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Sunday, December 27, 2015

Relief and Other Miracles - Letter to Mom - 15 November, 2015

Hey, Mom!!

How are you? First things first, thank you so so much for sending me that information to the University of Utah information. I will definitely be looking into scholarships and things like that in the weeks to come. The relief that I mentioned in the title of this email was the relief of knowing that my deferment went through and that my deferment of my Metallurgical Engineering Scholarship went through (I am not sure if the other one went through or not, but I will keep looking). So, that was huge. Thank you so much. Now, the email that I received telling me that my deferment went through said that they would mail me and inform me of how to keep it eligible/how to get in again, but I have no idea how to do that. Could you send me that information? I am not sure how would be the best way (scan/mail it to me/things like that), but that would be really helpful! Thank you so much, Mom. :) I love you!!

As for miracles that happened this week, we had a few! One of the best ones happened today, so I will hopefully be able to share all of them. But first, thank you so much for your emails! It was great to hear from you. I am sorry that the little girls continue to be sick. :( that is so sad. I wish that I could help them. Someday it will all be made right. I just wish that day was today! haha Keep hanging in there. I know that there is a reason that the Lord is requiring them to go through this kind of refinement right now. That is definitely true. The Lord will put us through what we need to become the people that we need to become. Sometimes that just doesn't match up with the image of what we think we should have happening. But that is okay. It is all in the Master's hands.

I am so happy that you got a new couch!! :D I expect pictures! ;D haha It would be great to see that. I hope that it is comfortable, and that it lasts all the way until I get home! ;D haha We'll see. How are the downstairs couches doing? Just as good as ever? haha Any other home improvements lately?

But, here are some of the miracles. One of my favorites was on splits this past week. I went up to Kawasaki with an Elder named Elder Gonzales. He is a really nice elder who has been in Kawasaki for about a year now. He is fluent in Tagalog and has been helping a lot of Filipino people who are living up in the Kawasaki area. But, anyway, I knew that we were going on splits and I really really wanted to see a miracle with him, to help him see just how much the Lord is doing for
us, and preparing people for him. So I met him at a train station called Mizonokuchi. From there we needed to go to the church to send some people messages, and try to set up a couple of appointments. But, on the way we ran into a boy! I can't quite remember his name, but we started talking to him, and he said that he would love to do a church tour! So, we took him right then to do a church tour. It was great. We took him up to the chapel (on the fourth floor) and talked about the Restoration, and then we were able to pray with him. It was a really spiritual event, and I was astounded at how quickly the Lord answered my prayer to see a miracle.

Well, as for an update about N, he is still very up and down. Right now he does not want to come to church, but he still wants us to go over every once in a while and see how he is/share things with him. He is really at the critical point where he needs to decide to act on everything he is learning and feeling, or just leave it and let it go. We are praying and doing all that we can to help him see that he needs to act, but sometimes people can be really stubborn. :P haha Keep praying for him.

Another miracle was today. Elder Cook and I finished the Mission Leadership Council conference call at about 10:30, and then had a really good discussion about what we could do to become better missionaries. We felt like we are being as obedient as possible, we are working hard, choosing to use our time wisely, and following the Spirit the best we could, but we have struggled to find new investigators/people that are ready to receive the gospel. We prayed and shared our feelings with each other. One of the things that he shared was a better determination to talk with absolutely everyone.
One that I shared was to focus on sharing the First Vision more on the street (something that some members here actually suggest not to, since there is no Christian background). So we did it. We have tried to talk to as many people as we could today, and we ran into a young man named K. He was really nice. As we talked with him he said he thought it would be cool if he could meet God. Elder Cook then talked about how people called prophets (remember, they have no concept really of what a prophet is. To them it is someone who predicts the future (something with the language I will explain in just a minute)) actually do meet God sometimes. We then shared the Joseph Smith experience, and asked him how he felt. He said, "Well, I feel like things like that actually do happen." And we were able to testify of how the Spirit was teaching him something that most people don't feel right away. He loved that, and loved feeling the Spirit, and agreed to meet again to talk more on Wednesday. It was amazing to see how the Lord immediately blessed us for following what He had directed us to do. I am excited to see more how He continues to bless us in the next days as we do all we can to follow His counsel closer than ever before.

Now the explanation about prophets! There are two words that mean prophet in Japanese. They are 予言者 and 預言者 I promise that they are actually different. haha But! You pronounce them exactly the same. The first character in the first one means to predict or do something before hand. This is the prophet they usually think about. The second word first character means to gather or be entrusted with. This is the prophet that we have in the church. :) Cool, huh? The word (broken down into the parts) means person who is entrusted with words. I love Japanese sometimes! haha

I hope that you have a fantastic day, Mom! I love you so so so so much, and I pray that things go a little bit better for you this week than they have last week. :) I can't think of anything that I really need, except maybe running gloves for the winter. :)

I love you to infinity and beyond, Mom!!


Love, Elder Livingston

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