Mary

Dear Minnasan,

Well, konnichiwa to you all. Sorry that I haven't emailed a blog post as regularly as I used to....this stems from being busy...and email time just sort of passes by and I keep saying, "I'll send out that email just after I do this"...and then it's time to go and I still hadn't sent it. Oops.

Well, anyways, it's finally gotten cool here in Kawachinagano. We put away our apartment's fan and pulled out the heater today. I find that I love fall...which I never really liked it in the past because it signaled the coming of Winter, which I always disliked because being cold is not a favorite past-time of mine...but as a missionary, I find that it's the exact opposite. Summer is way more brutal than Winter, and I would much rather be fighting off frost bite than heat stroke.

Since it's now fall, all the farmers in the area have been burning their rice and harvesting it all up, which is a bit sad because the green fields of rice were so beautiful. I don't know if I could properly describe the way the wind would blow on the rice or the sound it would make, or the smell of the crops. In Japanese there is actually a word for "the wind blowing over the field and making it look like an ocean wave." The Japanese language is amazing, isn't it? It took me a whole sentence to describe that, and in Japanese, there is a single word for it! Haha. Crazy.

The Danjiri is this week, which is this Harvest Festival where the men lift this giant wooden float and carry it around the town banging drums really loudly and shouting. They've been out practicing lately for it, and I love listening to the drumming because it sounds like some kind of tribal dance and makes me feel all epic and intense as I bike around proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I make a movie about my mission, there is definitely going to be a scene including that, haha. Just kidding.

Anyways, this week we had a Zone Training Meeting, which is basically a meeting where all the missionaries in the nearby areas gather together to receive training. It was a really sacred experience. We all discussed and learned more about our Savior Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement. At this meeting, something really hit me that I would like to share.

As we talked about the Atonement, the topic of the Resurrection came up, and this picture came to my mind.

I love this picture, and I have come to love the story associated with it. Let's read the story together, shall we? The scriptures can describe it so much better than I can.

"But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre" And why did she weep? She explains her distraught feelings this way, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." Mary didn't know where her Savior had gone. She saw before her the empty tomb, and that was all she could focus on. All she could think about or see was what lay in front of her. The uncertainty. The death. The darkness. The despair. The tomb.

But with one word, everything changed. One word. Do you know what word that was? What brought Mary peace, what helped her to take her eyes away from the tomb and to break herself away from the despair?

"Jesus saith unto her, Mary. "

It was her name. Jesus Christ called out her name. At that sound, she " turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:11-17).

Mary was so focused on the unknown, on the tomb, that she almost completely missed the Savior standing right behind her! But with one word, the gentle call of her name, she was able to break away from her despair and find hope. My friends, let's not get so focused on the tombs in our own lives that we miss the Savior standing right behind us.

I testify that the Savior lives. That He is right there. That He knows us by name, and is calling out to us right now. He is calling your name, gently asking you to stop focusing on the negative, but to instead focus on Him. Let us do so, is my plea...

Sister Weigl