Japan Ebetsu 22 months -4 weeks- 104 LAST ONE!!!!!!!!

Our district activity. We played Call of Duty. 

Mimura Eikaiwa. These are the funniest grandmas ever. 

The Ikeda family! 

The people that came to the concert. 

The Ikeda Family. I love them so much. 

Mimura san! I will miss her. 

Ikeda Raiki! I love him

Tada Shimai! She was in the MTC with me! 


Return with Honor

I can't believe how quickly it came. My last email. There is a lot I want to share, but I am going to keep it very simple. But before that my Mother will be SUPER angry with me if I don't talk about the concert we had this week. 

The concert was March 14th Saturday night. March 14th in Japan is White Day. White day is like Valentines day. The guys give chocolate and presents to the girls. Because in Japan, Valentines day is where the girls give presents to the guys. We were nervous for the turn out because a lot of our investigators said they might not be able to make it. Members said they were busy, and we only had about 10 people committed to coming. The whole week we went crazy inviting EVERYONE to come to the concert. We pinged a house and this lady comes out, probably in her 80's "do you like music?" "I LOVE MUSIC!!! I LOVE ELVIS!!!!!!!!! I AM COMING TO THE CONCERT!!!!" It was so funny. In the end she didn't make it to the concert, but a lot of people did! 5 minutes before the concert started there were about 10 people there. It was sooo sad. We then went up on the stage and started to get ready. 7:05 and people start flooding in. We say the opening prayer, open our eyes and the room is full. Everyone showed up on Mormon time, just in time to say Amen.

The concert was great. We stressed out so hard for it. The mics didn't sound good, we didn't know our music, we all sounded so flat, it looked like we were doing Karaoke, and we forgot a lot of our music. BUT it was a great concert. We had 2 members testify during the concert. Their testimonies were beautiful and non members in the crowd really felt the spirit. We sang a lot of fun songs, like a version of Poker Face that we made, some Avril Lagvine (spellcheck) and then we had a lot of serious songs, like Where love is, Love one another, and Come thou Fount. My favorite songs were a Japanese song "Ue o Muite, arukou" and Come Thou Fount. We had the whole crowd sing with us and it sounded sooo good. The spirit was really strong and some of the non-members REALLY felt it. Don't worry the ward members filmed all of it and are giving us cds, so there will be a way to see it. :) The best part of the concert were all my friends that came! The Ikeda family showed up! They came to surprise me! They drove about 2 hours from Tomakomai to come to see me! They walked in half-way into the concert and I almost cried. It was the greatest.

These last 2 years were truly the best two years of my life. 

I have grown so much. When I first started the mission, I thought that I would be companions with my trainer for the next 2 years. I thought that I never left my area and I would go to the mission home often. I though I would be teaching everyday and I would have tons of opportunities to talk to people. I thought I would be lucky if I came home seeing at least one baptism. I thought I would never be able to speak Japanese. These thoughts began to change as time went on. After my first transfer I learned that there are a thing called transfers and your companions leave you and you can leave you area! After my 4th transfer I learned that you don't go to the mission home often, and that teaching is a great opportunity but you have to find investigators to teach. Around my 6th or 7th transfer I learned that I can get around with my Japanese and kind of say what I want to say. 1 year in and I saw my first baptism. I thought this was going to be the only baptism I saw. I was happy with all I have done and was ready to keep working. My testimony was getting stronger but still had so much room to grow. 10th and 11th transfer. I worked and worked. Investigators kept getting close to baptism but just couldn't quite make it. 12th and 13th. My testimony was at its peak. The trials kept coming and coming and Heavenly Father blessed me with the greatest blessing ever, a family baptism. This family changed my life forever. They taught me so much. Teaching them and being apart of their life taught me what I came on my mission to learn.

I came here to learn what is most important. I talked about it awhile ago in my email, but in the end it comes right back to that. Returning to live with Heavenly Father. That is my goal. That is all I want. To be with Him, and my family for forever. Everything I have learned over these 2 years will help prepare me to return. To be a better, son, brother, husband and father. 

My ward mission leader shared with me yesterday how when I come home, the leader I become will be my gift to my mission president. That will be how my mission president knows that he was successful. Not only will my mission president know that he was successful, my parents will know. They have prepared me more that anyone. They have taught me everything I needed to know and their prayers carried me the whole way. 

I am so ready to come home and become a better person everyday. I am so not ready to leave. But I know that no matter what, no matter where I am, I know that Heavenly Father loves me and will help me. I know I am a Child of God. I know what is most important. I know this church is true. 

I love you all. Thank you so much for these 2 years. Be excellent to each other.

-Mecham Choro. 

Japan Ebetsu 21 months -3 weeks- 103

Iida Shimai! This week I was able to go back to Moiwa for mission tour and Iida Shimai came to see me! I found her almost exactly a year ago and had the opportunity to teach her a few times. I haven't seen her since, but she got baptized and then came to see me! I was so happy! Add caption

This picture kills me. 

I also got to go visit the Tomita family!!! Last time I will see them. They are the best.

We look so good. 


Every Moment Matters

I have been thinking about what to write about for awhile but, I still have no idea. I am just going to type and hope it comes out right. 

Coming to the end of a mission is weird. There will be times when we are outside finding, teaching an investigator, over at a members house or just walking and it will hit me that I may not ever see this road, person or house again. It freaks me out and helps me work harder. A lot of people have been asking me lately if I am trunky. The answer is yes. I am trunky. I feel that if a missionary says they are not trunky they are lying.I am so excited to see my family and friends. YET I am not ready to go home. That is because I still have a week and a few days left. I am still able to focus 100% in the work, but there are other things I have to think about, things I have to prepare for. 

This week we had miracles where we were able to teach! On Wednesday President Ringwood of the Seventy and his wife (Elder Nelson one of the 12 apostles daughter!) came to speak to us. (Oh and apparently Elder Nelson is coming to Sapporo to speak 3 days after I come home. I am going to ask if I can fly home 3 days later. But my mom would kill me) Anyway he spoke to us about the importance of teaching. We talked A LOT about Moroni 10 and the exhortations that are written in it. The things he is exhorting us to do. He talked about how in order to teach we need the spirit, but in order to have the spirit we need to teach. It was interesting. Lately my companion and I haven't been teaching many investigators, so he suggested that we teach members, teach to other missionaries, teach to your companion. Just the opportunity to share your testimony will be enough to help you have the spirit. He talked about a lot of other things, like getting married, becoming truly converted, having regrets and like such as. But what stood our the most to me was how important the scriptures are. 

I think it every time we have a special guest come speak to us. They are so good at using their scriptures and they speak very powerfully. I committed to reading the scriptures harder and focusing a lot more when I read. It was a great meeting. 

I would love to talk about what we did this week, but really it is not that exciting. We met with 4 of our investigators. (yes that is right we made 4 investigators!!!!) But they are all very very weak, to the point where they really have no interest in the message, but like us so they are listening. It is a lot harder to teach when it is that way. But we are so grateful for the opportunity we had to teach. Other than that we got ready for our concert next week, visited some members and tried to meet with less active members, but they all rejected us. 

The things we have been doing lately aren't exactly the most exciting, but every moment has had a huge impact on me. Everything somebody says, every smile, dirty look somebody gives me, all of it. I love it all. Every moment is important. I am doing my best to take it all in these last few weeks and share as much as I can about the truths I know. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. I love you all. Be excellent to each other.

-Mecham Choro. 

Japan Ebetsu 21 months -2 weeks- 102

My best friends came to eikaiwa this week! Miyake Kun and his friend Eri Chan! Miyake kun came to the concert we did. So good to see him again.

The cute kid in the front. Hiromu. He makes the picture perfect. 

We tried a new kind of heart attack. 

This was my favorite heart

No good pictures this week. Sorry! This is the last one. Love you all!

                                               Testimony and Conversion

This week we spent so much time finding. We did a lot of housing and talked to a lot of people. We have only one investigator right now (and that investigator is busy) so we needed to find some people to teach. We spent so much time planning. Thinking about where we should go, who we should visit, what members may have referrals, what old investigators we should visit ect. We made some really great plans and went out to go find these people. For the amount of time we spent finding this week we had a lot of contacts. We talked to a ton of people, yet we saw no success. The old investigators rejected us. The less active members quit the church. The members have no friends(?.... I was confused as well.) And the people we talked to had no interest. It was hard! Seriously hard. We had one day where we found this REALLY good looking area. Lots of new houses and we saw a lot of young people walking around. This was our chance to go find young families! People hid in their houses. About 10 of the 120 houses we pinged, actually answered the inter-phone. BUT the people that did answer rejected us SUPER nicely so we considered it a huge success. 

I spent a lot of time thinking about our finding. I felt horrible for my companion. He just barely got to the mission and has yet to teach a lesson to an investigator we have found. We have spent hours and hours of finding, yet have not found anyone to teach. We made great plans to help members, to work with them and receive referrals, yet the members seem to be too busy. It was pretty depressing. I though about other missionaries, who on their last transfer work sooo hard and see TONS of miracles. I thought about my work and if it just wasn't good enough. I have had these times before on my mission and have learned how to get over these trials, but it was just weird to me that I had to have this trial again on my last transfer. A few weeks before coming home. 

As I thought about this my answer came to me. Yesterday while sitting in church thinking about how I can help the struggling ward members who were arguing with each other, I looked down at the Liahona talk which we were studying. It was Pres. Eyring (Spellcheck) talk in the February Liahona, Testimony and Conversion. We began talking about it and the members all had their different opinions on how and why we need to be converted. I tried really hard to feel the spirit, but was too distracted. I started to read the talk to regain focus when I read about missionaries. I talked about how missionaries rely on the spirit to know what to teach and how to help people change. It had nothing to do with what we were currently talking about, but I got my answer. 

I am having this last trial to seal my conversion. I am proving to the Lord just how much I love him. I am showing him that I will give Him my everything, even when it may seem like I am seeing nothing. I am committing to live my life as He would have me live, to obey His commandment and truly love everyone around me. I am learning what true conversion is and what it means to become like the Savior. 

My companion and I talked one night about the miracles we have been seeing lately to try and get our dendo fire up. We were pretty down and had a hard time listing off miracles. I now know the biggest and most important miracle I saw was the change I had. 

I love you all so very much. Be excellent to each other.

-Mecham Choro.