Hi y’all! Hope you’re doing well. Love y’all much!

This week in Osaka….

+ We went to the Osaka Marathon! It was so fun. We passed out bibs to all the racers. We were there with some church members and some missionaries from around the Osaka area were there too.

– Ali is moving to Tokyo…. D: We’re going to transfer him to the Tokyo missionaries! Such a cool guy. He’s from Tunisia. He’s on date for baptism so we’ll keep teaching, but he’s leaving on Friday.

+ We went to a Buddhist temple with our friend Ayu! He’s also so cool. We’re gonna start working out in the mornings together and he’s started to come to church! He says we need to improve our 身体 which he says means body and mind. I like it!

+ Had a fun P day with our friend T! We played bowling and went thrifting on Namba (it’s super overpriced for mediocre clothing! I wanted a carhartt work jacket but it was like 20000円 (~$120) for one that was too big and thrifted. But anyways, T is so awesome, I convinced him to read the Book of Mormon with me… problem is he reads it in Thai! I can’t read Thai, so we’ll see how that goes. 😂

+ Ate lots of good food, see Google Photos for proof. Still need a good Thai food place in Osaka. T says there’s none😭😢

+ Played basketball and won like 0 games but we stay on top🤑 got better so who cares?

For my spiritual thought, I wanna talk about the Book of Mormon for a little bit. I love the book. It’s actually an insane read, with a whole ton of emotional complexity and really complex storytelling, but recently I fell in love with the ending of the book. In particular, I love Mormon 9:15-25. In this chapter, Moroni is seeing the entire destruction of his civilization, including those he loves such as his family. But what does he say? God is still a God of miracles. He doesn’t change. He still gives answers and blessings from prayer. And He commands us to continue our work, to preach the gospel to every creature. My spiritual thought is the same. Our lives may be in chaos, various things of various importance might be going on. God still lives and loves you. You can seek Him in prayer. And you can still love others and love God. What a simple but life changing message! I testify that this God lives. Seek Him in prayer and in scripture. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Google photos: photos.app.goo.gl/6PuTqiB3mvJD9Qex8