July 11, 2017

Well my companion elder yamada is from Japan and he is an interesting character, he gives the appearance of a vulnerable young boy from Japan. But in my short time serving with him, he has taught me a lot.
He can't talk to a lot of people because he is so shy and has a hard time speaking the language, but when he speaks people listen! Just to share one small story, we were out tracting  and we were setting a goal. He asked me, "elder massey how many people do you want to find?" I explained that the goal was to find one new investigator a day, so I said one new friend. He looked at me puzzled, and exclaimed
"One new friend!....we are tracting for two hours....I say three new friends!" I looked at him and agreed begrudgingly and asked him to say the prayer over these goals. He prayed and asked for the Lords power to be with us, and we went knocking doors. I followed his lead (he is a lot better at talking to people at doors than people on the street,
so tracting is really his thing) we knocked on two doors and same old same old, we get to the third door and ring the door bell and don't get a response. But I give it a good old the pound knock and a black man answers the door, elder yamada introduces himself and asks if he is religious or not. The man looks at us and says, "come in boys I
want to hear what you have to say". 

We walk in and sit down, he says "let me get my family real quick". So we wait and he brings in his wife and two young children. He then asks, what makes us so different, I explain the concept of the restoration; with prophets ,apostles, and revelation. He then told us he recently converted from Islam to Christianity and didn't understand why their were so many sects and
branches of Christianity and just wanted to find the right one. He asked us to come around on Friday and he was coming to church Sunday. 

We left the house with a Book of Mormon and a prayer, and when we were back on the pavement elder yamada looked to me and said. "Elder massey I counted 2 new investigators there.....let's go find one more". And with a blink of an eye I was no longer senior companion.

I've been studying a lot about Charity, and how love should be our motive. We should be following the commandments and doing the things of the Lord because we Love him, and not because we we love the blessings or the eternal blessings. But that's all I got