Faith...Taking a step into the Darkness

More Exchanges

July 8, 2013

Hello everyone. I hope you are all doing well. Is it hot over there? Boy it is so hot over here! I am pretty sure I have never sweated so much in my entire life. 

But that's alright. 

This week....went pretty well. 

Mission Presidents Counsel with Sister Hansen

On Tuesday we had Mission Leader Counsel. President talked a lot about faith. 

He talked about how we get to a certain point and we can do something. It no longer requires our faith. But in order to keep exercising our faith we need to keep pushing past what we feel comfortable doing. 

For example. Getting on my bike everyday when I first got to Japan, was a huge act of faith. It scared me to death. I was always so afraid I was going to fall off or get hit by a car. 

Now I am totally fine. I LOVE riding my bike. It no longer requires my faith to get on my bike. But there are other things that require me going past my comfort zone and relying on the Lord. 

Because my comfort zone has expanded significantly since the beginning of my mission I feel like recently I haven't been exercising my faith as much as I should be. 

I probably have been content with the way that things have been going recently. 

I recently read this quote by President Packer, and I realized I should be exercising more faith in my daily dendo. 

“Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness.”

This week I was really trying to exercise my faith and work even harder. We found some potential investigators, but they just aren't turning into new investigators. That's been a little frustrating. 

T**** Shimai is doing well. She just soaks up the feeling at church even though she doesn't understand most of it. I do love teacher her though. And it is way fun getting to learn Japanese sign language. I actually got to use it on the street while contacting a deaf lady. She wasn't interested, but it was cool that I could communicate with her. 

On Monday when we met with K**** Shimai we were pretty strict. We felt like she wasn't meeting with us because of the gospel, but because she just wanted help with English. We reestablished expectations with her and she kind of left fuming. She was not happy. 

But then we met with her again on Saturday and she was totally different. She was very humble and was ready and willing to learn. 

She is actually the first non-member Japanese person I have met who understands the Book of Mormon. She can read a verse and tell you exactly what it means. That is pretty amazing. 

So hopefully these wonderful changes wrought in her heart can continue. 

Got to go on another exchange which was fun. Most of the Sisters right now are training 2 new missionaries at a time. Honestly, being a Sister Trainer Leader is the cushy end of the deal. haha. I am pretty darn lucky. 

Well. That's about it from my end.
 I love you all so much!! 

Love, 

Dobson Shimai