Alright so transfers are official! and i am now part of a three some! Elder Senba and i are now together for our third transfer in a row(EXTREMELY rare) and the third addition is Japanese(im now on transfer 5 in a row of Japanese companions, a total of 8 of my 13 transfers in my mission) his name is Elder Tashiro! he is absolutely amazing!!! extremely talented, aggressive, spiritual and great leadership skills. he is the ideal leader. we are very excited to add him to our companionship. As president Daniels said, i have the three best missionaries in the mission as companions, i will expect many miracles. You are to not spend time together at the mission home. You are to go on splits with every single companionship in the hole mission. So tee it up boys!
Thats just what we plan on doing. We made a exchange schedule the other day and literally everyday this transfer we are on splits. so there is going to be a lot of travel! I couldnt be more excited. recently going on splits has been so so so much fun. Its always interesting to see how missionaries respond when you start running door to door, person to person. After every exchange we get feedback from the missionaries and they all say i never knew missionary work was this much fun(its not like we did anything fun, we just ran everywhere and never waisted a second) im not going to lie it is very tireing but the lord is absolutely helping me big time! because when i wake up in the morning i am just fine. Sunday this weekend in particular was way hard. Friday a six hour drive to kushiro(i drove the hole way) got out had zone conference, after that was a fireside that we ran. The next day was all day proselyting in kushiro!!!! it was so good. i have never had to ride my bike so fast, we just went from one spot to the other, and contacted as many old investigators as i could remember. there were many people who definitely were in need of my visit, and we helped a lot of people. one of the most surprising things this week was i had to baptisms. I was not there for the service but two people i found, one in otaru the other in kushiro this sunday got baptized!!!! i was the first person to contact them, i picked them up to hear the lessons but never got to teach them. and this week they got baptized. all day working in kushiro that night we had a three hour drive to kitami(once again i drove the hole way) after church on sunday we went out again for a full day of work in kitami. then at 6 we drove back( another 6 hour car ride that i drove the hole way) that got us in at 11:40. the next morning we woke up at 6 for basketball in the morning!! and that brings us to this week!
So lets get to the title of this email and explain what it means. so today the three of us(me and my companions) talked a little bit about needs of the mission and how we could help the mission. we decided the mission is obedient enough, they are diligent enough, however the faith is low. so thats what we started talking about, that led into talk about numbers. we were talking of friends that were in various parts of the world and the different success that people were seeing around the world. we started talking about how some people are having 20-30 lessons a week, baptisms all the time, and lots of new investigators, all of that stuff. we started to think why cant we do it here? thats when the story of the 4 minute mile came to my head. For hundreds of years, forever i guess it was said to be impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes. It could not be done, it was said to be impossible. Despite that there was one person who decided he would run the mile in under 4 minutes. Thats just what he did. To everyones great surprise not only was the 4 minute mile not impossible but it became very possible and soon after many others were able to run the mile in under 4 minutes. Now a sub 4 minute mile became very possible. its now the standard.
Thats what this mission needs, a sub 4 minute mile missionary. someone to show the other it is possible, that their are no limits to what can be accomplished as servants of the lord. We will become the 4 minute mile missionaries. we have literally no time in our own area to find, teach and baptize, however we are sub 4 minute missionaries, we are going to break every record! we are not doing it for the numbers, or the glory. we are doing it to raise the faith, we are going to show everyone you can do it, we are going to lift every single one of the missionaries up!
I have just been thinking about it so much ever since, i want to be a sub 4 minute person! Many great things are just waiting in store, it only takes one person to do it. we have dedicated ourselves to be the runner!
I challenge everyone to be the sub 4 minute mile person!!!!!!! That is real faith.
Love you all so very much, keep in touch
elder Lawler
