and being taught by the missionaries. It was an extremely powerful lesson. We briefly went over the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then asked him to be baptized. He gave a solid `Yes.` and will be baptized on March 23! I got the confirmation when we asked him to be baptized that he was the one. This will be the one that we baptize this transfer. It was an awesome feeling!

 

  We got another new investigator this week too! He`s nineteen right now and pretty much a straight up Japanese thug. We were street contacting and I called over to him from across the street and he came right over and talked to us. He`s way cool and loves Americans. He talked to me about how much he likes American Hip Hop so we bonded over that and sports! We invited him to our church party on Sunday and he said he would come. We taught him after the party and he actually showed some interest in learning about God! He`s going to make a solid missionary in a few years! Both Y 長老 and I had a great feeling about him and we look forward to teaching him more! I think we`re going to go play soccer with him and his friends later this week in Osaka too so I`m excited for that!

 

  We had a great week and I`m so greatful for all the love and support that you all show me. When times are tough all I have to do is remember that I have a loving family and Heavenly Father and everything is ok. Its insane how fast this mission is going. I grow so much as a person and a missionary every day and it absolutely terrifies me because I know I`ll be home before anyone even knows it. Two years is nothing compared to what Heavenly Father has given us. He asks so little and gives us so much. I`m more aware of that every day. I know in his strength I can do all things and I gain confidence in the knowledge that no matter how bad my Japanese is, it will be backed up by the hosts of Heaven. This is his work and his glory. I`m merely a lowly tool in his hands just trying to do what I can. I love my Heavenly Father and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.

 

  Have an awesome week everyone! I love you!

 

Elder Jeffrey Maxwell Giles

Just keep on keeping on

Hello Family!

 

  I hope everyone is doing well and is enjoying the OLYMPICS! USAUSAUSA! Japan really doesn`t get that into it from what I`ve seen and I`m kind of sad! I hope everyone`s having a good week and I`m actually surprised to say that Osaka was more like Utah this past week! We actually got an inch or two of snow and I guess it only snows once every five or so years here!

 

  This week was REALLY slow as far as numbers go. We couldn`t find anyone to save our lives so this week we`re planning on changing it up a lot! We`re really trying to show our faithfulness so we can see a baptism by March 23! I think tonight we will pray as a companionship for a revelation on when exactly we will see our baptism and work from there. Right now we have an investigator with a baptismal date but recently we haven`t really been able to meet with him so we`re not sure how solid he is for baptism!

 

  This week I got to go on exchanges with my District Leader and his companion. I went down to Sennan on Wednesday with Elder J and we had a really good time! It was really different being with an American companion. We planned a lesson for one of their investigators that is really committed to baptism but has a problem with giving up his old religion for this one. We were unsure of how exactly we could tell him in a gentle and unforced way that he had to give up his old religion in order to be baptized. We planned on teaching him about the Ten Commandments and really focusing on the first commandment, No other Gods before me, and letting him kind of sort out the details for himself. The planning went pretty well and we had a solid lesson plan set up so we went out to find. We went to this apartment complex to do some housing and no one was really responding very well so we decided to go pray for some guidance. After praying I felt really strongly that we should go to this other building and just work our way down. On the fourth floor of the building a man answered the door and at first, seemed pretty uninterested. He told us he was Buddhist and wasn`t interested in Christianity. We finally just told him a little bit about our English Programs and he opened up a ton! He let us into his house and we talked for over an hour about English and about what we were doing. He has really been wanting to learn English because he has a daughter that lives in California and a Granddaughter that only speaks English so he really wants to be able to talk to her. We were really excited about his good desire and he now wants to do our Free Family English Program where we teach a half hour of English and a half hour of the Gospel. He was totally willing to listen to our message as long as he got some English experience with it! I`m curious to see what the Lord has in store for this man. He works in mysterious ways thats for sure.

 

  My exchange with my District Leader, Elder H, was awesome. He barely speaks a lick of English but he`s absolutely hilarious! He really helped me to open up and just talk with people out on the streets. We had a pretty good day but we were still really struggling to find people. It got really late and it was just about time to head home so we walked to our bikes to leave. When we got to our bikes I got this impression to wait for just a minute. I stood there in the dumping snow wondering why on Earth I was still outside just desperately trying to get people to stop. One guy walked by and I said hello but he didn`t seem to notice and kept walking. I kept looking at the guy and about fifteen feet later he stopped dead and turned around. He came back over to me and asked, `Can you speak English?` I said yes. We talked for a little bit and he said he`d love to come to our English class and meet with us next week so I`m excited to see how that turns out!

 

 This week I`ve been thinking a lot about how I can change to become the missionary that God wants and expects of me. I`m trying to fill my potential but it can be really hard sometimes. I`ve been reading a lot of 2nd Nephi and Mosiah this past week and I came across a beloved set of scriptures that I read a while back with my trainer. 2nd Nephi 4 talks about when Lehi finally passes away. Before he goes down to the grave he blesses his posterity telling them that their seed would be preserved. He passes away and a few days later, Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael come after Nephi again. I can`t image how Nephi must have felt. He just became a prophet, his Dad just passed away, and his brothers still attack him. He was having a rough time. I imagine he was close to giving up when he starts to pray to Heavenly Father. I think it starts in verse twenty five or so. He asks why he is subject to sin and pretty much why things are the way they are. He finally asks God, `Wilt thou redeem my soul?` He repents of his way and then asks God to remove his stumbling blocks and make his was straight before him. I think it`s verse 30 or so when he says something like, `I won`t trust in the arm of the flesh` meaning that he`s no longer relying on himself. He finally understands that the only way to do this work is through trust in the Lord. I`m trying to do the same thing right now. The only way this work gets done is by trusting in Jesus Christ. That`s all it takes!

 

 I`ve really been thinking recently about why missionaries get so stressed out sometimes. I mean, it`s not like we have a promise from the creator of all that we WILL succeed or anything like that. President Zinke was talking sort of along the same lines at interviews a few weeks ago. He asked us if there was ever a time in the Saviors Earthly ministry when he was running around wondering where someone was that needed a miracle or if we thought that Elder Richard G. Scott ever ran through the halls of the church office building wondering who has proofread his talk for General Conference. It really is funny to wonder why we stress sometimes. When we trust God. We need not worry of anything else.

 

 I love you all and I hope you have a great week. Wish me luck! I love you guys!

 

 

Elder Jeffrey M. Giles

`With men, this is impossible, but with God, ALL things are possible.`

Konnichiwa!

 

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I hope you all had an awesome week, and more importantly, a better fast and testimony Sunday! This week has been great and we`ve seen miracles in the mission for sure!

At our New Year`s Conference we got a new mission training plan. These trainings just give us a good focus and ways that President Zinke believes that we can further the work in the mission. I absolutely love them and I study it every day! This training plan is called, `Its about you... Relying on Him`. It`s exactly what I needed right now in my mission for sure. The training plan references a lot of scriptures and then helps us to put the doctrine into action in order to reach our goals.

We got two special goals along with this training plan. We were promised that if we really put this training plan into effect that we would see 400 investigators/nonmembers to Sacrement Meeting on February 2, 2014 and also that every companionship in the Japan Kobe Mission would see a baptism by March 23, 2014. These are goals that we, as mere mortals, couldn`t even fathom, but we have faith that the Lord can do all things! It`s been absolutely crazy because not only did my companion, Y 長老 and I start with nothing once this transfer, we had to do it twice! This week has been packed full of inviting absolutely everyone we could to church and planning for the five investigators we have right now.

We knew that in order to reach the goal of 400 investigators to church in the mission we had to have at least 6 investigators in every ward. This didn`t seem like too hard of a task because we usually have 3-4 come but we wanted to make the goal so bad! In the mission, the most investigators/nonmembers we`ve ever had to church was 163. That was WAY intimidating but I think we all had to have faith to see miracles.

One by one we invited to church. We had 3 of our investigators commit to come and the other companionship in our apartment got 7 of theirs to commit to come! We have a really solid ward here in Sakai that`s really excited about missionary work so we asked all the members to do what they could to make the goal. They were all really excited about it and said they would do what they could to bring their friends to church!

Yesterday morning was really stressful trying to figure everything out for sacrement. We had two of our investigators show up and we were really excited to see them but we knew we needed more! When sacrement meeting started I didn`t know how many nonmembers were there until I got up on the stand to bear my testimony. I saw SO many unfamiliar faces sitting with members, it was so awesome! After sacrement we got together with the Ward Missionaries and the Bishopric to total up the numbers. We had 13 nonmembers at church yesterday! It was awesome!

 

We knew we did our part to achieve the goal but we still weren`t sure if the entire mission had seen the success that we saw. It was going to be even tougher because two of the zones in the mission had Stake Conference this weekend in Kobe and not everyone was going to be able to go all the way to the Stake Center.

We sent our numbers in last night, knowing that of all the wards in our Zone, we needed 60 nonmembers. We got the report from the Zone Leaders last night and we had 73 come in our zone yesterday!

We were ecstatic but we STILL didn`t know whether or not we hit our goal of 400... About an hour or so ago we biked as fast as we could to look up the number on our emails. We had 396 nonmembers at church yesterday. Our God is a God a miracles. From the most EVER of 163 to almost reaching an unthinkable goal of 400. It was amazing.

I couldn`t help but feel the electricity and the spirit in the air in church yesterday. Something big is about to happen in this country. The work is truly about to astonish the entire world. I can`t wait to see what happens with our next goal of every single companionship seeing a baptism by March 23.

If we achieve that goal we will be on pace to shatter another record of baptisms by the end of the year. If we hit our goal we will have 126 baptisms in the mission by March! We had 204 total last year. The Lord is truly hastening his work here in Japan.

 

I really do feel very priviledged to be here and to be on my mission. Its really weird to think its not `Two Years` anymore. I`m 1/4 done. I`m at six months and I can`t believe how fast it has gone by. This hasn`t been easy by any stretch of the imagination. This is the hardest thing I`ve ever done in my life. Every single day is a struggle but looking back, I can never remember how hard it was, or any specifics, I can only remember the joys. It`s funny how that works right? I read an awesome quote this week that really put into perspective how much the Lord truly loves us. I`m typing this from memory so I might take a few of my own liberties but this is the jist of what it said: `At the end of a mans life he found himself walking along a beautiful beach at sunset with the Savior. The Savior asked him if he would like to view his life one more time, the man said yes, and scenes from his life started to flash across the sky. He saw the joys he had experienced as well as some of the hardest moments in his life. The man couldn`t help but notice that when he was watching the joys in his life, he saw two pairs of footprints in the sand, his, and the Saviors. In the hardest points in his life, however, he only saw one set of footprints. Extremely troubled the man asked the Lord, `How come you always walked beside me in the best moments of my life, but in the hardest times, you left me?` The Savior looked at the man lovingly and said, `My sweet, sweet, child. I would never leave you on your own, for in the hardest, most trying times of your life, It was I that carried you.`

 

I thought that was so beautiful and a perfect representation of the Saviors love for all of us. I love this work. I love Japan. and I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know he carries me every day.

 

I love you all! I hope you have an awesome week. I`m praying for you all constantly!

 

All my love,

 

Elder Jeffrey Giles

Miracles wrought by the hand of faith‏

Dear Family,

 

I can`t believe I`m almost to my 6 month mark. Wow, time absolutely flies out here. I know that my mission will only start to go by faster and faster as time goes on and I get more and more used to this life and this incredibly difficult language.

 

I don`t really know what happened this week but I feel as if my language ability has exploded. I can now understand almost everything people say, it changes from person to person, but for the most part, I`m finally getting it. I`ve noticed as well that as my understanding starts to increase more I`m able to notice how to use words that I`ve been hearing but haven`t known how to use them. Its crazy! I still have a long way to go. This week, however, was the first time I`ve been able to teach part of the doctrines of the lesson without having things written out. Its been incredible to see the growth and the progress I`ve made from August 7, 2013 to now. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to learn this language. I don`t know how yet, but I know the Lord has more uses for my Japanese than just my mission.

 

This week was the first time on my mission that my companion and I have hit ALL of our weekly goals. It`s been incredible the success we`ve been able to see. We taught a man this week about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We found this guy two weeks ago outside of a convienee eating a bag of cookies. He`s deaf in his right ear and we`re pretty sure he has a social dissorder but he agreed to give us his number and then came to church last week! We met with him again on Saturday and he was able to open up a little bit more too us about his life. This man works in a factory where the conditions are very poor. I almost cry every time I see this man`s hands. They`re almost rubbed raw from all the abuse they take. He`s really quiet but he told us how he likes games and spending most of his free time in the arcade. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was the first time I took the lead in a lesson. I really had to simplify words like `Atonement` and `sin` but with the help of my native companion, he got the idea. We explained the importance of Baptism and how by receiving Baptism we can be free of our sins and able to return to the presence of God. After we taught we talked more about Baptism and asked him if he would like to be baptized. In our preparation before the lesson, when we were praying about his Baptism date, we both felt strongly that he could be baptized pretty soon because of his pure heart. When we asked him to be baptized I felt one of the strongest feelings of love and peace that I`ve ever felt in my life and I swear the veil was lifted from my eyes because I saw how much Heavenly Father loves this man. It was so beautiful. He will be baptized on March 16, 2014.

 

We taught another one of our investigators later that day. This investigator has been meeting with the missionaries for about four years now and because of severe depression, hasn`t really progressed and hasn`t committed to be baptized. His depression is so bad that his hands shake uncontrollably and he can`t make a lot of our lessons because he has to stay home. It`s absolutely heartwrenching what this man has to go through. We started the lesson just by talking. We talked a little bit about his family and I told him about my family too. I showed him my family picture and he couldn`t believe how much Dad and I looked alike. We talked for about an hour and a half about his interests and hobbies and just about everything else there is to talk about. When we started the lesson we taught him about prayer. The lesson was going really well but he still had a lot of doubts about our church and about God. We got to the point in the lesson where we demostrate how to pray and then asked him to pray. My companion and I both offered simple prayers and asked him how he felt. He said he felt good but it wasn`t really anything special. We asked him to pray and gave him a little card with the steps of prayer on it. I`ve never heard a more personal prayer. He even started to tear up and cry during it. I couldn`t help but think that this was probably the first time this man has talked to Heavenly Father since coming to this world thirty six years ago. The feeling was amazing. The love of God is so powerful. We`re taking this really slow with him so he won`t be getting baptized anytime soon but I know he has now felt the love of Heavenly Father.

 

This week has been awesome. I`m learning so much on how to rely on the Lord and really applying what I learn in personal study into the rest of my day. My growth has been amazing to see and I really feel like I`m getting closer to the missionary Heavenly Father wants me to be. This week has been really funny too! We`ve asked everyone on the street that we contact where they think I`m from and almost everyone says Italy, France, or England. Its hilarious! I even had a guy tell me he thought I was from Canada. Canada? Are you serious?? It was awesome! The people here are awesome. I love Osaka. The people are a lot more friendly than they were in Akashi. I`m loving it!

I hope you all have a great week. I love you all!

 

Elder Jeffrey M. Giles

Some additional pics from Ninja City promised last week.

Tired, Tired, TIRED but still smiling

Fam,

 

Hello family! I hope you`ve all had a great week! Mine has been absolutely crazy!

 

We packed our bags and shipped them off last Preparation Day and went up to the Ninja City before heading back down to Osaka Sakai. The Ninja museum and stuff was way cool but everything was super expensive! We got to see the Ueno Castle too which was really cool. I`ll send some really cool pictures in a little bit!

 

Back to the everything-was-expensive-in-Ninja-City part, my companion and I blew through all the money we had and we had about a three hour train ride to Osaka that we didn`t know how we were going to pay for. We had a few dollars for the short trip back to Nabari but that was about it. One of the other missionaries gave us about $10 before we left so that got us that far. On the train we were wondering how in the world we were going to get to Osaka after the train switch in Nabari. I said a little prayer on the train and just asked Heavenly Father if there was any way he could help us get to Osaka. After I prayed I remembered that I packed my coin pouch in my carry on bag that I had with me and I felt like I should check it again even though I KNEW I only had a few cents in there. I got the pouch out and opened it up and low and behold, a 500 yen coin was right there in plain sight. I don`t know how it got there. I really don`t. All I know is angels watch over missionaries and we were able to get to Osaka by the hair on our chins.

 

It was really crazy having to start from zero again in a new area. Because we left Nabari so fast we had to leave our bikes there too and we couldn`t bring them with us so this week we`ve just been on foot. Its been pretty tough because the only place to find people, the Sakai Higashi Eki, is the only place to find people and it`s about an hour walk or so from our apartment. After making this walk several times this week my body was just about ready to quit. I was sore, tired, and complaining. I was praying one night and I just told Heavenly Father, `Look, I`m doing everything I can, I can barely keep myself up on my knees right now, but I know you can make me strong, I don`t want to be tired and sore anymore and I don`t EVER want to complain again. Please help me.` My mind was immediately drawn back to my first day in the field, on the train heading to Akashi with S 長老. The train was crowded and during one of the stops a lady pushed her father onto the train in a wheelchair. I couldn`t help but look at the man`s eyes and see despair. This man couldn`t walk but I saw hope. I felt so much compassion and love towards this man and I was drawn to recall my own circumstances and how blessed I really am to have what I have. I remembered thinking of what a blessing it was that I could just walk. The Lord has blessed me with the strength to stand on my own. As I remembered this experience during my prayer I apologized for my pethetic complaining. I am so blessed in my life. No matter how tired, sore, or hungry I get I will never complain again because I have been blessed so much. The Lord really does send angels to protect and watch over his missionaries.

 

Sakai has been really great. Its nice to get back to the city where we always have a lot of people to talk to. The city itself is pretty dirty but its alright because the people are what matter. We`ve been doing nothing but finding this past week and the Lord blessed us with three new investigators! Two of which came to stake conference yesterday! The Sakai Church is the Stake Center of the Osaka Sakai Stake so it`s almost a Utah sized building which has been awesome! Its quite the contrast from our last area where we were on the fourth floor of an office building with about 15 members. Now we have fifty and they are all awesome! I`m really excited about the opportunity to serve in this area!

 

So I have a cool experience from last night. I was wasn`t really feeling that great and I was a little sick to my stomach as we went to bed. I couldn`t sleep so I kept just getting up and walking around or just going through some of my pictures. I finally tried to get some sleep but something was keeping me awake. I decided I would go grab a drink of water and see if I couldn`t go to sleep after that. I walked in the kitchen and noticed a flickering blueish light coming from the corner of the room. I really couldn`t tell what it was but as I got closer I saw that it was the stove still turned on under a pot that had been left from earlier in the evening. If that would have stayed on we would have burned our apartment to the ground. I was so glad that the spirit kept me awake and prompted me to see what was wrong. I know that the Spirit can guide us if we just listen and now I have an experience to back that up.

 

I`m doing great. I love life and I can`t believe I`m almost 1/4 done with my mission. Its crazy how fast time flies in the mission field. I love you all and I hope you`re having a great week! I read Mosiah chapters 2 and 3 this morning and I absolutely loved it. I`d recommend reading there if you all have time this week! Godspeed!

 

Love,

 

Elder Giles

 

P.S. GO SEAHAWKS

Big News from Mie Ken- Nabari!

Fam,

Well it`s been a great run here in Nabari for a whole 11 days but I`m sad to say that I`ve been fast tracked back to the big city. My companion and I got a call from the Assistants to the President last night around 8:30 saying that we would transfer today. Our apartment right now is way to small and we were pretty much living on top of each other. They decided that our living situation would be to stressful for the next few weeks and they couldn`t find a new apartment so my companion and I are leaving today! Crazy right? My new area is called Sakai and it`s back closer to Osaka so I`ll be going back to the city! I`m really excited!

Nabari was a great place and I`ll be really sad to leave. It reminded me a lot of Heber actually! The ward here was great, even if it was only 10 people and on the fourth floor of an office building. I was really excited about maybe having the opportunity to retire another sheep number in Nabari. There is currently three more elect waiting in Nabari but I guess the Lord needs other missionaries to find, teach, and baptize them! Even though I was only here for 11 days I really have grown to love the country side of Japan. Its way different but I like it a lot. The people are more relaxed and you don`t really feel pressured all the time like you do in the city. I`m looking forward to going back to the fast life in Sakai though! 

We had I really cool experience last night when we were housing this neighborhood. The night before I felt like we should go house this one part of our area that was up a really steep hill. I didn`t know why but I just felt like we needed to go. After church we rode up the mountain to this area. When we got there neither of us really knew where we were supposed to go and we both know very well that housing in Japan is a waste of time unless you have a specific revelation for where to go. My companion and I prayed for guidance and still didn`t really know where to go so we just started to ride. Went to the very corner of this area and just started knocking on doors. We weren`t having any success at all. I lot of slammed doors and no`s but we just kept going. After an hour and a half or so we felt like we should ride again. We started riding but up the hill through this neighborhood when I saw a man and his son outside working on their gate. Like I usually do I just gave them a nice `Konnichiwa!` The guy looked up at me and in almost perfect english said, `Hello!` I was way surprised and I asked him if he actually spoke english. He said that he did a little bit but he wasn`t that great at it. I started to ride again when he said, `Hey, you`re mormon missionaries right?` I responded that we were and he said, `Can you help me?` I almost fell over right there in the road because that kind of thing NEVER happens. He said that his daughter had an english test coming up and she really needed some help so she could pass and asked if I could take a little bit of time and help her out. I said that of course I could and he took us into their house. The daughter was really shy but she had pretty decent english. I told her that I speak Japanese which really seemed to calm her down and I was able to help her out a little bit! The family was really excited about our Free Family English Program that we do and they plan on coming to our free english class this week! The Dad said that the family went to the mormon church a couple of times but they stopped going because they got busy. It just goes to show that the Lord really does direct this work and he really does guide his servants where they need to be. I`m so grateful to be lead by the Spirit on my mission. I don`t know what I would do without it.

We had an awesome New Years conference last week in Ibaraki. I can`t stress enough how much I love my mission president. He`s the man. We got a new training plan for the mission called `It`s about you... Relying on Him`. It`s all about putting all of our trust in the Lord. It`s exactly what I need right now in my mission for sure and I`m really excited about it! I had the opportunity to share my own personal conversion story in Japanese in front of the conference which was really cool! I was super nervous but I was able to give it pretty well and actually got a little choked up during it. I just feel so blessed to be a member of this church. I`ve been so blessed in my life and I`m so grateful to have been raised in the gospel. We sang our mission theme song at the end of the conference, its `To Bring the World His Truth` translated into Japanese. I couldn`t contain my emotions and I just started to cry as we sang the song. I love this mission. Kobe is a special place. I know I was chosen to come here before this life, I know that there are people here that need the gospel and they need to hear it from me. This is God's work and without him I know I am nothing! We have two special goals set up with this new training plan; 1) We will see 400 investigators at church on Febuary 2 and 2) Every single companionship in the Japan Kobe Mission will see a baptism by March 23! Crazy right! I`m so excited!

I love you all!

Elder Jeffrey M. Giles

New area, new companion, totally different experience!

Hello family

Greetings from Nabari! My new area is awesome! The change was like going from downtown Salt Lake to Heber! Its crazy how different it is here. I`m loving the country though! 

My new companion is pretty great. He`s a lot more easy going than My trainer was so it`s a nice change.

We`re opening up this area, there where two Elders here before and they just made it a four Elder area so we`re pretty much starting from scratch! It`s been pretty crazy because really all we can do is go out finding because we have absolutely 0 investigators! It`s alright though, the elect number in Nabari is 3 and we have a goal to find and baptize all 3 this transfer!

The area itself is very pretty. Its nice to be up in the mountains but its wayyy cold! Our apartment situation is pretty crazy right now. The apartment is fairly new but it was definitely built for two people! Right now I eat, sleep, and study in the kitchen! It`s hilarious! The church is on the fourth floor of an office building and I think I can count on two hands the amount of members that came to church yesterday. Its way different than Akashi, we don`t get food from the members very much but they are still awesome and I`m so grateful for how strong they are! The first day we got here one of the members had us over for lunch at his house with him and his wife. It was nice of them and the husband even spoke a little bit of english! Our second day another couple from the ward had us over for dinner to introduce themselves to us. It was fantastic. I love Nabari!

I can`t believe what a change it has been from being trained to just being a regular missionary right now. I feel like my entire mindset has changed. I`m a lot more excited about the work and a lot more motivated to find the elect in this area! We`ve been biking all over this area like crazy the last few days. It was tough to say goodbye to Juliet... oh well. She`ll be a great story for another poor new missionary I guess!

I wish I had some cool crazy experience to share this week but it`s pretty much just been a ton of housing and streeting! I can`t believe how much my confidence has gone up with my Japanese. I`m really starting to improve a lot, I can almost understand everything people say but my speaking is still pretty rough. I just keep reminding myself that the Lord will provide a way for what he has commanded us to do. I love Japanese. It`s the most beautiful language in the world and I feel so blessed for the opportunity to learn it. I can`t help but think that the Lord wants me to be quite fluent or he wouldn`t have put me with two Japanese companions in a row. I`ve talked to a lot of older missionaries who never even had a native companion on their mission, how crazy is that? I`m being blessed so much! My new companion's style is very similar to mine so I believe we can be quite effective this transfer! Its funny, we`re both Tokai (city) Missionaries who got exiled out to the far reaches of Osaka. It`s awesome!

I think the most difficult thing I`ve done so far was saying goodbye to the man I baptized two transfers ago. On my last day in Akashi, S Choro and I went to visit him to tell him that I was being transferred. We had a great last lesson and I shared with him the scripture from the Book of Mormon Mosiah 2:21-22 and told him how much I want him to stay faithful so we can meet again someday. He actually teared up when we had to say goodbye and so did I. I know that I`ll see him again someday. It might not be in this life, but what a blessing to be a part of his eternal progression. Ah, I love this church! I can`t believe how much we take it for granted sometimes. We are so blessed to be a part of Gods church on the earth today.

My Zone Leaders called me yesterday and gave me an assignment to share my conversion story in Japanese at Zone Conference this week! I`m way nervous and I`ve been praying a lot that I just won`t sound like an idiot up there but I`m excited for the opportunity.

I hope you all had a great new years! I just went to bed at the normal time so I didn`t see the new year but its great to finally be in 2014. I`ll be 20 this year! I`m getting old... Can you believe I`ve been out for 5 months already? Its crazy! I love you fam! Have a great week! Godspeed!

Elder Giles