February 28, 2016

What a great crazy awesome week!!

Lots of time to go around knocking doors at the beginning lots of fun miracles with that! We were able to really start working more with the ward this week and with some less actives which has brought a lot of success and a better relationship with the ward!!

I am having a blast with Elder Hanley! One crazy miracle this week was on Friday at English class, recently a man and his son have been coming. The dad lived in America for 22 years! He is a genius and worked for nasa...like what. And we started talking about the church, and he had all these questions and just wanted to learn. And asked us to come to his house and teach him!! He is amazing, and really needs this in his life and he recognizes that he needs something in his life!! He has all kinds of time to meet, and thinks the missionaries are amazing for what we do! We are so excited to baptize Moto! So please pray for him!

On Saturday we had a fun concert in Ube, I got to sing a couple songs, and it was so weird to be singing so much! I haven't sung that much in a while, I have dropped like two steps from my range. #MissionSacrifices #DontTellMr.Marsh...

I feel so blessed to be working in Yamaguchi and serving the Lord. I have been humbled a lot here, and it has taught me so much about relying on the Lord in everything because if we do not then we cannot accomplish what he wants done. And if I am not trying to accomplish what the Lord wants done, then there is not much reason for me being here! So I am recommitting myself to consecrate everything to the Lord, not just for two years, but my whole life. I want to be a servant, and more than that a friend of the Lord.

Fun story from this week was....I ate whale meat! Whoop! It was way weird...smells like fish, tastes like super salty beef.

We also played badminton this week...Japanese people do not mess around with badminton. One of the missionaries here, elder TAKAYA, was the captain of his high school team, and I always joked around about it. But this missionary is amazing. It was like art watching him play badminton. That was a humbling experience. All the badminton at the graduation parties senior year did not prepare me...

Well I love you all tons!! Hope you have a great week!

Elder Krebs

February 22, 2016

Greetings loved ones!

This week was amazing, we had Elder Yamashita of the Asian north area
presidency come and give a taikai this week! It was STUPENDOUS!! He is
amazing, and his spirit of love was so strong for all of the
missionaries! He went over so many awesome things to help us in our
missionary work to improve our skills so that we can see baptisms! The
thing that really stuck out to me was how important the little things
are, and how much we have to work to be in tune with the spirit at all
times. It is not an easy thing to be always receiving help and
guidance, we must put in a lot of work to accomplish that. And it will
make us the most effective missionaries!

That was on Friday, we also had a great experience teaching our
investigator Ryo this week, we were able to get a member there and it
was AMAZING. Ryo was able to hear this recent converts testimony and
see the effect and blessings it could have on his life, and also his
future family! He wants to be baptized so bad, but can't because of
work on Sunday's.... :( so please pray that his faith is strengthened
enough to take a day off on Sunday to be able to keep the sabbath day
holy!

We had a fun member dinner on Thursday! He made us all kinds of
delicious food, and we got to share a nice spiritual message with them
on our gratitude to the Lord and helping them realize everything they
have gotten from Him, as well as what we can give back to the Lord to
show our gratitude towards Him!

The Yamaguchi area is doing great! Elder Hanley and I are working well
and having a blast here! We are grateful to the Lord for everything he
has given us! It is amazing, as we truly count our many blessings it
amazes me how much the Lord has given us as we stop and think! Never
forget how much the Lord loves every single one of you!

Love you all so much,

Elder Krebs

February 7, 2016

Hello from the beautiful area of Yammaguchi!

Today was crazy with lots of travel and lots of preparation for trainings, and other things but it was a blast and a half! But because of that, there was not a ton of time for meeting and teaching, which was way hard but I am grateful for the time we did have to work!

Elder Hanley is doing well, we are going out with the faith and desire to see miracles! Especially to see a baptism this transfer. I know that the Lord will prepare a way for us to see miracles as we work our hardest and keep the commitments we have made with the Lord!! He can't help but bless us, as we do as he commands!

We had district conference on Sunday, which was amazing. We were able to hear from President Egan, he gave a beautiful talk on charity, and how it blesses our lives and how if we have charity we will truly forget ourselves and help others, help them grow rather than focusing on ourselves!

He also gave another wonderful training this week to us on just being strictly obedient to the mission rules, never doubting why we have them but always just following them with faith that we will see miracles! He is such an amazing man who is filled with such love!

I love this work, I know this church is true!

Love,

Elder Krebs

February 14, 2016

What a week!!!

From a crazy hard week last week, to all kinds of miracles this week! I love the mission life, we were able to teach so much, and see so many people come closer to Christ, especially with a lot of progression with our two progressing investigators Ryo and Takashi!

Ryo has a problem with coming to church, because he works at a daycare and if he doesn't go on Sunday there aren't enough people to run the daycare :( it's for the kids....but it is way hard! He expressed a desire to be baptized, and said he saw himself progressing and said he felt changes in his life, in a really good way! So we are going to make it so he can testify strongly about God and Jesus Christ and then help him understand how important coming to church is!

And Takashi was great, we had a lesson with a member there who was awesome, she is friends with his mom and just straight up asked him and taught him through why he needs to be baptized as well as the blessings, and he just lit up, he wants to be baptized so much but is scared to ask his parents. It is so cool to see him progressing, he has such strong faith for such a young kid! But he wants baptism enough so he is going to talk to his parents for permission so please pray for him!!

We had a way fun time this week as I went on splits with an elder that I had been in the MTC with, he is a stud! We saw a ton of miracles and were able to accomplish a lot in that day which was way exciting!

Elder Hanley is doing great, getting fluent at Japanese and going out and working hard, we worked as hard as we could this week and definitely saw the miracles come in from it, we are excited for this week as Elder Yamashita of our area presidency is coming to the mission! We are gonna get some knowledge dropped on us! I am way excited, I have definitely felt the need to change and improve to the next level In a lot of areas, so I am excited to go in and learn from him and the spirit!

This week I have been thinking a lot about commandments, and why we have them, because we had a hard experience with this man who was just amazing, HE asked us for a Book of Mormon, and talked about how it was so amazing because we met him at a time when he really needed to rely on God and was thinking a lot about it, and then we went back and during his studies in between (where he read a ton of the Book of Mormon) and other things he learned about the word of wisdom, and no matter what we said he said it was Impossible, he didn't have enough faith in himself, he had given in to the fact that he would always be addicted to tobacco and drinking, and no matter what he couldn't give it up. It was so sad, we tried everything and prayed with him. But it made me so sad that he got rid of an amazing chance to figure out if God is there because of that one commandment. But as I thought and studied and prayed, I realized that that is way, because many are called but few are chosen. If we think the commandments are too strict then we don't understand why they are there, especially as missionaries with a white handbook full of commandments. They are all there for a reason. And they are from a Heavenly Father. I know that is true!

I love you all,

Elder Krebs

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A special Valentine message for friends and family!

BE MY VALENTINE!

I have been thinking about Christ's love a lot recently, and how much he cares. And especially Gods love for us, as our Heavenly Father. And how he loved us enough to send his only begotten son, and His son loved us enough to sacrifice his life for us, there is no greater love in this world. I am so grateful for that love and what it does for me in my life, and to be able to feel that love for everyone I talk with. I can feel Gods love for everyone I talk with whether they are yelling at me to leave, or if they are accepting what I am saying! #Love!

I love you all so much and cannot thank you enough for the love you show me and all of your support! You all are the bees knees!!!

愛しています!!

Elder Krebs

February 1, 2016

Hello!

Well I am still in yamaGUCCI! My new companion is Elder Hanley! A stud from a tiny town in Oregon! He is way awesome, and is loving life and adjusting well to the missionary grind!

We had a fun week and were able to see a lot of miracles! This week was kind of crazy with transfers, elder Rawlinson went down to ISHIGAKI! He is so lucky, I was so jealous, but he is going there as a third transfer just like I did. Following in papas footsteps!

The apartment is way different now with two new people! Elder watt is elder takayas new comp, he is a cool kid from Riverton, but he doesn't know the bay's :( so I am wondering if he is actually from Riverton... ;)

Last week we found some way awesome new investigators that I will let you know how they are doing next week after we BAPTIZE THEM ALL!! YEAH! I am so excited for this transfer and to see yamaGUCCI explode! We are right there, and it is already happening! You might be hearing about the YammaGucci elders in the next general conference...stay tuned!

Short email, not much happened but I love you all so much! Also shoutout to Emma, and Tyler for getting baptized this week! I am so proud of both of them and love them so much!! #ProudUncle

Love,

Elder Krebs

January 26, 2016

A wintery week in the tundra of Yamaguchi! But it was fun to see the Lords hand as lots of snow here forced us to change our plans and see miracles!!

I will be.....STAYING! But elder Rawlinson will be leaving :(((( I will be blessed though with the opportunity to work with another new missionary from America! And get to learn again from his faith and awesomeness! I still don't have a name though, so just wait for next weeks email!

So last Wednesday we went on splits in yanai which was a blast and a half! I went with Elder Warr! I stellar missionary, who knows how to never take himself to seriously and it was just a fun day cause he never got down or sad once! That is a trait I went to emulate for sure!

Then we just dendoed in Yamaguchi! It was a lot of appointments falling through because of cold weather and other things. But the Lord blessed us in a lot of different ways! Especially with just a lot of peace and comfort that he blessed us with, in what might have been a difficult week without it! And some fun snow which definitely got me pumped up and ready to go!

We saw an awesome miracle on Sunday, it was practically a blizzard and so before we went out to proselyte we both decided to only stop people on the way to the apartments we were going to if they were bundled up nice and warm so that we didn't cause people to freeze to death because of Japanese politeness. But there was one guy on the way that without even thinking we both stopped! Turns out he is Chinese, and is here for the week but is coming back in April, he lived in Tokyo for two years and went to church all the time, and loves the missionary and when we asked him what he thought about the church he said "it is so amazing!" So when he comes back again in April we are totally gonna party it up with Ryu!

Other than that not much went down, I am way sad to be leaving elder Rawlinson, he has been an amazing help for me and exactly what I needed these past two transfers! Put the Lord has a much bigger plan at all times! We just follow along, it's like a super fun waterslide!

I love you all so much, and hope you are well!

Elder Krebs!



Ps. Shout out to an amazing family for a fun new suit!!!

Sadly my shoes aren't waterproof so we tried something new...and it totally worked! I am gaining an innovative mind on my mission ;) #SeranWrapFeet

January 17, 2016

WHATS UP EVERYONE!

What a fun week! we went on lots of splits this week. Meaning that I didn't get to work with my companion in Yamaguchi from Monday to Friday, so that was interesting! We saw all kinds of crazy miracles though as we went to other areas to work! And we get a perfect score on our cleaning check...#YouHeardRightMaMa #SubtleBrag

We first went to shimonoseki which is farther down south, I went with a 16th transfer missionary who goes home soon and I learned a ton from him. He is an amazing missionary and we were able to find them a super solid nice young family to teach! I really learned from Elder Horstmeier just how to love the people, and to care so much for them. He truly just gave his heart to everyone he talked to and helped them feel the love of Christ so easily!

Then we went to another area for district meeting, the last of the transfer because we have a huge worldwide missionary broadcast next week. Stay tuned on what's going down, it should be fun! We got an awesome training from our wonderful district leader Elder Madsen who also goes home soon, it really helped us and was exactly what I needed. I am grateful for awesome mission leaders like him who help me and really push myself to progress to be better!

Then splits in Yahata... yahata desu. The splits where I basically threw away another missionaries bike...It was a party, they have two solid missionaries down there! I went with elder Lords and in the morning we had a lesson to go to that was about an hour bike ride. The other Elders bike is way dead and so we were worried it might just quit on the ride, and boy were we right. It was one of the hardest rides of my life...turns out I had been riding on a flat tire for about 10 minutes...it popped about 30 minutes into the ride. So we were far away from everything with no bikes. We were able to hop on a train and make it to the lesson. But we still had the problem with his bike, so we decided the most effective thing was to just ditch it at an apartment and try to get his companion a new bike from a returned missionary (which we did....so hakuna matata) but it was a pretty hilarious experience when I look back at it ;) and because of it we found a super prepared break dancer who is fluent at English. Basically the coolest person ever. He used the word dope repeatedly so we got along well. He loved what we taught and wanted to learn more and change his life to give himself more direction! Elder Lords is a stud I learned so much from him, especially about just being strong and bold as a missionary. He is 6'6" and pretty yoked, so I just need to think taller and be bolder 

Saturday was a blast in Yamaguchi! We were able to teach a couple solid lessons to some new investigators who seemed really excited to learn more! Both of them have families who are totally all going to be baptized! The lord has truly been blessing us with his prepared people as we go out and work! Everyone just wants to hear the gospel here!

Sunday was an awesome day as well! Freezing and rainy! But a blast and a half, made me realize just how much I love this work. That even when I am wet and cold and can hardly feel my toes I still just want to keep going to talk to one more person to help them feel Gods love just a little bit more in their life. And those feelings are not from me at all, the Lord has helped change my thoughts and my desires so much and I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and his atonement and how it has changed me so much in my life!

I was thinking the other day about just how amazing it is that one man, a man born in a stable and raised as a carpenter could affect the world and everything in it so much through one event. How he could love the world enough to sacrifice literally everything so that we could be saved from sin, and live with our families forever, and return to our Heavenly Father. Just one man who changed everything. How grateful I am to the savior and everything that he has done for me and my family.

Love you all so much,

Elder Krebs