The Best 2 Years: Elder Jace Thompson in Omaha/Japan: the one with Ismail

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Starting with last Monday, we went to what's called the tower of the sun for P day! It was really cool, and we went with all of the Nishinomiya missionaries. I have lots and lots of pictures of it on the album, so go check it out to see what it looks like!

Wednesday, I went on exchanges with Elder McMaster, and we had a blast! We spent the whole day bouncing around from one way of finding to the next and tried pretty much everything we could think of, which was pretty fun.

Friday, we had our game night as per usual, and it's been so much fun. One of our friends, named Yuta, comes every week, and him and I play ping pong for almost the entire time. He is really good so when I get home imma be cracked at ping pong.

Saturday was sooo long, but it was good! We started out with service in the morning, which we do every Saturday. Then we had a lesson with Ismail, and we put him on date for baptism!!! It was such a good lesson about the plan of salvation and it was great! I told him that transfers were on February 19th so either me or my comp would be gone by then so I asked if we could try and do a day before that and he said the 18th would be perfect! So, hopefully, things go well, and I can see him get baptized before I'm gone! After that, we went to some basketball courts and played basketball with all of the Nishinomiya missionaries and met lots of new friends! We then rushed back to the church for eikaiwa and then had some meetings after so, dinner didn't happen until 9:00. But it was such a good day, and I was so happy for Ismail!

Spiritual thought:

Moroni 10:32

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

"My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. Indeed it is only with that reassurance burning in our soul that we can have the confidence to keep trying to improve, keep seeking forgiveness for our sins, and keep extending that grace to our neighbor."

- Elder Jeffrey R Holland

Since being on my mission, I have learned A LOT. But ever since getting to Japan, I have learned so much about love. In our mission, we have a saying, "High Love, High Expectations." Our mission President, Sano会長, shows so much love to every missionary. Because he loves us so much, he has very high expectations. But it's very easy to live up to these expectations without it feeling burdensome because everyone simply wants to make president proud and happy because we love him. The mission culture here is absolutely amazing because it's all built upon love. And our lives are all bulit upon God's love for us. He loves us so much more than we can possibly fathom. And if we reciprocate that love back to God, everything he asks us to do; every commandment, standard, prompting, etc, will never feel burdensome to follow. And when we follow the commandments God has given us, we will not only see his spirit and blessing pour out upon us, but we will be able to bless the lives of others around us.

Well, that's all I got this week! Feel free to email me this week!