Elder Tolen's Adventures in the Japan, Tokyo South Mission: Week 17: Elder Tolen, Child Whisperer

Hey everyone! So, because of the new ipads, it is kind of a pain to send new weekly emails every week, because if I wanted to do that, I would have to type in all 95 of your names, every week. I don't want to do that. Sorry.... But I'll experiment with it and see what I can do.

Anyway.... This week is good! It has been so warm lately! I love it. I love just walking around on the beach, and doing missionary work! It is the best! Today for P-day, my companion wanted to sleep, so Elder Harrison and I just went to the beach and played sports and stuff! It was great.

This week has been pretty busy. We had a whole ton of meetings, and we got new I-pads! They are great. The one thing is we don't have Facebook for a bit, but that is all good.

Yesterday, there was an 8 year old baptism in the branch, and we had to go to another building, because our building doesn't have a font, but it was fun! There is this little girl in our branch named らんちゃん (Ran-Chan) and she is the sister to that little boy that I took pictures with a little while ago, and she is so cute. She never ever smiles, but she will always come up to me and grab my hand and drag me around church. It is fun. I took some pictures with her at the baptism because she just came and sat down in my lap and it was just too adorable.

In other news, this week, I have my first baptism! He is great! He is going to be baptized on the 4th of April, and he is just a great guy. He asked my companion to do the baptism. I am so happy to have been lucky enough to help teach and guide this man the church. He is great. I don't know if I'm allowed to post his name or not... So I probably just won't post it.... Sorry. But we started teaching him a few days after I got into the area, and he has come so far. I am so excited for him.

In other news, I hit my six month mark this Wednesday! How amazing is that? I feel like time is going by almost too fast. It's actually kind of scary...

Other than that, I think I've covered all of the big things going on this week, and last week....

Recently I have been studying a lot from Preach My Gospel, and I have been studying Chapter 6. In Chapter 6 it talks about developing Christ-like attributes, and my favorite attribute is hope. I love hope. The definition of hope is having an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises in this life or the next. And the more I've read, the more I've realized that every Christ-like attributes can be traced back to faith, and of course, hope. I don't want to spoil any of it for you, but I would challenge you all to go and read that chapter, because I feel like it applies to everyone, not just missionaries!

I hope you had a great week! Keep being amazing! I loveyou guys!

Elder Tolen