Tokyo Japan Week 17

Temple day with my companions!

Konbanwa everyone! This week has been really so amazing, and we have seen some awesome miracles here in Oyama. I'm way stoked to write about them! Today was Temple Day, and I really did some deep thinking about some of the things I have really been thankful for in my life, and I just have to say two things came to my mind instantly. One! My awesome, amazing, gnarly family. I just want to say thanks so much for all that you do, and all of your prayers for me, and always just being so awesome. I love you all so much! I sat in the celestial room and just prayed, and felt such a gratitude for the home I was raised in. Just, thanks for raising me in the right way, and always pushing me to do my best. :) Also! Number two, I felt so thankful to be a missionary at such an awesome time in Japan! Today we got to explore downtown Tokyo, and I got to hit up Shibuya and take a walk in the Scramble! Check it. World's largest intersection in the world, no big deal. It was so cool!! It was awesome seeing all of these people from all over the world in such a brief crosswalk! So cool. And Whit, photographers were EVERYWHERE! Like flickr-esque people! So cool, I definitely chatted them up a bit, asked if they knew you! They said no... But! It was a good ice breaker to introduce the Gospel a bit. ;) It looks like you all had tons of fun this week! I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but you know I was there in Spirit! You guys were on my mind all day, and I just felt really thankful for all that you have done for me. Thanks for keeping my joking reputation up Pops, love ya. ;) Haha, but I really want to go into the most awesome thing that happened to me this week!

So, this week we had this AWESOME opportunity to have an exchange with one of the assistants named Elder Hogue. He's going home at the end of this transfer, and he's seriously an incredible missionary. So he came down to Oyama, and he and I were going to have a few hours to work together, and I was stoked. I really learned so much from him, and he taught me the huge importance, and how to really give this work your absolute all. We just worked and taught, and I really learned so much. I'm not sure where he lives in Utah, but keep an eye out for an Elder Hogue coming back from Tokyo. He and my old companion Elder Hamada, now Brother Hamada, were companions and Assistants together! So we had some fun joking around and talking about Elder Hamada, and it was way cool. 

Awesome park across the street from the temple

But so that's not the awesome part! After we have our time together I get a call from Elder Burgin in Narita! He's kind of laughing, and he just says, "Elder Justesen! I got someone here who really wants to talk to you!" And he puts on one of my first investigators Chika on the phone!! She had just had here Baptisimal interview, and SHE'S GETTING BAPTIZED ON THE 22ND! When I left Narita, I promised that I would come back when reached her baptisimal date, and she did! She and I talked for a little bit, and she asked me if I would give a talk at her baptism. Also, I talked to the sister missionaries now teaching her, and they sayed that she talks about me really a lot, and that the small picture of Christ I gave her when I left (Lameneted one mom sent me!) has been her scritpture marker, and something she holds really dear. Elder Burgin came back on the phone and just sayed, "Elder Justesen, you are loved in Narita." he told me that she walked out of her interview, she walked up to him and said, "I gotta call Elder Justesen!" He said it was the first thing she did. :) It was just awesome, and it just showed me that when you gave your entire self to the Lord, He returns it ten fold with so many blessings. Chika is so awesome, and I'm so stoked to go to her baptism! Elder Hamada will be coming down from Osaka, and it's going to be just a really awesome Narita reunion. It's like Dad said, once you hit those sixth months, things just starting kind of happening, and I can really see that now. Missionary life is just becoming way natural, and something I love so much! It's been the greatest gift I have ever received, and I'm so thankful that the Lord has taken something as simple as me, and with His power and love, He's blessing me with the ability to do great things. I'm still just a really simple 19 year old missionary, but the things I have learned in this short time will bless me the rest of my life! I know that that's true.

Oyama elders! 

I'm so stoked to see what happens next transfer! Elder Hogue said President Budge's vision is that my group start training this coming transfer, which was unheard of in the mission before apparently, and I'm stoked for the challenge! I know that with those tough challenges come some of the greatest miracles. I know that if I do become a trainer, with the Lord's help I can do it! My Japanese might not be really great, but He can strengthen it. My teaching may not be incredible, but He can strengthen it. I may not be able to read train schedules at all, but He can strengthen it. There may be days where I won't know where to go or what do or what to say, but He can strengthen and guide me. I love the Lord with all my soul, and I'm so thankful to be a missionary! I can't believe it's been 6 months already, but I'm so stoked for what the next 18 have in store! I know that as I keep working with all I've got, and follow the examples of the awesome missioanries I have been blessed to work with, I know I'll see success out here! This Gospel is so true, and I know that it blesses and changes lives everyday. The Prophet Joseph Smith truly saw our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and with that, brought a world living in Spiritual Darkness into a light of eternal happiness.

You can see Moroni through the trees!

Just want you to all know I love you!! And I'm so stoked to talk to you guys in just a few weeks now... How gnarly is that?? I'll let you know what the whole way we will be doing that as soon as I find out! Who knows, I may be training at that time! Haha. But anyway, love you guys so much, and keep sending those pictures! I love seeing what you guys are up to, and see how suteki everybody is! I have one super oshare family! Ask Sister Eshbaugh what those words mean! I'm sure she'll find it pretty funny. :) Tell Virginia I say hello also! She's still the only girl for me, and even when some missionaries talk about their ladies back home, I know I got Virginia so I basically win. Nuff said. Haha, have an awesome week!! Love you guys! Also! I'll try to see if I can get some Christmas presents for you guys here! Apparently sending things to America is cheap, just sending to Japan is way expensive. For my Christmas, probably just some ties, maybe some slacks? You know, good old missionary stuff. Oh! Also, one other thing! Mom, if you could... Could you toss in some of my sweatshirts into that package if they fit?? That would be so awesome! Especially the San Jose Sharks one! I would love that one up here! If you can't that's totally fine too!! Thanks so much! Love you guys!!!

Love,

Elder Justesen