8-15-16 What a(nother) blessed week!

Bula na noqu matavuvale wananavu sara dina!

What a(nother) blessed week!

We've had lots of great teaching and service opportunities this weak! Though we were unable to contact either of the two referrals we received this past week, we have hopes to meet them this week!

We've had several wonderful visits with our awesome investigators and some less-active families, and always searching! I've witnessed several miracles this week, several testaments of God's pure love and power, but I'll only share one.

It happened in that appointment we had with LeRoy directly following my email last week. The week before, when I was on splits with that missionary I exploded the eggs with, we stopped by LeRoy and taught him the Word of Wisdom. He really likes his coffee and his tea, and enjoys a glass of wine or a pint every now and then, so he was a little hesitant but willing! When we stopped by on Monday to discuss some questions he had from gospel principles the day before, we asked about his progress in keeping the Word of Wisdom. Now here's the miracle. He said that ever since Elder Rodriquez and I taught him the Word of Wisdom, and he doesn't understand why, but he has had absolutely no desire to partake of any of the things we taught him about. He didn't feel the need to drink coffee or tea in the mornings, and he had no desire to have a glass of wine or anything. He took us to a service project this morning for a friend of his, and he still hasn't partaken of any of those things. He just doesn't want it. In fact, he went to a friend's birthday party last week, and ordered a juice to his buddies' surprise. Instead, they all ordered juices and had a great (and sober) time! When he first told us about this little lack of desire to drink, we knew why, and we told him why.

LeRoy, right now, is in a critical part of his conversion where he's reading, pondering, and asking Heavenly Father if he should be baptized. Elder Sinden and I know that the Lord has blessed him with this little window of sobriety so that he can receive that answer fully.

To fit into this, something else awesome happened. The Colorado Denver North Mission has put out a notice allowing missionaries to attend the Fort Collins Temple's Open House today (almost a week before the open house really even starts) WITH an investigator or very recent convert. LeRoy agreed to go with us, so a member is taking us and LeRoy to Fort Collins in a bit. A few reasons this is super, super cool:

I've never been to a temple open house (No huge-ie I guess because I've been in the temple, but not this one!)

Since the actual open house starts on Friday, and this is a special pre-viewing for the missionaries and their investigator or recent convert, the place will be virtually empty, and LeRoy and the others don't have to deal with the big hustle and bustle of people and members and whatnot.

The Lord prepared ALL this for LeRoy. He is obeying the Word of Wisdom like a champion AND he gets to enter the house of the Lord and feel the powerful spirit within. This is huge for me personally. I can't stress enough how blessed I am, and how sure my knowledge is that I'm here in the right place at the right time. I get to assist LeRoy in entering the temple of God, and I get to be a witness of his first impressions of the temple.

To finish off, some big news! IT'S IN!! My visa came in on Wednesday, and I was actually shaking trying to contain my excitement because I found out in the middle of a home visit. I met up with Elder Hunkin at a training meeting on Saturday (Where President and Sister Mendenhall make sure our intake is being trained well and our trainers are well in line), and there we received our travel itinerary! I'll post a picture of it with some additional notes, but I'm SO excited!

My experience here in Colorado has been absolutely nothing but an enormous and an incredible blessing. As I've said before, Arapahoe will always have a special place in my heart. Of course my work is not nearly done yet, as I have several more proselyting days. The next/last few days will mostly be spent on visiting families, cleaning the apartment and garage, packing, and preparing the paperwork for the new-coming missionaries. It'll be tough because we're covering two areas and we're BOTH leaving (I to Fiji and Elder Sinden home to Spokane, Washington), so they're whitewashing BOTH areas. We have a lot of notes and paperwork to leave behind so the new missionaries in both areas know what's going on and so we don't lose any of the awesome momentum we have going on right now. I really do feel like things are going really well in our work. We've been teaching some new people lately and getting several less-actives to church, both pretty big successes for our particular area! I love these people so much, and I'm hoping and praying for good, strong-hearted and strong-spirited missionaries to come in and pick the work right up from where we left it.

Also in the next few days, I need to figure out how to send things home. No more pants in a week from now, WOO! Also have to send home my prairie dog skull and rocks and extra clothes and whatever. I'm leaving the coat for the next set of missionaries, they'll definitely need it way more here than I ever will in Fiji or Hawaii haha.

Thanks for the letters mom and dad! I'm so glad everyone is doing great and everyone is healthy. MOST GLAD that you're loving your new job, mom! It sounds so great and super convenient!! I'm sitting here in a library almost weeping at how blessed we are. I'm so so so proud of my awesome family and your accomplishments physically, mentally, and spiritually!! I'm so grateful for my extended family and all their supports of my service to our Heavenly Father.

I have to head out, we have a super tight P-day today so I'm lucky to have gotten the time I did. I love you guys so much more than I can say. Thank you for everything, I pray for you folks every single morning and every single night and I am blessed to know through you guys that my prayers are being answered. I love you guys and I love this gospel so much. I know that god loves us and knows our needs and challenges, and WILL bless us so long as we heed to his word. Moroni 10:7-8, awesome.

Again, I love you guys so much and I hope you have an incredible week!

Au lomani kemudou valevu sara dina, sa vinaka duadua kemudou!

Na luvequ/tuakaqu/taciqu vinaka duadua,

Elder Ishibashi