But then our prayers were answered . . .

Hey peeps,

So as you can tell I haven`t been very good about emails lately, I am sorry, I am repenting......but great things have been happening here. I can`t even tell it all, but it has been a blur of happiness.

Okazaki hillside

So first things first, we have a baptism coming up this Sunday! This is another miracle, kind of like the story of working with O back in Fukuroi. So 10 days ago Elder Ch and I were on our way home late at night and talked to one last person on the street at about 9:15 or 9:20 PM (as a rule we have to be home but 9:30 at night). Talked to him for a few minutes, set up a time to meet the next day. 

His name is T. He had just barely moved to Okazaki, new area, has no friends here, doesn`t know where anything is. Anyway, long story short, he comes to church two days later (last Sunday) and enjoyed it, and we continued to meet with him throughout the week. He explained to us some cool experiences he has been having since meeting with us, including a direct answer to one of the first prayers he has ever uttered in his entire life while he was at work having trouble with some things. He was very surprised and felt from that experience that God is indeed real and that he has been guided to meet with the missionaries. He also explained how his life and completely turned around since meeting us. 

I am astounded at how fast this has been happening (this is NOT normal in Japan, haha) and last week T committed to baptism for the 28th of September, and as far as we can tell everything is going to fall into place to make this happen.

This has been a huge testimony builder for me. In the mission we have been making a huge push for every single companionship to have a baptism this month. The entire mission has been struggling a little bit with this, but there was some extra pressure put on us zone leaders to make sure that we make it happen. Elder Ch and I were doing everything that we could for this month, but things just kept falling through and we seemed to be halted at every turn. We were discouraged that we would not be able to show an example and help raise the faith of our zone. 

But then our prayers were answered when we met T on the 12th of this month. T has been progressing very smoothly, is developing real faith and even having his own personal spiritual experiences. I am convinced that we have been guided and directed to meet this man to help change his life for the better. We are so excited, but it is going to take a LOT of work this week to make sure he is taught everything he needs to know AND understands well enough to follow through with baptism this weekend. I believe that it will happen.

I also probably never mentioned that Brother N from Ichinomiya came out to Okazaki to take us out to dinner last week :) It was SO good to see him again, he is one of my best friends and it was an honor to teach and work with him. He is still going strong and that is the most important thing to me.

I have been blessed with some amazing experiences here in Japan. The Lord`s work is so real and it is changing lives every day. I salute all of my other fellow missionaries across the world who are participating in the work of salvation, which means that I salute all of the members of this wonderful church. We are all working together to bring the good news to all the world and light up the darkness. Let`s make miracles happen together.

I love you all so much!

Peace and love,

Elder Naylor

ネイラー長老

I work with the best people, I mean just rock solid