Take this challenge...

     Hello everyone how are you?  I am doing great! I
am loving this work so much and learning and growing every day! 
     This last week was so good! We had a funny experience where I went to go buy a new pair of church pants, and as we walked out we saw a man who was wearing a t-shirt with a a little front breast pocket. Normal stuff right? What was not normal was that in that pocket, the man just casually had the rough equivalent of $100,000 in yen. I am not kidding! The pocket was huge and he had roughly1000 bills which
are each equal to $100 dollars in a stack about like 2 inches thick. It was crazy!  I was thinking someone could take that so fast? In America that guy would have been robbed in around 2 seconds!  Crazy.
     The day was only complete when we went to service at a nursing home and an old woman there, read my palm. She told me I would never have any major illnesses and that I would have a great family if I got married. A big family. So funny. Good week.
     We continue to teach a 17 year old who was less active.  He's talking about going on a mission!  What a blessing to be a part of.





     This last week I also had the very humbling experience of doing a "40 Day Fast." It was such a spiritual experience for me and it was so humbling. I felt like I needed to be more consecrated to the Lord and to sanctify myself more in his work. I wanted to feel the spirit to an even greater abundance. So what that "40 Day Fast" includes is fasting
for 24 hours, and during that time, pondering on things that you want to "fast from" for the 40 days. During the fast, as you ponder you write a list of all the things you want to fast from to become closer to our Savior and to our Father in Heaven and feel the spirit more. For example one of mine was little negative things. I want to fast from saying them for 40 days to try to overcome that bad habit forever. It was very humbling, but a very cool experience! I really would challenge all of you to try it on this next fast Sunday. I can
promise you that you will be able to think of things you want out of your life to become closer to the Lord. It can be anything from a behavior or personal habit, to a type of movie or manner of speaking. Then make a list and check it every day. I am excited to see how strong my true conviction to the Lord is and if I can do it over the next 40 days. I had thought about doing this for a little while, but the thing that really pushed me is when I read this in my personal study. "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
     This mission has been the happiest time of my life because I have acted upon my testimony of the Father and the Son and I came out on a mission and I am doing his will. I read this and it pushed me even further to be more sanctified because if I am ever thinking of home, after my mission, or things before, then my thoughts are not aligned with my actions. Home is not where I am supposed to be right now. I cannot be there. So my thoughts and words need to be here
along with my actions, and it will be the happiest two years of my life. It already has been so far. I challenge all of you to at least think in your minds and ask yourself if your thoughts, your words, and your actions truly are aligned. Please if they are not aligned change that. Please "have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow. There is no friendship more valuable than your own clear conscience, your own moral cleanliness." We cannot be happy ever, if we are not
happy with ourselves. Make the change if you need to. Please try the 40 Day Fast if you can. I know you will find things that you want to change, or maybe do not but you know will make you happier, during that time of special spiritual sensitivity.
     Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Trevor Aiken

Lift Where You Stand!

     This last week was such an amazing week. I had some experiences that have never made me grow so much and turn to the spirit and to my Savior to help me guide every action, thought, and word. We saw so many miracles this last week. Actually, right after emailing last week, we went to lunch at a ramen shop and the line was so long, so we just talked to this way steki fufu behind us. That means like stylish or cool couple. We talked to them and built such a good relationship so fast. By the time we reached the front of the line to eat, we just decided to all eat together. We got to talk to them about our purpose and why we are here and about Church. It was so awesome. We are meeting with them hopefully again this next week. 

     Also, we had a young man that we were working with, start to come back to church 3 weeks ago after being less active for years. He is 17. He has started talking about going on a mission a little bit now and yesterday he walked into church with another young man we had never seen. Turns out it was his friend who is also 17 who had been less active for 2 years!  We were going to go to his house tonight for a big family home evening and lesson, but it just snowed a foot last night and is still snowing so we cannot get there which is so sad. But that is ok because the thing I learned this week and wanted to share with you is what President Uchtdorf so perfectly said years ago: 

"Lift where you stand."

     Many times I found myself thinking out here, if I could just speak the language then... If I had a larger Ward then... If I had a Japanese companion that spoke English then... If we had more investigators then... 

     So many times I think we want a new situation, a better future, or just.. Better. It is great to always strive for better, but if we are constantly waiting for better, then we will miss what we have and we will never be happy. Lift where you stand. Stop wondering if only you had a better calling or job or house. Lift where you stand. Give the Lord and those around you all of your love and dedication where you are. Use what you have and God will always give you more. You do not need praise or everyone to see your greatness for you to be great. That is not greatness. That is not glory. That is not courage. Lift where you stand and the Lord will always see your efforts. 

     Also, we ask some times for more, but never ask for less. The Lord has given us these experiences and challenges because only we can handle them in the way we can. We have a unique strength that maybe only God knows we have. Never think you cannot do it. God is giving these experiences to us to love with more authenticity.  "May we cease to aspire and cease to retire!"  Let us give our all! Work like it all depends on us and pray like it all depends on Him! Try Him. If you do that He will never let you fall.  We can never lift where we stand all alone. God knows that. He will be with us the whole time, and in a lot of cases will send His children to bear it with us if we can really see them when He sends them. 

     Do not give up! Do not give in! We can do this! Stop wishing for something better or new. Lift where you stand and give it your all and you will be happy. You will push on. You will endure. This is it! This is our time to prepare. This is all we are given, this one life. Use it...and Magnify it! Have the faith that you can do it!  

     I love this work. This is the greatest and happiest time of my life. I will cherish and remember it my whole life. It is the hardest thing I have ever faced. Everyday has a challenge, but I just try to lift where I stand and I hold to my testimony and ever-growing conversion to my Savior Jesus Christ and I can do it. Keep your feet on the path, your hands on the rod, keep your eyes on Christ, and lift where you stand! 

     Have the best week ever!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken 

New area and companion.

My new companion - Elder Adachi!

    This last week was an awesome week! I am in my new area with my new companion. He is so awesome! He is seriously hilarious. Elder Adachi! He is from Bountiful and is Japanese, but lived in Utah about his whole life so he is fluent in English and Japanese. I love my new area already and I love my ward. This area is much more countryside. There are not as many people out on the streets, but there is no snow and it is much warmer so I am fine with that! It's go nice that this is the first time in my mission where my area has had an actual Ward. It was so humbling to me to walk into sacrament meeting and just be so excited to see even just 100 of God's children coming to partake of the sacrament. I love this work!! I am loving this calling as district leader. I get to know these missionaries and learn from them so much. I also get to see my time at night disappear haha.  But best of all, we get to go to the temple this week which I didn't get to do in my first area because it was too far away.

     But, I am seeing that the Lord truly does not call the qualified, but qualify the called. I am learning so much and pushing myself to be a better example and to show more love. It has been humbling and sometimes hard to grow and become better, but that is the gospel. Change. It is growth. That is the message I strive to share every day here in Japan, and it is the message I want to share with you today. That message is "You can." The message of the gospel is "You can." Do not give in, give out, or give up. You can do it! If there is one thing I have learned on my mission is that we can do it. We can stand against the adversary in these latter days. We can overcome trial and sin. We can change. We can win! The Lord kept us close at his side to wait to send us down into the calamities we face today. We waited because He knew we could do it. He knew we could get up one more time than we would fall. Just get up. This is a new year. Please do not treat this year as just another lap on the same race. Do not take the same path. Make it new and full of hope. This year is its own race with exciting times ahead. With a Father on the sidelines watching us with hope and a Savior running with us every step of the way. Take the road less traveled in the world. No matter what road you take it will never be unpaved or untouched. There will always be one set of footsteps to follow, in every path we take. The Savior took them all. He knows them all. He knows us. Do we know Him? May we all strive to do so. May we let Him qualify us in our journey. May we lift our heads, face our Savior, walk the path, and let Him say "You Can!"

Have the best week ever!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken

My first transfer!

Cleaning day!

     Hello everyone!  I do not have a lot to say this week because this week was transfer calls so it has been so crazy.  Being the new year, we did a lot of cleaning in our apartment. I found out here in my first area there will be a trio now! But I am not a part of that trio! I am transferring to a new area and I am now going to be the District Leader of Takasaki over 8 missionaries. I am so excited to go and be a leader there! I get to go to the temple which I'm so excited about!  That was the hardest part of my first area, not being able to go to the temple because we were so far away.  And I think there is a Costco!!! 

     I am also leaving one of my best friends in the world here in Nagaoka though.  I am going to miss my companion
Kashiwa Choro so much.  He is my best friend and he is amazing. He got a little emotional and told me yesterday when we finished our last training how he was thankful that I taught him how to work hard and to be obedient and have a strong testimony. I was humbled as I immediately thought of my parents. I realized that my dad had been training me my whole life to be a missionary and to be a trainer. He taught me the importance of always having a rock solid work ethic and that there is no point in doing anything in this life if we are not going to give our best effort to it and give 100%. I am so thankful for my dad. I also thought of my mom and she always bore her testimony to me in everything and always showed her example to me of being exactly obedient. Even after a school dance the night before and I was dead tired haha. She told me to always attend my meetings and give my all to the Lord. I love my parents so much. I looked at Kashiwa Choro this last transfer through the eyes of a parent in order to truly treat him and train him the way the Lord would want, and I know that was the same thing my parents did for me! 
     I am so excited for my new area and I am so excited what will happen. When you reach out to a new branch, always look back to your roots first. That is what I did and I am so excited for this next step in my mission! I love you all so much! Have the best week ever!
Love,
Elder Trevor Aiken

Happy New Year - 2016!

     Hello everyone! How was your amazing Christmas week? This past week had some amazing moments! But let me start off by saying a huge happy birthday to my best friend Zack Kushlan today!! I Miss him!! 

    This week we had an amazing lesson with our Ethiopian friend Bereket again and that was such a blessing. It was then finished off closest to home with talking to my family on Skype.  I could never have imagined the power there is in Skyping home and looking into the eyes of my mother, with a love parallel to the the Savior, and three returned missionaries, and seeing their conviction to the Savior as they testified that this is where I am supposed to be. I have never felt so united with my family. I cannot express enough gratitude for my brother's testimonies of their missions and witness of the Savior. They are my heroes. I do not know where I would be without them. Following in the footsteps of my father and brothers is the best decision I have ever made. Shall we not go on in so great a cause! This is the greatest work on earth! I love my family so much and I miss them terribly, but that will not, rather cannot, exceed my love for the Savior. He is my Savior and He saved all of us. He saved me. Coming unto Him in this mission time has changed my life forever. I am so happy to be here. Seeing my family made me so happy but it made me realize even more how I am not even close to being ready to return to them, and they would never let me!  I have so many more people to serve, lessons to teach, and the gospel to share. 

     I will never be able to explain how 7 months have already passed but here I am finishing my 4th transfer. Time flies when you are having fun, and time flies when you are doing what's right. As we approach the New Year we have two choices. We can look back on what we have done or we can move forward into the new year. For me, moving into the only full year of my life that I will spend as a full time missionary, this is what I say:

22 Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad.

     On... On to the victory. We can do this! There is nothing we can not in the hands of the Lord! No road unconquerable! No height unreached! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad! We have a Savior Jesus Christ everyone! Never look back. There is no purpose in it. Move on and on to the victory!! Go forward not backward! He will walk with you every step of the way. Forget every mistake and wrongs others have made. He did. Especially move past the mistakes you made. He did. Make this the best year of your life. Make it one to remember. Give yourself to the Lord just one year and just try to put a limit on what He will give you. Try him. Give Him this year and He will pour the blessings from heaven into your life and there will not be room enough to receive them. Brethren, please... Shall we not go on in so great a cause? This new year, step into the first day running. Look at this new year for hope, change, new, better, clean, dreams, mending, renewal. Look to Him. Find the star! Wise men will always seek Him. Join them in their journey to Him. I will plan on doing so. Because if I do, I too, like the wise men, will return home "another way." Finish this next year another way. A better way. I will give my all this next year so that I can return home, another way. I love you all. I hope you had an amazing Christmas and I hope you are preparing for a great New Year!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken 

Merry Christmas!

     Merry Christmas everyone!  How is everyone doing? This week was so awesome!! We had a fun Christmas party with our zone and a lot of people came and that was way fun. We are in the furthest North zone of our mission and we are the only zone that is too far to go to the temple or go to the mission wide Christmas party so we had our own. We are kind of like a separate mission because we never go to the temple or really see any of the missionaries outside our zone. But there are a few things that help you get through the cold winter here up North. One of them being when your investigator, who is fluent in English, tells us that he is fluent because he watches Nicholas Cage movies to learn English haha. Of all the actors you would choose to learn English?? It better be like National Treasure or maybe Family Man because those are the only good ones that come to my mind! That one really got me. The second one is when it is Sooo cold and you pass one of the ten thousand vending machines and see that half are cold drinks and half are pre-heated hot chocolate or hot lemonade, but it is more sweet!! That needs to be in America so fast. It it literally the best thing ever. Lastly, I thought we had our problems with people texting or reading books while driving (I have seen it ok). But when people here literally have tv's built into their dashboards in their cars here... What?! How is that safe? Ya hey instead of putting a GPS right there by the steering wheel to help people get where they are going, let's put on the wheel of fortune while their driving to really test their focus... Good one!  

     There are two spiritual thoughts that I loved this week that I wanted to share with you, but I cannot take the credit for the first one this week. The first was something one of my good friends shared with me from home that has brought a new sense of focus during Sacrament meeting for me. When the Savior was in Gethsemane he drank of the "bitter cup," which he conveyed as one of the first messages to the people of the Americas when he visited them in 3 Nephi 11.

11 And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter bcup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.

     He drank from that bitter cup and then when the time was come he looked to the Heavens and said to the Father, "it is finished," in John 19:30. My friend paralleled that to when we all one by one take the cup to drink in remembrance of our Savior and when we drink and "it is finished," we set the cup in the tray. She listened to the cups one by one enter the tray that sacrament meeting as she found that new parallel of the Savior's sacrifice. I wonder if we truly realize how sacred that act and promise is of partaking of that sacrament and what the Savior did for us. I want to challenge you to really take upon you the promise to always remember our Savior and during that Sacrament time, to listen to cups drop as "it is finished," and think of our Savior. Always remember him. 

     Especially at this Christmas season when we celebrate His birth. This is the time when we can focus not just our thoughts and actions for a 1 hour meeting on Sunday's, but all of our thoughts, words, and deeds every day. We can show more love and charity to that boy in the manger. Every time you show your love or give service to someone this Christmas season, do you see your Savior in them? That is my second thought. Do you stop to look at those around you and find your Savior in your day? The Savior said,

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

     Do you not see Him in the lives of those you touch and those whom you serve? When the day cometh will the Lord say proudly unto us that we did those things? Do we serve the least of these His brethren, and in turn serve Him? Especially at this Christmas time. Go find "your Savior" in your day. Go serve Him that is beside you and I promise you will see that light of Christ in their eyes light up because of the Light of the World which is Jesus Christ the Lord. That is how we can serve the Lord at this Christmas time. I love this time. This will be the first Christmas in my life where I think I have finally given myself to Him. I can and will always be able to give more, but I think I am a lot further down that road. I love my Savior. He is my Light and my Way. I will hold to that light until I stand with Him again face to face and I hope he can say to me Mathew 25:35-36 proudly. Let us all work towards such a worthy goal and give of ourselves to our Heavenly Debtor!

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken

Charity and Love!

     I looked and realized that this week is week 30 of my mission which is accurate but it doesn't seem possible!  How is everyone doing? I am doing soooo good! It is not raining today, which is a miracle in itself.  It is just an amazing day! 

     I will give you two quick stories really quickly from last week.  We had a crazy thunderstorm last week. So crazy. We are right next to the mountains here so it just echoes off the mountains and I seriously just cannot explain how loud it was, but it shook our apartment once and my companion sits up that night and asks me, "Do they have that in America?" Pretty funny! Then for haircuts here, a lot of places have a vacuum connected to the wall and they vacuum your head after. Actually pretty nice I will not lie. You do not have to go shower every time after because it gets all the hair sucked up! 

     But onto my thought of the week!! Today I woke up and I was just dead tired and thought how this was just like waking up at 6 on the Monday mornings when I was a deacon and we had school off, but we had to go and do flags. I remember thinking, please no, please no, please no!  I would always dread getting up and doing it until I actually got out doing it and I would love it and have fun. I look back at how I loved to serve everyone, but sometimes it was not truly a part of my core.  My first desire.  I would often be thinking of something else I could be doing at that time. I was so selfish before my mission and that is hard for me to look back on, but thanks to this gospel, change is its focus. I am changing on my mission little by little from this work, from training, from the examples of my leaders, and the advice they give me. This is one that really humbled me from President Nagano last week. "Your love will never surpass your level of charity." I want you to think about this for a second. Think about that sentence, that principle, that truth. We truly show our love to the Father by showing our love to those around us and serving. That means more than obedience and service in the eyes of others. That means obedience and service in your heart. Is it in your Heart where only the Lord can see? Courage is not doing what is right in the sight of others, it is choosing the right when no one is around. That does not only mean when you are alone. Your thoughts and your heart is always private and is between you and the Lord. Is charity truly at the center of your being and the true desire of your heart? I hope it is for all of us because our love is measured by our charity. The love of a relationship of husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, friends, etc. is always measured by sacrifice. Do you sacrifice for them? I will take it further though. Sacrifice means doing something and giving up something of equal or greater value, but what is more valuable than charity? 

2 Nephi 26:30

"wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing."

Moroni 7:46

46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail

1 Corinthians 13:13

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

     Charity should not be a sacrifice, it should be a joy in our lives. The greatest joy. It should be built into our soul, our being. Our love will only be at the level of our charity. So where do we stand? I hope this week we make charity our focus and charity the roots of our thoughts, words, and deeds. I love you all so much. I am working to change to never come home and be the same as I was because that is not enough to last in the world today, and it is not enough for the Lord. I hope we can all look at ourselves and say that charity has become a part of us, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love 

Elder Trevor Aiken