October 26, 2016

Hasn't been too long! Gomen this week got crazy, p-day got moved around so that we can do some other stuff on the weekend!!

First things first! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! I love the atonement, and I love everything about Japan. I don't think I could express that enough! I have been humbled a lot this week, and it has helped me grow and learn many new things and new skills. I am grateful for the examples of other missionaries, my parents/family, and my Mission President! I have so many examples all around me, I couldn't be more grateful!

My favorite quote this week that I heard from our Mission Presidents wife's training was

"We can't just produce happiness, but we can produce gratitude."

It is so true! Whenever I have caught myself getting discouraged or feeling like I am not good enough I just focus on being grateful for EVERYTHING that my Heavenly Father has given me and I immediately just feel the joy of the gospel and a strong motivation to improve! We have truly been given so much, I just wanna sing count your many blessings all day every day!

Elder Yamanashi is still the greatest companion of all time! I love him to death, he is the best example to me. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a part of everything he does. To be Spiritually minded is life eternal!

I love getting to share this happy message with all those around me! I hope that they can feel the joy that I have been able to feel!

Love you all so much,

Elder Krebs

October 21, 2016

This week was FLYYYYYYYY!

We had a cool experience with finding this week! We have been focusing on putting a lot more effort into finding and we saw the miracles from it this week! We were able to find a new young family, a super cool young guy who is a badminton pro, and a former investigator! all in one night! It is so cool! We had been struggling to make return appointments all week it had been way hard, but then the Lord showed His hand!

We have learned a lot this week about finding joy, and how we can choose joy! It has been good for me to learn! To choose joy to choose the gospel and stay focused on the work at all times! We can always improve!

I am so grateful for this gospel and for everything it brings to my life. We may have trials but the Lord will always be there to help us, and as we rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ we will gain blessings! 

This work is the greatest!!

Love you all!

Elder Krebs

October 16, 2016

What a great week! Ended off with a trip to the beautiful island of Okinawa! I am writing this on the plane back to Fukuoka. I LOVE MY MISSION! Planes, trains, automobiles, boats, cars, canoe, you name it ;)

This week I have been humbled a lot by the grace and goodness of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and for their patience with me! I have seen some amazing examples and friends throughout the mission, and just realized how wonderful this gospel is, and how we have all changed over the time we have been here! How could this gospel not be true???

I have been focusing on humbling myself, and putting all my trust in the Lord and in The Holy Ghost to guide and direct me. I too often get distracted and worried about small little details that make it harder to feel the Holy Ghost. But I know as we relax, trust in the Lord, and CHOOSE to be happy that we can accomplish anything. And especially accomplish what the Lord would have us accomplish! I am still working on it though. I would give myself a solid D+ for now....but hey, that's better than computer programming ;) 勉強します^o^

General Conference was AWESOME! While watching I was remembering myself as a little kid, I could only make it through a session if I had my Harry Potter book behind the Book of Mormon, or 15 coloring books in front of me. Now I never wanted the spiritual feast to end! I was so grateful for Elder Nelsons talk, I also loved the talk about not comparing ourselves! It was definitely something I needed to hear in that moment! All of these talks are so applicable to our lives at any time! Can't wait to study and re study them all again!

So grateful for the opportunity to be here and to serve and learn from amazing mentors! That teach me everything from how to budget my money, to how to cook cookies right in Japan :) plus all kinds of gospel goodness as well! President and a Sister Egan have become amazing role models to me, I know that the opportunity to work with them was for my benefit, the Lord knew what I needed in my life right now. I am grateful for his plan! 

One amazing thing I have learned this week through my experiences and help from others is that we cannot make ourselves become happy but we can make ourselves be grateful and that makes all the difference!! Be grateful for everything you have! We are blessed beyond belief!!

Love,

Elder Krebs

October 6, 2016

There is no way that it has been a week hahahahaha 信じられない！

Fastest week of my whole entire life...but also very rewarding! We had a pretty exciting week because of a typhoon that has been roaming around the mission...on transfer week. COME ON MR. TYPHOON! He could have come at any other time....but he had to come on transfer week! Oh well :) 

I learned a lot about planning this week, and making back up plans, and back up for back up plans. It was way fun! PLANS ARE AWESOME! We had 18 of the coolest new missionaries in the world come in this week! I love seeing new missionaries and their faith and excitement for the work, it increases my desire and faith in missionary work every single time! They are so humble, and willing to learn and willing to submit to their Heavenly Father and do anything, it is a wonderful example to me!

The good news is that miraculously the typhoon that was supposed to be a category 4 going straight at Fukuoka, decided to take a turn towards Korea...our prayers must have been stronger than theirs ;) It also weakened a TON, so there was basically no impact here. And now I am praying that everyone in Korea is very safe, I hope it wasn't their transfer week!

Our area is doing great, one of our former investigators who we taught for a while and had to pass because he was in a different area is getting baptized soon! And we have been able to start working with a couple other people! The Lord is constantly blessing us! 

I am SUPER excited for general conference! It is going to be tomorrow and Sunday here! WOW! I just love the opportunity to receive personal advice, and training from Prophets and Apostles, I am pushing right now to every day deepen my faith and testimony and I know that this will be an amazing opportunity!

I LOVE JAPAN! I love the people, I love this work, and I love the Lord!!

Thanks for all of your amazing advice and guidance to me in all of your emails! I definitely need it!

Elder Krebs

October 2, 2016

This week was all over the place! 

It is amazing that the Lord always knows how to push us when we are trying to improve on certain things :) This week I was focusing on Faith and Patience...both were tested hahahahaha I am grateful though, because I know that without trials there is no way that we can grow and progress. So it all works out in the end :)

Life is great here in Fukuoka, we are trying to do our best to stay in contact and continue working with our investigators here. Elder Yamanashi and I are putting together a plan to go out and work our bums off to find a person to baptize before next transfer ends! We are going to exercise our faith and talk to everyone! #FaithWithoutWorks=DEAD

Got to learn a lot of amazing things this week from my Mission President, his example is always a blessing to me. He is very particular and very detail oriented, which is a good example for me to learn from. This week I woke up in the middle of the night and was just had the thought come into my head "Man I love double checking things" hahahahaha I wrote it down in my journal and then went back to sleep, but if that isn't a sign that I have changed on my mission I don't know what is. 

All the new missionaries come in in a couple days! 18 new missionaries! So excited! and there are only 9 going home, so there is a couple of new areas opening up throughout the mission, which is really exciting! 

I love the Lord, this week as I was thinking about our roles that we have in this life. I thought that our most important role that we could ever have is being a Child of God, and a disciple of Christ. At all times and in all places being an example, through serving others. It doesn't matter what calling you have in the church, how much money you have, or anything. It is such a blessing that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us all equally. I definitely felt his individual love for me this week. I feel so blessed to have the restored gospel in my life!

Love you all so much!

Elder Krebs 

September 25, 2016

What a week! Got to go to heaven on earth at the beginning of this week! #OKINAWA

I absolutely love getting to go down to the islands! Got to go on splits with our beloved Elder Gorski, and our young blood, cold stone killer Elder Hardy! They were both AMAZING! I absolutely love talking to the people down there, they are so different from Japanese people hahahaha We saw some amazing miracles! With Elder Hardy we met just a ton of people that were way interested, the Lord was definitely guiding us, we made an effort to focus on our faith and following all promptings from the Spirit, and it was super effective. Go figure ;) 

We got back on Wednesday and it was go go go from there on out, doing all kinds of fun stuff. But it has started slowing down again a little bit here, which is way nice :)

I just wanna testify about the power of work. My favorite quote in PMG is from Elder Benson where he says "Work, work, work,- there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work" Pg. 121. I know that it is true, not just in missionary work but in life! I have learned that every single day on my mission. I have been focusing on putting in every single bit of effort to the work, to having faith, to following the Spirit. I have seen myself change little by little, and I know that Heavenly Father loves us and sees the effort that we all make every single day. He is waiting to bless us, and we can see those blessings as we work at improving ourselves every single day. All thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ. WOW THIS GOSPEL ROCKS! I Absolutely love getting to share this with the amazing people in Japan. 

Companion is still an angel! Life is still amazing! AND I AM ALWAYS HAPPY!

Love you all,

Elder Krebs