Week 101!

English class!

     This week had so much go down!! Let's see, we had two new investigators come through and they are amazing!! Rodrigo and Vincent. Rodrigo is half Japanese/half Brazilian but he is fluent in Japanese, pretty good at English, and pretty good at Portuguese. He is awesome. Vincent is from Taiwan and is fluent at English so we teach in English. We asked him to pray to know if god was there and he did.. and he knows! He got his answer on his very first prayer and he wants to keep learning and meet again this next week. So ready! So prepared! 

     The cutest Japanese family that comes to our English class comes up to me every week and says "Aiken Sensei! Aiken Sensei!" (Teacher Aiken) The kids are 4 and 9. Cutest ever. The daughter's name is Sara and she is the cutest kid in my life!

     I spoke in Japanese at Stake Conference in front of everyone this week - so scary. Also, we had Elder Choi come and speak to our mission which was so good. He is so funny. A lot changed after he came. 

     Temple pdays are every other transfer now so sadly my days in the Tokyo temple are over. I will not get to go on this my last transfer. That was a very heartfelt saddened prayer last night for sure. Then missionaries will no longer give their 5 minute goodbye testimonies to their zone in their last zone conference because of time. That was hard for me because I wanted to bear that final witness to everyone of how my mission has changed me, especially to young missionaries but that is ok! Another prayer, another confirmation that rules are not my will but God's:) 

     We went up to a college this week and it was unreal. We got to be around nearly 500 hundred students! So many youth! We would talk to 3-4 and others would just come over wanting to see who these white kids were and we got to talk to a ton of sweet young men and women. 

     We joined a volleyball circle on the team, so mom please let's pray that some of your talent slipped it's way through the gene pool because I need it this week! Also, we met the Football club. They are rolling with 9 players! College football is literally like sophomores in High school in America haha. But afterwards, we went and stood by the train tracks on this intersection before the station where three roads meet that are connected to three different colleges. So literally eight or nine hundred kids walked by us as we gave fliers and we probably gave out 400 hundred! It was amazing!! Hopefully we get some new students. 

     But once we finished we saw another very small reason besides the many other miracles of why we were meant to be there. We saw this kid, Seya, who literally just looked like he was at the end of his rope. He did not want to live anymore and was ready to give up. He could barely walk. He made it to the train platform and we just ended our Kubarikai (flyer hand out session whatever they say in English) and followed him to the platform where he just collapsed onto the floor. No one helped him up so of course we did and he could not stand up. He had just driven 6 hours from his home town because he moved down here and got a job to live close to his girlfriend who begged him to come down. The day he got there (the same day we saw him) she broke up with him. Sooooooo messed up. Then as we were talking to him she walked by talking to other guys and he told us that it was her. It was so sad. He said he did not have enough money to go back home and he already signed on to the job down here so he had to stay, away from his family, but without that girl. He was heartbroken. He was going to end his life he had told us until we had come up and talked with him for about 30 minutes and cheered him a little and gave him hope to see that there is so much more than the trials of this life. 

     This experience brought to my memory of the story of President Spencer W. Kimball. Which is my message this week! 

     President Spencer W. Kimball urged Latter-day Saints to engage in “simple acts of service” that would bless others’ lives as well as their own. He often found opportunities to offer such service himself, as the following account shows:

     “A young mother on an overnight flight with a two-year-old daughter was stranded by bad weather in Chicago airport without food or clean clothing for the child and without money. She was … pregnant and threatened with miscarriage, so she was under doctor’s instructions not to carry the child unless it was essential. Hour after hour she stood in one line after another, trying to get a flight to Michigan. The terminal was noisy, full of tired, frustrated, grumpy passengers, and she heard critical references to her crying child and to her sliding her child along the floor with her foot as the line moved forward. No one offered to help with the soaked, hungry, exhausted child.

     “Then, the woman later reported, ‘someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, “Is there something I could do to help you?” With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.’”

Several years later, President Kimball received a letter that read, in part:

“Dear President Kimball:

     “I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich, West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much. …

    “I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week, when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some twenty-one years ago in the Chicago airport. The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a … screaming child, in … distress, waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her. She had experienced four previous miscarriages, which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift. “You comforted the crying child and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off my mother. I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan. “I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example!”

     You all know this story, but how many times do we overlook simple acts of service like this because we are on our phones or too caught up in our own lives! Or, sadly, how often are we the ones angry at the noisy family? We must be better. People only see the light of Christ in the love of Christ. It is just that simple. My plea is that we can allow those around us this week to see the Light of Christ in the Love of Christ. Isn't that how He did it? 

Have a great week!  

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken