Melton-Japan-Mission

Changing Need, Changing Opportunities Sometimes new challenges arise, the efforts you put forward may not have the hoped for result. The missionaries see this everyday, when someone they have been teaching and come to care about decides to step back away. We've seen a couple of young adults who facing the challenges of in today's world or question their faith because of family trials, concern over a church doctrine, listening to voices that are critical or bias towards the church, finding life difficult to balance with gospel principles, or just feeling unworthy of the the Savior's redeeming love. Though such times can make you wonder what more could you have done, we then find comfort in the Spirit reminding us to trust in the Lord, and all things will work out according the his timeframe. This past couple of weeks several members of the branch left on their 6-month deployment. Mostly active or semi-active when they returned from the previous deployment last December, all ...

Missionary work can be difficult. Elder Holland has said that as missionaries we deal with a person's salvation and it was meant to be hard. Our mission president referred to the parable of the sower of seeds found in Mathew 13:3-9, 18-23. The bottom line is that we sow seeds and it is up to the person how it is received. When the seed grows, there is joy. On a recent community street cleaning there were two different missionaries on exchange in our district. As we were walking down the street and picking up debris, one of the persons from Atsugi that was helping, started talking to a visiting Elder saying he was wanting to find the local church and attend. That was really cool. Brian has been responding by email to the Atsugi Public Affairs Officer to get us signed up for these clean ups and it is great to get the exposure.  On American holidays like Memorial Day, the military facilities have the day off and people go out and explore Japan. That gives us Military Relations mission...