Greetings!!
What a wonderful week it has been! Time is already going by way too fast.
The
Lord, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, continues to give each of us
"lessons for life." When we listen with spiritual ears and see with
spiritual eyes, you too will see His tender mercies in your life. The
more you recognize and acknowledge them, the more He tends to give you.
1) The Lord has opened my heart to the true character
of Christ. We live in an imperfect world, with imperfect people. When we
have hard times in our lives, most of us expect others to help us
rather than us helping them. To this, I say, look to our Savior and
follow His example. He turns out when you and I would turn in. In
Matthew 4:2-11, the Savior is tempted by Satan. If you go to the end of
this excerpt, you will notice that it talks about angels ministering
him. Have you ever taken a look at the JST footnote for that scripture.
Those angels were not sent to Him! When the Savior is utterly exhausted,
He sends angels to minister to John in prison! He turns out when others
would turn in. When the Savior was about to die and was with all his
apostles for the last time, He prayed for the Spirit to be with them,
not with Him. Coming out of the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that
soldiers came to take Jesus away. Peter smote off one of the guards ear,
but God healed the guards ear (a superficial suffering compared to what
the Lord was feeling at that point). He did missionary work with the
two thieves while he hung on the cross. He made sure that his mother was
in good hands right before He died. He turns out, when we would turn
in. The mission isn't about you. In fact, your life isn't about you. We
are surrounded by others!! Serve them!!
2) Have a testimony is not enough! We have to be
converted unto the Lord. Testimony is knowing what is true, but
conversion is being consistently true to what you know.
3) Nihonjin senkyoshi (Japanese missionaries) arrived in the MTC
last Monday. They are the cutest!! I love these people! They got really
excited when they saw my name and wondered if I was related to families
from Okinawa. I told them I didn't know, but it sure would be sweet if I
found someone who was part of my extended family. Every Tuesday night,
the entire MTC goes to the Marriott Center for a devotional. After the
devotional, our district gets together to review what we learned. The
entire district shared, in English, our thoughts from the devotional.
Then, the three Japanese sisters going to Sendai bore their
testimony-some in Japanese and tried very hard to say it to us in
English. I believe that they felt the most inadequate of all in our room
that night; however, I felt the Spirit the strongest when they spoke to
us. I bear witness that it's the Spirit that converts. Tears rolled
down my cheeks as I felt the peace and happiness of the gospel.We
may not have understood one another completely, but the Spirit was all
that we needed to testify of truth.
A very Happy Father's day to each and every one of you
Dad's out there!! To my amazing Dad, I love you with all my heart!!
Lastly, I hope each of you took time out of your day to remember to wish
a Happy Father's Day to the Father of the universe-our Heavenly Father.
How lucky we are to be children of a King!
Ai Shite Imasu!
Yamauchi Shimai
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