Hello my beloved family,
It is so weird that this is my last e-mail to everyone from the mission field. How crazy the time has gone by. Thank you for your love and support that you always gave to me during this last year and a half. Your love and your prayers gave me the support and strength that I needed to get through some of the more difficult challenges that I had. I have the best family in the world.
This last week was another great week in which we were able to see some more miracles. On Thursday we were able to meet with our family, the Stiglichs, that we are teaching and we were able to start the lessons and teach them lesson one. They are soooo ready. They want this so bad for their family and already have such strong faith in the Gospel. The spirit was so strong as we shared with them Joseph Smith's experience and testified about it. But what I also like is that they asked what happened to him after. Did he have a wife? a family? what happened. We shared with them a brief overview of the early saints and then shared with them about Joseph's death. The spirit was so strong and my testimony was strengthened as I bore testimony of Joseph Smith. I am so grateful to him and for his faith and courage. He is a wonderful example to me and I love him so much and I was able to share that with this family. Guess what!? At the end of the lesson we were able to set a baptism date for them!!! They are being baptized in December!! They are so excited that they have a date now and Sister Stiglich is really excited to tell her husband. about their date. This family is so prepared and I am sooo excited for them. I LOVE THEM!!
This last week we also got another referral from the same member from Yokohama stake. While he was working (killing cockroaches) he started talking to the woman whose house he was at and they started talking about Christ. Isn't that amazing!!!! Great example of being a member missionary. She lived in America and was baptized into the Protestant church. She believes in God and Jesus Christ but is still looking for the truth and wants to know what would bless her life and the life of her daughters. We met with her on Saturday and we were able to share the first lesson with her and then also read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon together and applied it to her. By the end of the lesson she could understand Joseph Smith more and said that she was going to read the Book of Mormon and find out the truth as well as come to church next week. She is ready as well. It is amazing the people we are meeting and the way the Lord has prepared this area. It is so humbling to be apart of and to see. We are really excited for her as well.
We also visited a less active, Sister Sai, this last week. It was our 2nd time visiting her. She is so cute and just so loving. Because of body ailments she hasn't been able to go to church for a long time. When we visited her she told us that if it cools down some more she would be able to come to church. And yesterday, SHE CAME!! That made my day. She told us thank you so much for visiting her. She has been waiting and waiting for the elders but they never came but from our visits with her she felt that she received power and was able to come to church today and she looked like she loved meeting her member friends and taking part of the Sacrament. Just thinking of her taking the Sacrament again brought tears to my eyes and I was so grateful that she was able to make it today. I felt the love that our Heavenly Father has for her so strongly and knew that He too was pleased that she was able to make it to church today. I love her so much!! On Friday we are meeting her again and she is going dress us up in Kimonos and we are going to take pictures together. It will be so much fun!!
I am very grateful that the Lord guided me hear to Yamato and has given me the opportunity to finish strong with a great companion, great members, great investigators and great miracles. I feel that if I ended my mission with what I had in Kohoku in the situation I was in I would have gone home very different I think. How grateful I am for this transfer. This is what I needed and it will be one that I will always remember.
This last 18 months has been the most joyful, trying, interesting months of my life and I am so very grateful for it. The Lord has shaped me into a person that is far better then I could have even imagined. And I am not done. I know that everything that I do and become will be because of the mission that I have served. How grateful I am for this experience and to have served in a country that I have wanted to come to for many years. I love this land so much. I love this people. They are the sweetest and kindest people ever and I want them to embrace the Gospel so much because it is my belief that when they do this people would be the best the world has seen. They are my family, my brothers and sisters and I love them so much. I am so grateful for all of the people that I have met and feel humbled by the fact that I was able to be apart of their lives even if it was just for a moment.
This work is our Lord and Savior's work. And He needs each of us to do our part. As we do our part and rely on Him we are able to see miracles happen and see the light come into someone's life. I know that my Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ lives. He LIVES!!! I know it with all my heart and I know that He knows me perfectly and is my closest friend. He has been my strength and my light during the dark times and has been there to share the joys with me as I witnessed His hand in the work. I know that His Atonement is real. Because of His Atonement we are able to have Eternal families and be clean and once again return to His and the Father's presence. How I look forward to that day. To kneel at their feet and express my love and gratitude for them. This church is Christ restored church and I know that He restored it through His prophet Joseph Smith. And I know that through Joseph Smith the Book of Mormon was able to be brought forth. The Book of Mormon really is another Testament of Christ and we can become close to him as we read it, ponder it and apply it to our lives. How grateful I am for this.
My official mission is coming to an end. In a week I will take off this wonderful name tag that shows the world that my name is with Christ's. But I will forever continue being a missionary. Christ's heart is written on my heart forever and I will always strive to follow the spirit so that I can always be the Lord's instrument. I feel like Ammon right now, my feelings are so strong.
"I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.
Yea, I now that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefor I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many might miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."
In the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
Sister Mackenzie Marie Dolan
Japan Tokyo Mission and
Japan Tokyo South Mission
Japan Tokyo South Mission
