Re: Working Hard Enough

Here is an excerpt from Alex's letter this week. It's a response to his dad's latest letter regarding what it means to "work hard":

It's actually interesting that you mention goals. There's a lot of push to make and achieve goals in this mission. Though I think that from reading "Preach My Gospel" that's just the general case here. I don't know if you remember this, but I've never been much for goals myself. But we set goals everyday for finding investigators and for all the different kinds of lessons that we teach. Our Mission President is pretty big on goals. Since I've gotten here the big goal that the mission has been working towards is "One companionship, one month, one baptism." 

It's also interesting that you mention the difficulty of achieving goals that regard things that have a high level of variability and are out of our control, because in fact, that's all of our goals.There are of course things that we can do to influence those things, but in the end, it's not up to us. What's also interesting is what it says in the first chapter of "PMG" about what a successful missionary is. And not one of those things has to do with achieving goals. 

When I was being trained, my trainer told me that in the mission, the rhetoric swings back and forth between "we need to get numbers" and "numbers don't tell you that you are a successful missionary." And it turns out that he's right. Right now we are in the "numbers are important" phase, and that may have some relation to the degree of stress that I've been feeling regarding "working hard," especially because I have a companion who is very worried about numbers, but not very willing to work in order to try to get those numbers.

But what I've come to understand more and more is that the Lord just wants us to keep going, to keep trying. If the Lord was really focused on getting high numbers, about getting people baptized, he could do it. Like my district leader told me the other day, he could just send a natural disaster, humble a lot of people really fast and lots of people would get baptized, like what happened in Sendai in 2011. If He was focused on that then every companionship would be perfect and no one would ever feel discouraged about missionary work. But that is not the case. 

The Lord lets a lot of things happen on missions. Lots of things that are really hard. But I think that more than you help anyone else change during your mission, whether that be companions, members, or investigators, he changes you so many hundred times more.

On a different topic, I had a chance to talk with a very interesting, quite old man whose been investigating the church for about 10 years. He has traveled all over the world, and used to be a researcher who studied culture, specifically that of developing countries and he is very impressed with Mormon missionaries. Also, since he's been in contact with missionaries for a long time and being a person who just thinks about lots of things, he has thought a lot about how the church could do things for non-members that would help missionary work a lot. 

Anyway, I talked to him for about an hour and a half on Friday, and two more hours on Saturday and it was very interesting and all in English which was a nice change.

Have a good week,

-Alex

They Have Really Big Spiders Here!

Hello!

Ueda is good. I still really love Nagano-ken. It's really pretty here. We had some rain last week, so it was pretty cool here for a few days. It's a typical summer's day right now though, but it should start feeling more like fall in the next few weeks.

This week, there was a traditional festival all over Japan called O-bon. During the week of O-bon, the spirits of all the ancestors are said to come back to the earth, and people go and visit the graves of their relatives all over the country, so it was a little hard for us to visit people this week. But we took some time after an appointment to go to a Buddhist temple with Brother Wakabayashi and see all the special things they had for the festival.

I found this guy while housing yesterday. He was about the size of a. . .well, a pretty big spider. I don't think these ones bite though.

The church is still true. Christ is our Savior. Through Him we can become mighty. 

This is a really cool video the church made for Easter:
http://easter.mormon.org/

With love,

-Elder Mueller

'Allo 'Allo

Here are some random answers to your random questions. I did feel an earthquake in May. And last night I had a dream that there was an earthquake so big that it made our apartment fall over. We had a little rain this weekend because there was a typhoon, but we were on the edge of it, so the wind wasn't that strong. It was pretty cool from the rain, but I think it's going to heat up again today.

I am having kind of a hard time. I don't know how to help myself learn to work hard. Through having difficult companions who don't want to work, I let my fear of talking to people lead to not wanting to do missionary work which lead to laziness, a heavy dose of apathy and an eternal feeling of discouragement and dissatisfaction. 

My new companion is the kind of senior companion who worries a lot. Worries about statistics a lot, worries about whether or not we are doing the right thing. But despite all his worrying, he won't take the steps of action necessary to get things done. And so if I do not make things happen, they don't get done. 

He does speak pretty good English though. We probably speak about 50-50 Japanese and English. And we are a lot more able to communicate than I was with my last native companion. 

But we did some pretty fun stuff this week. We went with some members and people we are trying to make into investigators to see the fireworks show last Tuesday. It was way cool, and we wore kimonos:

and I also used the recipe you gave me to make a cake for our investigator, J...o-san. Her knees have been hurting a lot lately, so we haven't been able to meet with her for a while, but we took her a cake. This a picture of our counter while I was making it.

It turned out pretty good, and she was very happy with it.

Finally, yesterday, Elder Aoyagi of the Asia North Area Presidency visited our branch yesterday. He is extremely nice, and very spiritually powerful. Later I was looking at the Liahona, and I saw his picture in the new area presidency assignments page. It was very interesting to think "I just saw that man earlier today, and here's his picture in the Liahona."

Okay, that's all for this week.

Farewell,

-Elder Mueller

The State of the Work in Ueda

Hello all,

A new transfer has begun. I have a new companion.

Last Monday night, Elder B and I had to take a train to Matsumoto and stay there for the night so that we could be at the bus terminal at 5:15, all so that we get to transfers at Nagoya Station on time.

My new companion is Elder T...yama. He's kind of short and is Japanese. I am his Junior companion, and so I'm trying to figure out how to teach him about the area, having been here longer, while figuring out what we should do.

M...zumi-kun is trying to figure out his life right now. We're trying to tell him that his life will get better if he follows Christ, but we haven't made much headway with him for a while. I just asked him to pray to know what God wants him to do last time we saw him, so hopefully, we will be able to help him figure out what he should do soon.

M...yama is another one of our investigators. He's really worried about his future right now, and he hasn't been listening to us at all until last Friday, we had lunch with him, and he started getting really down and talking about how he has no future and that he has no options, but then we shared a scripture with him that says that today is today and to let tomorrow worry about itself and he was really happy after that. He hasn't been open to anything gospel related before, so hopefully we can make some progress with him.

We had lunch with Brother W...yashi and Sister N...zawa on Saturday for my birthday. Sister N...zawa made some something with noodles. I don't know what it's called, but it was really delicious.

I still haven't made my birthday cake. . .but I will eventually. Maybe this week.

With love,

-Elder Mueller

The End of a Transfer

Hello,

We had transfer calls last Saturday. And I am staying in Ueda, and getting a new companion, Elder T-yama. I haven't met him before. But, I'm excitied. He's Japanese, from Sapporo in the north. That's really all I know.

This past Tuesday, M...mi-kun chan took us and M...zumi-kun to a teddy bear museum. It was really fun and I took lots of pictures.

My companion in a bear suit

Me, Elder B and M...zumi

That was super great.

Also, we went to a festival last Saturday, and I wore a kimono that one of our investigators gave me:

And then Sunday was my birthday. And I had a talk in sacrament meeting that went pretty well. I prepared a lot for it this week, so the Stake President, who was visiting yesterday was really pleased. We also visited the Ides and they fed us because it was my birthday. And they gave me this really cute tie:

I don't really feel different. Maybe it's because we didn't really do much for my birthday. But now I'm 19. And I'm on my sixth transfer as a missionary. That's exciting.

Anyway, Have a good week.

-Elder Mueller

Japan Q&A

From Alex's Mom: Alex is having a busy P-day, so he just sent an email to me. But he answered some questions, so I thought I would share his answers with you!

Q: Did you ever resolve your sleep issues?

A: As far as sleeping issues, I bought a sleep mask, so I can sleep a little better, but unfortunately it still lets some light in, so I usually wake up once before it's actually time to get up still. 

Q: Are you eating much with chopsticks?

A: I have eaten pretty much every meal every day for the past seven months with chopsticks.

Q: Have you seen any odd English or signs?

A: There is a lot of strange English in this country. Every once in a while I'll see a person with a t-shirt that makes absolutely no sense. And sometimes stores have funny signs too. I remember going past a Pachinko parlor called Concorde in Numazu with my trainer that had a sign that said, "Have you tried the Pachinko and Slot of Concorde? If not it will repent of most your life."

Q: How about any weird products?

A: I can't think of any weird products off the top of my head, but there is this really weird store in malls sometimes called "Village Vanguard." The only way I can think to describe it is that it is a "hipster" store. It has a lot of strange things. Weird books, weird clothes, sunglasses, toys, and lots of other stuff. I'll take some pictures next time I go by one.

Q: How are your investigators doing? We are praying for them!

A: We don't really have any investigators who are progressing right now, which is unfortunate. But maybe things will change soon.

This week is transfer calls and also there is a member who is throwing me a birthday party, so I will take lots of pictures and send them home. 

Okay, I love you.

-Alex

A Really Good Weekend

こんにちは皆さん!

My really good weekend started out with an exchange with my District leader, Elder Y. On Friday It was really good, he had a lot of good things to say to me, and he's really interesting to talk to. And I finally found a good book for learning kanji that he showed me. 

     The next day, we we took the train to Matsumoto in the morning so that we could go to interviews with the Mission President. We were there all day, until we had to rush back to Ueda in the afternoon with a Ueda member who was also in Matsumoto so that we could get back in time for the talent show. 

     At the talent show, I conducted the bell choir that the Ueda members, Elder B ate a bowl of cereal without milk in front of everyone, and I played the piano among other things. Unfortunately we were late so we missed some of the acts. But one of the coolest things was that Brother W..ashi and his friend from the neighboring branch of Sua played their guitars. They used be in a band together with another guy. I got a video of one of their songs on video. I played "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen -- I got the sheet music from one of our investigators a while ago -- and "Claire de Lune." Lots of people came, including member's friends and some people from our English class.

The next day, Sunday was Ueda's Branch Conference. The Mission President, His wife, and other people from the mission and stake presidencies came, so we had about twice as many people as usual there. It was great! And everyone brought lots of delicious things for lunch. 

That night, we had an appointment to teach English and the Gospel to our investigators, the Ide family. It went really well. We've mostly been focusing our efforts on the daughter, M..ami, but when we talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, the dad was really interested in it. 

M..zumi isn't getting baptized this week. He keeps telling us that the timing isn't good right now, and that when his life settles down a bit, then he can get baptized, but I think that he has some other concerns or problems that we don't know about yet that are holding him back. But I think he will be fine. 

This is M..zumi:

Oh yeah, one other thing happened this week. On Thursday, we weren't allowed to go outside at all because of the typhoon. . . it was severely underwhelming. It didn't come. So we just sat around all day. So exciting!! I'm glad that because it didn't come, no one was hurt or killed or anything. But I was really looking forward to seeing a crazy storm. Here's a picture I drew that day on a little whiteboard:

The Japanese on the right says "Innochi no Ki" or "Tree of Life."

I also made Elder B play chess with me:

I won.

Anyway, that was this week. 

さよなら!

-Elder Mueller