Gold Medal week!

     Hello everyone!  What a great week!  We got to watch the Sapporo Temple dedication which was amazing.  Many people will be changed from that experience!

     Also this week goes down as one of the most eventful!  There were 2 stories I want to share, and since it's the Olympic season we will talk in terms of medals.  First, the silver goes to an Elder I went on splits with.  (Sorry - no bronze)  We pulled up to this light and saw this young man we wanted to talk to but right as we pulled up it went green and he sped off without even seeing us. So the chase began. Not in a creepy way, but we were going the same way anyway so we thought ok we will talk to him at the next light. Then we start going down this big hill and my companion is road biking it while the kid is on the side walk and I am about 15 yards behind all of this just watching my companion try to catch up to this kid. Well the kid swerves out into the road and my companion has to slow down and he thinks, ok I will go on the sidewalk and he can take the road because he is going too slow. He sees an opening and goes for the sidewalk... Miscalculates and his front wheel hits the curb and it bends, breaks off, and he and the bike going flying forward. He goes over the handle bars, front flips, and while he is in mid air, he is now facing me (backwards) and we make eye contact as I just see this face, like "oh it's over man just leave me" type of thing, and he goes about 5 yards and lands with the bike right next to him. The bike is destroyed, but the miracle is is that he lived! He was basically unfazed! His elbow was a little scraped, but this Elder is interesting in the way that he wears long sleeves even in the dead of summer, so because of that he wears gloves so he doesn't get a hand tan.  And that turned out to be a tender mercy because his gloves and his sleeves got shredded but his arms and hands were fine!  It was seriously wild up there, but he made it.  I have not seen slow motion like that in real life. 

     Now for the Gold medal!   It goes to one of the most powerful miracles and experiences I have had on my mission. Remember Maki Tanaka I wrote about last week?? We had an amazing lesson with her on Thursday and it was so powerful. We had two members present and they were so powerful! The spirit was strong and amazing. It went for like 2 hours!! She had so many questions and the spirit was so strong I was not stopping this one. Plus the members were so hyped. We taught that God is our Heavenly Father and we taught her how she can know it was true. Prayer. We challenged her to pray and we went home that night and prayed with all of our hearts that she could receive an answer to her prayer. She really wanted to and was so excited to try. She had such a sincere desire to know and she opened up to us about some really hard trials in her life right now. She wanted to know. The following night I wanted to call her and to thank her for coming to the lesson on Thursday just to show love and have daily contact and so the feelings of the lesson would not diminish I guess. But I just felt that I should call her. I did not think she would have prayed yet because we had the lesson the night before at the end of the night. So I called and she is just way happy on the phone as usual and I thank her so much for the day before and she says, "no, thank you", and then she says, "Elder Aiken I tried praying." It caught me off guard, but I asked her how it went.   (This is all in Japanese of course). She went on to tell me, "At two in the morning I went into my room. I was up for hours thinking about he message you taught and I did not know if it was true. I had some doubts. So I went and kneeled at my bedside at 2 in the morning and I prayed. I asked Heavenly Father, Are you there? Is this true? And then.. I heard the words, truly heard, "Watashi no tokoro ni kinasai." I opened my eyes because I was certain there would be someone in the room but I could see no one in the room. Elder Aiken, God just spoke to me." "Watashi no tokoro ni kinasai" in English means "Come unto me." The Lord spoke to Maki Tanaka in answer to her prayer and told her to "Come Unto Him!" It was literally one of the most powerful experiences I have faced on my mission. It was such an amazing thing to witness the glory and love of our Father in Heaven. He does answer prayers! He does speak to us in these latter days! He is there! This church is true! And now Maki Tanaka knows that! Sure she still has some trials to overcome and some things to beat, but now she knows. She knows the Lord knows, and she cannot deny it. That is what she told me. It was crazy! It was like a movie! I love this gospel! I love the Lord!  I hope that lifted your Faith because it did mine. I definitely like the Gold medal this week. But Please submit your votes to Trevor.aiken@myldsmail.net ok! Haha sorry I am just so happy! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Aiken