Baptism and Easter! Find hope in the resurrection!

Dear Family,

 

 HAPPY EASTER!!!! 

Guess what!! KATO SAN IS NOW KATO KYOUDAI!! Baptism went great and he's a full fledged member now! :)  It was a really good week made a couple people new investigators and Kato got Baptized. So it was great. I'm still tired as nothing else all the time, basically when we're in the apartment all I wanna do is sleep but I can sleep in August. We didn't have too much as far as big meetings and such but we did have a blitz here and we had Kato's baptism. The rest of the time was teaching, calling and finding.

 

First I'll start with the more detailed report of the baptism. First, that day was intense I was so dang nervous, I probably practiced the words 100 times and was thinking about it all day. No one would listen to us when we were dendoing so it was a struggle at first but then we went to the church and Kato showed up 30 minutes easily. So we checked his white pants, a tiny bit large but they stayed up just fine, so we got him switched into a suit and he looked way good! I was impressed. Then Takeuchi showed up and we took the strangest route to the Atsugi church I've ever seen, it was super congested, and took forever. But it worked out well because other than us everyone else was running late so we all showed up at the same time pretty much. Once arriving and having talked about any concerns in the car we switched clothes into white ones, took some pictures and then went up to the chapel. I got to sit up front with Kato both of us dressed in white, it felt pretty cool. Side note: I got my Easter package on Thursday with a nice bright white shirt in it just in time, so I used that and my white tie and pants for the baptism and it all looked really good. Thanks mom! So we sang some songs (I was pianist) and a recent convert gave his introduction followed by another recent convert (Takeuchi kyoudai) giving a talk exactly 3 months from his own baptism about baptism. Then when it came to the ordinance I ran him through the ordinance one last time and we got in the water. It was cool water but not terrible. Then I said the words and put him into the water but because he was nervous he forgot to bend his knees and kicked a little, so we had to do it 2 times. But the second time went flawless. I have him a hug after and then we changed and went up to finish the service. He forgot his paper that he wrote his testimony on, but he gave an amazing testimony, short but great and he even remembered to close in the name of Jesus Christ. The members showered him with presents and he had the biggest smile on. You could feel the spirit so strong the whole time, it was wonderful. I started his first lesson and got to baptize him, what an awesome blessing!! So yeah! That's the baptism it was an awesome testimony builder for me!

 

Other than that this week we had blitz and I was paired with a beanchan (Greenie) so that was kind of weird he didn't really speak Japanese so it was lots of fun! He was always looking at things like Odawara castle saying "look at that!! That's awesome!!" Good time. Also we had a crazy guy come to game night, he was super drunk so that's a fun video to watch.

 

Well this week was Easter everyone!! What did you do for Easter? We lived a pretty normal day but I gave a talk in sacrament. This time I decided that it was a good time to try something new for a talk, I was slated to be the last speaker... We all know that that means if the first speakers don't take much time then the last speaker has to fill the rest. So rather than right a ridiculous long talk I decided to write a talk in a different way. That way is to study every day about the subject "rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ" and write down a lot of scriptures and quotes. Then when the talk time comes I have a list of things I can talk about and the rest is through the spirit and from what I studied. Well my time on Easter to speak about the resurrection right after Kato's baptism and confirmation came and I spoke, used 4 scriptures and a quote from general conference from my list and then up came the note from the branch president saying "I can wrap up anytime" and I looked at the clock, I had spoken for 15 minutes and could have continued for 40 if I needed to. It was a really cool experience. I was able to share about resurrection and how awesome of a blessing it is, because of that, even though towards the end of their lives their bodies were less than perfect, I can go golfing with grandpa Gailey and go to the barber (if something like that is necessary I dunno lol) with grandpa weaver again. It was an awesome time and I really felt closer to the savior as I shared that this Easter. I look forward to being with you all this next Easter and I'll be working hard as I can until then. I love you!!

 

Love,

Elder Gailey

 

P.S. I tried some new food this week raw, whole, squid. It was pretty gross but hey I ate it!

Baptism of Kato San

Elder Gailey got his Easter box

Squid Sushi

 

Student Drawing

Email from Sister Talia Law:

Hello! This is Sister Law! I am a sister in Elder Gaileys district! I stole these photos after sacrament! I thought you would appreciate them. Your boy is a good Elder. And this just warmed my heart! He is a daddy in training! Thank you for sending your son to change the lives of many!

Teaching Kato Kyoudai (Brother) how to a tie a tie