This was sent 10/21/2018
Konnichiwa minasan!
Well, this week was something of an adventure. Some crazy stuff's been happening in the whole new investigator department. It's been a party. But I don't feel like going in chronological order today so gomen ne.
Nakamura: we went and tried to visit him and give him the book of mormon CD that we've finally got working, but alas, both times we tried this week he hasn't been home. #zannen But! We have a secret and most infallible plan to figure out when he's home, otherwise known as we're going to trap him figuratively with a phone call tonight and see if he's home on Wednesday so we can spiritually attack him with the gospel and also a priesthood blessing bc he asked for one but has not yet met with us. Slightly annoying.
Suenaga: We attempted to teach him really simply about the role of Jesus Christ and who He is, but, unsurprisingly, this man is Very Smart™ and Knows A Lot of Things™ and thus gets very distracted by very specific Buddhist and Japanese history things every other sentence. I never know what he's saying. Thank heavens a douseki was there to help us out because I do not have the knowledge, nor the skills for these conversations outside of "idk man all I know is the Book of Mormon just read that and it'll answer your question probably." Thankfully, this has generally proven to be accurate and he quite likes reading the Book of Mormon actually. #kiseki Our plan is to very, very slowly teach him the plan of salvation because he currently doesn't understand how the Church and Buddhism are different (which confuses me because they?? are???? really different??????) and so theoretically that will help.
Koukan: We had a pretty swell koukan with the Akashi shimaitachi on Thursday cos Jones Shimai had a doctor's appointment, and it was quite fun. Ishikawa Shimai and I taught a very small baby English. I got her to laugh. I was quite proud of myself. Shortly afterward, while studying, a strange young man showed up randomly at the church. This was confusing, as you may gather, because it was a young salesman and I'm not entirely sure what he expected to be able to sell at a church building on a Thursday afternoon, but long story short we gave him a tour of the building and told him a little bit about who we are and our purpose as missionaries and swapped LINEs with him. It was a really solid contact. And then, to make matters more strange, we get a lovely call from Zenebri Chourou, onegaing Ishikawa to make 60 cookies in cute bags with scriptures for the festival thing in Okayama at the service project. He was very concerned about this, which, in turn, made Ishikawa Shimai very concerned about this. Originally, the elders were supposed to help with this endeavor, but they decided they had better things to do, so Ishikawa Shimai and I made 60 cookies in the tiny apartment microwave at a rate of 7 cookies per 20 mins, which, as you may imagine, was quite tedious. So much butter was used. So. Much. But, it gave Jones Shimai and Smith Shimai a chance to go out and learn the ropes without us to lean on, so all in all I think it was a good experience for them. I sure hope those cookies were appreciated in Okayama.
Yasuo: So this guy is new! He was referred to us from missionaries who knows where and so we gave him a call. Turns out the guy has some crazy interest in both English and the gospel. He's basically fluent and wants to be a cram school teacher. Mad props. So we met with him on Saturday and turns out he's already really familiar with Jesus Christ, has met with four sets of missionaries before, has been to our church a couple times and really loves the feeling there. Currently his only barrier is that his image of religion is very casual and not commitment-heavy yet. This may change though! Also he's very busy so we may have to just teach him over LINE and email. Soon though. Soon.
Ooyama: This lady's story is crazy and full of miracles I can't even begin to explain it all, but basically her daughter is engaged to this member from Australia and wants to get baptized so she's been like "hey let's check out this morumon sho thing and see what my daughter's getting herself into" and it just so happens that there's two Australian members here in Kitarokko. But you see, she just showed up to church yesterday all by herself and it's crazy. We taught her a bunch of stuff with the help of Wilkin Kyoudai and long story short she's now a new investigator and she's super excited to learn about the gospel and read the Book of Mormon. It's crazy. And what's even crazier is I had heard about this lady before she showed up from Yoshihashi Chourou, who just happens to be friends with the Japanese missionary who's teaching her daughter in Australia. Literally insane. She wants to come to church again next week. The Lord is too good. We have done nothing to deserve this. All I've done is make 60 cookies and eat indo curry and try to do things with varying degrees of success.
Other miscellany:
We sang in sacrament meeting yesterday and it went super well! We sang 'Where Love Is' and everyone was really ureshii (happy) about it, and it was even better because Ooyama-san was there to listen!
At district meeting we were discussing general conference, and what I got out of it was basically Families Are The Best™ and so now I'm rather quite excited to come home and get married and have a family too and while discussing these things I became, to quote President Nelson, exceedingly excited and, in a voice much louder than intended, slammed my hands on the table and said "I just really want babies!", thus startling our poor, sensitive, angelic Nishinomiya elders and causing the Amagasaki shimaitachi great hilarity and waking up Jones Shimai.
We are currently in the process of baking a Lego-shaped birthday cake for a cute little boy in the ward who is turning 6. He's basically the Japanese version of my baby brother Seth and he loves Legos so this is what we are doing. We only have a toaster oven though so who knows how that's gonna go.
But yeah that's the basic gist of the week! Only one more until transfers aaa!
愛しています！💕
Sherwood Shimai
2.) after that one mountain hike we went to a farmers market thing with Koyama Shimai and Shibano san
19歳 20歳
No comments:
Post a Comment