Safe Arrival

 Dear Brother & Sister Parker,     

We wanted to let you know that your son Elder Parker arrived safely in Japan.  He was tired but doing well! He was greeted by President and Sister Cook,  Assistants and Office Couples.

 He had dinner at the Temple Annex that evening. Saturday he had a day of training, met his companion, and they are off to his first area.

Thank you for raising such a wonderful young man who is eager to serve the Lord in the mission field.

Attached are a few pictures of your son. 

If you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to email the mission office. 

Sincerely,

Sister Nelson

Secretary, Japan Tokyo North Mission

Facebook Post by President Cook

These missionaries all arrived safely today! Stay tuned for a lot more pics!!

Arrived in Japan! Text from Sister Staples to Kelly Dickens

"He is looking good and seems to be doing well. I will take good care of him. He is in good hands."

Sister Staples

Text from President and Sister Camp

Heat Rises

 Good evening all! I am alive and better then ever! I really wish I could write a meaningful email but just cannot make it a priority right now. I'll do better next week but I had to send something in order to keep the 0 emails missed streak!

I am getting transferred... you'll have to guess where! I've hit 4 of the states maybe the 5th in the mission?

I'll always remember this transfer, and wouldn't have changed it for the world.... it just came and went so fast.... I'll miss these people until we reunite one day down the road.

Love - Elder Parker

教えて、人生は何ですか

Good evening everyone! Is it starting to feel like fall for anyone else? Probably not but it has been perfect weather lately and the stars have been so awesome... The sky and our world fascinates me.

Anyways this week here in Grand forks, which is officially deemed my favorite area, was one I'll probably always remember. Starting off the week on Tuesday we had MLC which stands for missionary something.... and then later that day we picked up Elder Stevensen for Exchanges with the AP's. That night we met up with someone I found the previous week for her first lesson and put her on date at the park. I wasn't expecting much of it because she was messaging me a little suspicious but ay we just go with the flow(spirit) and things always work out. 

Next day I believe is Wednesday. That day we put another 2 people on date and saw a bunch of success while having a good time.

Thursday we had Zone Conference.. not just any zone conference tho. Outdoor zone conference, which was super fun cause it was combined with 3 zones and I knew pretty much everyone there so it was good to see some familiar faces. While we where there we did a lot of physical stuff so you know we went bravo six on em and Destroyed everyone in everything.

That lasted all day and then on Friday we put another one of are investigators on date and had some super good lessons and same with Saturday.

Sunday came around and this was the coldest day ever. Me and my companion were just chilling there at church and we had a couple people with us in person sitting with members. One of them was Ariana who I talked about earlier. Then out of nowhere another girl we are teaching named Christa walks in and I about fainted. We didn't see that coming at all. Then Ariana gets up and bares testimony and prays at the pulpit just like we taught her. It was so sick. I wish it would motivate members to remember that they are members and were baptized instead of floating logs but it is what it is. We did get this super dope guy and his wife that just moved into the ward though. He is 25 and served a mission and they are super excited to help out with missionary work and the first thing they did when they came into church was come straight to us to say hi so that was cool.

And today we just went around messing around playing ping pong and stuff. We ended up finding a rocking chair at the dumpster so we threw it in the truck so know I have a full on rocking chair at my study desk! it smells like smoke but totally worth it.

Anyways Keep the Faith will yuh and don't be a bum. You're better than that. Go fulfill your purpose here on earth! You can't do that in your comfort zone.

When I see you again, Elder Parker

When the Tide Rolls in.....

Ahhh... its a nice night, isn't it guys? Cool, dark, and quite. Anyways, I hope you all are doing good on the outside and the inside and I appreciate you taking the time to read my email. The past couple days have been packed as always with spiritual experiences, success, and a time worth smiling for. I'll share some funny tracting experiences because I haven't in a while. Even though it is just the normal now it always amazes me to see the gathering of Israel truly at hand. There is not 1 apt building we knock with say 20 rooms that there isn't at least 1 person willing to invite us in and receptively listen the the most important message in the world given to them by the spirit. I would confidently say 2 times out of 10 a person is interested. Before my mission I would've laughed at that with the idea of 1 In 100.  But the world is slowly being prepared. 

So for the first story I was on exchanges with a greenie who had not a clue what he was doing which is always fun. We knock on one door and this completely nude girl in her 20s opens it. Don't worry guys I didn't see anything but she said wasn't really interested and we continued on. She later comes out into the hallway with barely anything on now showing "interest" while we talked to her actually interested neighbor who was a strange character who gave us bracelets and warned us of spiders who we actually went back and taught her and she came to church. Anyways, the girl ends up trying to get us to do sus stuff and I was just laughing cause this poor elder with me was just in shock and had no clue how to handle the situation. After we left he was like man I thought I have experienced some weird stuff but that takes the cake.😂  

Alright another door we knocked another day with my comp Elder Mani. We knocked and we see someone look through the peep hole and then hear a women's(grandma's) voice talk to us through the door asking who we where. Obviously I hit em with the "its us". Then they said we were people of the lord and that they wanted to talk. They open the door and we expected an older woman but to our surprise it was a black guy who In a deep voice was like, "what up guys" I just started laughing cause it caught me so off guard but they where just messing with us.

This week someone we where teaching named Caitlin was baptized so that was awesome as they always are!

Something I've realized a lot this week during personal studies is that when I cross through the veil I want to be able to hug God and the Savior comfortably as if I truly already know them each personally. And when I present myself before Jesus Christ I want to be justified for what comes after. In order to do so we have to live the law that God has given us so read your scriptures and actually pray and open a dialog with your Father. Don't let complacency take away something that at one point of your life was so important to you. It was for good reason so make it a priority again before its to late!

Elder Parker