Abundant blessings (December 4, 2011)

Well this has been a great week as we try to get in to the Christmas Spirit. It's a little different here. This year Christmas is on a Sunday so some people in Japan will have a day off but it is not a holiday, unforunately. We do have the privilege of seeing Christmas lights every once in a while and stores are pretty decorated...but it's very different from America. If you ask a Japanese person what they do for Christmas they say eat cake. Giving presents isn't a big thing here in Japan. But nonetheless we are preparing for a huge Christmas Party at church. It is going to be way fun and the youth have put a lot of time into it. I am way excited as we try to get people not of our faith to come to this party.

Another thing that I had the opportunity of doing was eating steak. There is this Peruvian family in our ward. It is a very sad story because the whole ward and even the missionaries thought he had moved back to Peru. For some reason me and my companion felt the need to visit him even though everyone else thought he moved. Two weeks ago we met him and his wife. It was a way good experience for me to know that God cares for all his Children and that eventhough sometimes people maybe forgotten by other people, God never does forget them. But last week they invited us over to their house and fed us steak...it was way good. If that isn't a blessing I don't know what is.

Another blessing I had was to go back to Fuji and meet many people I served with and worked with a year before. To my surprise some people remembered me...actually a lot of people remembered me. As I was able to travel to Fuji I thought of how much I had grown and changed over the past year. How much I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life and I have been blessed. It was also a giant blessing to go back to a ward that I have previously served in and meet all the members again. The point of the visit is to train the ward mission leader so that he can better work with the missionaries and the members more efficiently, so it was good but always nerve racking. It has been exactly a year since I have left Fuji and I am so grateful I got to go back and meet friends. It was such a huge blessing to me. It just reminds me that the Lord knows and answers our prayers in miraculous ways.

I am way excited for this Christmas eventhough I will be away from Family and Friends but it will be a time to share Christ's love with people who desperately need it.

Love
Elder Nelson