7-2-17 Great, great lesson to end my mission with.

Kumusta po family!

 

 Alright it's late and I'm doing my emails here at the mission office, so this is going to be quick. I'll just update you guys on the bigger things that happened during my last week in the field. 

 For one thing, Jackie's baptism didn't happen. We had her baptismal interview on Wednesday and one last problem was found. One of the mission rules is that an investigator needs to follow the Word of Wisdom for at least 4 weeks before being baptized. We only taught Jackie the Word of Wisdom 2 weeks ago. The thing about Jackie is she keeps commitments immediately and never looks back. She made the commitment to abstain from drinking coffee and tea and hasn't had a problem since, but because of the fact that it wasn't yet 4 weeks she couldn't be baptized on Saturday. Not gonna lie I was pretty bitter haha. I was heartbroken & bummed for a few minutes, until another thought came to mind. I asked myself, "How would pouting about this affect your last few days & going home?" I imagined how dumb it would be to have had the best 2 years of my life, and then to come home with a bad attitude because I didn't see one of my favorite investigators be baptized. Again, my heart was softened and I realized how selfish I was being by acting that way. I realized that although the Lord has a good sense of humor, I've pretty much always gotten what I asked from Him. This experience strengthened my testimony that no matter how badly we may want something, even if it's good, we cannot force God's will to align with ours. 

 My leaving was and is until now so hard, but also so awesome. The members did great things for me and sent me off feeling satisfied with the things I've done in Gamu. Yesterday I had the best last lesson you could ask for as a missionary. We taught one sister for the first time, sister Zeni, who's actually been to church 3 times but we just haven't been able to teach because she's so busy. We had a few fellowshippers work with us, including sis. Jackie! Jackie shared her experience with taking lessons from us and bore her testimony. It was so powerful! One blessing I noticed there is she'll now be able to say she worked with missionaries before being baptized, which is something not very many people can say. And what was great is sis. Zeni has a great desire to learn more about this church. She's entered many churches in the past and have always wanted to try entering the LDS church, but never was able to until a few weeks ago. She expressed her great desire to learn more about Joseph Smith. We taught a little bit then used that, explaining that once she knows Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, it must mean that this is God's restored church on the earth today. We then connected that to baptism and she accepted the baptism invitation in a heartbeat. I think this was perfect for Jackie because she was able to feel what we feel every time we teach her. It was the coolest thing. Great, great lesson to end my mission with. 

 Alright for the rest of the things I'll just tell you guys in person! I love you guys so much! Thank you for the emails and pictures and everything throughout my entire mission. I love you guys so much and look forward to seeing you in a few days. 

For the last time,

Elder Ishibashi