What a great time to be serving in the Japan Kobe Mission! Sister McIntyre and I are so proud of each of you. Through your
faith and
diligence we have been able to achieve many of our goals as a mission and witnessed many miracles as we see people come unto Christ and change their lives. This past week I had the wonderful opportunity of confirming a member of the church and giving the Holy Ghost to our 100th convert of this calendar year. A year ago, the thought of seeing that happen seemed nearly impossible. I hope we have learned that nothing is impossible with the Lord.
We try to attend as many baptisms as we can. These are very special meetings and the Spirit can be felt as the power of the atonement is realized through the sacred ordinance of baptism. We are continually impressed by the strong testimonies born by these new converts.
We are finding the elect, those that are humble and prepared to hear the voice of the Lord and harden not their hearts. I testify to each of you that
you ARE CALLED to gather the elect. There are many here in Japan. You will know who they are because they will listen to you and not harden their hearts. (D&C 29:7) We must continue to exercise
faith, and diligently do all within our power to seek out these elect while we serve here.
Your time as a missionary is very short. As you begin your mission, you may feel like you have a long time, but it passes ever so quickly. Let us be careful not to waste time and effort on teaching those who are not ready to accept the gospel or on activities that do not directly relate to
finding,
teaching and
baptizing. Remember we are to
“find them that will receive you” (D&C 42:8). You must continually evaluate your investigators and focus your time and effort on those who will make and keep commitments. Often we become involved in teaching or meeting people who seem to have potential but never seem to progress. Our desire for them to receive the gospel prompts us to keep hoping they will change. We love all God’s children and hope they will all ultimately accept the message of the restored gospel. We should be kind and
patient. However, we need to find those who will hear now. Sometimes I feel the adversary would love for us to be preoccupied with people who seem to be interested, but never progress towards baptism. If he can keep us busy with these people, we will never find the ones who are prepared.
Your time is short. Boldly invite and teach. But if they are not ready to accept the message,
plant a seed and move on.
You have been called to gather the elect. Do not be afraid to move on. We must continually fill the funnel with investigators. Many will drop off and fade away. Some will take with them a seed that may later grow. Some may simply reject the truth. Your duty and calling is to boldly declare the message of the restoration and the gospel of Jesus Christ. As you do this with
as many people as you can in the short time you are here, you will find the elect.
How do we find the elect and determine who we should focus on and who we should let go?
President Benson taught that
“The Spirit is the most important single element in this work. With the Spirit magnifying your call, you can do miracles for the Lord in the mission field. Without the Spirit, you will never succeed regardless your talent and ability.” (See PMG p. 176)
You will succeed in this work when you learn to receive and follow personal revelation.
The SPIRIT is the Key! We can receive the Spirit and personal revelation through
the prayer of faith. (D&C 42: 14)
This transfer I want us to focus our study on receiving and recognizing the Spirit. We will do this by studying pertinent passages of scripture and Chapter 4 in Peach My Gospel. It is my belief that as a mission, if we can increase our sensitivity to the Spirit and follow His guidance, we will qualify ourselves to see even greater miracles and progress here in the mission.
To receive the guidance of the Spirit
we must be worthy.
We must obey with exactness the commandments and the mission guidelines and rules.
Obedience is the Price we pay to qualify for the companionship of the Holy Ghost. We must also
pray for the Spirit. We must pray always.
We must pray to find the elect. We must pray for the members. We must pray for ourselves and our companions. We must be united with the members and our companions in this work. But most importantly, we must be one with the Lord.
I pray the Lord’s greatest blessings upon each of you. May we seek for the guidance of the Spirit and be worthy of it!
President and Sister McIntyre
They enjoyed the morning run up to Maruyama Park.
And they had fun trying out the obstacle course.
As their welcome dinner, we had our family and Kobe District Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings. For some of the Japanese missionaries, this was the first time to eat turkey (and many other American holiday foods).
Rick made it home from basketball just in time to catch some turkey with all missionaries.
We had both dining rooms full with about 30 people. The Kobe missionaries invited some of their investigators to join us as well.
It happened to be Sister Pyper's birthday so we had a great big cake surprise for her!
Sister McIntyre made her a cute face cookie as well.
Sisters Ise and Pyper both worked hard with Sister McIntyre to prepare such a big meal for all these servants of the Lord. And it was delicious!
On orientation day, we took the new missionaries and the office staff to a sushi lunch.
The new missionaries enjoyed it and ate a lot!
It was the first time for a few of them, but everyone found something they liked. Some were pretty brave in my opinion!
This new group is unique in some ways. All the elders come with some Japanese ancestry. Elder Enta is Japanese and from Japan. Elder Price is quarter Japanese as one of his grandmothers is Japanese. The other three elders are half Japanese all having Japanese mothers. It is a great group and we are excited to work with them.
Sister Inoue and Yamashita help Sister Ise and Sister McIntyre in the kitchen.
Elder Christie served in Kobe twice and for almost half of his mission. When we arrived he was working in the office and was a great help to us in getting started in our new calling. He is fully bilingual, half Japanese, half American, and went to school at BYU Hawaii before coming back on his mission here. For the past several months he has been serving as my assistant here in Kobe again. Of course Sister McIntyre thinks he was her assistant and gave him his Assistant to the President's Wife apron.
On our morning run on his last day in Japan, we made it to the park just in time for the sunrise. Elders Matsuoka, Christie and Sister McIntyre show us why this is called the land of the rising sun!
Then they admire the work of the Lord! (sporting their custom made I Love Kobe T-shirts made by Elder Matsuoka's mother)
This was transfer day and Elder Matsuoka transferred after 6 months as the mission commissariat and Elder Christie returned home. It was a beautiful morning and yet a little sad to see these great missionaries move on.
This a shot of the mission home property today take from the same angle a little farther back across the street. You can still see the old wall running along the road. Today the Kobe Stake Center and mission offices also stand on the property.
These were the old letters. Note sure how old they were, but they date back anywhere from 15 to 20 years ago. Erika and Sammy summer of 2008!
Here is the new lettering. A little smaller but shiny gold!
Here is a picture of the current home from about the same spot.
Here is a current shot of the church and mission home further back from the same angle.
The church today from the front driveway of the mission home and our basketball court.
Front of the Kobe church today. The mission offices and missionary apartments are directly behind the church.
Entrance to the Kobe Mission Office behind the Kobe Chapel.
We tried to get a shot of everyone but it was difficult. In front is little Melina, who was baptized with her father, standing between Sisters Keneko and Yamashita who taught Sisters Li and Gogan.
A quick stop at Shakey's Pizza in Kyoto on the day of interviews. Below are some attempts to get a picture of the zone while eating
The sisters sat by us at a separate table.
We thought this would look like a Mormon Family photo. We got at least three generations in there! It was a nice long log. Just long enough for us to all sit on.
Here are some of the staff and attendees at the seminar. There were about 70 prospective missionaries in attendance.
Candy frenzy!
A highlight of the night was bobbing for apples. Elder Ito went all the way in for his!
His companion, Elder Christie, was not to be out done!
The kids loved it as this is not normally done in Japan. It was the first time to see a real Jack o lantern for most of them.
The boys were out of school for fall break on Monday so we enjoyed a family shopping day in Link Town.
On the way home he had some delicious okonomiyaki for dinner. You cook it yourself at the table. Don't know why Ricky is making a mean face? He loved the food!
Link Town is on the outskirts of Osaka near the Kansai Int'l Airport bridge. You can see the big Ferris Wheel and the ANA Hotel in the background.
The departing group front row from left to right: Sister Meyers, Elders Obata, Shoaf and Kunihiro. Standing are Elders Tupou, Fukui, Sorenson and Mauai.
Elder Tupou gets his assistant to the president's wife apron for all the help he provided to Sister McIntyre while in Kobe as the President's Assistant.
The morning of their departure we ran up to Maruyama park. While waiting for the elders in front of their apartment, Sister McIntyre displays her talents on the beam. 
Some of the departing group with Sister McIntyre in front of the mission home as we depart for the park.
Sister Meyers and Sister McIntyre prepare breakfast after the morning workout. We first met Sister Meyers in the MTC when we attended the mission president's seminar. She is the first missionary to return home who arrived after we did. We will miss her like one of our own daughters!
The night before their departure we had a big sukiyaki dinner and celebrated Elders Tupou and Sorenson's birthdays.
They tasted as good as they look!
A little morning soccer at the park.
After conference, we drove to Akashi for the double baptism of Sister Yamamura and Brother Yanase. They were both taught by Elders Fukui and Shinozaki also pictured.
Picture of the Tanabe elders and the assistants after interviews.
Photo opportunity on the way home in Kushimoto. We bought some mikans from a vendor near here who said the storm tore the roof off his home which is right across the street from where we took this picture. No sign of the storm when we too this shot though. The Nagoya Mission also took a big hit from the storm and then it moved on towards Tokyo and beyond.
Elders Cutler and Wiser just outside the Nara church preparing for the harvest!
As you can see, at this point, the rice fields are a golden color. The countryside is beautiful and our pictures do not do it justice.
The tops are heavy and the shafts are beginning to wilt over from the weight of the grains of rice.
The fields are flooded and by the end of the summer they dry out and the plants mature and are soon ready to harvest.
The field is white and ready to harvest in more ways than one here in the Kobe Mission.
She was taught by Sisters Kaneko and Kobayashi. She is pictured here with two other recent sisters baptized this year in the same ward and Sister Iwasaki who helped teach her.
I have had some inquiries about how many baptisms we have actually had this year. We do not normally publicize those numbers, but I will say we have more than doubled last year and are working on tripling our efforts by the end of the year. Having said that, we are not Brazil. I hear that they have a baptism for every door we knock on here in Japan;) I am grateful we are only comparing ourselves to our own past performance and simply striving to do better. Nevertheless, we have seen many great miracles and we hope and pray we can continue to be worthy of seeing the work move forward at a faster pace in the coming few years. In the mission office we have a new convert board (pictured above) with pictures of our converts from this year. Don't bother trying to count the pictures, some pictures have multiple converts in them and for some baptisms we do not have a picture on the board yet. It is a wonderful thing to look at though and see the wonderful new converts from this year and the fruits of the missionaries' labors. We hope we have to add another board. Two may not be enough! We are planning for at least three next year.
The inner mote is dry and overgrown with shrubs.
Within the inner courtyard there is park with food shops and many interesting people and creatures. The missionary white handbook says missionaries cannot pick up children, but it said nothing about big reptiles.
Earlier this month we took an exploratory trip out to Awaji Island which is located between Honshu and Shikoku, two of the main four islands that make up Japan. There is wonderful bridge that connects the Japan mainland to Awaji Island in Akashi, a few minutes down the coast from Kobe. At the southern end of Awaji, there is another bridge connecting the island to Shikoku which is part of the Hiroshima Mission.
