The Best 2 Years: Elder Jace Thompson in Omaha/Japan

Sunday, March 10, 2024

The One With a Little Shibui👌

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Starting with Monday, we were still with the other elders outside of our area waiting for Zone Conference, and we spent the day going on a couple hikes and to some shrines around their area. Pretty fun day, just chilling with the other guys.

Tuesday, we had ZONE CONFERENCE!!! It was awesome!! We talked about sooo many good things, but one of the most talked about subjects was faith! We talked about all the power that faith has, and they challenged us to read the Book of Mormon and find all the ways that everyone is using faith. We also talked about shibui👌 which just means that we want to have a good mission culture. We really want to focus on faith, hope, and charity and each one is one finger to make this 👌. It was a good but long day, and it's SUPER far from our area, so we spent the whole rest of the day traveling back. Sadly, we couldn't make it home, so we stayed another night in Toyo.

Thursday, we spent lots of time doing service! We started with going to this place called PAFIO, which is like a community center, and helped our friends clean up the project surrounding the disabled kids in the area. After that, we went to an inactive members house and helped her clean up her backyard because she has two goats! It was pretty fun and the goats were sick

Saturday we went with our photogropther friend, Misaki, and spent the day going to cool places and taking LOTS of pictures! It was pretty fun, and we got some fire flicks, so it was a really good day! That night we stopped and got some crepes (theres this killer crepe shop that we go to like three times a week) and while we were eating them, sone 15 year old girls threw a 5¥ coin at me (imagine a nickle). We are not sure exactly what it means, but we think it's some sort of courting thing🤣🤣

Spiritual Thought:

Alma 32:21&27

21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

So how does one “come unto Christ” in response to this constant invitation? The scriptures give scores of examples and avenues. You are well acquainted with the most basic ones. The easiest and the earliest comes simply with the desire of our heart, the most basic form of faith that we know. “If ye can no more than desire to believe,” Alma says, exercising just “a particle of faith,” giving even a small place for the promises of God to find a home—that is enough to begin. Just believing, just having a “molecule” of faith—simply hoping for things which are not yet seen in our lives, but which are nevertheless truly there to be bestowed—that simple step, when focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, has ever been and always will be the first principle of His eternal gospel, the first step out of despair.

–Jeffrey R. Holland

Sticking with the theme from Zone Conference, today is all about faith! Faith really is the first and most important step we take towards the gospel of Jesus Christ! Without it, we wouldn't be able to do any of the other things! And I love that we don’t always have to have this CRAZY amount of faith...as long as you have a little bit, enough to lead you to act, then it'll all work out through the power of Christ, our Savior.

Well, that's all I've got this week! I hope everyone has a killer week! Feel free to email me!

Zone conference! Shibui👌

Ichiban! ☝️

More zone conference flicks

🔥🔥

美味しい食べ物！

Lunch break!

Practicing teaching!

P day hitting a hike

"I don't like sand..."

Seminary Graduation!

More pics at seminary graduation

We are becoming best friends with the 7/11 workers

31!

32...we're hitting triple digits before I go home

Good week for dogs...ending the week at 34

Some more flicks with the dogs

Hitting some service

Sunday, March 3, 2024

the one with the actual pub

"Boom, you looking for this?"

Starting with Monday, Elder Holmes and I had a pretty chill P day. We went to a sick garden and some other shrines and shops it was a pretty chill day, which was nice.

Tuesday, we had our Ping Pong game night and had 11 people come! It was awesome and such a fun night...I've got new people to try and beat now....

Wednesday, we took a day trip out to Ozu, which is about an hour and a half away from Uwajima, and spent the day trying to find people there. We hit up the Ozu Castle, and it was so cool! We met a bunch of high schoolers at the top who were trying to visit every castle in Japan.

Thursday, we learned how to juggle.

Friday, we took another day trip down to a garden that supposedly was really cool. It was also like an hour away but it was a pretty cool garden...the people there were really nice and gave us some...interesting food and drink. Had this fermented plum drink that was brutal. After the garden, we went to a nearby park and found a family playing soccer so we joined and had a party! We got their info, so hopefully, we can play again with them soon. Then we just started walking and found "the sandlot" but in Japan and then spent like an hour looking for a bus station. We did end up getting home, and all of that walking saved us a whopping 40 cents, so yeah, that was....something.

Saturday, we fixed Elder Holmes's bike because he popped a tire before I got here, and he's been using a loaner. After that, we went to what we now call "the pub." For some background, we met this dude last week after he chased us down because we were white. After talking with him, we found out he owned this bar, and it seemed pretty sick. So we finally decided to hit the pub this week and say hi to him and his wife. They had coffee, tea, and alcohol which is not exactly ideal for us, but then he told us he also had this juice. He said the juice makes you go "OooOOooooooO," so we prayed it wouldn't have anything bad and decided to get it. It ended up just being like a smoothy, and it was pretty good. We also met all of the locals at this pub and had some really funny conversations.

Spiritual thought:

2 Nephi 31:13

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.

"When doubt or difficulty comes, do not be afraid to ask for help. If we want it as humbly and honestly as this father did, we can get it. The scriptures phrase such earnest desire as being of “real intent,” pursued “with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God." I testify that in response to that kind of importuning, God will send help from both sides of the veil to strengthen our belief."

–Jeffrey R. Holland

I love the last sentence from Elder Holland... I think sometimes we expect God will only help us in these crazy ways involving angels or simmilar feats but I think more often than not, God uses others around us to help us with the difficulties of life.

Since being on the mission, I have had a lot to be grateful for and a lot I realized I took for granted back home. I'm so grateful for all of the friends, family, and people in my life who have been there to help me. I love how God puts these specific people in our lives because he knows how much they will help us in our lives. So, I hope this helps you remember just how amazing your friends and family are 🙂

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