Apr 4,2017 Until we meet again, may God be with you." - Lloyd Newell to me on April 26th"

Hello all,

This is the last hoorah! I'm going home on Wednesday! 

We've been too busy with General Conference this week so I haven't had time to be sad. 

Also, here is my replacement Japanese sister. Her name is Sister Halvorson. I got to be her companion for 2 hours on Friday when she came to Temple Square from the MTC for a short visitors' center training! 

And I got this wicked spider bite (?) that started spreading and burning around my arm. Sister Risenmay says "Well, everyone needs a story about the last week of their mission." 

(don't worry guys I'm better now and I'm not bringing home disease)

So yeah, this was it. 18 months of telling people about how they can find peace in life by following the teachings of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful. I can say now with conviction that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is truth. 

I know it because I have met doctors and scientists and educators, as well as little children, young students, and humble visitors have their faces light up as they learn and make sense of the message of the Restoration fo the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I know it because I get that same lightbulb face as I read the Book of Mormon and the Bible together.

I know it because I have seen a stadium of 21,000 become reverent and full of love and awe when the living prophet Thomas S. Monson walks in for General Conference. 

I know it because whenever I share that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith to restore lost truths, I feel love in my heart and guests that have never even heard of Mormons before say "that makes me feel peace." 

Friends, following Jesus Christ is not easy, but it is worth the lasting peace. 

Mar 28, 2017

So since General Conference is this coming weekend, all of our going-home meetings and trainings and housekeeping things have been moved up to this week. The main thing that I learned from all these meetings and lectures about what to do when you finish your missionary service is this: DO NOT LOSE GOOD HABITS. I was kind of planning to sleep for three days when I got home to Japan, but I NOPE. I got called to repentance. Things like waking up on time, going to bed on time, praying all the time, and studying the Bible and Book for Mormon are habits that are so simple, but make all of the difference. I think the reason I feel so great and happy as a missionary is probably 30% because I'm a missionary, and 60% because I'm doing these physical and spiritual necessities. To anyone reading this, if you see me lose these things when I get home you have permission to slap me. Kindly.

***************************************************************************************So I saw my beloved old Provo companion Sister Lenogon, and while we were taking selfies, Sister Li who we used to teach in Provo walked by us and shouts excitedly, "啊 武重！我受洗礼了！“。"Takeshige! I got baptised!" 

Mar 21, 2017 "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hello crew,

Some guy interrupting our zone conference 

!!!!!!!!!!!

-end of email-

Mar 14, 2017 "I Held Hands With a Man This Week"

This week!

We went to a senior center to spend some time with friends:

This is Pauline, Harry, and Don. Don loves to hold hands with people, so I held hands with him for 30 minutes. It got really sweaty but his grip kept getting tighter and he would start muttering panic noises every time I tried to pry him away. I guess I'm glad that I made a new friend.

Mar 7,2017 "Where There is a Will (dimsum) There is a Way (dimsum)"

Soooooooooooo 

Once upon a time, when Sister Sookhoo and I were companions, we had preparation day on Tuesday. We also shared a love for dimsum. We decided to go get dimsum one Tuesday p-day. We got to the dimsum restaurant, and it was closed. They had a sign that said "Open Monday-Sunday. Closed on Tuesdays". We felt much anguish.

We vowed on that autumn afternoon that if ever we were transferred to a different zone and got the same non-Tuesday p-day, we would come get dimsum so that our friendship and companionship would be cemented by shaomai memories. 

6 months/4 transfers later it finally happened. (Look how much we are glowing (it's from the grease of the glorious foods we partook)) 

Some other cool things that happened: 

We took a VIP tour of some fancy humanitarian work representative from Israel. It was really cool, and he was very kind. 

AND THEN 10 MINS AFTER THE TOUR WE MET THE REAL VIP. Elder Stevenson, an Apostle of the Lord, and his lovely wife. 

We just ran into them at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and they were so sweet and warm. 

Also some other exciting things happened, like meeting a sweet woman from Germany who said that she would love to learn more about the things that we teach. It's sad to admit, but sometimes I assume that European people are not interested at all in listening to the message that we share as missionaries. But then this German woman helped me know that my assumptions were wrong and that I need to stop deciding their interest level for them. 

Also there was a group of school kids misled by an over-enthusiatic disagree-er of the LDS church, that decided to come to Temple Square this week to tell us that what we believe is wrong. And they did so very directly. I appreciated their concern for our welfare, but was not so appreciative of the spirit of argument and contention that they brought. Is it bad to admit that I found secret joy in watching Temple Square security take them away? 

Either way it was a really good week of good events and good food. 

Sister Takeshige 

Feb 28,2017 "Hebrews 12:6"

So in the missionary world, we use the term "killing a companion" when your companion goes home. 

Bye bye Sister Goncalves. 

Also here is Sister Nunez and I's last picture together. She also went home. 

Look how happy she looks. 

Here is my new companion. This is Sister Lu from Tai zhong, Taiwan. She loves ramen and loves to clean our apartment. She is also about the same size as me, and has cute clothes. Also whenever she speaks, people listen so intently to her words. Also she was half trained by Sister Nunez. This is going to be a good transfer. 

This week I feel like I was nonstop being chastised and fixed up. But it's not like people were straight up yelling at me. I just had a lot of experiences where I realized that I could do better. That's the awesome thing about God. He always wants to make you improve. He doesn't just throw us down to this earth and leave us be. He gives us Taiwanese companions who are so bomb at talking to people and sharing scriptures and helping them understand the teachings of Jesus Christ to show us how we need to work hard too. 

"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth" (Hebrews 12:6). 

✌

Feb 21,2017 "Busy Week! (Nothing Feels Better)"

Whale

Happy Valentine's week everyone. 

This week was packed with 10000 things. 

On Valentine's day we went and served a special lunch at the Millcreek Senior Center. 

It was really nice to get out of our regular Temple Square routine and just do a service project and do something nice for people. We don't get a lot of opportunities to spend time with people and just be their friend on Temple Square. Everybody is always rushing to the airport or rushing to the temple or rushing to some concert. At the Millcreek senior center most of them had bad knees so they weren't rushing anywhere. The best part about this service project is when two ladies were asked if they wouldn't mind being seated with two gentlemen, and they said, "Yeah, they don't even have to be cute. They just have to be rich. You sisters remember that for when you go home from your missions." 

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On Friday we had a mission tour with Elder Kim Clark from the Quorum of the Seventy. He taught us a lot of things. Here is one of them:

 I learned that overcoming our weaknesses is a life long endeavor. In Ether 12:27, it says, 

"27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

Elder Clark pointed out that in this scripture, it doesn't say "weaknesses (plural)". It says "weakness (singular)." Meaning that this scripture is referring to the fact that we are weak. I used to see weaknesses as kind of like a checklist. When we conquer one, we can move on to the next. But nah, that's not what the Lord was saying. He's not saying that he'll point out things we need to develop one by one. He's saying that we as human beings, in general, have weakness. We are tiny minuscule beings in this big big world. Sure we might overcome some trials and overcome weaknesses, but they will never completely go away and we will always need to rely on our Savior Jesus Christ to show us how to improve. 

****************************************************************************************************************

We also took a tour with a couple that basically said, "We have friends who are Mormon, and we came to Salt Lake City specifically to learn about your church." They were so touched at everything we were sharing that they basically cried the entire tour. "We have been to all kinds of cathedrals and churches in Europe and even Vatican City, but we have not felt anything as strong as we feel here on Temple Square." 

Cool. 

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We also made lasagna. I never thought I would want to eat it again, after being fed lasagna basically every single night in Provo, but here we are.

 

Happy Feb 20th. 

Sister Takeshige 

Feb 14,2017 "Love"

So this week I watched this Bible Video and felt really chastised in my heart. It's about Matthew 18:21-35. 

I invite you all to watch it and also get chastised. 

There is literally nothing that we are excused to not forgive. 

We can correct sometimes, but we must always forgive. Even when we correct somebody it must only be done carefully: 

"43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;" (D&C 121:43) 

Jesus only corrected and chastised those that he loved because he loved them. He never did anything out of spite. What a cool guy.

Also look at this thing:

Feb 7, 2017:"The Adventures of Sister Takeshige and the Lonely Tofurkey"

A former companion of mine 3 months ago left behind a frozen Tofurkey in the freezer. I decided that it was not good for this Tofurkey to be left alone, so I cooked it. 

It was quite ugly and bald when it came out of the oven. Much like a newborn child. 

But it ended up tasting pretty good. The fancy vegan stuffing was really yummy. Much unlike a newborn child.

***********************************************************************************************************

This week we also somehow ended up attending a baptism at the Burmese ward in SLC. No one was sure why we were there, but they had yummy food and it was nice to see a baptism in real life and smell the chlorine again. The sacredness of this ordinance is undeniable. 

Burmese sentence of the week: jama hin sajamale (I want to eat curry) 

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Have a sweet week everyone 

Sister Takeshige 

Jan 31, 2017

Hello, 

So this week we learned that there were 55388 Chinese guests who came to Temple Square for a tour. 

 

HOW COOL IS TEMPLE SQUARE THOUGH 

For all the missionaries out there who need some amusement: Look up bermuda triangle on Google Maps

HAVE A GOOD WEEK 

Jan 24, 2017 "Gather the Elect!"

This week we had interviews with our mission president, and he shared this scripture with us: 

"And ye are called to bring to pass the gather of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts;" (D&C 29:7)

On Temple Square, we have so many people to talk to, and it's exhausting. Most of the time they are polite, but not really ready to fully immerse themselves in the Gospel of Christ. Many people are willing to stay in contact, but not to change their lives. It's exhausting to try to convince someone who is nice but unwilling. Sometimes we think that just a little bit more and their hearts will change. We just need to pry and find the elect deep inside these people.

President Risenmay told us that the scriptures tell us exactly who the elect are. They are not people that we need to pry and dig and scavenge for. They are people who will "hear my voice and harden not their hearts". In essence, they are people who will accept invitations to go to church or read the scriptures. When people say no, we just say "well alright then. If you change your mind, we'll still be here to help you out. Have a nice day" and talk to the next group of tourists. The Elect are people that we shouldn't have to bargain with to increase their spirituality. 

Missionary work has been a lot more fun and a lot less exhausting ever since I learned that this week. 

Jan 17, 2017 ther 12:27"

In the Temple Square mission, we are not assigned to any wards/congregations. So for church on Sundays, we gather at 7:30 in the morning just with the missionaries, and the missionaries who are going home in the near future are assigned to give the talks. 

My companion, Sister Goncalves is going home in 5 weeks, so she was assigned to speak. She does not like public speaking, and she highly dislikes large groups of people. She was very nervous the night before, and we went through her talk together revising it and practicing it over and over. 

The next morning, she was pretty confident. She was ready to blow those missionaries' minds with the talk that she was about the give. "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (D&C 38:30). We did what we were supposed to, and there was nothing that could get in Sister Goncalves's way. 

We walked in to our chapel, and I took a seat in the pews, while she headed over to take a seat on the stands. And then I look up and see this on the stand:

It was Elder Quentin L Cook, a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles.

brain: "SISTER GONCALVES IS GOING TO DIE"

NO ANNOUNCEMENT AT ALL, AN APOSTLE OF THE LORD showed up at our church because he couldn't make it to his regular church because of scheduling conflicts. 😰😬😆😮

Sister didn't die while she gave her talk, but she did forget how to pronounce the word "wings", which was pretty funny. She actually shared a beautiful message about having gratitude, and how grateful we need to be to have the Gospel of Christ in our lives. 

Elder Cook was the concluding speaker, and he talked about how when he was a young missionary, he trained a companion who was from a tiny town in Utah. This companion had never been in a big city, and talking to people frightened him. Elder Cook said, "I did 95% of the teaching, and he recited the first vision and shared his testimony." 

They had a baptism later on, and when asked how they decided to be baptised, they answered, "Elder Cook, you are a good missionary, but when your companion shared his testimony, we felt the Spirit of God confirm in our hearts that this message is true." 

I thought it was pretty cool, because that's exactly what I've been able to learn from Sister Goncalves. You can be humble and powerful at the same time. 

That's the end of my story. 

Here are some other pictures:

Book of Mormon + Teachings of Presidents in braille 

(Temple Square secret: for a good time, take a tour of the LDS printing division warehouse) 

The directors of the Kirtland OH visitors' center! We got to do some missionary work with them on Temple Square for their training. Sister Jennings kept telling people "I love you". I want to be like her when  I grow up. 

Twin

Jan 3rd, 2017 "Feliz Ano Novo"

We set the new baptismal goal for the year of 2017 for the Temple Square mission yesterday. Since the Temple Square mission is a little bit (a lot) different from other mission, we count a baptism as a Temple Square baptism when someone was introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ through physically coming to Temple Square and meeting missionaries here, or if we were instrumental in introducing the Book of Mormon and their local missionaries to the people who come on mormon.org. 

After much prayer and discussion and sincere seeking of God's will, our grand goal is... 1700 baptisms. 

In 2015, we achieved 915 baptisms in the Temple Square Mission. In 2016, we set a goal of 1016 and achieved 1351. For 2017, we're striving for 400 more people's lives to be touched and changed for the better.

The number makes us sweat a little bit, but it's been really cool to see that in 2016, when we had faith and worked hard, the Lord provided so so so many tools for us to succeed and find and teach. Even though it looked like the odds were against us with how much fewer missionaries we had this year, and how many more guests came to Temple Square, somehow it all worked out. 

Looking back, it feels a little bit like the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5000.  

I am so excited to continue to embark on this very important work of teaching people that there is a Christ who atoned for their sins, so they can have lasting peace in this life. Every single person who comes onto Temple Square is taught that there is a God who has provided a perfect plan for them, and they can partake of that plan if they choose to do so. 

This has not at all been easy, but it makes me happy, and I know that this message that I share everyday is true. It is true because as I have lived it especially in these last 14 months, I have improved 3000% as a human being. My worst weaknesses have become my strengths. I have achieved things I never imagined accomplishing. 

It is true because when we share the teachings of Jesus Christ and the scriptures, the eyes of guests of Temple Square light up and I feel the love of God for them. 

For anybody reading this, (if anybody is reading this) I would like to let you know that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ will help you improve the quality of your life. It helps everybody. It helps those who have never even heard of Jesus Christ or touched the Bible, and it helps those who have been religious all their lives and think that they are content and happy. Go to mormon.org. Read the Bible. Read the Book of Mormon. Attend a church. These are all tools that are for you, because God loves you and sees your infinite potential. 

That's all. No pictures this week. Happy New Year. 

Sister Takeshige 

Dec 27, 2016 "Feliz Natal"

Merry Christmas my friends! 

This year was a wonderful beautiful Christmas. We had a service project sorting through donations at the Midvale Road Home

Christmas Eve we had some miserable rain, and on Christmas day we woke up to this Christmas miracle:

Temple Square was closed until 4pm, so we ate a lot of food, opened some presents, took a nap, and played in the snow

Also everybody thinks that Japanese packages are adorable

And the people are okay too

😁

Dec 20, 2016 "Jesus calmed the storm and so can you"

The wind in Salt Lake City was really strong this week:

The little camel fell over and it looked like the wise man is dragging him across the field

But guess what? Jesus calmed the storm and so can you

Here is another thing to make your Christmas more beautiful this Sunday: 

https://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/wexfordcarol.html?cid=HP_SU_4-12-2016_dMOTAB_fMOTAB_xLIDyH-3_

I love you all. I love Christmas. I love the Gospel that our Savior Jesus Christ taught to all of us. Before I saw the Gospel as some feel-good philosophies that I could share, but I've come to learn that it's more than that. God truly does have a perfect plan and every minuscule detail of it is wonderful and fascinating. 

Bye bye. 

Dec13,2016 "This Week I Cried A Lot Because of Many Happy Things"

Hello, here is the thought for the week: 

"7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7) 

This week we had the chance to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. I wasn't expecting much, because I didn't know what to expect, but it was pretty mind blowing. 

and yes I did tear up a little.

Also while we were Christmas caroling, a pretty legit Santa came and joined us.

Zone brunch 

😀

Sister Takeshige