Elder Tolen's Adventures in the Japan, Tokyo South Mission: Week 6: A Canadian and a Hand Towel (The Miracles Keep on Coming!)

The "Dream Team" of Elder Tolen and Elder Livingston stays together in Hodogaya through transfers!

Hello! This week was way intense. Let start things off with a miracle!

So, we were doing some contacting over the phone, and I'm still not very good at Japanese. But we were going through the list of all of the potential investigators, or people who were interested enough to give us their phone number so that we could contact them again, and it was my turn to talk. So I call the next guy and he answers, so I just go with what I know how to say.

"Hi, is this ......-san?"

"Yes."

"Perfect! My name is Elder Tolen, and I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints! Have you ever met with missionaries before?"

"Oh. No I have not."

"Oh... Well have you ever heard of them?"

"Nope."

"Okay.... Have you ever been to English class?"

"Nope."

It was at this point that I look at Elder Livingston and say in a slightly panicked voice, "Hey, What do I do?!" He just looks at me, smiles, and says to do my best. So I put the phone back to my face, and going totally by the Spirit at this point, ask him if he would like to meet with us so we could talk about our church and get some food together. Then comes the most surprising part: He said yes. I don't think I had ever been so happy! That was amazing!

So a few days later, we go to the place we decided to meet him. Then the sad news: He doesn't show. We waited, tried to call again. Nothing. So I was kind of down, but for some reason, I still felt like we needed to be there. And then I saw him--the reason we needed to be there. There was a white guy who looked so lost. I knew we were supposed to help this man. I told Elder Livingston, "We need to go. We need to go help this man right now." So we went over to this man and it turns out he's from Canada. He was an amazing guy, but he had a very... "colorful"... choice of words. We got talking to him, and it turns out that he was heading to the same train station that we were heading to! So Elder Livingston just says, "Hey, you know what, we were actually waiting for someone, but it looks like they aren't going to show up, so we can just take you." And then on the train ride home we had such a deep discussion with him about the gospel. It was great. Afterwards we exchanged phone numbers, and he said he would love to talk to us about the Bible sometime, so yeah. That was awesome. It brings me peace to know that we don't always know why, but the Lord will put us where we need to be, as long as we follow the spirit.

Another miracle, which isn't as long, is we needed hand towels. Like bad. We were almost out, and it was kind of a pain to wash our hands, and not be able to dry them. And we had planned to buy some, but we totally forgot, and we didn't want to waste our finding time [proselyting time], so we were just going to wait for the next P-day. But as we were studying we just hear a little *thunk* in our mail box. We go, and there was just a little wrapped package. We opened it and in it was a towel. There was no name on it, but it was just amazing to see that the Lord really does care about us, enough to see that we need something as simple as a towel, and have someone give one to us. It was such a testimony builder.

Today for P-day we just came to the Church and played ping-pong and musical instruments, which was awesome! It was the first time I got to play my drum pad in over a month. I thought I was going to die. Let me tell you something: I'm going to come back a ping-pong master. We play it so much. Like really though--It will be a fun activity. So you guys better get a ping-pong table and start practicing! You could even put it in my old room!

So next week I have my interview with President Wada, so temple P-Day will be after that. It's crazy to think that I've already been through one transfer out here in Japan.... I only get 16 of them. I only get 15 more of these. That makes me really sad. I wish time would go slower sometimes.

I love you guys and hope you had a great week! Keep being awesome! I got my transfer call, and I get to stay in Hodagaya with Elder Livingston, which is just what I wanted! I hope you had a great week!

Love,

Elder Tolen