Elder Giles, Kobe Japan Mission: 2 Nephi 27:1-2

Hey friends and family!

I`ll give everyone a quick update on the Typhoon that ripped through here
yesterday afternoon. It was something else, let me tell you. I am happy to
say, however, that no one in my range of knowledge was killed or hurt.
Apparently it did take a few lives though. I think its safe to say that
I`ve never seen rain like that. It was POURING outside. There`s a pretty
big river that runs through Takatsuki and Ibaraki that was about thirty
feet higher than it usually is so that was absolutely insane! What is
usually a quiet, slow moving river, was turned into a HUGE white water
rapid torrent of a river. I wish the pictures I got could capture just how
much water we had yesterday. It was really pretty scary in church yesterday
because all of a sudden everyones typhoon alarms started going off. We had to
cancel a church party after and everyone just kind of sat around for a
little while waiting for everything to die down. The best thing was seeing
the missionaries just cruising through it on our bikes like it was no ones
business. We went back to our apartment afterwords for lunch and some study
and things like that and a few fire trucks came by with megaphones telling
everyone everything was going to be fine and the river wasn`t going to
flood all of our houses. It was a little scary because our apartment sits
below the big man-made bank of the river so if that was going to go, we
were probably done for. I just know that God has his hand over this place.
Not once did I feel panic or even worry. It was a really humbling
experience.

Other than the Typhoon we had a few good experiences throughout the week.
We had a Zone Training Meeting on friday over in another area which was way
fun. They announced that we will pretty much be stopping most of the things
we used to do before President W got here and we will be focusing a lot
more on teaching by the Spirit. I think it`s awesome. With our old system,
I never really felt comfortable teaching that was and it often times got a
little robotic. In order to give an example of teaching by the spirit, we
were called on for a role play in front of the whole Zone right there on
the spot. I was enthralled. The whole time the Zone Leaders were talking
about the role play, my Zone Leader, who I went on an exchange with and
mentioned in a letter back in the middle of March, stared at me the whole
time. I should have learned in school to never look the teacher in the eye
when there's the chance they could call for a volunteer... Needless to say I
gave my best! It was actually really nerve racking because the Assistants
to the President also happened to make an appearance so I knew it was time
to step it up. The role play went great! We gave an awesome overview of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and extended a baptismal invitation. We were praised
on our companionship unity even though we had literally no preparation at
all. I`m just really glad I just came from training a new missionary and
had to role play just about all day everyday ;). I really felt the spirit
while we were teaching. While I was talking about how repentance and
baptism relate I swear it all just opened up for a split second and I saw
what amazing blessings this gospel can bring. It brought tears to my eyes
and I felt so humbled to have had the amazing opportunity of being a member
of this church for the whole of my life. This church is true.

We were also able to visit a really solid member family for lunch last
week and to my surprise, they fed us steak! Do you know how long its been
since I`ve had steak?? A while. It was way nice! We shared a message and
related it to the importance of hometeaching and were able to set up
appointments to go hometeaching with the member. We were really excited! I
haven`t had the chance to do really any hometeaching yet on my mission, but
it should be a really awesome chance to strengthen this struggling ward.
The dynamic is starting to change, but this ward still needs a lot of love,
and a lot of help. I`m doing all I know how to do.

This week should be really fun because we have Zone Conference in Kyoto!
I`ve never had the chance to go to Kyoto so you better believe I`ll be
taking a lot of pictures! I think we`re going to try to go up there on
Preparation Day next Monday as well so it`s going to be a really fun week!
I love you all and I`m so grateful for each and every single one of you
thats reading this! Stay safe and have a great week everyone! I love you!

Elder Giles