November 8, 2015

What a whitewashing wacky week...WOW!

Hello everyone, don't worry as well as still having my sense of humor I still remember how to alliterate well...

This week was a blast! And way crazy! We had a fun day on Wednesday saying goodbye to everyone and finishing packing. The Sendai branch is amazing, I was only there 6 weeks and when I left that made it seem like I had been there forever. I was so glad for the opportunity to work with them and see so many miracles in the beautiful place of Sendai! But I am excited to move on to the next place the Lord wants me to go to....

yamaGUCCI!

My new companion is elder Rawlinsom from fairview, Utah. Population: 1,400. He is AMAZING. He is so ready to go, and willing to do anything for the work. He wants to improve, and wants to work as hard as possible to see miracles here! He has already strengthened my faith so much over these past few days and I know I will learn more from him this transfer! We have seen some crazy miracles including teaching the most prepared 11 year old in the history of the world...this kid is crazy. He is a friend of a members son who has come to church a couple times and she asked us to try teaching a lesson...kid is crazy. His first question was "why did the people build the Tower of Babel and why did God confound the languages??" It was an intense lesson and he felt the spirit and recognized it super well. It was a pretty crazy experience. And hopefully as we work in faith him and his whole family will be able to be baptized!!

We are going to be working a lot finding new investigators out here in yamaGUCCI. We whitewashed in and I will admit it was kind of discouraging seeing the completely blank area book. But Elder Rawlinson just said "let's get to work and fill it up" so that's what we are going to do! Our motto for the transfer is "Let's go swimming!" Meaning we are gonna build our investigator pool nice and big little by little through our hard work and receiving lots of help from Heavenly Father.

Love you all so much!

Elder Krebs

November 2, 2015

Craziness here in the Japan Fukuoka mission, the whole world has turned upside down! It is going to be a pretty crazy transfer. But I am excited for it, and I am praying for the Lords help every single day! Our mission is super young now, so there is going to be a lot of interesting things going on for the next few transfers! Super pumped to see how the Lord blesses us all!

This week was awesome! We had splits on Tuesday in another area which was a lot of fun, they sell tim tams there at some store so we tim tam slammed the crap that night. May have bought a pack of tim tams for each person and it was one of the happiest 10 minutes of my life. WE LOVE TIM TAMS! We have some awesome missionaries in Taniyama so it was a good day to learn a lot from Elder Robinson!

 We were able to meet with Wan san a lot this week, and to teach him about the gospel and how he can change, he thinks he is a bad person and wants to be good. And when we taught him how through baptism and the gospel he was willing to do anything. He is so ready and will definitely be prepared to be baptized on 11\21 so please keep praying for him! Paul and Roel as well are progressing well towards their dates. And onaka san is amazing! He is so ready and wants to become happier, and when we meet with him and talk on the phone he already seems like a different person. So much happier, and so much closer to God. All through the gospel! BLESSINGS!

Thursday was a fun little Halloween party, it was with our english class and we had some fun games set up and ready to go. They all loved it and we all ate lots of candy! Friday was splits again with the two elders in our apartment, I went with Elder Murdock he has been here for 6 weeks now in Japan. His Japanese is so good, I was way impressed. We saw some crazy miracles and were able to set a baptismal date with a man that they had met before. He was way interested and ready to go so we figured we might as well set it right there and he accepted it and was willing to learn more!

Halloween in Japan is rather lame, no one likes candy here...so nothing to crazy went down. We were able to teach Paul and Roel and Wan which was a HUGE miracle!

Sunday, I took a 5 HOUR BUS RIDE. It was rough. all the way up to Fukuoka and got some training from Kaicho because I get to train a new elder from america next transfer and some other fun stuff. It was a great time though, we had an AMAZING training, I am grateful for the Lord for calling amazing servants like kaicho to help us grow and to push me and help me learn!

We met some way nice people this week, and I am grateful for that. I am sadly almost for sure leaving sendai this transfer so I am bummed but excited to go to a new area with a new companion and learn lots of new things and grow! The Lord will bless if we trust in him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength.

Love you all,

Elder Krebs

October 26, 2015

Hello everyone!!!

WHAT A WEEK! Lots of crazy awesome miracles!! Bet you want to hear about them dont ya, cool here we go.

Well the biggest one was we were able to go on splits with the zone leaders on tuesday, which was an absolute blast. It was so good to work with them, I got to work with Elder Jackson who goes home next week. So it was good to just go hard, and talk with a lot of people. My companion and the other zone leader went out and just converted half of sendai, we got some awesome return appointments. Especially with Onaka san, the big middle! He is a cool 40 year old dude, and we went back on friday to meet him, and he was loving everything so we asked him if he wanted to be baptized he said yes. So we just set a date right there and he wants to be baptized on 12/5 so please pray for Onaka san!!

Paul and Roel are doing well, we found the pamphlets in Tagalog for the lessons on line and were able to give those to them and they were way excited! So now they can better understand what we are teaching them, and apply it more! They are still progressing well to be baptized in 2 weeks! And Wan san, we werent able to meet cause he has been way busy but we will meet with him next week for sure!

We finally met with this perfect person Yoshidome on monday night, and he is so prepared, he is a 20 year old STUD! He loves everything about the teachings and wants to come to church and read from the book of mormon, he is doing this dancing thing in a big festival next week so he has no time but after that we should be able to meet often and get him progressing towards baptism and towards Jesus Christ!

Saturday we got to play ball! SPACE JAM! Paul and Roel came, Paul is a straight hooper, he played on some legit teams in the Philippines apparently so it made sense. It was fun to look like a fool again playing basketball! ;)

on Sunday we had an awesome halloween party that we helped with, it was an awesome opportunity for the community to see the missionaries in a better way. There was tons of young families and we were able to just have fun and to help them see that we are more than just way weird white dudes, we are way weird white dudes who love to have fun!! The parents and kids all loved it and we got to play games and do some `trick or treating` it was the lamest trick or treating ever...and a week early.

I love this work, I have loved looking at Larry A. Lawrences talk `what lack I yet` it was a game changer in conference. And something that has helped me change and grow since my mission started. The Lord has given me all kinds of answers for how I can improve...I am far from where I need to be but I know that I am on the right path if I follow the Lords guidance.

Love you all so much,

Elder Krebs

October 18, 2015

Please read the subject line for a description of what this week was like! (This week was cool!)

We had some good times this week as we were teaching, and knocking, and teaching, and knocking. I feel like the pioneer children! But I am also so grateful for the time that I have. Nothing brings me happiness more than being able to talk with someone about the awesomeness of the gospel and testifying to them about the joy it has brought to my life! 

Paul, Roel, and Wan the three people with baptismal dates are progressing really well  right now. They are so excited to be baptized and are excited for the help and happiness that it is going to bring to their lives! They always talk about wanting to be free from the bad things and from past mistakes. They truly understand the importance of the gospel and what they can gain from it, so please pray that they will be able to take that step in following Christ through baptism on November 8! 

We were able to go around and meet a lot of really nice people, and set up appointments to meet with them again! One awesome lady Uenojo was way excited to meet with us as she had gone to a christian school but never paid attention so she wants to learn more now! She is so kind, and a really great person! The Lord is truly preparing Sendai!

I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord! I am grateful that He chose President Egan as our mission president. We had interviews this week and it was such a great experience, you can just feel how much he truly loves the work, the Lord, and all of the missionaries. I am grateful for him and all of his hard work! 

Sunday was one of the best days of my mission! We had district conference. And nobody remembers except for my mom maybe but Miyazaki was my first area. And it is in the district that I am in now. So I got to see ALL the members again! It was amazing, so fun to see them and talk to them and actually understand what they are saying now. It was a huge tender mercy from the Lord, they are all so happy and it was just amazing as well to see just how much I have changed since then! 

I love the Lord!

Love you all so much, even my family who keeps bragging about how fun their week together in Kentucky was...even them. ;)

Elder Krebs

October 11, 2015

Dear Friends and Family,

I love general conference!!! It is better than Christmas as a missionary!! But maybe even over general conference was all the members in our branch here telling me I looked like Zac Efron this week...almost brought me to tears I was so happy. ;) Christmas came two months early this year!

Well I think the thing I learned most from conference was how amazing my mom is. I know that as a missionary I cant really lie, so everyone should know that she is perfect! It made me so grateful for my amazing parents and my family for how much they have helped me in my life! Bummed that they are all partying it up in KY without me, but I am grateful beyond belief to have the opportunity to share this gospel of happiness every single day!!

This week was super great, we got to go on splits on tuesday in another area, and I got to do a fun training with the district. The theme for it was `I heart dendou`. dendou means missionary work in Japanese. And we were able to go through a lot of the points that made this work so enjoyable, I was able to learn so much as I prepared and learned from the scriptures. Splits were way fun, we found all kinds of awesome people in the area of Taniyama! We made a goal at the beginning of the day to find a 25-30 year old dude who would want to learn more and listen, and we found this amazing super cool stud who was pumped to hear a message and basically set up an appointment with us!! The Lord blesses as we plan and make goals and then work our butts off to accomplish them!

Back in sendai it was kind of crazy all week, with lots of activities and general conference among other things. But we were still able to find and talk with a lot of people. And find some people in our area that are way prepared to hear this message including a super awesome guy named yoshimade, he is 20 and was way pumped to learn and here more about christianity! What more could you ask for? We are meeting with him soon so I will let you know how that goes!

Yesterday we saw an awesome miracle! So Paul and Roel the two Filipinos who have baptismal dates have a neighbor and friend named Wan from china that we had met before and he seemed like he wanted to hear more. He had met with the missionaries a little bit before and was interested, so we finally were able to meet with him yesterday. He is amazing!! He was taking everything in and just realized the true amazingness of the gospel. (I know amazingness probably isnt a word) he was accepting everything we said as truth, as he had never really heard anything about God in his life before and had no idea. It all just sounded so amazing to him, it is amazing to see the Lord preparing these people to hear the message! We were able to commit him to be baptized on the same day as Roel and Paul! So please pray that they will all be able to be baptized on 11/8!

The work is moving along so well here in Sendai, and the Lord has truly blessed us beyond belief because of the work we are putting in. I am nowhere near perfect, but I am grateful for the Lord for making up for my imperfections and preparing the way for the gospel to roll forth among the people here! This is just the start and we have an amazing vision for what sendai will become in the near future! Lets work hard!! WHOOT!

I love this church, I know that it is true. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Thomas S. Monson is our living prophet today. We are so lucky to have that influence and power on this earth again, and we can never be grateful enough to God for everything he gives us!

Life is great!!!

Love,

Elder Krebs

October 6, 2015

HELLO EVERYONE!

Well first off, a big shout out to the Japan Fukuoka Mission alumni Elder Stevenson for becoming a member of the quorom of the twelve apostles. #BestMission We were excited to hear that and hope that he will come visit us soon. All the branch here was excited because most of them met him a couple years ago when he came to our mission!

This week has been AMAZING! The area was kind of slow so I wanted to just go out and find people to teach and to talk to. So we did that. A lot of it. It was amazing! We saw all kinds of crazy miracles every single day! And the people who we are able to teach has sky rocketed and we just see more miracles every day as our faith grows! I love sendai so much!

The biggest miracle this week was Roel and Paul, we met them my first week here and they are studs. They are from the Philippines, they speak a little english and a little japanese and are golden. They want to be baptized so bad, we were worried mainly because of the language barrier though, and so we were praying and thinking about it. And who shows up to church that sunday but Micheal a man from the Philippines, he is a member and is here for the month. We made baptismal dates for them on 11/7 so it is perfect. He is going to be able to teach them with us every sunday until their baptism. LIKE WHAT THE HECK! Heavenly Father just plopped him right there for us. #MIRACLES

We were also able to meet an amazing lady named Hidaka, she is way prepared and let us in and we were able to teach a lesson the first time we met her, she wants to learn more and apply it to her life. And when we gave her the Book of Mormon she was flipping out, and was so happy and asked us if we could come back soon to answer the questions she will have after she reads from it. hahahaha we said yes we would come back for sure. 

I love elder Malone and his beautiful Japanese that keeps me from looking like an idiot, we have already seen this area start to see a lot of success. And it is only going to continue and grow from here until we are having baptisms every week!!! I know that this area can grow every week, and that the Lord will lead us to the people we are supposed to meet, as long as we are worthy and work our little butts off. 

It is finally starting to cool down a little bit! Glad I will probably be down south here for the winter so that will be way nice! I love this work, I feel so blessed for everything the Lord has given me. I will never be able to repay him for it, but I can definitely work my hardest every day and give him every second of these two years. 

Love you all tons,

Elder Krebs

September 27, 2015

Hello everyone!!

Well this week was crazyyyyyyyy. We finished off the week, trying to pack and get as many lessons in as possible in Ishigaki. Which was a wonderful experience of being able to share my last testimony with many of the wonderful investigators that I have gotten so close to over the past four months on that beautiful island. I am grateful for everything that I was able to learn there and for all the amazing experiences I was able to have there. But also bummed as I left right as it was starting to cool down a little bit :( 

On thursday morning I flew to Naha, then I flew to Fukuoka, then I got to ride a bullet train down to sendai, it was WAY cool. Ridiculously fast and way smooth it was a neat experience. I got down to sendai finally and met my new companion Elder Malone, he is a 2nd transfer missionary who is fluent at Japanese because he is half! #Blessings the Lord knew I would need some help. I am excited to work down here in this wonderful area of Sendai! The ward here is amazing, and loves the missionaries, we hardly have to shop they give us so much stuff. It is beautiful. And they give us a lot of help with missionary work and helping us teach lessons and other things like that, they are really great and really helpful. 

We have some really great investigators that they have been working with for a while and just have a couple problems before baptism but we should be able to help them receive baptism soon! And I am wanting to focus on just getting TONS of new people to teach, to work on teaching as many people as possible through lots of knocking doors and working with members to ask for referrals! I am excited to see this area explode and help the people in Sendai receive the true gospel of Jesus Christ! 

The apartment I am in is easily the youngest in the mission, a full mission is 16 transfers. And all of ours added up is 15. We have a first transfer new missionary straight from America, Elder Murdock. Then my companion Elder Malone who is still a second transfer. Then me and one of my friends from the MTC that I came to Japan with Elder Scheunmen (probably spelled it wrong) But we have been having a lot of fun, and are excited to see this mission see a lot of success and this area.

A gospel topic I have been focusing and thinking about a lot lately is the law of the harvest. That we truly reap what we sow. We have to go out there and give it everything that we have not holding anything back and the Lord can`t help but bless us out the wazzooo. I am grateful for that promise as it motivates me and gives me the hope to work as hard as possible, even when it gets hard sometimes.

I love you all so much, and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Krebs

September 23, 2015

Hello Everyone!!

Leaving Ishigaki :(((((((((((((( Super bummed, I absolutely love everything about this area and about the members and investigators but know that the Lord wants me in Sendai working there. If any one knows Japan geography it is not the sendai super far up north. There is one on Kyushu as well! It is a great area that I have been able to go to the area a couple times and stayed the night. Plus Elder Lucas served there for a long time as well, so I have heard all kinds of good things. I am SO excited! I get to to return to my zone from when I was a greenie as well! 

In Sendai I will be a getting a little baby at my nine month mark. I will be training a newer missionary, I am pretty stinking scared because...Japanese is hard but I am also so excited for the opportunity!!

This week was the beeeeest! We were able to see so many miracles and meet with so many new people we taught all kinds of first lessons. it has been amazing to see the Lord continually bless this area! I feel very blessed to have been here in this time and help the work progress here! 

We saw an amazing miracle on Wednesday, there is a member in the ward who has a husband that is not a member. He loves the teachings but thinks he is too old to join and has bad eye sight so that hinders him as well. But this week the spirit hit him full force. He was having a terrible time, and was pretty depressed and wasn't eating or anything, then he said he prayed and the spirit just came over him and when we visited on Wednesday he was a different person! It was amazing to see how much this gospel truly changes lives. He was not the same person, he was so happy so excited to see us and just was raving about how amazing he felt and how much he wanted to join the church. The other two elders who have been teaching him were so excited, the Lord truly worked a huge miracle in the heart of Kazuo san this week in Ishigaki.

Feeling so grateful for everything that the Lord has given me here and how much I have been able to grow as well. I pray that I was able to do everything that I was meant to do here in Ishigaki and hope to continue to do what needs to be done as I move on to Sendai on thursday! I love the Lord!!

This is the true church of Jesus Christ on this earth, I know that with all of my heart. Hope everyone is doing well and is safe! Pray for all of you often!

Love,

Elder Krebs

September 14, 2015

This week was faster than a typhoon...

This week was a lot of knocking on doors and we saw soooo many miracles! It was crazy how many people were prepared to hear this message and we have all the appointments with them this week so we are going to be very busy. I can`t even put into words how much the Lord blessed us last week as Elder Quinn and I both made a concentrated effort to improve ourselves. The Lord definitely noticed us putting in that little bit of extra work. We were able to make 18 return appointments which should definitely keep us nice and busy, I am so grateful for this work and for the Lord for preparing these peoples hearts!

We had one great experience on thursday as we were going around we remembered a family that we had met about 3 weeks ago, who said we could come back when it was September so we decided to swing by. It was the greatest moment ever, the mom opened the door and was super happy to see us and wanted us to come back to teach the kids and the parents. We have a family home evening activity planned to do with the two parents and 4 kids tonight. It was such a crazy miracle to see how willing she was to just let us into her home and to learn about this wonderful gospel!

Friday we got to have splits, I went with Elder Allen who is a 15 transfer missionary (realy old) and it was a good time, he is absolutely hilarious and we were able to find a lot of people who were willing to have us come back and teach some more. #TooManyMiracles

Saturday we got to see Yudai play some basketball, his middle school team played an adult team and were beating them pretty good. Couldnt have made the adults feel very good about themselves. ;) Then we had an eikaiwa with some kids, it is so great to see them gain interest in learning english, more kids come every single week from this area of apartments and they all love learning. So much different from American kids, I cant imagine ever taking an hour and a half out of my saturday to go listen to people speak japanese...

Sunday we had an amazing lesson with Shimabukuro she has been an investigator for a while, the lesson yesterday was really special and spiritual. We were all feeling the spirit very strongly and were all being influenced by it for sure it was helping Elder Quinn and I testify more boldly, we brought a member who was crying pretty hard the whole time as we testified of the truthfulness of the restoration and the prophet Joseph Smith it made me so grateful for everything I have been able to learn and know as I grew up about these things. I love this gospel so much, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share it with everyone!

I just want to leave you with one of my favorite scriptures

Jacob 6:12 - be wise, what more can I say

boom

Love you all so much,

Elder Krebs