43rd week in Japan
6/6/2016

Staying in Uwaima!

Dear Family and Friends,

First off I just want to say that I hope that Davier and his family are doing okay. I am praying for them and I hope that they can make it through this hard time in their lives through relying on God. I hope that everyone is doing well at home. Last Tuesday we figured out what would be going on with transfers, and we learned that Elder Philburn would be headed to Osaka. He is going to do great things. My new companion is Elder Anderson. He is a 7th transfer missionary. He is from Arizona and he is half Japanese. His mom is Japanese and his dad is American, so he is pretty much fluent in Japanese. He also lived in Japan for about 5 years. I am excited to stay another transfer in Uwajima. We are going to see miracles and hopefully some baptisms along the way.

This last week was sad to say goodbye to Elder Philburn. He said that he wasn't ready to leave Uwajima yet, but he has always wanted to go to Osaka, so he was excited for that. We took a bus and stayed the night in Matsuyama on Wednesday night. Elder Philburn had to travel to Osaka by himself, but thankfully he made it safely. My new companion elder Anderson came in on Thrusday and we got to work that night in Uwajima.

Right now we have quite a few good investigators who we feel like could get baptized this transfer. Midori San is one of our investgators who is all the way ready to be baptized we just have to help her set up a date and finish up the rest of her lessons. We also currently have 2 other investigators with baptismal dates, Mizumoto San and Yamashita San. Hopefully we can help them reach their dates that we have set for them. We are constantly striving to show forth our faith and work hard to do God's will.

One thing that I really want to focus on this transfer is focusing on doing God's will. Above anything else Heavenly Father's will should come first in our lives. When Jesus Christ lived on the Earth, he always put the Father's will first above anything else in his life. When we put Heavenly Father first in our lives, everything seems to fall into place. We become much happier. Heavenly Father truly does know what is best for us in our lives.

My Ponderizing scripture for this week was 2 Nephi 22:3. 

Questions:

1. Transfers were a change since Philburn choro left to Osaka. I am still in Uwajima with Elder Anderson. I am still the district leader here also.

2. I am not exactly sure if they have youth conference or girls camp here, but they have something called FSY that is coming up. A lot of the youth will be going to that. It sounds pretty fun. Actually our branch is so small the the young men's and young women's have been combined into one class. My companion and I will teach that class.

3. We have not been to any training meetings for a while. We have our regular district meetings on Friday, but we don't have them on transfer week. The last time that I met with president Welch was at the Elder Stevenson Conference.

4. One time in a lesson I told the investigator that Jesus felt our shoes instead of he felt our pains. (Kutsu is shoes and Kutsuu is pain). I accidentally said Kutsu instead of Kutsuu.

5. I haven't really seen any fireworks here, but they have a lot of different festivals. I am sure they have fireworks, but I haven't seen them before.

6. Yes, I did get the one year package,thanks so much! The poem was awesome! That really changed my mindset of my year mark. Thank you for the motivation and for all of your support.

7. Yes, I read my patriarchal blessing every now and then. Every time I read it I can feel the spirit so strongly. It helps remind me of the reason I decided to serve a mission. I still write in my journal every day. Some days I am so tired at the end of the day, that I am not able to write in it until the next morning, but I have written for every single day on my mission. I am okay on all of that stuff, thanks.

8. I don't know if I will do anything too special on the 10th. I know that from there I am going to try to start a diet to get in better shape and I also want to reevaluate my mission goals. I want to be a better missionary and work harder than I am now. I think that my language ability has come a long way. I still feel like it is nowhere where I want it to be yet, but I am working on it little by little.

Thank you everyone for your love and support. I love you all. Please get better Davier.

Elder Hirschi