Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Elder Kikutchi & Zone Conference

Wow, where should I even start? May is done! This month is now the fastest month that has gone by and yet we have already had 5 baptism this month! We have one more person being baptized this weekend and our goal is to get a couple more to join the service. We had another miracle for this past weekend. Van Jones was a self referral who had been studying the Book of Mormon on his own for a while now. He loves religion and has been studying almost every religious text possible. He found the Book of Mormon online and had been reading it on his E-reader. We contacted him last Saturday, May 15th and he said, " I know the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet..." Perfect! =) We committed him to baptism for June 11th when he said, "I'm not one to just jump right into things." We committed him to continue reading and to pray about baptism. We went back on Tuesday and he said, "I want to be baptized as soon as possible." He was baptized this past Saturday. He said, "I have never felt so much enlightenment and knowledge come through any book than this. My knowledge has expanded so much that I can't deny it's truth.
A couple of weeks ago Elder Yoshihiko Kikutchi came to visit our mission again. It was an incredible meeting with alot of spiritual truth. He spoke pure revelation. Our mission needs these three things. 1) 100 % Obedience 2) Purifying our lives 3) PMG knowledge increase/ Hard Work! He gave us some very good tips and this week at Zone Conference we took them to the next level. Our mission is seeing the miracles already occur. We are only 30 away from reaching our goal of 100 for the month of May. Our mission hasn't done this since the split in 2001. As far back as our records go anyway. We are so excited to see what can happen when we follow and listen to our inspired leaders. We have transfers coming up next week which is always a killer on time, stress management, everything really. We will be running around with our heads cut off, as usual. I am taking a 5 day nap when I return home. I'm hardly walking.

What I have developed is a love for hard work. I know... strange. I Can see myself accomplishing so much more with my time on my return home and occupying myself with uplifting and wholesome things instead of wasting so much time on Facebook, computer games, reading pointless books, etc. I have such a more detailed focus on my life ahead and I am going to make sure I do everything to accomplish it. 4 months left in the mission field... I need to work harder! I'm still 13 baptisms away from my goal of 45. I pretty much need to baptize someone every week till I go home to reach that goal. It'll be done! I love this mission and the life lessons I'm learning. I'm still hungry all the time - force fasting because we literally don't have time to eat. I'm surprised I'm not dead yet. I love you all.

Elder Bottema

No comments:

Post a Comment